Creative writing

Recharging Your Creative Batteries

~ Libby Sommer ~ 7 Comments
land, sea and sky at seaside town of Kiama
Kiama, New South Wales

A change of scene does wonders, especially after all the work and excitement of launching a new book.

Writing a book is hard work.  Even though it is very challenging, we know it is what we were born to do.  After we’ve written the book, edited it, submitted to a publisher, had discussions about cover design, created the back cover blurb, obtained reviews, networked, self-promoted, updated the websites, promoted on Instagram, Facebook and Word Press, organised a launch and readings, it’s only natural to find ourselves exhausted.  Before our batteries are totally flat, we need to give ourselves permission to take some time-out. We need to walk away from the desk. Do something that will breathe fresh life into our work and feed our creative souls.

After the release of THE USUAL STORY, I caught a train to the seaside town of Kiama and had two days to walk by the ocean and breath in the fresh sea air. Fantastic.

Writing Tip: I am not the stories I tell

~ Libby Sommer ~ 9 Comments
greyscale photo of man and woman
Photo by Mukesh Mohanty on Pexels.com

Sometimes when people read my stories they assume those stories are me.  They are not me, even if I write in the first person.  They were my thoughts and feelings at the time I wrote them.  But every minute we are all changing.  There is a great freedom in this.  At any time we can let go of our old selves and start again.  This is the writing process.  Instead of blocking us, it gives us permission to move on.  Just like in a progressive ballroom dance:  you give your undivided attention to your partner—keep eye contact for the time you are dancing together—but then you move on to the next person in the circle.

The ability to express yourself on the page—to write how you feel about an old lover, a favourite pair of dance shoes, or the memory of a dance on a chilly winter’s night in the Southern Highlands—that moment you can support how you feel inside with what you say on the page.  You experience a great freedom because you are not suppressing those feelings.  You have accepted them, aligned yourself with them.

I have a poem titled ‘This is what it feels like’—it’s a short poem.  I always think of it with gratitude  because I was able to write in a powerful way how it was to be desperate and frightened.  The act of self expression made me feel less of a victim.  But when people read it they often say nothing.   I remind myself, I am not the poem, I am not the stories I write.  People react from where they are in their own lives.  That’s the way things are.  The strength is in the act of writing, of putting pen to paper.   Write your stories and poems, show them to the world, then move on.  The stories are not you.  They are moments in time that pass through you.

I hope these thoughts are useful. Do you have anything you would add? Let me know in the comments and please share this post with a friend if you enjoyed it.

This is what it feels like

When a single thought

may darken and trap,

terrify, for no apparent reason.

A storm

in your senseless head.

Whatever the thought,

think implosion of self

or crazy,

any thought you have held

in tenuous reality

like lead in the chest.

Say you were heavy footed

downhill and it made you

want to stop.  At midnight

driverless cars advance on you,

but where the hell is the brake?

Copyright © 2018 Libby Sommer

Publication Update

~ Libby Sommer ~ 5 Comments

a man and woman dancing tango

On Tuesday I posted the corrected final proofs of THE USUAL STORY back to publisher Ginninderra Press.  Am now in the home stretch for July release of the book, a prequel to THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM.  Have finalised the blurb for back cover and obtained copyright approval for front cover image.

The primary goal of ‘proofing‘ is to serve as a tool for customer verification that the entire job is accurate. Prepress proofing (also known as off-press proofing[4]) is a cost-effective way of providing a visual copy without the expense of creating a press proof.[5] If errors are found during the printing process on press, correcting them can prove very costly to one or both parties involved. – Wikipedia

I’ve been working on the back cover Book Blurb for the last couple of months – rewritten it maybe 300 times. But I think it reads well now, so well I hope readers won’t be disappointed when they read the book itself. Hopefully the story lives up to its promise.

Like THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM, THE USUAL STORY is written in stand-alone discreet chapters. Versions of several of the chapters were first published as short stories in literary journals. I connected the stories by using segments as linking devices: the main character’s telling of the aftermath of a painful affair, her search for understanding of what went before, and the tango. It’s not an easy thing to do. My proof reader said the manuscript reads like a novel, rather than as a collection of linked stories. Am very happy to hear that. Another term for the structure of the book is novel-in-stories.

‘While the short story pauses to explore an illuminated moment, and the novel chugs toward a grand conclusion, the novel in stories moves in spirals and loops, a corkscrewing joy rode.’ – Danielle Trussoni

So corrected final proofs are now with  Ginninderra Press in Adelaide, a small but prestigious publisher.

The next step towards a July release of THE USUAL STORY –  a delicately fragmented story of memory, intrigue and passion –  is the uploading of the files to the printer.

An exciting time.

 

Writing Tip: To Plot or Not to Plot

~ Libby Sommer ~ 11 Comments

portrait of beautiful young woman over white background

Plot means the story line.  When people talk about plotting, they mostly mean how to set up the situation, where to put the turning points, and what the characters will be doing in the end.  What happens.

Some fiction writers write organically, not knowing where the story they are writing is going.  These writers say it would be boring to know what’s going to happen next and they lose their enthusiasm to tell the story because they know the outcome already.  They prefer throwing themselves over the edge and into the void.  This method can be very anxiety-producing.  It means you need a lot of faith in your process.

E.L. Doctorow describes the process like this:  “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Other writers plan the story before they begin.  In crime fiction the story definitely needs to be worked out beforehand so information can be drip-fed to the reader.

In the past, when creating my stories, I have worked organically and not known where my stories were headed as I wrote them. Sometimes, when I’m feeling despicable about  writing, I think I really should plot to put me out of my misery. But, in the end, I just keep going, one tiny step at a time.

The shorter the piece of fiction, the less need for plot.  You can write an interesting story in which not very much happens.  A woman fights with her neighbour, a man quits his job, or an unhappy family goes out for a pizza.  Simple structures work better than something too complicated when the story is short.

A plot can, like a journey, begin with a single step.   A woman making up her mind to recover her father’s oil paintings may be enough to start.  The journey begins there, as it did for Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment when he decided to commit his crime,”  Jerome Stern Making Shapely Fiction

The plot grows and develops out of what helps and what hinders the characters’ progress toward their goals.

The Writers’ Workshop   http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/plot2.html  ask:

  • But how do you know if your draft plot has the right amount of weight to carry an entire novel?
  • What kind of structures work?
  • Is there a quick way to design your own plot template?
  • And how do you handle a book with multiple points of view?

“A good plot has a clear motivation.  It has a clear structure.  It has an outcome.  It has subplots.  A good plot looks something like the plot structure template below,” The Writers’ Workshop.

 

Motivation Lizzie Bennett wants to marry for love
Plot structure She meets Darcy & Wickham. She dislikes Darcy, and starts to fall for Wickham. Wickham turns out to be a bad guy; Darcy turns out to be a good guy. She now loves Darcy.
Outcome She marries Darcy
Subplot 1 Jane Bennett (Lizzie’s nice sister) loves Bingley. Bingley vanishes. He reappears. They get hitched.
Subplot 2 Lydia Bennett (Lizzie’s idiot sister) elopes with Wickham. She’s recovered.
Subplot 3 An idiot, Mr Collins, proposes marriage to Lizzie. She says no. Her friend, Charlotte, says yes.

Of course, there are a lot of things that the above plot template doesn’t tell you.  It doesn’t say where the novel is set, it doesn’t tell you anything about plot mechanics – it doesn’t say why Lizzie dislikes Mr Darcy, or how Lydia is recovered from her elopement.  It doesn’t have anything to say about character.

The Writers’ Workshop strongly advises us to build a template much like the one above before starting to write.  “If you’ve already started your MS then, for heaven’s sake, get to that template right away.”

So that’s all we need:  a beginning, a middle and an end.  Aristotle defined it like this:  a beginning is what requires nothing to precede it, an end is what requires nothing to follow it, and a middle needs something both before and after it.

Easy peasy.  Not.

I hope these ideas on plotting, or not plotting, are helpful.   Do you have any tips you would add? Let me know in the comments and please share this post with a friend if you enjoyed it. 

 

Writing Tip: A Change of Pace

~ Libby Sommer ~ 15 Comments

adult book boring face

I’m very excited to have my poem BETWEEN THE ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC in the June 2018 Quadrant  alongside some great poets including Les Murray, Barbara Fisher, Craig Kurtz, Geoff Page, Dan Guenther, Gabriel Fitzmaurice, Graeme Hetherington. Just received my copy.

It’s refreshing to have a change of pace. I’ve been having a break from working on long narratives by working on shorter pieces: prose poems, flash fiction, micro fiction, etc. Very gratifying to have one (so far) accepted for publication.

The poem was inspired by a cruise I did earlier this year with my family. At the time I thought I could write a book length story set on a ship, but, as things turned out, couldn’t find enough material to write a long fiction. But I was able to write a poem instead. For this I am very grateful.

Writing poetry, a synopsis or a book blurb are all good things to have to do in terms of improving our ability to compress or distill an idea. Having to get our message across in just a few words. Instagram is a useful for this too. One sentence to connect with our followers. And Facebook.  The very short forms are a good discipline for us writers.

I belong to an excellent weekly feedback poetry group. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be able to get my poems to that next level of being at a publishable standard. From good to very good. Many gratitudes.

img_20180606_144812215

What about you? Do you experiment with different forms or genres? I find it helps to keep the feeling of desperation at bay. Will I ever be able to write another word? Do you have a perspective you would add? Let me know in the comments and please share this post with a friend if you enjoyed it.

Poem in Anthology

~ Libby Sommer ~ 17 Comments

full length of man sitting on floor

 

red book cover of Wild anthology

Wow! Exciting news. I’m delighted to say my poem BRONTE BEACH has been selected for inclusion in the Ginninderra Press Wild Anthology. The anthology has been edited by Joan Fenney and includes 159 talented poets from across Australia exploring the many facets of ‘wild’ – human, animal, environmental and metaphorical. The book will be launched on 7th July as part of the Ginninderra Press 10 year celebrations in Port Adelaide. I’ll be in Adelaide reading my poem at East Avenue Books in Clarence Park at 2pm on 8th July. Would be great to see you then.

Enter Writing Competitions

~ Libby Sommer ~ 17 Comments

 

the city of Lisbon, Portugal with sea and sky in the background
Lisbon, Portugal

One of the ways we can get noticed as writers is to enter writing competitions. You can join local and international writing groups and associations that send out newsletters letting you know when, what and where to enter.

I can’t remember entering this particular competition, or where I saw the information, but I am thrilled and delighted to tell you that an excerpt of my WIP, Lost in Cooper Park is a runner-up in 2018 Disquiet Literary Contest.  There were over 1,000 entries. I have been awarded a partial scholarship to attend the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal. Such exciting news.

The judges said of my entry:

“… an excellent domestic psychological drama, reminiscent of Sally Vickers (The Other Side of You) written in beautiful, striking prose. It has an incredible memorable opening. The author has a voice that is unique to her and that, at the same time, is particular to the narrative. The story moves between places and narratives with deftness, knowing precisely when to leave a thread open and when to pick it up again.”

Whoo hoo.

I recommend staying up to date with competition deadlines. This keeps you motivated to finish a piece of writing by the date specified. Subscribe to writing groups and newsletters that alert you to closing dates. I am a member of the NSW Writers’ Centre, Society of Women Writers’ NSW, Australian Society of Authors, and other writing groups on Facebook.

Wishing you the best of luck.

Woman walking through Cooper Park with her dog.
Cooper Park

 

Short Story: Helen

~ Libby Sommer ~ 3 Comments

 

vf clock

Another one of my short stories, first published in Quadrant magazine June 2015, inspired by visits to France.  Each year, if possible, I rent a studio for a month in a little fishing village in the south of France. I refer to these periods of quiet time away as a Writing-Retreat-For-One. A great place to read and write and go for long walks and, hopefully, come up with story ideas.

Although she loved her nieces and nephews, it was when she turned thirty-nine that driving young children around in her car seemed to make her nervous—a tightening in the stomach.  “Aunty Helen, would you like to take Naomi to see The Muppets?  Are you free?”  Always these requests from one of her sisters looking tired and desperate—one of her younger siblings, they used to be so close—and Helen would force herself to make the effort to be the good aunty.  The responsibility of passengers in her car always made her anxious.  She was anxious about one thing or the other most of the time, but wanted to appear selfless and generous-spirited.  Her availability, or non-availability, was noted, itemised, either in her favour, or against her.  She didn’t want to be labelled self-obsessed.  She had entered an era when the nicest thing a person could say to her was, “You’re a fabulous aunty.  The kids love you.”  Continue reading →

Short Story or Novel

~ Libby Sommer ~ 5 Comments

pexels-photo.jpg

Is a novel a short story that keeps going, or, is it a string of stories with connective tissue and padding, or, is it something else?  Essayist Greg Hollingshead believes that the primary difference between the short story and the novel is not length but the larger, more conceptual weight of meaning that the longer narrative must carry on its back from page to page, scene to scene.

“It’s not baggy wordage that causes the diffusiveness of the novel.  It’s this long-distance haul of meaning.”  Greg Hollingshead

There is a widespread conviction among fiction writers that sooner or later one moves on from the short story to the novel.  When John Cheever described himself as the world’s oldest living short story writer, everyone knew what he meant.

Greg Hollingshead says that every once in a while, to the salvation of literary fiction, there appears a mature writer of short stories—someone like Chekhov, or Munro—whose handling of the form at its best is so undulled, so poised, so capacious, so intelligent, that the short in short story is once again revealed as the silly adjective it is, for suddenly here are simply stories, spiritual histories, narratives amazingly porous yet concentrated and undiffused.

When you decide you want to write in a particular form—a novel, short story, poem—read a lot of writing in that form.  Notice the rhythm of the form.  How does it begin?  What makes it complete?  When you read a lot in a particular form, it becomes imprinted inside you, so when you sit at your desk to write, you produce that same structure.  In reading novels your whole being absorbs the pace of the sentences, the setting of scenes, knowing the colour of the bedspread and how the writer gets her character to move down the hallway to the front door.

I sit at my desk thinking about form as a low-slung blanket of cloud blocks my view of the sky.  Through the fly screen I inhale the sweet smell of earth after rain as another day of possibility beckons.

The thing is, we might write five novels before we write a good one.  I wrote five book-length manuscripts before one was finally accepted for publication, even though I’d published 30 short stories.  So form is important, we need to learn form, but we should also remember to fill form with life.  All it takes is practice.

I hope this post is useful. Do you have any tips you would add? Let me know in the comments and please share this post with a friend if you enjoyed it.

Short Story: At the Festival

~ Libby Sommer ~ 2 Comments

pexels-photo-167491.jpeg

My short story ‘At the Festival’ was first published in Quadrant May 2016. It was inspired by my yearly visits to the Canberra National Folk Festival. The music is really world music rather than folk. A happening event. 60,000 people. Lots of colour and movement for a writer who likes to get ideas from the world around them – though this is a work of fiction.

It was six o’clock in the evening when she finally passed the wind turbines.  There, at last, stood Lake George, where long-woolled sheep grazed the field and to the west the Brindabella mountain range was coloured grey and pink by the setting sun.   On she drove along an ink-black strip of road where, on either side, tall green-grey eucalypts had formed a welcoming archway.  The way flattened out then curved into a narrow empty road.  Not one person did she see, not one building, just a handful of brown-bellied cows and later a group of kangaroos standing formidable and still in the headlights.  The turn for Watson wasn’t clearly sign-posted but she felt confident in turning east along the row of liquid ambers in autumn bloom that took her to the cabins.

Twice on the journey she had pulled into a service station and shut her eyes and briefly rested but now, as she neared Canberra, she felt wide awake and full of energy.  Even the dark length of road which progressed flatly to Reception seemed to hold the promise of a new beginning.  She sensed the towering, protective presence of the mountain range, the forested hills and, further on, just past the turnoff, the clear, pleasant thump of music coming from the festival.

The receptionist gave her a key, and eagerly she drove further on to cabin number five.  Inside, the room was renovated:  the two single beds replaced by a double.  The same compact kitchenette set into one end of the room but a new television secured to the wall by a multidirectional wall bracket.  In between, on the bare linoleum floor, stood a small table laminated with melamine and two matching chairs.  She set her keys and mobile on the table and reached for the electric jug for tea. Continue reading →