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The Walk With Me Project
January 22, 2014
We like to think we have a social conscience here at Busybird Publishing. More than that, we try to imbue many of our projects with an altruistic outcome.
The purpose of our children’s book Who is a Cheeky Monkey? (as well as the accompanying puppet who could be purchased) was to raise awareness for Destiny Rescue, an organisation that saves girls from sex trafficking. All proceeds from Cheeky Monkey – written by our own Blaise van Hecke, and illustrated by Kev Howlett – went to Destiny Rescue.
The thought behind Journey: Experiences with Breast Cancer was to raise awareness for breast cancer and provide an insight into what people experiencing breast cancer (either themselves, or as family or friends of somebody with breast cancer) go through. Again, a portion of proceeds went to BreaCan, as well as to WHOW (Women Helping Other Women).
We’re currently also working on a companion book to Journey, which will actually feature experiences with prostate cancer. The book has the same intent as Journey (to raise awareness, provide insight) and a portion of proceeds will go to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
Now we’re working on something even closer to our hearts: Walk With Me.
In March, our own Kev Howlett will be trekking up to Mount Everest Base Camp. A photographer with over twenty-five years experience in the industry, Kev will be taking pictures for a glorious, full colour coffee table book. The aim behind the book is to raise funds to donate to CMTA Australia, as well help raise awareness of CMT.
We will be financing the bulk of Walk With Me. Kev is funding the Mount Everest expedition entirely from his own pocket. We are invested in the labour behind putting Walk With Me together – everything involved in book production, from editing, to layout, to proofing. The breakdown looks like this:
- Costs
$600 – Gear
$900 – Airfare
$2400 – Trek
$2500 – Design/Layout of book
$2500 – Printing of 100 books
$8400 – Total project cost
What we’re asking for are pledges through our Pozible page to help with the first print run. Once the first print run has sold, that will fund a second print run.
Pledges also contain certain rewards:
-
A$5 + Reward
Your name will appear in the book as a supporter.
A$10 + Reward
A personal, signed print of a photograph from the trek, plus your name in the book as supporter.
A$25 + Reward
A signed photograph from the trek, plus a set of postcards of the best images from the trek and your name in the book as supporter.
A$50 + Reward
A copy of the coffee table book, Walk With Me, signed by Kev. Plus your name in the book as supporter.
A$100 + Reward
A signed copy of Walk With Me, a set of postcards of the best images and a signed photograph. As well as your name in the book as supporter.
A$250 + Reward
You will have your business logo printed in the book, as well as any other promotional material to show that you have pledged support. You will also receive a signed copy of the book.
A$500 + Reward
You are awesome! You will get your name in the book as a supporter, a signed copy of the book, Walk With Me, and a photographic gift voucher to the value of $450. You can use this for personal or business ventures but must be located in metro Melbourne.
So please help us out with a very worthwhile cause.
- Some useful links
Walk With Me (on our website)
Walk With Me (on our Facebook)
Our Pozible Project
CMTA Australia
Just Write
January 16, 2014
We may all have ideas for a great book. We may even have a few chapters down. And we might even have time available to write – or, if not, we have the capacity to make time. But we face an unflappable enemy who stops us from taking it any further: ourselves.
How many times have you wanted to write, had the opportunity to write, but when it’s come right down to it, you’ve procrastinated? Or found something else to do? Oh, the bathroom needs cleaning. Or the lawn needs mowing. They’re perfectly worthwhile things to do, and they do need to be done, but right now? We use them as excuses to not write.
Why?
Lots of writers seethe with insecurities. Will our work be good enough? Or perhaps we don’t feel capable of realising some lofty expectation, or translating what’s in our imagination onto the page. What if we sit down and the words aren’t there? Or the phrasing isn’t there? What if we can’t get it right? What if we project ourselves into the future and see ourselves with a finished product, only to be told it’s horrible, or to see it rejected time and time again?
These would seem valid concerns. Seem.
Anxiety sufferers often do something that’s known as catastrophizing – that is, making a catastrophe out of a situation that mightn’t be so bad. They write an entire narrative. Oh no, the car has a flat tyre! The kids will be late to school and will get into trouble, I’ll be late to work, the boss will be angry and will fire me, oh what a horrible day! Why does this always happen to me!? Everything becomes a worst-case scenario, even though those scenarios mightn’t be the outcomes, and nor are they very likely to be the outcomes.
Many writers do the same thing before they sit at the keyboard, thus undermining their confidence and invalidating the worthwhileness of any attempt. They make themselves feel so horrible about the prospect of writing that doing anything else seems a more attractive proposition.
Another issue can be doubt. In the grand scheme of pragmatism, writing is an indulgence (at least until we have that best-seller), and who has the time or luxury to entertain an indulgence when there’s real problems to be addressed? Better to stick to reality, to getting the housework done, to working the longest hours imaginable to make the most money possible, to spiral uncontrollably, if not unthinkingly, into that whirlwind of myopia and materialism that contemporary society has become. That’s not to say these things don’t need to be addressed. They do. But neither should we let them take over our lives, particularly at the expense of our own self-fulfilment and aspirations.
We need to cultivate new attitudes – attitudes that will help us to write and get the best out of ourselves.
These attitudes can be broken into three components:
- We may never have this time again. We mightn’t. Here’s some catastrophizing … Tomorrow, we may learn we have cancer, we may get hit by a car, the house might burn down, the kids might have homework that demands time, our partner might become ill and need taking care of, a meteorite might hit and wipe out our suburb – we just don’t know. We need to take advantage of the time available to us while we have it. Whilst we may not face the catastrophes listed here, life does have a way of eating up time. Kids need lifts. Workloads can grow. Everyday things can threaten to take control. Do the best with the time available to you. And if you do have time available to you, any reason that you don’t use it is just an excuse.
- So what! So what if somebody doesn’t like our work! So what if we get rejected over and over! The most popular example of rejection is Harry Potter, which was rejected umpteen times, before being finally being accepted and becoming a phenomenon. What about Fifty Shades of Grey? It became a success, despite being of dubious quality. Tastes are subjective. We can’t prejudice anything we do (let alone something as subjective as writing) with the expectation of failure.
- Just do it. Doubts may cripple us when we sit at the keyboard, fears we won’t find the right words, that the right words won’t flow into the correct phrasing, that the correct phrasing won’t evolve into the story we want to tell. You know, that all may just be. But we won’t know until we try, and once we try we’ll be able to see what needs fixing and where we need work. You can’t do that with an empty page. You need words on that page. Put the words on that page and go from there.
You can be pessimistic and sabotage yourself, you can invalidate yourself with feelings that what you’re doing isn’t worthy, or you can employ some idealism. There is nothing to lose by trying. A rejection might hurt, somebody not liking our story might disappoint, waiting for responses might frustrate, but these are all transitory states. They can also only affect you if you let them. On the flip side, there are gains – not only professionally and materially, but intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Even if you don’t find success, you’re doing something you enjoy, that’s fulfilling, and that is enriching you in a way material gains don’t. So, try. Don’t be somebody who wakes up ten years down the track, and thinks about what they could’ve – what they should’ve – done with their time.
If you want to write, then write.
Don’t let anything get in your way.
Don’t let yourself get in the way.
Write.
LZ.
Happy New Year!
January 9, 2014
We all MAKE resolutions for New Year. Some are for personal betterment, some for emotional and spiritual growth, and some for professional gain. We all want to better ourselves and that’s great. But guess what? The New Year is upon us. How’re we going observing those resolutions?
As a writer, what resolutions did you make for 2014? Was it to get a certain amount of short stories published? To win a competition or residency? To score a book deal with a publisher? Or possibly just to finish that book that’s been idling on your computer for X number of years?
Writers are – unfortunately – at the whims of the publishing industry. Writing a short story isn’t like building a birdhouse. You can build a birdhouse, advertise it in something like the Trading Post or try to sell it at one of the various markets, and as long as you’ve done a reasonable job and you’re not asking too high a price, you’ll probably sell it. If you gave it away for free, there’ll probably be any number of takers.
The same doesn’t happen with a story you might write. Your story could be the most brilliant story in the world, it could be the story of the YEAR, but if it doesn’t click with that one reader who’s usually the gatekeeper of submissions at any journal (or publisher), then it’s not going to go any further. We’re at the mercy of subjective appraisals. Offer your story for free, and they’re not going to be interested.
So any resolutions about trying to get published in X amount of journals, or trying to get published in a certain journal, or trying to win a competition or residency, or trying to score a book deal are fraught with peril, if not outright setting yourself up for a fall. It’s important YOU manage expectation. Whilst there’s no reason you can’t do any of these things and it’s awesome to have aspirations, it’s unwise to hedge all your emotional fortunes on success being your outcome. It’d be like going to the roulette wheel and putting all your money on one number. Is there a chance you’ll win and strike it big? Yes. But the odds are small. More importantly, you have no control of the result.
So as writers we need to seize control of those opportunities that gives us the very best chance of realising those dreams.
Do you want to finish something that’s just been sitting on your computer for-seemingly-ever? Well, it’s not going to finish itself. We can’t go out for a coffee and expect it’ll all be done for us when we get back. The only way to finish something is by making the commitment to finding the time and using that time to do so.
Yes, we all have lives, some more hectic than others. Some of us have households to run, kids to take care of, pets to walk, and all that. But look hard enough and there are pockets of time. It might only be a handful of minutes here and there, but if that’s all the time you have to make use of, then that’s the time you should make use of. It’s not about lamenting the opportunities you don’t have – e.g. a couple of leisurely hours every evening – but capitalising on whatever chances you do have and learning to habitually make the best of them. It’s the only way anything will ever get finished.
And once it’s finished, you know what comes next: revise.
At a recent workshop, a leading literary agent claimed there are more writers than there are readers. This figure might be inflated nowadays by bloggers, etc., but that’s still a scary proposition. Think of all the writers out there. Whilst it’s not impossible that you might’ve produced gold first or second up, it’s unlikely. So revise, revise, revise. Revise until you’re sick of it, get feedback on it, then revise, revise, revise again.
In all likelihood, you’re going to get one chance to submit to a particular market. One chance. That market isn’t going to want to hear from you a month after they’ve rejected you because you’re now claiming you’ve reworked your story and it’s even better. They have too much stuff to read to be awarding second chances. Make YOURS stand out from THE pack by revising and polishing it until it shines. Take advantage of your one chance.
It’s the BEST way to be true to any resolutions you might hold for 2014 as a writer.
Good luck!
LZ.
Reading: Part 2
December 19, 2013Reading as Recreation
- ‘When I was your age, television was called books.’
– Grandpa
The Princess Bride.
I’ve never understood people who don’t read. From as early as I can remember, I had a book of some sort in my hand – as a kid, they might be comics; then stuff like the various adventures of Asterix & Obelix, or Tintin; then novels.
There’s a relationship that you get from a book that you just don’t get from any other form of storytelling entertainment. That’s not to invalidate those other forms. There’s always great television series playing. Tune in and you devote yourself to them. It’s not unusual to discuss what happened with friends or family. When we’ve been impressed, how many times have you prefixed a question with, ‘Did you see …?’ or we debate the actions the characters took or what might occur next. If it’s something terrible, we’ll deconstruct it.
It’s the same thing with movies or theater. We’ll sit in a cinema or theater, amongst strangers, and share the experience. If it’s particularly good, we might chorus with laughter or shrieks or sit tensely. If it’s horrible, we might groan or – the more audacious amongst us – might mock it loudly. Afterward, we’ll go through the same examination of the stories and characters.
One of the strengths of these mediums is that they’re very visually and aurally-oriented – particularly in contemporary film and television. There’s very little filmmakers can’t do with CGI, creating worlds and effects that would’ve been impossible just ten years ago. Aurally, both are about more than sound effects (impressive in their own right), but also about the scores.
Watch any film John Williams has scored – e.g. Jaws, Star Wars, ET, Superman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, amongst others – and listen to how the music sometimes not only adds a new dimension to what you’re seeing, but breathes life into it. Many of the people responsible for the early cuts of Star Wars (including George Lucas himself) felt the movie was flat. When John Williams’s score was added, the movie came alive.
Another example is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Hitchcock originally wanted the famous shower scene to occur without any musical backing. Composer Bernard Herrmann scored it anyway. Hitchcock was furious, but when he heard the score – that tune that’s become so iconic – he changed his mind (and would later pay Herrmann twice his fee as a bonus for the overall score). Could you imagine that shower scene without it?
But there are things that can go wrong in television and movies and plays, as well as all their derivatives (musicals, webisodes, etc.). As with books, the story itself can be lacking, the pacing can be odd, the plotting could be uneven, it could be haphazardly told, and so on. Specific to these mediums, actors might be miscast (e.g. Bonfire of the Vanities), performances could be bad, effects might be laughable, etc.
Books themselves aren’t infallible. Just as we might’ve seen bad television or films, we’ve all read bad books, or books which haven’t resonated with us, (even if they’re regarded as classics). But – for mine – their strength has been the intimate relationship they create with you as a reader. It’s a marriage of you and the book. The words are a framework for your imagination to fill in the details. From there, you are immersed in the book’s world – a world that might be impossible to realise through any other medium.
Similarly with the story itself. Books can span millennia. Characters can begin as babies and we can witness their whole lives unfold before our eyes. Stories can be told disjointedly. There’s nothing a book can’t do, their only parameters the author’s imagination. Whilst film and television can do some astonishing things, there are – and probably always will be – limitations.
Then it’s just you and the story. Even the author themselves can become anonymous at this point, or only be represented through their voice. A bad book can help you even the legs on that uneven table. A good book takes you away until there’s nothing but yourself in this unfolding world. You are a disembodied spectator, becoming more and more invested until, with regret, you have to leave the story. Ever read a book and rued the pages are running out? Not a lot of other forms of entertainment can generate that sort of lament.
The best thing is you can take a book just about anywhere and dip into it anytime – read it on a train, in the tub, on the toilet, waiting for a doctor’s appointment, or whatever the case might be.
Reading’s something you can always do. And there’s always a new story waiting.
LZ.
Reading: Part 1
December 13, 2013Reading for Writers
There are various reasons why reading is a worthwhile recreation, particularly if you’re a writer. Reading complements the very act of writing as an educator of how to develop your craft. Don’t think you can be a writer without reading. If you think that, you’re deluding yourself.
If you’re a writer, here are some reasons why you should be reading …
It teaches us punctuation
Well, how boring is that? But it does. I picked up pretty much all my knowledge of punctuation from reading. When I studied, I was taught only two additional things, (that a full stop goes inside a sentence self-contained within parentheticals, and the use of semicolons in lists containing commas). Everything else I picked up through reading over the years. It mightn’t seem important to some. Why should it? Get published, and some nifty, anonymous editor will put all the damn full stops in place. But a knowledge of punctuation helps you to understand how words can work, and how punctuation (and its use, and placement) can affect the tone of sentences.
It teaches us how sentences are put together
You might protest you know how to put sentences together and you probably do – at least in your own style. But give the same assignment to five different writers, and they’re all going to execute it differently. Some might use short, punchy sentences. Others might have a lyricism to their words. Some might be languorous, developing mood and setting. There’s no limit to the alternatives and it’s instructive to see how different writers construct their prose.
It teaches us about characterisation/setting and description
How do you describe characters? Do you perform an information dump, unloading paragraphs of descriptions once a character is introduced? Or do you seed in the information gradually? Are your descriptions straightforward? Or do you use similes? With a character’s history, do you digress to relay their backstory and how they got to this point in the story? Or do you offer it piecemeal, or trigger it only when the character has some correlation to that bit of history, e.g. when your character picks up a picture from the mantel?
How about setting? Do you handle that similarly to characters? Are their sprawling, Tolkienesque descriptions? Or are they short and sweet? Do you find neat little twists on how to describe things, like Cormac McCarthy? Or are their rich but evocative little details, like Inga Simpson? Look at how different authors describe characters and settings and think about how you do it.
It teaches us about structure
Are your stories purely chronological? Do you intersperse them with intermissions, like Stephen King’s IT? Does you story run in reverse, as occurs with Martin Amis’s Time’s Arrow, where the lead character gets younger and younger as the novel progresses? Is the chronology disjointed, like Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five? These are just a handful of examples, but there is no limit to the way a story can be presented.
It teaches us about pacing, plotting, and sub-plotting
This might seem silly, but it’s interesting to see the way different authors handle the pacing of their books. In Julian Barnes’s The Sense of Ending, the first half of the book is dedicated to protagonist Tony Webster when he is in secondary school. In the space of a couple of pages, Barnes advances the protagonist to the point of a retiree, and the second half of a book is spent with the protagonist trying to puzzle out a mystery regarding one of his schoolmates. JD Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye all takes place over several days. Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet unfolds over decades. How do you deal with time?
What about plot? Do you have a proclivity to axis the story around one plot, with all the characters revolving around it? Or are their subplots unrelated to the main plot? All the characters in The Sense of Ending exist to serve the protagonist. In The Catcher of the Rye, everything revolves around Holden Caufield. But take something like JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, and whilst ultimately every character is dedicated in the fight against Sauron, they all have their own arcs – Frodo and Sam are attempting to destroy the Ring, Merry serves King Theoden, Pippin serves Lord Denethor, Aragorn is attempting to become a king … and that’s just a smattering of what occurs. In George Martin’s Game of Thrones series, there are numerous characters whose threads evolve disparately.
These examples could go on, and it might seem all that’s happening is a listing of techniques that can be drawn from other books. But this is the point: reading can teach you some amazing things. You don’t have to dissect a book, or analyse how it’s constructed. Just through reading we absorb that information.
Sitting down and writing and writing and writing is a great educator in itself. We hone our skills and get to experiment, find out what works for us and what doesn’t, where our strengths lay and where they don’t, et al, but through reading, we open our minds to possibilities we might not have otherwise considered.
And it can be a lot of fun, too. But more on that next week.
LZ.