Sunday Story - writing quickly

I've been thinking a lot lately about writing quickly. It's something I haven't mastered.

Well, actually, I can write quickly...but it's pretty one-dimensional. I need time to go back and layer upon layer upon layer. There are so many things I miss in that first quick write.

Some of the things I miss are:

• emotion
• depth ie making the story and characters deeper than what I come up with first off
• character nuances
• repetition by the bucket full
• explanations as to why/how things are happening
• creating a smooth emotional arc for the characters (in my first drafts they're mad, then happy within seconds for no fathomable reason)
• descriptions of people and clothes and stuff like that
• mixing it up, so it's not the same words and phrases and actions used 

I think they're pretty important things in telling a good story.

I've read a couple of books lately where the writing is good, but the characters are missing something, or their emotional arc is jerky and not quite right. Do you know the ones? Where you read but you're not totally into the characters, there's something just not quite right.

And then I was thinking about the speed of publication in the digital age. Mostly self-publishing, where the current advice is to have a book out every 3 months. I can't do that. Not if I want my story to be more than one dimensional, and miss out on that list plus whatever else I put on that list.

Maybe I'm a slow writer, or thinker. I can crack out a 100K in 3 months if I get a good run. I did one in 6 weeks once when I needed to purge. It was shit, but it was written.

Maybe it's because I don't plot it out first, but my first drafts aren't always right. Who am I kidding? They're never right. I need to go back and tighten the story, make sure things are put in early that I might need later on. I sometimes need to ditch a whole bit where I wandered down the wrong path. Usually I need to restructure the whole ending. I never have my characters reacting properly, I always have to smooth that out and go over and over to get the emotional responses right.

None of that happens in a hurry. If I can write in 6 weeks, then it takes twice that to edit and tweak it - at least.

So I'm at nearly 5 months for 100K book, minimum. If I'm waiting on people to read and critique, add in a few more weeks. I'd be lucky to get 2 books out a year. Sure, I have a day job and I don't write 7 days a week, or in every spare minute. I have a husband who deserves some attention ;)

All that thinking has me looking at a lot of self-published books in a new light. Are they first drafts? Is that why they're missing the highly nuanced bits that I require to enjoy them? Am I a book snob wanting this extra?

I suspect I am a book snob. I belong to a book group. I read, dissect and analyse every story. I want value for my money. I want a book to transport me places, with people I want to spend time with.

After saying all this, I don't believe what I produce is perfect. I find flaws as soon as they're gone. But I'm hoping each story improves as I learn more. I'm hoping that one day I can produce books I won't want to change. Maybe I need to look at other authors that way too. *sigh* I'm so hard on people.

Do you have any thoughts?

Phallic Friday - responses to sex

This is a topic I keep coming back to because people  have such a strange reaction to sex, and it confuses and confounds me. So I keep writing, hoping to one day understand.


I have a review for Lucky that confuses me. Now the blurb of Lucky says something like "From Australia's hottest writers..." It's fairly clear, if not crystal clear, that we're talking steamy stories here. Yet there's a review that says, 3 stars "...only based on and around the erotic style of writing."

What was the person expecting? A sweet romance?

It goes on to say they wanted more character development - and that's fair enough - but they bought a 10K short erotic story. The focus of an erotic story is sex. If I don't deliver on that promise, then I'm not writing in the erotic genre. You don't get much character development in 10 000 words. You get a scene, a snapshot, and a bucketful of sex.

I've seen a few other girls in the same series receive reviews criticising the story for having too much sex...wonder what these readers expected they were buying?

And this is the thing...people are uncomfortable with sex. Reading it, writing it, talking about it. But I've been finding, in my real life, that if I break the ice just a tiny bit, sometimes others dip their toes in.

Tonight at bookgroup we'd read "The Household Guide to Dying" and there was a line in there that made me laugh as I was crying. Debra Adelaide is writing about a woman who has cancer and is in her last days, and she's thinking of her husband and wishing they'd had more sex because for the last 3 years, she's been so focussed on fighting cancer that sex didn't feature. The line says, "Or what about his glorious cock, its satiny folds when at rest, the smooth tip that remained like silken velvet despite years and years of friction."

I was crying reading the start of the sentence but by friction, I was snorting with laughter. So I took the line to book group and asked if they minded if I read the rude bits. They giggled. I read the line. More giggling...and then we discussed. We didn't discuss the poignancy, the memory of the woman. No, we discussed whether or not the friction caused the smooth tip, or if it would be like that without friction. Funny!

And I felt there was a victory. Even if it was tiny. One day they might even read a Cate Ellink story :)

Wildlife Wednesday - little fish

First up, sorry I neglected Friday. I am battling post-holiday lethargy and a cold/flu, and trying to keep up with my other self...and it all crashed down on Friday.

So, I've decided that there's no beating myself up. When I can't get something done, it just won't happen, although I will try my best to keep on top of things.

So, today...

Our river is open to the sea at the moment, or it was and I haven't got down there post holidays, and that means a blast of clean water into this usually stagnant end. And this means lots more life - fish, crustaceans, birds, plant life, etc. It's always fascinating to me to watch the river come to life again. This is the second time we've got to see it in the last 7 years.

So, the other week we were exploring and tucked in under a heap of weed and Juncus spp. plants, was a school of tiny fish. I don't know if you can see them well in the top photo - they're in the middle to top of the photo, especially the right side. I shoved my camera underwater and snapped some shots of them there (bottom pic).

Rivers, estuaries, mangrove systems, are all places of vital importance for rivers and oceans, and us. They're the nursery grounds for so many species. We go in and chop down so many mangrove areas because they smell at low tide, block the view, look unsightly, etc etc, when in actual fact they're doing a job that is vital to survival.

Little fish need shelter to survive - plant roots, weeds, rocks, etc - and if we remove those things, predators get them, life cycles break. So we need these nursery zones kept clean and unaffected to allow plentiful fish stocks, crustaceans, even birds.

That's one thing I love seeing when the river opens - new life. It's fantastic. So many babies getting a start. So much of life continuing. It'll be sad when the river closes up again and stagnates...but hopefully it'll open again in the not too distant future!

Wildlife Wednesday - Garden Orb Spider (picture)

I have this really huge, ugly spider on my verandah at the moment. I've been taking pictures, then Mr E told me I had to find out what he was because he was so ugly it even had him intrigued (and taking photos - he took this one of the spider).

So, the trusty Australian Museum site came through for me again. This fellow is the Garden Orb Spider, you can find out more here.

These guys are only seen mid to late summer and make huge webs (which I photographed with glorious rain droplets in it yesterday). The spider hides up on the posts, all tucked up, through the day. But at night, he's big and beautiful (?) in his huge web, just as the museum site says.

Hmm, I think it's also called the Garden Orb Weaving Spider, because the same photo is used on that site too (here). Here's some life cycle info from the webpage -

"The lifespan of a female Garden Orb Weaver is about twelve months. A female lays her eggs in late summer to autumn. The eggs are encased in a fluffy silken cocoon and attached to foliage. During autumn, the spiderlings hatch and disperse by ballooning (floating on the breeze using small silk strands as "balloons"), and build their own tiny orb webs among vegetation and wait out the winter. During spring the spiderlings start to develop more quickly and they mature in summer.  The cycle then begins again, the adult females mate and lay their eggs.  Adult females usually die off in autumn - early winter. Males and females are similar in size."

I'll have to keep an eye out for the eggs and the spiderlings.