Steph Bowe's Hey! Teenager of the Year

My Writing Process: Twelve Simple Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Step One: Stare at computer screen for minutes on end, blinking occasionally, trying to figure out how to start.

Step Two: Think to self: 'I would be a much more productive writer if I had a whiz-bang writing program, and also a newer laptop, and also a way to directly transfer my thoughts to text, and also a wireless keyboard. A wireless keyboard would sort out all of my problems.'

Step Three: Imagine the book is finished, and it is beautiful, and full of really excellent sentences and even better paragraphs and mind-blowingly intelligent chapters. Imagine a parade held in my honour because I am such a brilliant writer.

Step Four: Be suddenly struck with brilliant idea. Type out one hundred words. Rejoice, for I have started writing the greatest novel ever to be written. Practice answers about my personal writerly struggles and such for when I am interviewed on national TV programs that interview only very important, very smart people.

Step Five: Reward myself with a cup of tea.

Step Six: Return to desk. Reread what I have written.

Step Seven: Delete.

Step Eight: DESPAIR.

Step Nine: Think of possible alternative careers. Look up bachelor degrees in Accountancy.

Step Ten: Wish for a wireless keyboard.Or a magical typewriter that writes all on its own. Or another cup of tea, possibly some Vegemite on toast.

Step Eleven: Eventually start writing again. And then refuse to look back, or stop, or do anything foolish like that. Get about fifty-thousand words down. While writing, think: 'This is glorious! This is wonderful!' Finish first draft.

Step Twelve: Reread. Start thinking about alternative careers again. (And, eventually, edit it. And let other people read it. Eventually.)

This post wasn't very helpful, but here is a list that is:

(source)

Tell me about your writing process!

(And advice about finding inspiration, and not falling into this-book-is-terrible despair, would be awfully appreciated!)

10 Things that I love in YA novels

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I am always talking about the things that I do not like in novels for teenagers (e.g. threatening vampire boyfriends, threatening fictional boyfriends generally, etc... I don't imagine I would be cool with threatening fictional girlfriends either but I never come across those). There are, in fact, many, many plotlines and literary devices that I love, and that I will never tire of. Behold - stuff that improves YA novels tenfold (well, for me, at least)... or any kind of novel, really:

Time travel. Especially when I have no idea there will be time travel! Surprise time travel is the best kind. As long as they don't go back in time to try and kill Hitler. Really, guys. Assume you failed. I do love it when people travel back in time and have to avoid their younger self/have to save their younger self from forces of evil!
This is really an extension of the previous point, but: alternate universes! Especially if there are two timelines occurring at once.
First person, present tense. Technically two things, but I like the two together. I like the immediacy of everything is happening right now! Will the protagonist die? What's going to happen? and being in the head of the character. Third person reminds me I am reading about fictional people. I don't want to be reminded of that!
Endings where it turns out everything was in the narrator's head. 'It was all just a dream' is actually one of my favourite lines. I am not sure when people decided that these sorts of stories are cliche, because I think they are awesome. I enjoy reimagining novels and films as if all the events were in the head of one character and no-one else was real. You know, like Harry Potter is just Ginny Weasley's coma dream.
Unreliable narrators. Especially when those narrators are so unreliable that they're actually serial killers. You know when you get to the last chapter, and all of a sudden everything makes sense. And you sit there with the book closed for a solid five minutes so it can all sink in.
Multiple narrators. I like being able to imagine the story from the point of view of every character. (This is a good measure of whether secondary characters are realistic, I find - if you can't imagine the story from their point of view, or have some idea of what else would be going on in their lives, they are not very well thought-out.) It is even better when the author writes from the perspectives of various characters.
A real-world setting. So many novels I read - particularly those of the YA paranormal romance persuasion - have this vague, kind of American but nowhere specific, maybe it's a bit rainy and green setting. I think this is why I like a lot of very Australian novels - the setting is specific, there are references I recognise, I can clearly imagine it. Even if a novel is set in another country, I like it when it's a specific, real place, with local references. And if it's a made-up place, I'd prefer it not be generic and Forks-esque. Oh dear. Talking about what I don't like in books again.
Realistic conversations. Sometimes characters have this odd, stilted dialogue that no one would ever really speak. Sometimes characters are ridiculous witty and composed to the degree that it's totally unbelievable. Of course, it's fiction, everything must be a little more fantastic than reality, but I don't want them to be too intelligent. That's just suspicious. I'll think they're 110-year-old vampires that only look sixteen. (I suspect this of real-world people I meet who are overly charming, too.)
Parent-characters that actually parent. Imagine that. Everyone's always so dysfunctional in books, functional characters, especially functional parents, are a real delight.
Dead characters that are not actually dead! Whether that's by zombification, conspiracy, or because they're actually an evil mastermind, someone who was supposed to be dead turning out to be alive is always my favourite twist.

What events and/or literary devices do you love in novels?

(e.g. the appearance of aliens! the use of second person! incredibly sarcastic characters!)

What I read in April, part two: Pure, Every Other Day and Trust Me Too

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Pure by Julianna Baggott
'We know you are here, our brothers and sisters. We will, one day, emerge from the Dome to join you in peace. For now, we watch from afar.'

Pressia Belze has lived outside of the Dome ever since the detonations. Struggling for survival she dreams of life inside the safety of the Dome with the 'Pure'.

Partridge, himself a Pure, knows that life inside the Dome, under the strict control of the leaders' regime, isn't as perfect as others think.

Bound by a history that neither can clearly remember, Pressia and Partridge are destined to forge a new world.

The world-building! The plot twists! The creepy 1984-vibe! I found Pure to be a fairly brilliant dystopian novel. I believe it has been optioned for film, and I imagined as a movie at several points as I was reading - it's very strong and exciting and fast-paced plot-wise. My tastes in books often tend towards the borderline ridiculous, so some readers may find some plotlines a little difficult to believe, but I thought it was fantastic.

I found the romantic aspects to be an unnecessary addition. Is there some unspoken rule that all books for teenage readers must feature minimum one romantic plotline? This book hardly needs it, and it all felt a little rushed near the end. I loved the world outside of the Dome - I mean, I wouldn't want to go there, but it seemed very well thought-out and was well evoked. The people melding with household objects, the ground, other people - all incredibly creepy. I found it somewhat difficult to believe these things would stand out to Pressia - she has lived in a world where most people have disfigurements like a doll-head hand or a sibling attached to them most of her life - so sometimes found it over-described (I could understand it being shocking to Partridge, having grown up in a world where people are perfect). I didn't have as clear an idea of the world inside the Dome, and it was less exciting anyway.

I would recommend this to an older YA audience, and fans of dystopias. Though there's a lot of time spent on each character's thoughts, I think the strength of the novel lies in the plot, and it is very plot-driven. It's the first of a series, but functions well as a standalone (if anything things are a little too neatly finished) and I'm looking forward to reading the next.

Every Other Day by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Every other day, Kali D'Angelo is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. She goes to public high school. She attends pep rallies. She's human. And then every day in between...She's something else entirely.

Though she still looks like herself, every twenty-four hours predatory instincts take over and Kali becomes a feared demon-hunter with the undeniable urge to hunt, trap, and kill zombies, hellhounds, and other supernatural creatures. Kali has no idea why she is the way she is, but she gives in to instinct anyway. Even though the government considers it environmental terrorism.

When Kali notices a mark on the lower back of a popular girl at school, she knows instantly that the girl is marked for death by one of these creatures. Kali has twenty-four hours to save her and, unfortunately, she'll have to do it as a human. With the help of a few new friends, Kali takes a risk that her human body might not survive...and learns the secrets of her mysterious condition in the process.

I loved the alternate universe of Every Other Day - where things like hellhounds, chupacabras and basilisks are an everyday part of life, and even protected by the government. But also there are no sexy threatening supernatural boyfriends! Always makes me happy when there aren't any of them. I thought it was original and refreshing and it did not go in the direction I thought it was going in at any point during the novel. Usually I can figure out how a book will end about fifty pages in, but not with this book.

I loved the various hunting scenes. The bit with the basilisk! The part with the zombies! It's a very strong novel plot-wise. There are plenty of endearing but less-developed characters, which makes me wonder whether this is the beginning of the series - there are clues at the end that it perhaps is, which is exciting, because I'd very much like to read more novels set in this world. I would have preferred a bit more character development, though - there's a particular point where being invested emotionally is important, and I wasn't, and perhaps that event was not that necessary - other revelations overshadowed it. (I am trying not to be spoiler-iffic here. If you have read the book hopefully you will know what I am talking about.) I think it's hard to pack in that amount of plot + world-building + tight timeframe and also have a full cast of well-rounded characters in one book.

Worth picking up if you like paranormal romance but are not as keen on the romance part! If you mainly like the parts with creatures and fighting and such, this is for you. Also there's a conspiracy and an ice dragon and a lot of very interesting twists.

Trust Me Too (Edited by Paul Collins)
Trust Me Too delivers a wonderful diversity of writing and art. It contains a host of short stories, along with heartfelt and witty verse, and delightful yet thought-provoking illustrations. Many of the offerings provide glimpses into other worlds – known and unknown, past and present.

If reading is something you do to find your way into the lives of other people, you will discover much to enjoy within. Welcome. Have fun getting lost in these worlds – but remember to return to the present once you’ve finished reading!

This is a great anthology overall. The Obernewtyn prequel is great, and makes me very much want to pick up Obernewtyn again, and it is one of many wonderful stories. If you are reading it cover to cover, as I did, I think having a more defined theme would have made it a more satisfying and cohesive reading experience. I think it's even better if you dip into it and read individual stories out of order - it's a wonderful and varied selection, with a lot of great writers. Susanne Gervay's Boo, Deb Abela's Don't Let Go, Sandy Fussell's Dingo Boy, Michael Gerard Bauer's Oh Brother, What Art Thou? and Kim Kane's Scaffolding are some of my favourites, and if I don't stop now I'll end up listing pretty much every story in the book. (I think it would work really well as a text to study for upper primary/lower secondary students... so many excellent stories that would prompt lots of interesting ideas and questions and such.)

I think what lets this collection down is the fact that the cover appears very much targeted towards a young teen male audience, when the stories are varied enough for older teenage readers and girls to enjoy it as well. While the variety of the stories is wonderful, and many readers with different tastes will find stories they will love within it, I think age-appopriateness is an issue across the stories. While some of the stories are definitely aimed towards a younger audience (the age range recommended by the publisher is 11+), there are certain, darker stories which I don't think would be as suitable for younger readers. Jack Heath's Rats was pretty terrifying, Justin D'ath's Stilled Lifes x 11 really very disconcerting, and Michael Pryor's Shop Til You Drop was also very creepy. These were some of my other favourite stories in the book, but I probably wouldn't have let my eleven-year-old self read them. (Depends on the eleven-year-old, obviously.) I don't even know who to specifically recommend this too - perhaps give it as a gift to a young not-so-keen reader, or pick it up if you like fantasy stories, or simply read it if you're a fan of one of the authors (you will probably be a fan of a few more by the end of it). It's a potpourri of awesome. See, this is why I'm a writer. Metaphors like that one.

Bookish Confessions

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sun, 13 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000

1. The first (and only) time I read Twilight, I loved it. I'm not kidding. I was thirteen. The very odd thing here is that I had the same belief systems then as I have now, but this did not seem to matter when I was reading. I read the first three books like a crazed fan, then stepped back and thought about it and was really disturbed. I never read the fourth book, but I saw part one of Breaking Dawn and it was so ridiculous I could hardly believe anyone had been serious about it. Did people genuinely enjoy that? Anyway, looking forward to that sequel.

I will never reread this series, unless I am at some point offered a choice between reading Twilight and painful death. Sometimes I really, really loathe the series and all that it stands for and really wish it would just cease to exist and everyone would stop referencing it due to my moral repulsion. The rest of the time I leave vehement hatred of crappy books to other people, mainly because I don't really get anything out of it except bad feelings. Also there are disturbing romantic relationships in about 90% of paranormal romance books and I cannot protect all of the impressionable young girls from all of the disturbing books.

2. I never quite made it through the first Hunger Games book. I have not seen the film, nor do I plan to. I feel as if I am missing some monumental pop culture thing, since I never finished reading it nor did I particularly enjoy it, but if I try and read it again or see the movie now and it doesn't measure up to my now massive expectations, that will be terrible. I have very complex feelings about books. If you like we can still have conversations about the Hunger Games and both pretend I've read the whole series without me having to make an effort. I've read enough material about it to have effectively read it, anyway.

3. I never managed to get through the entire Harry Potter series. I own the first five books, but could never finish that fifth book. I was about eleven, though, so perhaps I should reattempt it now. They were at a quidditch tournament for a while. I really wanted to move beyond the quidditch tournament, but it seemed as if Harry and Co would be there forever, so I gave up and started reading The Hobbit. Is it bad to admit that I found that series boring? They were good enough, but I've never really understood why people love the series so rabidly. Is it worth starting over, seven years after I originally read it? Does it improve as it progresses? Is it something older, not-quite-wiser Steph would better appreciate? (I quite enjoyed the later films.)

4. As you may have noticed, I often don't 'get' popular or classic books or series. It's actually terrible, feeling both uncultured and awfully un-hip. I am reading War and Peace at the moment, and while I am sure it was brilliant nearer to the time it was written, reading it almost a century and a half later, it is actually quite a clunky piece of literature. Interesting historically, sure, but not remotely enjoyable for me as a modern reader. And yet so many people adore it. Really? There's all these rich people having inane conversations, and then a rich girl was going to marry this bloke, but then loved that guy! but it turned out he was really awful and then Napoleon has a sit down on a hillside and thinks about some stuff, like the war and the battle he's supposed to be winning. I am missing something, I am sure. I just don't know what it is.

5. I very often watch film adaptations before I read the original book! I'm a rebel! And then I sometimes prefer the film to the book. Sacrilege!

6. If someone lends me a book, and it's a really important book for them, I almost always say I loved it, even if I thought it was terrible. Mainly because it makes me sad when people don't appreciate the things I think are brilliant, and I don't want other people to feel sad! They're reaching out to me through literature! I appreciate that. I feel like I'm Dead Poets Society. It's a bonding experience. I'm trying not to do this anymore. Someday I will very tactfully say, to a friend that lends me a novel, 'you know, you're great, but, I don't know, your most adored book is not really my thing.' I'm working up to it.

Feel free to share your bookish confessions!

(Books you pretended to love, or books you pretend to hate, or books you could never read!)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar & other books I loved as a kid

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:00:00 +0000

...and still love now.

I have been thinking about the books from my childhood that I loved since hearing of the very sad passing of the brilliant Maurice Sendak. (This beautiful interview from last year is well worth listening to.)

I think in a lot of ways the books I was first exposed to as a little kid were the greatest - when I read now, it's always with a critical eye. I don't reread books now because I hardly have time. I am always thinking about everything too, too much. Whereas when I was five, reading was about pure enjoyment. I read or had books read to me over and over again, until I knew the words by heart. Individual books were really special to me in a way that I rarely feel with more grown-up books. It was also a wonderful thing to share reading with other people. We should all read to other people more often. And this enthusiasm I had for these glorious books was what planted the seed of an idea to write stories myself.

So here are some of the more adored picture books of my childhood (which was not all that long ago, really - I was obsessed with these in the late nineties):

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
I think this is probably a favourite childhood book of everyone born in the last forty years, but only because it is truly brilliant. It brought me sheer joy as a child. I loved the cut-outs from the pages (one of the greatest things about books for small children are the inclusion of shapes and textures and so forth... why do we get rid of these? I want more art in books for teenagers, too!), and the lists of food, and the transformation most of all (the anticipation of the page-turn, and then 'into a butterfly!' I have very clear recollections of this being read to me). Recently I was tempted to buy Very Hungry Caterpillar wall decals. I may still.

The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch by Ronda & David Armitage
What I remember really loving about this book - loving to the point the book fell apart - was probably the food. The wife of the lighthouse keeper sends her husband his lunch by a flying fox-type contraption every day, and seagulls eat it before it can reach him. Those little drawings of the lighthouse keeper's sandwiches were my favourite part. I can't even remember how or even whether they outsmart the seagulls, but gosh I like a packed lunch.

Clarice Bean, That's Me by Lauren Child
I was quite convinced at the age of six that Lauren Child was actually a child. I think because her drawings seemed child-like. It also seemed logical that someone with the surname Child must be a child. Now we have Wikipedia, I have discovered she was actually born in 1965, which is a terrible disappointment. I thought she was a prodigy. I always liked that there was a lot going on in the pictures.

Shirley Barber's Bedtime Stories
I don't believe this classifies as a picture book, but I very much loved these fairy stories when I was little. I remember reading a Shirley Barber poem at a school talent contest when I was five or six. I could probably add 'perfomance poet' to my resume now. I also remember being part of an interpretive dance duo around the same time. I was an awesome child. I still have a number of her 100-piece fairy puzzles. I could probably write a lot on the subject of my childhood love of puzzles, but that would just be off-topic. I had a lot of Shirley Barber storybooks (I still have them) and one of my favourite stories was about a small fluffy mammal with a shoemaking business in the hollow of a tree. I did quite like anthomorphism.

Possum Magic by Mem Fox

Possum Magic is glorious and unashamedly Australian and one of the better things to come out of the 80s. It is just wonderful. The more I think about picture books I loved as a kid, the longer the list gets (My Cat Maisy by Pamela Allen! ALL of the Hairy McClary from Donaldson's Dairy books!), despite the fact that I have a terrible memory, which shows the impact books have had on me. I can hardly remember events that happened when I was five, but I can tell you about the books I read! (If only because I read them hundreds of times.)

Oh, and here is one of many very lovely Maurice Sendak quotes, to wrap up:

So, tell me, what were your favourite childhood picture books?

10 issues I have with love interests in YA novels

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

If it is a paranormal book, the love interest often has some kind of power to influence the heroine's emotions. It's very odd. Morally, I have problems with a character saying 'I love him because he radiates goodness and love!' No. Seriously. Think of the implications this would have in the real world. Using magical beastie power to force someone who hates you into adoring you... That's not cool.
Why is everyone always so romantically experienced and suave and cool about it all? (Excepty the girl protagonist. She is innocence personified.) Obviously I realise that in the worlds of novels (even realistic ones) things are a lot less awkward than in the real world, and that's nice, but sometimes I just think that it's been a very, very long time since the author was sixteen. (Seriously. There's all these confident, self-assured boys in these novels, even the contemporary ones where they are actually supposed to be sixteen. We need to remember that teenage boys are humans and teenagers too. Many of them are much more unsure of themselves than novels depict them to be.)
Love interests are often really over-described. If I want to hear a teenage girl endlessly gush about the smoothness of some guy's skin, and his lovely, shiny hair, and how fit he is, and how stylishly-yet-effortlessly he dresses, and his goddamn crooked smile, I know a lot of One Direction fans who I can get that from. I think once we have established he's a babe, we can move forward with the plot.
Why does everyone always have such special eyes? Jewel of Girl Saves Boy has two differently coloured eyes. But it's different! She's a girl! Okay, really, I have a problem with doing this myself. But I limit myself to one character a story, at most, and their eyes never glow or change in different lights or anything, so I hope it's all right. (Why is the temptation to mark characters as special by their special eyes so great? Even in contemporary novels?)
Particularly in paranormal romance, why does the male love interest always have to be evil/secretly evil/the twin of an evil guy? I only have an issue with this because it has happened in every paranormal romance I have read lately. A lady protagonist never says, 'You know what, I'm going to pursue that guy who seems quite well-adjusted, transparent about his background as a shapeshifter, respectful, fun to be around and not controlling.'NEVER. Always the stalker creepsters who may or may not kill you because their species has been your natural enemy since the dawn of time.
There is always so much hetero love. Why can't the love interest be the same gender as the protagonist more often and that not be a thing? The main plot of the novel can be about werewolves and sparkly folks or identity crises or whatever and lesbianism can be there but not be what the novel is all about.
Why does the love interest always have to be their One True Love? Forever and ever and ever? Or, if we're in a novel more based in the real world, why is there so often the implication that they're going to grow up and get married? Maybe the two characters don't have to be together for all of eternity for their relationship to have value, hey? (Obviously people's personal values systems come into play here, but I think the concept of meeting 'the One' at the age of sixteen or seventeen kind of... frightening. Don't the characters have more growing up and learning about themselves and the world to do before they settle down?)
Why, in paranormal romances, is the secretly-an-old-man-only-looks-young-and-attractive creature-boy always still going to high school? Why willingly subject yourself to that torture for decades? It makes no sense! Edward Cullen, it seems to me you are a poorly thought-out character who only goes to school in order to meet the protagonist! (Unless he was trying to find his one true love at high school? Really? Get a mail-order bride or something.) There are others. There are many others. (There are better places to pray on teenage humans, I am sure.)
Do they actually all have to be dazzlingly attractive? If it's their One True Love and all, and they have the superpower that makes them able to influence emotions, or if they are just still a gangly teenager (people are mostly not that attractive at sixteen. You have to grow and such and your body and face are quite all over the place), perhaps, just perhaps, they're not conventionally beautiful. Just average. Maybe they just have a really good personality. Everyone being unbearably beautiful seems like a bit of overkill.
I would say something about the lady love interests of male protagonist YA novels, but I don't find there are that many of them (at least not ones that focus solely around the romance) and really they don't do that much to annoy me. My main wish is that more of the love interests in YA novels (and there are many, many good ones already) just become whole, well-developed characters, that don't entirely exist for the protagonist to lust over. Maybe they could have hobbies. Take up scrapbooking, you know? Not attempt to murder the protagonist, or be overly suave all the time, or Manic Pixie Dream Girl all over the book. It's not a lot to ask. Really.

7 Things I would really love to be able to write

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Wed, 02 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

A memoir. I'm really hoping that it turns out I will have the sort of interesting and exciting and unique and splendid life that people write biographies about. Of course I will publish this memoir when I am very old so that all the people I defame are mostly dead. (I don't think I'd actually defame anyone. I think we should all just live forever, too.)
Poetry. I am incredibly disappointed that I will never have awful emo poetry from my youth to someday look back on and cringe. (Instead, I have a book in print! Even better.) But I really enjoy reading poetry (I wish I read more. Recommend me some poets/publications, yo!), and a really wonderful poem can capture in a couple of lines an incredible amount of emotion and meaning. I'd like to be that succinct and powerful. Or at least have a go, and have some awful stuff to dig up later on.
A full journal. Writers are supposed to keep diaries, aren't they? I've always been bad at this. I have the best intentions - I bought a nice green journal at Officeworks at the start of this year, it cost me fifteen dollars (seriously) because I was so committed to being a journaller, and practicing my craft, and having something to look back on. I've written three pages and they were just lists of books I want to write. I just find writing about my life incredibly awkward and self-indulgent because not much really happens to me. I do a lot of thinking, but I tend to work through it in fiction. I know, I am a sad imposter for a legit writer.
Lyrics. As a child, I had dreams of becoming a rockstar. (I also had dreams of becoming a psychologist, a writer, a teacher, a marine biologist and fifty other things. I continue to have a lot of impractical dreams, which are clearly the best kind.) I would really very much like to write concise and profound lyrics. I'd also like to be able to sing really well and play seven different instruments and have really effortless messy rockstar hair. I'm not really keen on doing the hard yards to achieve these things (especially the hairstyling bit), though, since I am not the most musically gifted, and generally leave it up to other people who have talent in this field.
A really long and complex novel. I have no idea how people manage to write those hundred-and-fifty-thousand-word behemoths with about a thousand characters and two different realities and a saga that plays out across ten generations. You know, the kind that you finish reading after a month, and you can't tell which world is the real one and which is a work of fiction? I want to write one of those. That would be great. I tend to run out of steam at the fifty thousand word mark and get confused if I have more than ten characters in a book. (I can never keep track of what people look like. I am devising a filing system for the next book.)
A lot of witty things on the internet. I think a lot of people conflate who they are on the internet with who they are in real life. Sometimes I suffer from this. Especially considering a lot of people will never know me in real life, but can read my words on the interwebs. So I want to be really smart and great all the time, and then the pressure from myself to be smart and great gets to me, and I end up writing stuff that is not smart and great, for instance this sentence. Also if I was always incredibly intelligent on the internet, that would be even less representative of my real-world self, who is more of a listener than a talker and can't really edit as she speaks. Which is a pity. But I ramble.
Letters. Everyone always says, let's bring back letter-writing! How quaint and kitsch we will be! No one means it! I so want to write letters again, as lovely as lengthy and instantaneous and easy-to-write emails are. (I would also love to have more phone conversations with people. Texting is not the same.) I never really wrote many letters in the first place. If only I had people to write letters to! And it didn't require all the effort of finding some paper and a decent pen and writing neatly and getting an envelope and then a stamp and that costs sixty cents and I don't have any change and then finding a mailbox and feeling worried because what if it gets lost in the mail... I think I know why this isn't in vogue anymore. I am so committed to writing letters, though. Just like I'm committed to journalling.

The Sophomore Novel Blues: A Guest Post by Shirley Marr

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:14:00 +0000

Hi everyone! Welcome to Steph Bowe's wonderful blog. As Preloved is my second novel and Steph is currently writing her second novel, what better thing for me to guest post about than well, second novels?

Second Novel Syndrome is a real affliction. I know because I Googled it and the Internet told me it’s real. Apparently it’s a type of performance anxiety that specifically happens to first-time authors trying to write their second book. And apparently it strikes down the majority of all authors. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I certainly got it. In fact I got it so bad that it lasted approximately a year and my Publisher who was hoping for a 2011 book after my 2010 debut didn’t even get a draft until after the deadline for publication ticked past! Shirley’s never been one to shy away from telling the truth or revealing the unglamorous side so I'm just gonna be frank.

It makes sense that it should be hard. It’s just like the second attempt at anything really. Album. Movie sequel. The relationship that comes after that first one true love where that asshat you’ll never-ever-ever speak to again tore out your bleeding heart and stomped all over it. The media always speaks about the "difficult sophomore album" to the point that the term has become accepted vernacular. The expectations can be enormous.

The fact that there are actually expectations is itself mind-blowing.

After all, there was most likely zero expectations for the first novel. Being the first would imply that it was probably a hobby, a dream, something that you wrote it as if you were all alone in your bedroom singing into your hairbrush (like me) and publication seemed a vague, mystic and distant possibility (me also).

It might have been an easy write or it might have been difficult, requiring many years and re-writes, but the most important thing is that the manuscript belonged to you. And you didn't belong to anyone, so it's no wonder that this is a time where something brilliant and unexpected might come together from nothing. I personally believe that everyone has one great story in them (even if it is the story of their life - it could be one awesome life) so the reason to write is simple, the actions involved tacit.

When I came to write my second novel, I told myself I was just going to do exactly what I did for the first novel. Just write. Sounds easy enough right? As much as I would like to insist I was still the same person and I was never going to change, things had changed and whether I liked it or not, it was having an effect on me.

Firstly and foremost, I now had a publisher. I don't think most people realise this, but as opposed to churning out everything I now write because I'm an author - they are under no obligation to sign me for another book. They have to actually like my manuscript. But what have I got to lose right? Actually... I had a lot to lose! I was now doing what I had been dreaming of since I was a kid. I had a real book at real bookstores. Secondly, other authors were freaking me out by saying stuff like "Do you know 80% of authors never write a second book? Do you want to just be a statistic?" And thirdly, it is a bit freaky when my publisher wants to talk to me about the marketing plan for... Book 3 and I hadn't even got a Book 2.

Going through that all-consuming desire to become a published author when I wasn't one was hard. Knowing that I finally got what I wanted and it could be taken away from me was a new type of hardness!

It didn't help that I didn't know what to write next. I mean, I had been writing variations of Fury on and off for the past 10 years until it finally came right, I had no Plan B.

StupidIy, I went onto Google (true story) to find a solution. Somehow I ended up on a music website which told me that the second album (and applicable to novels) was “an opportunity to transcend the original fan base and capture the rest of the market”. So I had to please the people who liked my book (who seemed to like my laissez faire writing style) and also the people who didn't like my book (who seemed to dislike my laissez faire writing style)? I'd probably end up writing a book that's going to be shelved as "Biggest Disappointment 2012" on both camps!

Eventually, I did the only thing I could. Which was probably the sensible thing. I sat down and I wrote something that mattered to me. I started arranging and compiling the ghost stories and tales of superstitions my mum used to tell me when I was little, into a narrative. And I started filling it up with all the things that I personal loved and which were symbolic of what made me happy. Regardless of what I should do and what the readers wanted and what was popular and what market I could capture. I can only write for myself and by finding something that made me carry on regardless of whether it was publishable or not, put a new fire in me. I was able to love the writing process again.

I dared asked myself the question I knew the answer to when I first started writing 10 years ago: if I was told that my writing would never be published, would I still write? The answer was still yes!

It was still playing on my mind that I had to lift my game - both in terms of writing ability and commercialbility; that this book had to be better in all aspects than the first – but this goal was challenging in a healthy way and I started to relish it.

Having said that, after I finished, I cried. I cried like a poor little puppy separated from it’s mammy for the first time. But it felt good.

As I write this, I am still unsure about the general reception of my book. And strangely enough, even if it is bad or good, I will still feel proud of myself. It feels I have come a long way and that I went through something necessary.

So my evaluation of Second Novel Syndrome? I wouldn’t change my experience of it. All I can say it is a rite of passage that has taught me how to handle these newfound pressures and what I need to do as a writer. Sometimes I think you have to learn things the hard way. And the fact that many other people go through the same thing gives me a beautiful, bitter-sweet feeling. It makes me feel very human.

Right now, I look forward to what I will term the Redemptive Third Novel. I know that I am not a One Novel Wonder. My publisher knows I am not a One Novel Wonder. I can do it. I feel good. What it is to be and what the experience will actually be like is still unknown, but I have a feeling it will be wonderful. And who knows, maybe I will be back on Steph's blog next year to talk about it.

Third book, here I come.

...

Thank you once again Miss Steph for having me. Please make sure you have a look around her blog as she writes these effortlessly cool and very funny introspective pieces (I love the 10 Things that baffle me about YA paranormal romance books).

Please join me tomorrow at The Nocturnal Library where it is my very last day and we do best and worst lists of the 80s! Plus there’s a bonus goodbye present to giveaway. Seeya on the flip side!

What I read in April, part one

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 03:00:00 +0000

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

Three teenagers are going on the trip of a lifetime. Only one is coming back.

It’s been more than forty years since NASA sent the first men to the moon, and to grab some much-needed funding and attention, they decide to launch an historic international lottery in which three lucky teenagers can win a week-long trip to moon base DARLAH 2—a place that no one but top government officials even knew existed until now. The three winners, Antoine, Midori, and Mia, come from all over the world.

But just before the scheduled launch, the teenagers each experience strange, inexplicable events. Little do they know that there was a reason NASA never sent anyone back there until now—a sinister reason. But the countdown has already begun. . .

I think this novel is really great if you imagine it as a movie. You know when you're watching a creepy sci-fi film (at home, alone, late in the evening), and the entire time you're yelling at the TV, saying 'that's impossible! As if that could happen in the real world!' (I'm not going to bother listing the numerous impossibilities.) But at the same time you're terrified? What this book lacks in believability and character development, it makes up for with creepiness. (It also has the sort of ending I love, but based on other reviews I've read, apparently other people don't feel the same.) I loved the concept, too.

In terms of the prose, I always worry that books lose something when they're translated from another language into English (which I imagine would be an incredibly difficult job. I would love to be able to read the translations of my novel and see how it changes). I found this to be written very simply, very straight-forward, and I wonder whether it would have had more nuance and depth in the original Norwegian.

It seems to be much more a sci-fi thriller that's also for young adult readers than a novel for young adult readers that's also a sci-fi thriller. The development of the characters is very much secondary to the scariness. Worth picking up if you are looking for something incredibly creepy to read, and much more plot than character-driven.

Stolen Away by Alyxandra Harvey

For seventeen years, Eloise Hart had no idea the world of Faery even existed. Now she has been abducted and trapped in the Rath of Lord Strahan, King of Faery. Strahan was only meant to rule for seven years, as Faery tradition dictates, and then give up his crown to another. But he won't comply, and now chaos threatens both worlds.

The only one who can break his stranglehold on the Faery court is his wife. . . Eloise's aunt Antonia. Using Eloise to lure Antonia, Strahan captures his wife, desperate to end the only threat to his reign. Now Eloise must become the rescuer. Together with her best friends Jo and Devin, she must forge alliances with other Fae, including a gorgeous protector named Lucas, and Strahan's mysterious son, Eldric-who may or may not betray them.Night School by C.J. Daugherty

Don't you hate it when your family keep the fact that you're a faerie princess a secret from you your entire life, and then some bloke shows up with magical powers and has to protect you from some other guys? And then they, like, fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you despite the fact that you don't really think you're all that? Even though it's fairly standard paranormal romance, it's fun and fast-paced and the ending is conclusive! How I love a standalone novel! It's very heavy on the romance (Lucas was all right, but Eldric was creepy - please, please can people stop writing YA novels where the love interest is an absolute tool?), but has plenty of action scenes and adventure and fun little twists. The main characters are supposed to be seventeen, but I think a lot of their behaviour and narration suggested younger, and I think it's perhaps suitable for the younger end of the YA spectrum. (As an aside, I love that the faery people can magically teleport between the different realities. Teleportation is the best.)

Sometimes school is murder.

Allie Sheridan's world is falling apart. She hates her school. Her brother has run away from home. And she's just been arrested.

Again.

This time her parents have finally had enough. They cut her off from her friends and send her away to a boarding school for problem teenagers.

But Cimmeria Academy is no ordinary school. Its rules are strangely archaic. It allows no computers or phones. Its students are an odd mixture of the gifted, the tough and the privileged. And then there's the secretive Night School, whose activities other students are forbidden even to watch.

When Allie is attacked one night the incident sets off a chain of events leading to the violent death of a girl at the summer ball. As the school begins to seem like a very dangerous place, Allie must learn who she can trust. And what's really going on at Cimmeria Academy.

This is actually not a paranormal novel. I was incredibly surprised. There were words about a 'brooding loner' in the blurb; a pale, serious-looking girl on the cover; and the title! Night School? How could it not be about vampires? Yeah, it's not. I spent the entire book waiting for vampires and none turned up. I wasn't disappointed - I'm not generally big on paranormal - but I wonder if this has been done consciously to boost sales? I imagine YA paranormal romance generally sells better than YA suspense, though a big portion of the novel concerned romance and a love triangle, and I think this book is targeting the paranormal romance reading audience, because it has a lot of very similar themes.

I found the love triangle really quite worrying - both of the male love interests are creepy and awful and treat Allie terribly, and then really nicely, as if that makes up for it. But it's very similar to a lot of paranormal romances, except these characters aren't also vampires or werewolves. Allie's character shifts dramatically about two chapters in - the bad girl she's purported to be in the blurb quickly changes into someone who is generally well-behaved. It's an intriguing start to a series, but very little was resolved at the end of the book - various creepy elements and mystery worked well, and it was scary and sinister in parts (and the involvement of Allie's brother, Christopher, was interesting), but I found that to be secondary to the romance elements. Worth reading if you're generally a fan of YA paranormal romance - it's basically that, minus the paranormal, with a bit of mystery thrown in. I'm interested to read the sequel(s), if only to see how the various unanswered questions are resolved.

Public speaking & how to be better at it

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I am really exceptionally shy. As I get older, I get a lot better at pretending I'm not. By the time I'm thirty I plan to have everyone totally fooled into thinking I am an extrovert. There's still a long way to go. I really want to start a foundation for the support of introverts.

Relatedly, a couple of years ago* I started speaking in schools (Booked Out speakers agency are the greatest people ever) and at writers festivals (mostly organised by my publisher). At first the idea of speaking to a class of fourteen-year-olds for an hour mostly about myself made me implode with nerves, but then I actually did it, and discovered that there were no ill effects apart from the nerves making me speak at lightning speed and in monotone.

Over time, I've managed to get (I hope) a little better. Entirely through practice. So here's my advice, for anyone who is terrified of speaking in front of large groups of people (you're not alone! people are scary!):

The more nervous you are, the slower you should speak. Time moves in a very strange manner when you have a microphone and a roomful of sullen teenagers staring at you. You think that you are speaking at a normal pace, but then you finish your hour-long speech in fifteen minutes. Speak slowly. Also, remember that even if you've given the same speech a dozen times and are incredibly bored of it, it's new and fresh for the audience. Be excited about what you have to say!
Imagine yourself as an audience member. I don't tend to talk a lot about myself or my book specifically, mainly because I am young and haven't done many interesting things yet, but also because seeing a speaker that is totally self-involved is usually pretty boring if what you're really interested in is what that speaker can teach you. So I imagine that I'm a fifteen-year-old kid at a school writer's festival, a reader, and think, what would I want to hear about? (Obviously this is not much of a stretch for me.) When I was fifteen, I was interested in how the publishing industry worked, and how people go from being kids with no idea what they're doing to people with careers, and I was really interested in how real live authors wrote their books. So those are the sorts of things I talk about.
Do not react to people making weird faces at you. Sometimes people look bored when they are actually very interested in what you have to say. Sometimes they are just bored. When you are looking out at the audience (which you should be doing most of the time), look to the people who look interested or cheerful or who laugh when you want them to laugh and think positive thoughts about how great your speech is, because look, this person is interested! Don't start rushing through a speech because everyone appears to be giving you death stares, because maybe they're just tired.
Talk about things that you are passionate about. If you think what you have to say is interesting and important and exciting, then you'll give the sort of speech that'll make the audience think what you're saying is interesting and important and exciting, too. Well, hopefully. I love talking about writing, and the publishing industry, and all the awesome bookish people I have met and the bookish things I do. And I hope the fact that I'm excited to talk about that gets other people excited to read and to write as well.
Take notes, not entire scripts. I used to write very detailed speeches, every single word. Which is okay for a short speech, but not if you're presenting for an hour. I ended up reading everything out in fifteen minutes. Take notes and you can ramble and elaborate on things and also you don't appear to be a robot. (I have problems with not saying enough rather than saying too much. If you ramble in speeches, maybe you should write down every word and time yourself.)
Use PowerPoint. So that everyone isn't staring at you the entire time, employ PowerPoint wherever possible. Include important points and a graph and maybe a mind map. If you ever lose track of what you're talking about, you can glance over at the PowerPoint and catch yourself up. I love PowerPoint. I especially love the two capitals in the one word. PowerPoint.
Think about public speaking. Seriously think about it. You are a human, communicating to other humans. Why are you nervous? You've been doing this your entire life. Plus, you have notes. It could be way worse. You could be an alien species trying to communicate with humans and not know any of our languages! The best way, I find, to turn something I am terrified about into something I am definitely not terrified about is to think about it in such detail that it seems totally inane. When I get worked up about finishing my novel and having a career that involves writing novels to the point where I can't actually write, I think to myself, hey, it's just a bunch of words. Public speaking is the same. It's just a bunch of words you're saying to some people to inform them about some stuff. Nothing to be afraid of.

*Before November of 2009, I had only ever done public speaking at primary school. I have anecdote here! To give you an example of my crazy amount of success as a speaker, when I was in grade six I won the Table Topics award when my class did a Toastmasters course. I know you're jealous. Also technically Table Topics meant you had to come up with a speech on the spot, but the lady who led the course - affectionately referred to as 'the Dragon Lady', I don't know why - had me write the speech and it was all pre-arranged. Also there were only sixteen people in my class. Being twelve was good.

10 things I hate about writing novels

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:15:00 +0000

What ends up on the page is usually entirely different from what's in my head. In my head, the novel is perfect. It's beautiful and heart-rending and hilarious and award-winning and sells lots of copies and everybody adores me. And then I write it down and it's an absolute mess. The transition from idea to actual manuscript is a horribly awkward one.
There is no one right way of doing things. So there are a million possibilities, and while sometimes this can be super wonderful, when I'm trying to figure out what makes the most sense for my characters, too many options is an awful thing, especially since there usually isn't one best option.
I have to edit them. A lot. And it takes a long time. This one time, I was working on a revision of a book for five months. Oh no wait, that's happening right now.
Everyone has a different opinion. One person will love it, and another will hate it, and a third will be entirely indifferent. And no one is right. And that's terrible. Because what am I supposed to do? Do I change it or do I not change it and does this character need to be cut and does this plotline work or doesn't it? Can everyone just agree for once, and tell me it's fantastic?
It's very difficult to write logically and systematically. I am a person who likes organisation and simplification and lists and numbers (though I am not super fond of maths, I like to count things). And even if I write an outline and plan neat little two-thousand-word chapters, a first draft becomes a complicated and crazy thing. It's just a whole bunch of words, but it defies organisation.
I am always thinking about it too much. Because a very significant portion of my life is spent writing or editing or talking about writing or blogging about writing or spending time with writer friends, I think about this novelling business quite a bit.And the more I think about writing, the more intimidating it becomes. After all, if I'm dedicating so much time to it, I have to be good at it, and what if I'm not good at it? Maybe I shouldn't write tonight and I should go and watch reality TV instead, and not think about my possible lack of skill. There is always a renovation or singing show on. They really should combine the two. Reno Popstar.
People are always telling me writing novels doesn't count as a real-world job. Oh my gosh, folks, I've been living in a fake world all this time? This isn't even a problem I have with writing novels. This is a problem I have with people devaluing creative pursuits. Writing and painting and dancing and making music can all be jobs, guys! If you tell me writing isn't a real job, that makes me sad.
I am always comparing what I am writing to novels I love. I cringe at everything I write. Hopefully one day I will outgrow this, but I think a lot of other writers do this, too. So I can't tell the difference between good stuff I write and bad stuff I write. And next to books I really, really love, everything I write seems terrible! Maybe I ought to just give it up! Generally I try not to think about my favourite authors and how great they are when I am writing, otherwise it is demoralising.
It is a very isolating thing. There's a lot of sitting around, inside, on your own, isn't there? And even though I know other people find this writing thing challenging, I'm not there with them when they're slaving away on their novels. I just see the finished product, which always seems terribly effortless, and a lot of writers I know seem very sociable and easygoing at parties. And I think, I am the only person in the world who is a lonely weirdo writer! (Obviously this is not true. But sometimes it feels like it.)
The characters always have such exciting lives. I'm jealous. Stuff is always happening for them! Of course I am the person making it happen and they are not real and the things that happen to them aren't real, but still, maybe I want to have an exciting life? Unfortunately this is the real world, and often there are long breaks between exciting things happening to me, during which I have to work and do mundane, real-person stuff.

What I read in March, part two

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:53:00 +0000

The Messenger Bird by Rosanne Hawke

Never before has Tamar felt so alone. Her older brother is dead, her mum's away and her dad's so wrapped up in restoring their ancient farmhouse he avoids talking about the things that really matter.

Even friendly new neighbour Gavin can't get through to her, despite his eager attempts.

When Tamar discovers an old handwritten sheet of music and allows herself to play piano again, she meets gifted violinist Nathaniel who may just hold the key to her future. With no one else to turn to, Tamar is unwittingly drawn into a journey through time and music.

A haunting mystery from award-winning author Rosanne Hawke.

I love books involving time travel. I don't know if I've mentioned this before. What I loved about the time travel aspect of this book was how the characters dealt with it - not in a 'we need to figure this out and go back in time to kill Hitler!' way, but in a 'so this is happening, how interesting, what does this mean?'. Despite this novel being full of incredibly sad events and dark moments, it's really very sweet - Tamar is a beautiful character, and the entire book is very dream-like. Tamar is somewhat disconnected from reality after the loss of her brother, and her relationship with Nathaniel is lovely, despite him being in the wrong timeframe. It has all of the elements that could make it a generic sort of paranormal romance novel, but it's something else entirely. It has dual narrators, but I found a great deal of Gavin's point-of-view chapters unnecessary - he was well-written and very distinct from Tamar's POV, but hers was where the main plot of the story occurred. He did ground the story in our reality well, though. I read Soraya the Storyteller, by the same author, quite a few years ago for school, and remember it being wonderful. The Messenger Bird is really quite glorious.

I'll Tell You Mine by Pip Harry
Kate Elliot isn't trying to fit in.

Everything about her – especially her goth make-up and clothes – screams different and the girls at her school keep their distance. Besides, how can Kate be herself, really herself, when she's hiding her big secret? The one that landed her in boarding school in the first place. She's buried it down deep but it always seems to surface.

But then sometimes new friends, and even love, can find you when you least expect it.

So how do you take that first step and reveal yourself when you're not sure that people want to see the real you?

When I started reading I'll Tell You Mine, I was under the impression it was for a younger YA audience, and I am not exactly sure why - I think it may have been the vagueness of the blurb, and the fact that the protagonist is 15. It turns out I was wrong. I think this is more of a 14+ YA (though really, nothing so bad a mature but younger reader couldn't pick it up). It's nowhere near as generic as the blurb may suggest - there was a realness to the book, and to Kate, that made the traditional-YA-plotline (rebellious girl goes to boarding school, finds self, friends, love) into a brilliant novel. The rebelliousness of Kate seemed so genuine, I felt that it could have been written by someone going through teenagerdom right now (this is a compliment! I think teenagers can write well about being teenagers! As can adults who think the teenage experience is a legitimately challenging thing, and can relate to it, still). The mystery of the 'big secret' wasn't what kept me reading - it was the wonderful but unpretentious writing, and how easy the protagonist was to relate to (speaking as the least rebellious person in the history of the universe). Kate's relationship with her parents was perfectly done, as were her various romantic pursuits - no false perfection here. The Melbourne setting - and her trip to the country - were familiar and well-captured. There was an honesty and rawness to the novel which I loved. I can think of so many teenage girls I know who would enjoy this.

A New Kind Of Dreaming by Anthony Eaton

When the court sent Jamie Riley to Port Barren, he hadn't expected much – thought he'd just serve his time and get out. He hadn't counted on being drawn into the town's murky past, into a web of secrets, lies and murder which might well cost him much more than just his freedom.

This is the story of a boy's journey to reveal a buried secret, and of a town too scared of its past to face its future.

It's a story for anyone who dreams . . .

A New Kind of Dreaming was originally published in 2001, and recently re-released. Sometimes I find with YA novels that are ten or twenty years old, they can be appreciated for the time they were published, but they don't really measure up to modern expectations. This definitely wasn't the case with A New Kind of Dreaming - it was terrifying and original. Only one thing really dates the novel - the absence of mobile phones, which could really help out the protagonist at various points in the novel (about 90% of problems in novels can be solved with a phone call or a text, I've noticed. It makes writing books these days difficult, but real life a lot easier). The plotline involving asylum seekers especially was heartbreaking. Jamie's consistent poor decision-making was incredibly frustrating (why are you not going to the police, gosh! I frequently wondered. To be fair, one particular police officer was kind of untrustworthy.) - even though it's consistent with his characterisation. All of the characters were wonderfully drawn, the setting was desolate and creepy and all kinds of great. If you're looking for a read that's scary and suspenseful and very, very real, this is it.

This is your permission to fail

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 10:57:00 +0000

Sometimes people email me, or comment somewhere on this blog, and they are asking for advice. Usually they are young folks who are inclined towards writing but they are worried that they are not particularly good at it. I would love to be an old wise person who knows everything, but most of the time with writing I feel like I am about as good at it as I am at assembling Ikea furniture. Without instructions. In the dark. Underwater.

See what I mean? I'm not even good at metaphors. (And I consider writing to be one of the things I'm better at in life. You should see me try and operate a washing machine. I have a long and storied history of mixing darks and colours, and ruining all the clothes.) So I do not feel I am in a position to be doling out advice. (I give advice anyway. My main tips for life are: 1. be respectful towards everybody, 2. avoid scumbags, 3. have fun.)

And here is the real and awful truth about writing (and probably about other things, too, but I've been alive for all of five minutes and I've been focusing on this, mainly. Maybe next year I'll take up dance): beyond the basics, advice is not going to take you very far.

The state of fear and unknowing about your own skills is likely something that will only lessen slightly with age and practice (unless you are arrogant, in which case I wish I were you!). But that is what makes it magical when everything goes right, and you recognise something that you have written as great, or someone else does. Someone who perhaps has the power to share it with other people.

Every now and then someone comments on this post, from two years ago. Recently, I got a comment, asking Should I work so hard just to possibly fail? You know, the sort of doubts that are always creeping in when you are writing. (I imagine all writers are like this.)

I ramble a bit, but this is what this post is really about: Failure. And failure as a writer.

Sometimes I see advice from writers saying: don't write a novel! You'll fail and get all disenchanted and never write again! Instead write short stories!

The problem with this is two-fold:
1. It reflects the writer's personal experience, as all advice does. Everybody is different, everybody writes differently. (You have to be very selective when you are reading advice. I think mostly people just write advice to their younger selves, even if they don't know it.)
2. You can't ever really, truly fail when you're writing. You can write things that will never be published. You can write things that are just plain bad. You can invest hundreds or thousands of hours in a novel that never gets anywhere. But that's hundreds or thousands of hours you've spent getting better at writing. Hopefully some of that you enjoyed. Hopefully there are things you will bring to the next novel you write.*

So here's this: Go ahead. Write a novel. Wouldn't you much rather start writing today than not, and wonder in one or five or ten years what might have become of that novel? If your novel is terrible, you don't really lose anything - you've spent time developing your ideas, or expressing yourself, or whatever else. Maybe you've enjoyed parts, and shared them with your friends. Everyone looks back on their teenage poetry and cringes but for a lot of people, I think it was really important to them at the time.

Be willing to fail. You don't really gain very much in life by holding back because you're afraid you'll fail. You don't give yourself opportunities to succeed. And writing is the sort of thing you learn by actually doing it - all of the advice on grammar and adverbs in the world will not make you brilliant. If you decide to write for the rest of your life, or try and make a career of it, you'll always be uncertain, and self-doubting, but hopefully the consistency with which you produce good work improves. People never really start out brilliant. It takes time.

But you have to start, really, and keep going. Write about whatever you want, and be willing to fail. Really, it's a very safe world to muck up in, the one on the page. (If you were considering taking up tightrope-walking or shark-baiting or something, I would not be encouraging failure.)

*And hell, I'm bad at writing short stories. I ramble. It's bad. Also all of the endings are, 'it was all a dream!' I try to do that with full-length novels, too.

Magical portals, giant otters, tortured young artists & other things I think about at 3a.m.

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:00:00 +0000

When I am up at three in the morning, I have a lot of thoughts that seem very profound and meaningful. I am sure a lot of people have these sorts of thoughts. I wonder what they did with them before the invention of this magical thing called the internet? Think of all the wise words (and by wise I mean incoherent) lost forever! Thankfully, we are living in 2012, and even though I don't document very much of my actual life on Facebook (I find those 'so-and-so is at this place, come get me stalkers!' things to be incredibly creepy), I do share a lot of weird things I think about.

If I ever get amnesia, and forget entirely who I am, I hope that my various web ramblings will help Amnesiac Steph to conclude that she is awesome.

This is 2009 Steph Bowe:

She is so cool she wears sunglasses inside, possibly at night, and a tiara with foam letters that announce her profession. Also, I think I may have originally posted this on Myspace (I must've: visible arm self-portaiture belongs nowhere else). Imagine her reading these statuses to you.

In reverse chronological order, some highlights (usually dreams and thoughts that seemed very meaningful at the time) from the last three years:

Every time I hear a strange noise in the house, I look around for something I could use as a weapon. Then I imagine the headlines. "Tortured young artist bludgeons burglar with $4 keyboard from Woolies." Need to find a better weapon.

--

I have many elaborate plans for when I am eighty. I have been respectful and made good decisions and worked hard so far, and plan to continue this way for most of my life, but when I am elderly I am going to become really obnoxious to make up for never being a foolish youth. I am going to get horrible tattoos, and start fights, and leave the water running while I brush my teeth, and possibly become a fascist dictator. It's going to be great. Only sixty one years and ten months to go.

--

Had someone consulted me before I started existing I would've asked to be a giant otter or a panda or possibly a very big dinosaur. But no one asked and I'm a human, and human existence is terribly lame compared to giant otter/panda/dinosaur existence. I would've been the greatest giant otter. So much unfulfilled potential.

--

I need a clone to answer email, and a clone to do schoolwork, and a clone to do speaking gigs, and a clone to write books, and a clone to edit books, and a clone to read books and tell me about them, and a clone to clean, and a clone to make me a cup of tea. And I will sleep, and occasionally watch videos of kitties being cute on YouTube. Of course the clones will all eventually turn against me and become Evil Stephs and take over the world, but during the brief period that they behave themselves, it'll be fairly glorious. For me at least. And it's okay, the Evil Stephs will be benevolent rulers. Or they might not be. You just can't tell with evil clones.

--

Life's too short to complain about Facebook. Life's too short for Facebook entirely. Life's too short for anything but affirming how short life is. (Oh god, I've spent thirty seconds updating this unnecessarily. Half a minute closer to death. I'm going to carpe diem the hell out of tomorrow. CARPE DIEM.)

--

On this day in 2010, my status was "When I'm meant to be doing other, important stuff, I get on Facebook and look at everybody's photos and imagine what it's like to be them. Because I find there's a massive disconnect between the way people see me and the way I feel about myself, and I wonder if that's true of other people." Oh Steph Bowe, you never change.

--

Dreamt last night I could travel into the future through a magical cardboard box. I appeared in someone's apartment, but she was very good about it and let me stay. The future was very much like the present, except television was worse and everyone was very thin. I regretted I had only travelled ten years into the future instead of twenty, because everyone looked pretty much the same.

--

I would very much like to hibernate through the entirety of winter. Life would be so much easier if I were a bear. I wouldn't have to worry about heating then. Or schoolwork. And I feel humans would be very impressed if I were a bear that wrote books. And if they didn't like me I would eat them.

--

So apparently people who have Ned Kelly tattoos are 7.7 times more likely to be murdered than people who don't. Do you think this would apply to tattoos inspired by violent fictional characters, too? I mean, if I get 'Pity' and 'Fool' tattooed on my knuckles, will this affect the likelihood of me being a bad-ass?

--

I dreamt the other night that I travelled to the future through a magical water portal. I was swimming, and a crappy 80s synth band played by the pool, and then I was in a motel room in the future. My parents who were not my parents had died in a bizarre industrial garbage disposal accident orchestrated by evil baddies. Some very suspicious government people needed my genes for the survival of the human race, and they wanted me to do something horrible but I'm not sure what it was. I agreed, because I wanted them to send me back to the past, because the future was that awful. Pretty weird.

--

I've discovered one of my old notebooks. Interesting question written inside: 'When animals are cryogenically frozen and then brought back to life, where does their soul go in between? Does the same soul inhabit the body when the animal is reanimated?'

--

Does anyone else worry they'll get a papercut on their tongue while they're licking envelopes?

--

So, Snuggies versus Doona suits? Which is better? (Not because I'm going to buy one, I just want to know your thoughts.) I'm thinking doona suits are more practical, but Snuggies can double as Halloween costumes if you want to be a funky grim reaper or something. Or if you're in a cult. It's menacing AND cosy.

--

I dreamt last night that I was in a botanical gardens/outdoor shopping centre type place, and my family were getting dental work done, and there was a sort of masquerade ball going on which I wasn't allowed into. So I was out on the lawn with all these characters from Harry Potter having magical duels. And then I went for a stroll with a guy called Thom Yorke (but it wasn't Thom Yorke of Radiohead), and he had an umbrella, despite it being night-time and not raining. We had an enlightening conversation about Julian Assange and realities not measuring up to expectations. He looked like somebody I knew, but I think it was somebody dream-me knew rather than real-me, so it must be somebody who isn't real.

--

I like to put iTunes on shuffle and flashback to all my awful musical tastes back when I was twelve. Like the first CD I bought with my own money being the Justin Timberlake one with Sexyback on it (it was THE song of 2006, okay?). And singing that Panic at the Disco song very loudly at discos. And obsessively listening to that Teddy Geiger song. And being morally opposed to My Humps and everybody else loving it. And of course flashing back to my awful musical tastes makes me flash back to my awful dress sense - always wearing fluoro board shorts under my school dress and my horrific fringe and wearing my Paris Hilton sunglasses constantly for the entirety of (I think) term two.

--

I think if I wasn't me, I'd have a strange and impossible crush on me purely for my adorable weirdness. But I'd never ask myself out. It'd be an admire-from-afar-and-never-let-anyone-know-you're-crushing sort of crush. Which is clearly the worst kind of crush.

--

Every time I go for a walk and smile at everybody and say hello, no one ever replies or even looks at me. I have come to the conclusion that I have either a) died, totally unbeknowst to me, and am now a spirit sticking around because of unfinished business and with access to Facebook or b) do not exist and am just a figment of your imagination with access to Facebook.

--

I like to go through people's Facebook photos and wonder what their lives are like. I get this funny sort of nostalgia about the memories they have there, which is weird because they aren't my memories. But it makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. Thank God I'm a writer and have being an artist as an excuse. Otherwise I'd just be creepy.

--

And these are not exactly profound thoughts, but I like them (there are actually some good things about oversharing on the internet, like being able to remember little things like these):

Just got an email from my Grade Six teacher, who read my book and loved it. Legit, you guys, Mr Wilson thought my book was excellent.

--

The ladies at the post office all oohed and ahhed over my book and it's sparkly cover. Just fyi, the ladies at the post office think I'm cool.

--

I'm so hardcore I have a hot chocolate withdrawal headache.

10 Things that baffle me about YA paranormal romance books

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 07:41:00 +0000

Why is the male love interest always hundreds of years old but looks seventeen? I think that's wrong. I think it would be less wrong if the love interest was seventeen but looked one hundred. No one will ever write a book like that.
Why is the love of supernatural creatures always so profound? Can supernatural creatures ever just casually hook up with folks? I mean, I get that it's a romance book, but it doesn't always have to be true love forever and ever, does it? Maybe it does, I don't know.
This is in wider YA romance as well: why do all of the male love interests have eyelashes like a girl's? This comes up in every vague romance book I read. Is this a sign of ultimate hotness? 'Eyelashes like a girl's' is not a good descriptor, because I am sure there are females who have short eyelashes. Sure of it.
Why does everyone always have such special eyes? They're always impossibly blue or green or purple or silver or I don't know, something impossible. No one ever just has normal brown eyes that stay the same irrespective of their mood/whether they are hungry for human flesh.
Why is there always a protagonist who is all 'oh my gosh I'm so skinny and unattractive!' when, you know, the character is supposed to live in the modern Western world, where skinny is a body type that the media is pretty consistently urging young women towards? It's odd.
Why is there always a busty best friend? Busty is not a personality trait.
Why is it okay for the supernatural creatures to be incredibly creepy and stalkery and possessive and physically attack the protagonist? And then it's romantic? I think I'm overitalicising here. I used to overuse semi-colons, and then it was em-dashes, and now it's italicisation. But this is a serious issue.
Why is the female protagonist always Caucasian? All of the book covers have these pale, pensive-looking, dark-haired girls on them. Are these books solely being written by Caucasian people? Do all book cover designers think that supernatural creatures have a special love for pasty brunettes? Do these covers equal good sales or do all YA paranormal romance writers imagine their characters look like Kristen Stewart? How uninventive, guys.
How do the families of these characters manage to keep their angel/faery/werewolf ancestry secret from the protagonist until they're sixteen/undergo their transformation/get kidnapped? I would so know if my mother was secretly descended from a supernatural beastie that I was going to turn into at the age of seventeen. They have ancestry.com now. They could easily find these things out.
Why are the various groups of supernatural creatures always at war with each other or off trying to find their true loves? Why don't they all team up, stop seducing underage humans, and take over planet earth from these fools? Because that's what I'd do.

On the axing of the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards & the questionable values of the Queensland Premier

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:30:00 +0000

Four months ago, I moved to the state of Queensland. Two months ago, I turned eighteen. Three weeks ago (early, because I was to be away on holidays on polling day), I voted for the first time, in a state election. The Liberal National Party were voted in with a massive majority, with Campbell Newman as their great leader (he reminds me, so much, of Tony Abbott, who I am not fond of).

Ten days later, despite promising in the election campaign to preserve arts and culture, the Newman government made the decision to cancel the Queensland Premiers Literary Awards. Just get rid of them entirely. Without consulting anyone. In the name of controlling government spending and returning the budget to surplus.

Now, I care about the economy. I care about the great folk of Queensland, and the families, and the seniors, and the tradies, and the children, and the battlers, and the miners, and all of the other people that Campbell promised he would look after. (He was going to look after everybody, except the singles and the lefties I think.) I think a crazy amount of taxpayer money is wasted. But I'm not resentful about paying taxes - I live in a wonderful country! I want to make it better! I am all idealism and rainbows!

But really? The state government will save $240,000. This is an absolutely inconsequential amount of money in terms of the state's debt (I've linked below to articles with more exact figures). What the LNP have proven is that they don't actually value the arts. This doesn't disappoint me as a writer - I don't think about winning awards at all, there are plenty of other things I can get disappointed about, clearly - as much as it disappoints me as a reader and as someone who enjoys being part of a rich artistic community and as a resident of Queensland.

This is what I'd like: to live in a state I'm proud of. Maybe it's too much to ask that Queensland not totally screw up its environment (coal seam gas and mining and all that business). There's too much money and too many jobs tied up in that for me to even dream of a more environmentally conscious Queensland government. But it doesn't require a lot of money or effort on the part of Queensland to encourage us out of being a cultural backwater. And guess what? There are jobs in fields of writing and editing and publishing too! There are economic benefits to our existence! Maybe not as much economic benefit as an A-league soccer team or a mine can provide, but stories are such an integral part of the human existence. Stories define who we are in a way that elite sports cannot. To have so little regard for Queensland as a creative state as to scrap the state awards to save small change - it's incredibly disappointing.

The thing that really, really worries me, though, is what if most Queenslanders are with Campbell on this? I mean, people voted for this man, so obviously their values really don't line up with mine. I've met a lot of Queenslanders. And I am terribly afraid that the people who value arts and culture and stories and ideas and writers are perhaps the minority. I'm concerned that most of the Queenslanders I know view the loss of these awards in a very simplistic manner: of only being of benefit to the writers that win them, rather than to Queensland culture on the whole. The idea of living somewhere that creative fields are so lowly regarded - it's depressing. What next? Censorship? Book burnings?

Of course, it's politics. We live in a capitalist society. Arts and culture and stories will always lose out to cash money, especially when a conservative government is in power. I think maybe I should just get a slab of four-x and a job in the mines and be done with it.

There's a petition you can sign, if you like. Further reading, because other people have put it better than I have: excellent pieces by James Roy, Nick Earls,on The Australian, Meanjin and by Stuart Glover. That is a tiny selection. You should read a lot more and then write a letter to Campbell.

What I read in March, part one

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Queen of the Night by Leanne Hall

I adored This Is Shyness (reviewed here), and have been looking forward to this immensely. I expected great things, which usually results in disappointment - but not this time. The entire time I was reading this, I was imagining it as an awesome graphic-novel-styled film - the setting is so ridiculously brilliant, and Shyness becomes even more magical in the sequel - the cardboard forest! the Queen of the Night's manor! the velodrome! I would very much like to steal all of Leanne Hall's wonderful ideas (when I finished reading I was very sad to have to return to the real world). So much inventiveness! Often I stay away from sequels and series, because the way each novel relies on each other means it isn't as conclusive and whole a reading experience as a standalone novel, but Queen of the Night works perfectly on its own, and (dare I say this!) is perhaps even better than This Is Shyness. It starts slow, but it gets brilliant as it progresses. There are scenes near the end that are everything I wanted Inception to be. Former Kidd, Blake, is my favourite character - she's smart and sweet. The hellcats seem awesome (so little detail!). I sincerely hope there is another book coming. The Doctor and the Gentleman have to have a showdown or something. I can't believe this hasn't been turned into a movie or graphic novel yet (or at the very least a three-part miniseries!). You would be very wise to check it out. I didn't even talk about the plot there, did I? You don't really need to know about it. Just go get the book.

One Long Thread by Belinda Jeffrey

The publisher's blurb sums this up very succinctly: When divorce rips Ruby Moon's family apart and tragedy traps her twin, Sally, in a cocoon from which she might never escape, Ruby learns that love is never simple. A beautifully written and very much character-driven story. My favourite scenes involved Ruby's grandmother, Pearl, who is my absolute favourite character - she lives in Tonga and makes silk and is very relaxed about everything. The opening chapter of the novel (which I so wish was somewhere on the internet so I could share it with you!) is gorgeously written, and extraordinarily sad. I did find the romance somewhat unnecessary - perhaps there is a rule I'm not aware of that all YA novels must have romance? But the familial relationships are dealt with in a very realistic manner. What this novel lacks in plot it makes up for in wonderful writing. Ruby is endearing and gorgeous, and your heart breaks for her.

Bunheads by Sophie Flack

Moving beyond the very unfortunate title, this is a lovely little book. Slow-paced and character-driven, it centres around Hannah Ward, a 19-year-old dancer with an elite ballet company. She begins to question her dedication when she meets a quirky university musician type and thinks about having an actual life. Reading about the author, it's apparent that it's highly autobiographical, and the detail about life as a professional dancer is really what brings the most interest to the story (their hatred of the Nutcracker, for example, and the obsessive exercise, and the competitiveness, all very convincing). How self-centred the protagonist is becomes a little tiring, and the extra romance is pretty much superfluous, but it's sweet and engaging all the same. I'd recommend this to dancers and those interested in dance, and perhaps if you are just looking for a nice, easy contemp YA read. It pales in comparison to the previous two novels, but it's also not emotionally draining in the way that devastatingly good novels are. Which you need in a book sometimes.

Quotes for Writers, part four

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

"‘One thing that always worried me,’ she said slowly, smiling at Warren, ‘there is so much in the world to read, so much to learn, if you once got seriously started how could you stop?’"
- Joyce Carol Oates

"Don’t cast sidelong glances, and compare yourself to others among your peers! (Writing is not a race. No one really “wins.” The satisfaction is in the effort, and rarely in the consequent rewards, if there are any.)"
- Joyce Carol Oates

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
- Sylvia Plath

"If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write."
- Stephen King

"One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment."
- Hart Crane

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any."
- Orson Scott Card

"What writing practice, like Zen practice does, is bring you back to the natural state of mind…The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial."
– Natalie Goldberg

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a
built-in shockproof shit-detector."
- Ernest Hemingway

"There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment."
- Anonymous

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed."
- Ernest Hemingway’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, read by John C. Cabot (United States Ambassador) December 10th, 1954

"The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand."
- Wislawa Szymborska, The joy of writing

"Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing. It’s the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors."
- Rhys Alexander

Originally posted here two years ago. Photos collected from Tumblr and We Heart It, sources since lost (if you know any original sources, let me know).

Eighteen things I have learnt about writing & life in eighteen years

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 13:45:00 +0000

In the grand scheme of your life, numbers are never as important as people make them out to be (your marks in high school, for example). Numbers like how much you weigh are totally irrelevant.
External circumstance will not bring you self-confidence or happiness, no matter how many people tell you how brilliant you are.
The process is just as enjoyable as the result.
Most people are fairly indifferent to you. This isn't a bad thing. You can live your life however you like, and most people won't mind.
The most important thing in writing is to write what excites you, what you are passionate about, what you would love to read, and to enjoy it. Publication only complicates this.
Everyone has a different perspective, and everyone has stories only they can tell.
There are a lot of good and kind people in the world who want to support you and see you succeed, and these are the people to spend time with and focus on, rather than trying to change the minds of your detractors.
Maybe creating something that will outlive you is not the purpose of life. Maybe just enjoying life and being a good person is.
A supportive and loving and fun family is the best thing anyone could wish for.
Getting enough sleep is very important.
It isn't hard to be nice and make life easier for other people. Smiling requires a minimum of effort but makes you feel a lot better.
Public speaking is really not that hard or terrifying.
Being judgemental doesn't get you anywhere.
The internet can be a wonderful thing, in small doses. The physical world is even better.
Writing is maybe not the single greatest profession in the universe (dance and music and curing disease and lifesaving are all pretty wonderful), but it's a pretty special one. Words have a lot of power. Fan mail is the greatest.
There are always a lot of things to be grateful for, even when the current task seems insurmountable.
There is no one proper way to live life, and no matter what you do you will be missing out on something. There are infinite possibilities and opportunities available to you, and it's not necessary to conform and live the way everyone else seems to live if you don't want to.
Kindness and respect and compassion (for everyone and everything) will always be more important than success and money and book smarts. Sometimes I lose track of that.

(Feel free to share your own writing/life lessons, or a list of your own - one thing for each year of life! Unless you are about eighty in which case feel free to cut that down a bit.)

Quotes for Writers, part three

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."
- Ray Bradbury

"Readers, after all, are making the world with you. You give them the materials, but it’s the readers who build that world in their own minds."
- Ursula Le Guin

"For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die."
- Anne Lamott

"The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That’s the only lasting thing you can create."
- Chuck Palahniuk

"You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we’re doing it."
- Neil Gaiman

"Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes the day happier."
- Kathleen Norris

"If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it."
- Anais Nin

"The best decoration in the world is a roomful of books."
- Billy Baldwin

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something – anything – down on paper. What I’ve learned to do when I sit down to work on a shitty first draft is to quiet the voices in my head"
- Anne Lamott

"Finally, one just has to shut up, sit down, and write."
- Natalie Goldberg

Originally posted here two years ago. Photos collected from Tumblr and We Heart It, sources since lost (if you know any original sources, let me know).

If real life were a YA paranormal romance novel...

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

You would only ever have to go to school if it were important to the plot. Basically, whenever you were in class, a meeting with an amazingly attractive paranormal beast (a half vampire half angel, perhaps) would be inevitable. Of course you would still get excellent marks despite never studying.
Everyone would be gorgeous! Super attractive! Not just you, the beautiful yet intelligent hero of the story, and your mythological love interest, but everyone else, too. There would not be a single person alive without glowing skin and excessively long eyelashes and great manes of shiny hair.
You would be in a love triangle. Perhaps even a love quadrangle. You wouldn't be able to walk down the street without a half a dozen people and werewolves falling in love with you. You would of course find this very annoying.
You would have a Quirky Best Friend whom is always there for you despite you frequently ditching them to hang out with Sparkly Vampire Man. Quirky Best Friend may or may not later turn out to be an Evil Beastie.
Life would be pretty consistently thrilling. All the time you would be going to dangerous places and being saved in the nick of time by the love of your life. Which, by the way, you're probably going to meet the love of your life when you're sixteen or seventeen. And they'll probably have all sorts of super powers but you won't be able to be together because you're just too different! (Don't worry! It'll work out! This is a novel! It must have a happy ending.)
Every crush you think is unrequited would definitely be requited. Unless you are a secondary character who is a mere mortal (or Quirky Best Friend) in love with the stunningly beautiful protagonist, in which case you've got no hope. Sorry. Maybe you should try an Indie Romantic Comedy. Might have better luck there.
Everyone would always be declaring their undying love for everyone else! All the time! After a week of knowing them!
Almost everyone would secretly be a mythological creature. They'd have special systems for keeping their vampirism and so forth from being revealed to their human neighbours. Like coffins in the basement, and breeding rabbits for food. They're ethical vampires, of course. But not that ethical. I mean, really. Bunnies! Those poor little bunnies.
If you were a human being who couldn't fly, or didn't have super strength, or the ability to teleport, and you didn't hunger for human flesh or blood or brains, then you'd probably be in the minority. Luckily you'd have plenty of super-powered friends to fly you around and protect you from the Evil Baddies who hunger for your brains.

Pretty much, we need to figure out a way of transporting ourselves into a paranormal romance novel. It'll be awesome! Though probably a bit dangerous if we aren't main characters...

(Originally, this was a guest post for the brilliant Brisbane City Council Libraries' website, ibrary.)

Various TV shows I am obsessed with, namely The X-Files

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

When I'm ~~procrastinating~~ taking a break from rewriting/writing/researching furthering my education/employment opportunities, I find watching TV shows on DVD to be a bit more relaxing lately than reading a book. This is mainly because really good books make me sad, because I wish I had written them or were the sort of genius person that could write similarly, and books that are lame or mediocre annoy me because why did I waste an afternoon reading that? Whereas I watch a ridiculous TV show (and they have to be on DVD because 1. I can't stand ads; and 2. I can't stand not having resolutions to cliffhangers immediately), and an episode takes about 40 minutes and they don't generally make me feel like an inferior writer.

Also, I pretend that technically everything counts as working, because life is inspiration for writing! Watching TV is giving me ideas! I am becoming a better writer by the minute, and I don't even have to write. (I am very good at rationalising.) I have previously stated I am not a fangirl, so perhaps obsessed isn't the right word in this instance. However, in terms of sheer ridiculousness (which is my favourite of all things), The X-Files is a most excellent series. Also, it's finished, which means no annoying wait for the next season to come out.

This is why I like it: aliens! hello! Also bad 90s & early 2000s clothing, melodramatic acting, the continual use of 'the government covered it up' in the place of a conclusive ending, and it becoming steadily more unbelievable as it progressed. I have a top ten and everything (Bad Blood, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space', Humbug, Field Trip, Dreamland, Dreamland II, Hungry, X-Cops, Hollywood AD - all of the humorous ones). There's another episode which does not make the top ten, because I don't really like it, but it has a concept I do like - Milagro, wherein a writer's character comes to life (this is terribly spoileriffic - the character is also a killer. If my characters came to life, they'd all sit around and angst and be quirky and become quite irritating after a time, but they certainly wouldn't kill anybody).

Other shows I like: Supernatural (makes me want to write stories about demons and beasties and so forth!), True Blood (again, ridiculousness, I love it), Arrested Development, Chuck. This is a condensed list. Also I am in the middle of Kolchak: The Night Stalker which is a ridiculous 1970s series about a reporter hunting the supernatural. The supernatural is usually just a guy dressed up as a werewolf or a vampire or a zombie, throwing people around. It's great, as you can imagine.

I should really go work on my novel. Tell me what TV shows I should watch next! (Also, tell me you love the ridiculousness of The X-Files, too. The Smoking Man: best character ever. But not really.)

7 Things I Love About Novels

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Everything happens for a reason. In the real world, everything seems pretty random, and a lot of weird pointless stuff happens, and a lot of boring pointless stuff happens. Whereas, in a novel, someone having a weird name is probably vital to the plot! instead of just being an interesting, random thing. Everything is very intentional and well thought-out in a good book. A lot of stuff is just happening all the time in reality, and it takes a lot of effort to figure out what the important bits are - in a book, it's spelt out for you.
There are no inane conversations. This is how I can tell I am not just a character in a novel - 90% of my interactions with other people are the same thing over and over: talking about the weather, talking about how I'm struggling with my book, talking about the current political situation and how the family is and the economic climate. None of these things would come up in a novel! They're not moving the plot forward! Unless I am trapped in a very poorly-written and self-indulgent novel about being angsty and eighteen and having the same conversations over and over again, like it's Groundhog Day.
You can see inside other people's heads. Everyone thinks it would be cool to be able to swap bodies with or shapeshift into another person. I would much prefer to try out how another person thinks and feels and their skills than take on how they look (though that would be very interesting, too). Unfortunately, in the real world, I can't do this. Books are about as close as I'll get.
Boring things can be skipped over. Studying, for instance. Or writing. Always in stories (and films and TV, too) writers spend very little time actually writing, and a lot of time going on wacky adventures and partying and having everyone fall hopelessly and irrevocably in love with them. Why can't this be the real world? Why? Sadly I am not fictional and have to do actual work sometimes.
Reading them helps me get better at writing them. Well, at least I hope they do. Sometimes I can hardly bear to read really brilliant novels, because then I get all sad that I'm not that writer and I don't have their brilliant writing skills and way of seeing the world. But I think every time I read something, be it a brilliant book or a terrible one, I'm figuring out the things that do and don't work in a book, and then incorporating or avoiding them later on, even if it's on a subconscious level.
An opportunity to connect with other people. When I first started blogging, I thought it was the single greatest thing ever - I could talk to the authors of the books I adored! I could discuss these books at length with other infatuated readers! I would no longer irritate my non-reading friends and family member with my endless chatter! I have found that if I think a book is awesome, I tend to think the writer is awesome too (my judgement may be slightly clouded). Even though it's just a bunch of words on a bunch of pages, a novel is a highly personal thing for the writer (generally speaking), and it's pretty amazing the influence a novel can have over readers (think book-inspired tattoos - that's commitment).
Novels are a wonderful holiday. I do like reality. You can touch and smell and taste things. That's pretty good. But when the real world is overwhelming and terrifying (I find having a consciousness to be a pretty scary thing. I'm going to be dead one day, guys! What happens then? I don't know!), or even when it's a bit boring, a wonderful book is a very absorbing escape for an afternoon. And very low-priced, considering how powerful they are.

What are your favourite things about novels? Reality-escaping? Non-stop action? Educational possibilities?

Quotes for Writers, part two

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

"Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter."
- Neil Gaiman

"No writing is a waste of time – no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good."
- Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit

"I attempted briefly to consecrate myself in the public library, believing every crack in my soul could be chinked with a book."
- Barbara Kingsolver

"I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Locked Rooms and Open Doors (1974)

"‘Write about what you know’ is tricky advice. If I’d followed it, I would never have written 11 books about European vampires, or books about a bewitched family of psychic people. I say ‘Write what you want to write. Write the book you want to read. Write what delights you.’"
- Anne Rice

"Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?….We still and always want waking."
- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (Harper, 1990), 72-3.

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"
- Henry Ward Beecher

"There’s something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you."
- Miss Potter, 2006

"At one magical instant in your early childhood, the page of a book—that string of confused, alien ciphers—shivered into meaning. Words spoke to you, gave up their secrets; at that moment, whole universes opened. You became, irrevocably, a reader."
- Alberto Manguel

"At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance—that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be—curiosity—to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don’t think the talent makes much difference, whether you’ve got it or not."
- William Faulkner

Originally posted here two years ago. Photos collected from Tumblr and We Heart It, sources since lost (if you know any original sources, let me know).

Teaser Tuesday: Stranger Things Have Happened

noreply@blogger.com (Steph Bowe) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Once I wrote fifteen thousand words of a novel over the course of a few days because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. This was a few months back, and I haven't written a word of it since, mainly due to 1) time limitations (I do have a novel I am supposed to rewrite) and 2) There is a huge gap between where I stopped writing the story and how I think it will end, and I have no idea what to put in between. Perhaps it will work better as a shorter story.

Here is an excerpt! It's written from the perspective of a girl called Andy. She's very organised, particular and logical. She catalogues her entire life. She's an aspiring scientist. She's a big fan of rationality and predictability. Her grandmother is her closest friend, and her exact opposite (crazy and fun and unpredictable), and the novel begins with her funeral, and occurs over a span of an exceptionally weird 24 hours in Andy's life. If I keep working on this I will come up with a better title. Tell me what you think.

--

How strange to make up someone’s face and dress them in their best clothes when no one will ever look at them again. Perhaps this is just a tradition left over from ancient times, like the Egyptian kings and queens thinking that all the treasures in their tombs would go with them to the afterlife. Maybe in the future, when everyone in our society advances to the level I am pretty sure I have evolved to now, we will be a bit more realistic and bury human bodies under crops or something, because I hear they are a very good natural fertiliser. I would not mind eating food that has been fertilised by people who are already deceased, or people eating food fertilised by my corpse. As long as no one was specifically killed for fertiliser and no one ate a stray limb, I feel it would be fairly all right and a lot more sensible than what we are doing currently.

‘I want to be a cremated so I can’t come back as a zombie,’ Grandma told me once.

‘Cremation is terrible for the environment, worse than burying people. It causes a lot of pollution,’ I told her. ‘And also urns are a bit creepy. I always see in movies that people accidentally eat the ashes or something. Apparently it’s common.’

‘I’ll be dead! I won’t care about the environment. I don’t care a whole lot now, to be terribly un-PC. I’ll be cremated and you can paint me into a portrait of myself.’ She tilted her chin up and placed a hand underneath, gazing up at the wall clock of our kitchen thoughtfully. ‘Make me look like a fascist dictator, would you?’

‘That’s even creepier and I can’t paint.’

‘You’ve got plenty of time to learn. Miserable people live forever – you’re stuck with me until I’m at least a hundred.’

I don’t know whether or not Grandma was serious about this, but she didn’t have anything in her will about it, so Mum is burying her and having a big church ceremony. The part where everyone gets drunk at the wake in an RSL is probably the only part Grandma would actually agree with and, if she were here, enjoy.

Of course I have a will and very detailed wishes, kept in my filing cabinet, but I cannot legally file them until I am eighteen. If I die between now and then, everything goes to my mother and she will probably bury my body in a casket like she has done with Grandma, and that is not very environmentally sustainable, is it? Eventually we’ll run out of places to bury people and wood to build coffins.

Grandma did not live that long, by the way. Grandma lived to seventy. This is statistically significantly lower than the average lifespan of a woman in this country. That is four times the age I am now. Grandma could have had a quarter life crisis when she was my age. Sometimes I am thinking I am having a quarter life crisis or a fifth life crisis, and then I remember that I feel like this all the time, and I probably felt as if I was having a fourteenth life crisis when I was five. I don’t think I knew a lot of fractions then, though, as bright as I was.

Grandma is looking at me from the cover of the pamphlet in my hand. I gave this photo to the funeral director. It is her face and shoulders cropped out of a group photo – she hated being photographed, we do not have a single photo of her on her own – and she is smiling and shiny-eyed and it’s a nice photo and I think that is the photo she’d pick, if she were here. I have a photo album on my computer labelled ‘Photos to use in the event of my disappearance or death for print materials and other paraphernalia’ to avoid Mum having to go through the difficult selection process while grieving or searching for me. Someone will have to know my password in order to get onto the computer, though, and they will also have to know to go to the right subfolder. I have to put these instructions in my will.

This is the logic I am using: If I am prepared, this will not happen to me. Bad things always happen to people who think that bad things will never happen to them. If I think that bad things will happen to me and am always prepared for every negative outcome, bad things won’t happen. This is not science but I wish it was because then I would be invincible. Unfortunately, the universe does not work this way.

Inside the pamphlet, there are the hymns, there are the prayers, there’s my name. We’re most of the way through. I focus on little blocks of time, always, to keep going. If I think of everything at once – my whole life, or two hours of Grandma’s funeral – it’s too big. I like this schedule. Five minute reading, ten minute speech. Funerals have an order that death does not have, like it’s trying to make up for it. I don’t even need this. I got my closure the other day. I have seen Grandma dead, and I have known her my whole life, and I am much better at remembering her on my own. I am trying to be present in this moment but there are too many thoughts in my head. Grandma would whisper, ‘Come back to us, Andy,’ if I got too far away in my head. She could tell. She would be amused. But she is not here. I wish I could at least believe in her being here figuratively. That would make it easier.

And then someone is saying, faintly, ‘Andy? Andy.’

It is not Grandma. That would be nice, to be deluded enough to imagine the dead speaking to me. That would be a comfort. Though it would not make me feel any less crazy. It would probably make me feel crazier. Most definitely. Thank God I’m not hallucinating Grandma.

It’s just Mum. Her mouth widens, like she is attempting a tight-lipped smile, but the edges of her mouth seem as if they don’t know they’re supposed to turn up. She is grimacing. We’re filing out of the church now, family first. Everyone behind us standing and waiting. And I’m looking at everyone as I walk past, shoes squeaking. I don’t really see a point to funerals at all.