Write things

Connecting Writers: The Writing Process Blog Tour

What am I working on?

I work in several genres and I’m the features editor for a flash fiction journal, so right now I’m working on a comic interview, a graphic novel, several short stories and poems, plotting out a couple of novels and putting together the June issue for Flash Frontier.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My work isn’t easily categorised as one genre or another, so I’d say diversity is my niche. For example, my comics lean towards poetry, my fiction towards art, and so forth. I’m interested in meta-fiction and such work tends to defy genre restraints.

Why do I write what I do?

Writing’s a privilege that I haven’t always had and likely, such is the need to earn money, I’m unlikely to have for much longer, so I’m making the most of it. I’m interested in giving voice to characters from social groups who tend not to be represented frequently in literary fiction, poetry and comics.

How does my writing process work?

I wrote a guest post about my writing process here, for Alison Lock's blog.

Thank you for this, Catherine McNamara. I'm passing the baton to Teresa Stenson, who will post next week.

Highlanded here

This is where it all began, except that it didn't really. This picture was taken at a secret location in New Zealand's South Island. P.S. It's a secret because it's also the setting for my novel in progress. Shhh!


I recently had a second story/poem up at Ink, Sweat & Tears (remember The Fish Wife?) and for any of you who didn't see it, you can read it by clicking on the moth below. As I mentioned in this post, I am going to tell you what inspired this piece, which I called "Your Favourite Colour".


Insects photographed in Dunedin airport.

These pied, pseudo-eyed lovelies were pinned onto five sides of a foam cube in Dunedin airport. Imagine my joy when I saw them - no really, I was completely fascinated by them! I may be frightened by most bugs, (and moths and butterflies, if large enough, do flutter at the periphery of this phobia) but I do find them captivating and spend a lot of time looking very closely at them - in books/jars/cabinets. More on the critters later: I am still working on the bug poem I posted a couple of weeks ago. I began drafting it two weekends ago but it turned into an 8000 word story - oops! Last weekend I typed that story up, as well as doing more research reading for my WIP and a little writing for that, also. I'm as busy as a bee...enough of the creatures for a moment...and am currently decorating my daughter's room. No intrigue yet?


Image taken from "Homes & Antiques" back issue.

Well, it was whilst thumbing through old "Homes & Antiques" magazines and paint colour charts with a view to finding my daughter's favourite colour - you see, it's coming together now - that I came across this image, above. I wasn't sure what it was but it looked to me like a seat cushion made from old papers. What do you think? And I thought the blue looked very soft and worn and lovely. But I also remembered watching this Ted Talk on colour and illusions:



Remembering this, I took a second, closer look at the blue and noticed how the fibres were breaking away and that the seat was in fact made up of many different shades of blue, and that the blue only appeared that shade of blue in relation to the other colours in the picture: the neutral shades - the warm tones which accentuated the blues - and then I played around adding different colour cards to see how they would alter my perception of the blue seat.

Image from "Homes & Antiques".

And something started to tingle in my brain and I got excited knowing I was growing a story. You can call it inspiration if that works for you but for me it is like hundreds or thousands (or some other too big to actually bother to count number) of flash cards which are all electronically tagged. Anything which makes a connection to an existing thought or memory in my brain jumps into place like the opposite poles of a magnet and I know I'm onto something.

Image from "Homes & Antiques", plus Dulux colours of New Zealand - funny: looks just like yellow and blue to me!

I flicked through some more pages and there was an article about a Scottish castle, I don't remember where exactly it was but I've been to Scotland a few times, most recently the west coast and the Highlands four months before I moved to New Zealand, and I had seen old stone buildings, like the one featured in the magazine, there. I had a real connection and an emotional response to the images I was looking at - a good sign.

Image from "Homes & Interiors" - again.

I had real interiors in response to the ones in the magazine and photographs of beautiful scenery to prompt my memory. I thought of "The Fish Wife" which, although I didn't mention it when I blogged about it, I had actually set in Mallaig on Scotland's West coast. From there I remembered Arisaig, Ardnamurchan, Ben Nevis, Ben Lawers, and lochs and those funny little pine tree filled islands you see in the centre of the lochs, all of which I have photographs of. However, I still had a "proper" reason for looking at the magazines and I continued to browse for the perfect shade of blue.

Image from "Homes & Antiques", a really old one, about four years old - I had them given, alright?

While the Highlands were wiring themselves into some sort of story in my head I saw these frosty images and, again, noted how the blue was more attractive for being beside the neutral warmth of, in this instance, wicker.

You guessed it - "Homes & Antiques" - yes, I do have other interiors magazines and no, I didn't buy any of them, and yes, they are all old ones!

And here, the path sets off the frosty box hedging. Hedging reminded me of walls and I had a complete setting.

Image from "Homes & Interiors", bla, blah, blah.

I remembered a conversation I had with my host in South Island, asking me if I thought the scenery there reminded me of Scotland. It did and it didn't. I was, however, splicing the two places together in my head when I thought of ways to describe the neutral shade and the fibres of the blue seat (which had now become a crushed velvet - like moth wings).

The rabbits I had read about in the museum on my South Island trip, the hunting also, plus I had masses of similar imagery archived in my memory, as well as our own pet rabbit. There were deer farms in South Island and we saw a dead doe with a chunk of flesh bitten out of its rear: tufts of its fibres breaking free and blowing in the breeze. Old buildings had shingled roof tops.

All of this, and more, went into "Your Favourite Colour" but the really interesting part is, I wasn't conscious of any of this until after I had written it. What actually happened was:

I was flicking through magazines looking for a shade of blue I liked for paint. I felt a story coming on. I started writing and what I was writing reminded me of "The Fish Wife" and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if this were a sort of sister for that piece. The words came out automatically, I barely had to think, aside from researching a suitable moth, and when I read the "finished" story/poem - for it came out as is, with no redrafting - I had a realisation of where every element in it had come from and I thought you might be interested to know that.

I also want to thank Andrea, at Rainbow Notebook, for giving my story a special mention on her blog. Head over there if you really want some inspiration!

(On a side note - I'm having pc trouble and links are not working properly - am on to it!)

See gulls fly

I didn't have a photo of an eagle, at least not one in focus enough to tell it was an eagle. Anyway, there are no eagles in New Zealand anymore.

You know when things aren't going to plan when you start a line with "I was going to..."

Well, managed to stave off that disaster. So, here's the thing, I was going to write a really interesting, stimulating, nay, I say veritable lyrical Officer and a Gentleman assault course for the mind, and I was going to tie that whole film thing (tenuous link for those of you reading between the lines) in and wow you all with my wit and...yeah, well look where that got me.

Well, what happened was, there was this dog. No, scrap that, there was this pack, big, hugemongously fearsome braying, barking, belching pack (if only the collective noun for dog began with a b) - heck, there was a back of belching beasts (why let stupid spelling rules spoil a quality bit of alliteration?)...and then I faffed about and read these and was more tickled by the degeneration of the comments thread than the jokes themselves and completely forgot what I was going to blog about.

And then, just like a flash of flashyness, I remembered: I was going to answer Steven's super duper questions from the comments in my last post about how do I write a poem and, specifically, how do I know it's a good one.

Remarkably it all ties in because the way I go about writing a poem is much the way I am going about writing this post: I think of something, I hear/read/see something and I think, that could work together, so I stick it together and something else pops into my head and then I go, wait, this is better....you see? I make it up as I go along and sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't. The ones I don't like can, often after a period of solitary confinement (for them, not me) be redeemed with a little wordy personal trainer. The ones I do like I ask politely to wait in the green room and if we still get along after the show I invite them to dinner.

Here's one that's doing hard labour for being a crime against my potential for publication - hey, I'm not proud.


Cicadas 10/03/08

Won't get used to cicadas
breaking up the air with their
too loud noise, a cross between
electricity and clock.

Biting spiders will destroy
my quality of life whilst
flies continue to taunt me
with their filthy aerial

arrogance, refusing to
die when sprayed: insecticide
does not do as it says on
the tin. Won't get used to here.

Here's what I think is wrong with it (yes, the list is finite - just about). Firstly, it's too personal. Most of my poetry is personal, personal is not bad per se, but (I think) the poem must also speak to a wider audience, it must transcend the boundaries of the territory in which it was created. This p, p (nope, I can't even call it one), this aberration is still very much in the shadow underneath my own I.

Secondly, agh, forget it, it just doesn't move me enough to even want to dissect it. Which is odd, considering that it's written about a subject which causes me such a strong personal reaction, because this po, po - almost typed it (pooh) - doesn't get across any of the emotion or fear - any real feeling in fact.

Thirdly, hey, maybe I'm just over my phobia? Sadly, not: I have an earwig and a spider, and some as yet unidentified flying critter, in jars on the sill awaiting release, just like this bunch of worthless words. I may be able to turn them in to words worthy of an officer but they will never be....yeah, yeah, it was a tenuous link, remember? So here goes (making an ass of myself now): run - for the hills! (*Where the seagulls fly, on a mountain high, la, la, la!)

Un-pending

Take note of this table. I sketched it sometime between 1989 - 1993. I will return to it.

Often I happen upon my stories by chance. I start off with an idea in mind and, intending to write about that, put pen to paper/fingers to type pad and come up with something completely different. Often in this instance means mostly every time! But those initial ideas don't go anywhere, they aren't lost, merely pending.

Today I thought I'd open the file and let you have a look at my most recent list of pending things to write:

Number 1:

My thanks go out to That Elusive Line

Also known as Thomas Taylor,
so hop to his blog where you can find

That Elusive writer and illustrator!

(Please don't start critiquing that as though it's a poem! Groan!)

Thomas has been hosting a wee devil on his blog to debate the pros and cons of the e-reader (don't make me say Kindle - aaaargh!), which is something the vibrant and verbose Donna Hosie has had a blog about, too. Which brings me round to,

Number 2:

"But as I look at all the cherishable, unusual, unexpected and simply beautiful little books on my shelves, held...loved...written in...with flowers pressed, letters hidden and tears stained...I'm afraid the ebook will never match that!"

Excellently put James Mayhew! I'm going to be doing a little post - at some point - about those things we keep between the pages of our beloved books. Thanks for the idea.

Number 3:

Now, remember that table? Here it is again. This time in a watercolour from 1992.

And I was reminded of this picture when I wrote this post.

It was merely the pile of laundry which triggered my memory. Memory is like that. I've written a novel about memory, and the title of that post, Family Are Rare, is also the title of my collection of short fiction. See how it all comes together?

Number 4:

And I'm writing about this table, but you'll have to wait for that! I will come back to it - eventually!