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Why are blogs so hard to write?

December 3, 2015

Part I
As an aspect of our internship at Busybird, we are supposed to write three blogs a year, but I am lucky if I post even one. We have been told that the writing can be less than beautiful, and we are free to write about almost anything related to the process of writing or editing, so what is my problem? Why can’t I write one of these things?

Every now and then, in a fit of enthusiasm I work up an idea (sometimes several) and sketch out a set of notes. And then … Nothing. My idea goes into the folder with all the other fabulous things I have never written. And never will – unless I can find out why I can’t write these things.

Through good writing and bad, light winds and toad stranglers, horrible writing and worse, I post a 500 word tutorial response every single week when I am studying. Heck, I once wrote 500 words on the pleasures of junk mail. Well, it is pleasurable for the snails that hang out in my letterbox. They love to gobble up a bargain. Pizza, soft furnishings, washing powder, they tuck into the lot. Keeps them satiated so they don’t go out and … There I go again!

What is so different about this? Although the difficulty of writing is a part of its messy charm (and I’m sure I do it wrong), I should be able to write a blog. In theory.

But in practice? Well, that’s another thing. Was that the washing machine yodelling? And, some toast might be nice … See what I mean? And toast always wins; especially, if hot peanut butter is involved. But these shameless diversions, when I should be tucked up at my desk writing, are only little dragons.

In her book, Writing Without a Parachute: The Art of Freefall, Barbara Turner-Vesselago describes the fears that skulk around the perimeters of our consciousness as dragons. And she advocates turning around to look at them … to see what these things are that sneak up and whisper bad things, muttering and chattering in voices so subtle that they seep beneath our consciousness. Their sulphurous murmurs wither our ideas and poison our writing before it ever reaches the page. While there are many dragons, as many as there are reasons not to write, when I turn my head I see a legion of the brutes.

The Dragon of Writing Badly is a nasty specimen. Even now I can feel its stumpy legs wrapped around me and its long claws digging in, and I am utterly intimidated (despite knowing that it’s okay to write badly). Everyone does it. Yes, even you over there in the far corner, hunched over your computer screen sneering at every word. I know your first drafts are real stinkers.

One way I’ve found to wriggle out of this dragon’s scaly grip is to try to imagine a less forbidding critic. Instead of the stern-eyed parent, the monstrous teacher with a red pen and a twitchy ruler, the jeering bullies at the back of the classroom or the unattainable role model, perhaps you might write your piece as you would to your best friend. Or, you might write to your dog, your cat (Miss Mittens purrs whenever she delivers a critique), the possum on your windowsill, or the boy next door – even, the one you yearn for in the night when the doona is snugly pulled around you (I’m writing to a cute boy from my misspent past. No, not that one – the boy I used to trade insults with).

Actually, I don’t know if this is just me, but it is so much easier to write when I am supposed to be doing something else. Especially, if that something else is something I know I should do, but don’t want to. Like my taxes, or getting ready for work. Writing, for me, seems to have a tantalisingly perverse element; it so much more blissful if I absolutely, unquestionably and unequivocally should not be doing it. And, those stolen moments are utterly dragon free.

Next time: the most unlikely, sneakiest, worst dragon of them all.

Lisa Roberts
– Assistant Editor

P17 Issue 12 – Release and Competition Shortlists

November 27, 2015

Earlier this week, page seventeen had its Issue 12 celebration as part of Busybird’s Open Mic Night. We had a full house and a lot of fun.

Firstly, thank you to everyone who attended and helped us give a hurrah to the latest issue of our little periodical. You can view the highlights of the presentations and some of the P17 authors reading their work at the Busybird YouTube channel: click here for the P17 content, and have a look around at the other videos while you’re there.

The digital edition is available now at Amazon: click here to check it out.

In the meantime, we have announcements to make: the competition shortlists! For anyone who wasn’t at the launch, you’ll find below the full list of winners and shortlisted entrants. All these entries are features in P17 #12. Let’s join together in congratulating everyone here, and toasting everyone who entered the competitions.

* * *

Short Story

Winner

‘Rooms without doors’ by Willa Hogarth

Runner-Up

‘Louis’ by Edie Mitsuda

Shortlisted

‘Cold currents’ by Susi Fox

‘Ships of the desert’ by Carmel Lillis

‘Macalister’ by Paul Mill

* * *

Poetry

Winner

‘Alice and Edward’ by Janine McGinness-Whyte

Runner-Up

‘The glass reverie’ by Virginia Danahay

Shortlisted

‘Oral sex’ by Judith A Green

‘Ironing’ by Jenny Macaulay

‘In defence of the bodhran’ by Leonie Needham

‘Beginning with a given line’ by Rodney Williams

* * *

Cover Image

‘Natural Connection’ by Martin Nitschke

* * *

Congratulations again to everyone. And as for everyone reading this, what are you waiting for? Issue 12 is out! Check out what made these stories and poems so good!

Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen

Chronology

November 5, 2015

Writing memoir presents us with different challenges to writing fiction. Even though the story’s there in its entirety – after all, we’ve lived it – a lot of people ask, Where should I begin?

A common format of biographies is they open at a pivotal point in the subject’s life – either a great success or failure. That pinnacle is then used to slide back to the beginning, as if through a funnel of time. Some might even go further, and explore their parents’ ancestry. This might be useful grounding, e.g. showing parents who are immigrants and fought great odds to come to a new country or, conversely, parents who are everymen, and rooted in the community.

Usually, though, the best place is to start at your birth and, from there, follow the arc of your life. Whilst this would seem logical, it’s amazing how often authors are stumped, or how often they might flit back, forth, sideways, and all over the place. This is fine if there’s a structure to the haphazardness which makes sense to the reader, like the picture that appears as you put together a jigsaw but, otherwise, the best course can be a straight line.

If you are going to observe the chronology of your life, try to refrain from interjecting your present-day self. For example, you might write something like this:

When I turned 10, Mum and Dad let me run down to the corner store by myself so I could buy an ice cream.

This is fine. We’re inside the narrator’s head as a ten-year old. But then, often in memoir, something like this occurs:

I remember the old store owner, Mr Georgiou, had a big nose …

The moment you qualify events with ‘I remember’, you’re injecting your present-day self. It’s your present-day self who says, ‘I remember’. The ten-year old has no cause to be saying ‘I remember’. They’re living events as they occur. They should, in fact write something like:

Mr Georgiou, the old store owner, had a big nose …

It might seem pedantic to avoid writing ‘I remember’ (or alternatives, such as ‘I recall’, ‘I recollect’, etc.) but it jolts the reader from the unfolding narrative and alerts them that they’re not (as occurs in this case) reading a ten-year old’s perspective, but somebody from that ten-year’s old future who’s recounting what occurred. Once you have your reader hooked, you don’t want to lose them – not even for an instant.

Something else to avoid is having your present-day self insert present-day commentary that, again, will jar the reader from the narrative’s suspension of disbelief. For example:

Mr Georgiou, the old store owner, had a big nose and a scar across his face that made me think he was a pirate. I know now that he’d been the victim of an assault, but back then it used to scare me, and after making my purchase, I’d run straight home.

We really don’t need present-day self’s observations (‘I know now’), and they only hurt us from staying invested in the ten-year old’s wide-eyed perspective of the world.

Stay in the moment of your narrative. E.g.

Mr Georgiou, the old store owner, had a big nose and a scar across his face that made me think he was a pirate. As soon as I timidly handed over my money, I’d run straight home.

If you’re ten in the story, then only reveal to us what was privy to that ten-year old. Maintain the chronology. At some point in this child’s life, they learn about this scar, and it’s going to be a transformative revelation, so why ruin when that occurs with this premature pronouncement? Let’s see that happen – in due chronology.

Write your story down in a straight line – from beginning to end. It really is that simple. Once you have it all out on the page, then you can mould it as you see fit – flesh it out where required, insert new material that you’ve belatedly recalled, and trim away the excess. Now that you have it all down on the page, you might even see ways you can play with the structure.

But the key is getting it down on the page.

And sometimes, the easiest way – observing chronology – is the best.

P17 Issue 12 Launch and Mic Night

October 29, 2015

Once again we’re ready to unleash another issue of page seventeen upon the public. Are you excited? You should be excited. It’s another heady mix of prose and poetry from talented new writers alongside established veterans of writing. It’s got mystery, intrigue, alcoholism, teapots. What’s not to get excited about?

So here we have it: an open invitation to the page seventeen launch and mic night, hosted by Busybird Publishing.

Date: Wednesday 18 November

Time: 7.00pm

Place: Busybird Publishing, 2/118 Para Rd, Montmorency VIC 3094

Finger food and drinks will be provided. We’re celebrating the twelfth issue of page seventeen with a mic night featuring both Issue 12 contributors and local authors. We’ll also be announcing the winners of the 2015 competitions, and unveiling our cover image (if you’ll remember, that was a competition as well).

Please consider this an open invitation, to you and anyone you’d like to bring along. Let’s fill the room. Let’s celebrate both the new writers with their first publication and the established writers giving us another great pearl to read.

Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen

Book Writing Boot Camp

October 15, 2015

How many times have you heard someone say that they’re going to write a book? Or how long have YOU been saying that you’re going to do it? We talk to so many people here at Busybird Publishing who tell us this, then end the conversation with, ‘One day I’ll finish it’ or ‘I don’t know how to end it’ and the most common, ‘I don’t have the time’.

Most of these excuses are just because humans are prone to procrastinate. There are many reasons for this procrastination. They range from laziness, fear of failure, fear of success, laziness, having no plan, lack of passion, and laziness.

Our aim at Busybird is to help people get past these excuses and actually achieve something that they can be proud of. Writing and publishing a book is a huge achievement that is very doable, given the right tools. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to create. You might have a whole lot of poems in a drawer somewhere, you might have been jotting down bits and pieces for a fantasy novel, or you might want to share a passion for collecting teapots. There are any number of ways to tell a story but sometimes guidance is required to put it into a cohesive structure and to create a timeline so that the project doesn’t go on for ten years.

This is why we have created our Book Writing Boot Camp program. This is an intensive one-day event that will help you map out your idea, plan the writing (you want your story to be worth reading), plan the publishing (for self-publishing or submitting to publishers) and market the finished book.

Here’s a list of dates when Boot Camp will be held:

There will be no excuses after this. Get your hiking boots on!

Blaise van Hecke
– The Book Chick