Natasha Judd

The 2008 BookCrossing Anniversary Convention started last night.  Or it did for me, at least.  Other BookCrossers have been travelling the country, travelling the world, attending pre-Convention meets and taking a trip on the London Eye yesterday afternoon.  But from 7.00pm, we all converged on Imperial College for an evening of ‘Canapes and Criminals’.

No luck with the raffles so far.  Our crime novel team didn’t manage to find all it’s characters and author first.  But it was great to catch up with some of the BookCrossers from the London meets, and meet some of the people who are participating in the Lessons to Learn bookring.  Futurecat was there too, as part of a contingent who are promoting the Convention in New Zealand next year - I wonder if I’ll be able to attend?

And there were books, books in goody bags, books as prizes, whole tables covered in books.  I’ve only picked up five so far, which is very restrained of me!  Still, there are two days of the Conference remaining…

Today there are author talks and bookswaps and a writing workshop.  The programme starts at Imperial College at 8.30 (very early for a Saturday morning!) so I better get going.

So suddenly December’s ending and Christmas is over and it’s the last day of 2007.  I would have liked to spend today writing, but unfortunately I’ve got work – which has been a bit of a theme of the last 12 months… and probably of the 12 to come.  But I’m beginning to believe that I’m always going to need to work while I write, and that the working can be inspiring too, in it’s own way.

In 2007, I didn’t finish NaNoWriMo.  I didn’t finish the first draft of my work in progress.  I didn’t send any poetry to magazines.  And, yet, it was an amazing year: one where I read on National Radio, and saw a novel with my name on the spine on the bookshelves of Unity bookshop.

It’s a year where I’ve blogged, and kept a paper journal, sent letters and written travel stories.  Where I’ve read book after book, and been introduced to the work of some inspiring young writers, such as Faye L. Booth and Lili Wilkinson.  Where I’ve gotten so excited about the success of my New Zealand classmates, and just begun to scratch the surface of what’s on offer in London.

Next year, I’d like to be more focused.  I say that every year.  But more than that, I want to write things that I’ve started through to their completion.  Then, I want to have the confidence write new things: new genres, forms I’ve forgotten, to write just because I like the sound of my voice on the screen.

I’d like to thank everyone for all their support this year, and wish you all the best in writing and life in 2008.

This week’s writing about writing post on webstuff4writers.com asks for book recommendations. The focus isn’t just on good writing however. It’s on good writing about writing. There are a lot of writing resource books out there: books about how to sell your poetry, how to be a freelance journalist, how to punctuate your sentences.

On visits to bookstores, I often skim the writing resources shelves but I haven’t actually sampled too many of those on offer. However, when I wrote the original question, there were three books I had in mind.

As a teenager, I loved John Marsden’s Everything I know about writing. John Marsden’s one of my favourite young adult authors, and this book gives insight into his writing process for some of his earlier novels, alongside prompts and exercises for your own writing projects.

Another book that’s particularly relevant at the moment is No Plot! No Problem, by Chris Baty. Chris is the founder of NaNoWriMo – the month long 50,000-word-novel writing extravaganza that starts tomorrow. However, his book has some useful tips about the human side of writing that apply no matter which month you write in. And his talk of rewards allowed me to justify the large quantities of M&Ms I consumed while writing Lessons to Learn.

Finally, I’d recommend Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write. There’s some great advice in there – from keeping morning pages (something I do every now and then when I find myself not writing regularly) to continuing to write while you’re waiting for a response to a submission. I’ve read this book so many times over the years, and yet, every time I finish it, I’m re-inspired to continue writing.

If there are any writing-related books you’d recommend, please leave a comment here, or on the entry at web stuff 4 writers.

This week’s topic over at web stuff 4 writers asks about the longest piece you’ve written.  For me, the answer is easy.  At approximately 57,000 words, Lessons to Learn is by far the longest piece I’ve written.

Of course, 57,000 words isn’t very long for a novel.  It’s no Shantaram or Edward Rutherfurd epic.  But for me it’s impressive.  Until I finished that first draft of Lessons to Learn, I considered myself predominantly a short story writer and a some-of-the-time poet.  Before then, my longest works were my failed NaNoWriMo attempt in 2004 (approximately 17,000 words) and the 12,000 word essay I wrote in my Human Communication paper in the first year of university.  The required word count for the latter was only 1,000 words I think, and I was most disappointed when I only got a B+.

I’m about 25,000 words into a new project now.  Will it be longer than Lessons to Learn?  I’m not sure at this stage.  For now, I’m just going to keep writing till I feel the story’s told. There’ll be time for editing and adding and taking out words, paragraphs, pages and whole sections, once that first draft is done.

It’s October, and the sign-ups for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) have begun. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, NaNoWriMo is a challenge that’s been running for a few years now, where participants attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. That’s an average of 1,666 words a day!

I started NaNoWriMo in 2004. Every night for a week and a half, I typed out thousands of waffling words of a novel about a girl who was travelling across Canada. Every time I ran out of ideas, I had her move on to a new destination. And by that stage, my hands ached so much that I was finding it difficult to get my work done for the 9-5 job. So that was the end of my 2004 NaNoWriMo novel, and in truth, I haven’t looked at it since. That said, I think it was useful to have that attempt at writing a novel. In starting it, I began to learn the differences between writing a short story and a novel - differences that were going to be more and more significant over the next 12 months.

In November 2005, I had just finished writing the MA portfolio version of Lessons to Learn. In November 2006, I was travelling around Europe.

This year, I’ve got a project that I’m already working on. The rules of NaNoWriMo state that you need to start a new novel on the 1st of November, rather than work on an existing project. So I won’t be an official participant, but I’m hoping that the knowledge that so many people, all around the world, are also writing, the conversations on the message boards and a large quantity of M&Ms will spur me on to complete the first draft.

If you’re also participating in NaNoWriMo this year, or working on another project to another deadline, let me know, and perhaps we can cheer each other on.

 I’ve started a new blog.

It won’t take the place of this blog, though.

It’s about writing.  And the web.  It’s called webstuff4writers.com.

Inspired by ‘Booking Through Thursday’, I’m going to post weekly writing topics that can be used in blogs about writing (like this one).  These topics will usually be posted on a Sunday, unless there’s another day people prefer.

Anyway, here’s the first one, and my answer.

Writing about writing: Week one

 Do you think keeping a journal or blog is a useful practice for writers?  Why or why not?

webstuff4writers.com is my new attempt to keep a regular journal.  I’m not good at keeping a regular journal.  This blog in itself is evidence of this.  There’s more evidence of it in a wardrobe of my parents’ place, where there’s a pile of notebooks, each about one quarter to a half full.  In both 2006 and 2007, my New Year’s resolution was to keep a journal every day.  This year, I made it to March.

That said, I do think that journaling is a useful practice for those who want to write.  A lot of my short stories have come from journal and blog entries – both from those entries where I’ve recorded something that’s happened to me, and those entries that I recorded something I’ve observed happening in the world at large.  Some of the scene-setting in Lessons to Learn was based on my travel journal from my time in Korea, and from the emails I sent home which became almost like a travel blog.

The other advantage that I’ve found is that keeping a journal is a good way to start writing each day, and that when I’ve written one piece – whether it’s non-fiction, stream-of-consciousness, or a poem –  it’s easier to write something else.  If I had all the time in the world for writing then, this process would be ideal.  However, most days there’s only half an hour before work, a couple of hours after it.  And then, if I spend too much time blogging or writing about my day, then no novel writing gets done at all.

Still, I’ll give webstuff4writers.com a go, and see how long it lasts.  Hopefully others will find it useful.  Hopefully I’ll managed to keep it out of that virtual wardrobe, where abandoned blogs go to die, for a couple of months at least

In the absence of my own blog-content ideas, I’ve picked up this question from Booking Through Thursday.

Okay… picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.

What do you read?

For me, when I’ve been sad or worried or stressed, it’s always been novels by John Marsden. In some respects it’s about the minimisation of my own problems. My boyfriend may have dumped me, but least my country isn’t at war, like Ellie’s inTomorrow, When the War Began; I may have a cold, but at least I haven’t been scarred by acid as Marina has been inSo Much to Tell You.

But, after reading the same books multiple times in the years since I started high school, there’s also some comfort now in just knowing the stories, reading the words that I’ve read before, the certainty of what’s going to happen at the end.

For me, books are a way of learning about new worlds – different people, different places - but, at the same time, they’re also a good way of escaping the worst-case scenarios on this one.

Reading through my online subscriptions this morning, I came across a YouGov survey reported in the Guardian which found that more people from the UK aspired to being an author than a sports personality, pilot, and in fact, any other job.

Why’s there such a widespread appeal in authorship, I wonder.  The article goes on to suggest that the job’s popularity might be something to do with the success of JK Rowling in recent years.  And sure, we’ve all heard the story of the struggles and the rejections before the million pound income, but that’s unlikely to be a reality for all authors (or even most). 

There’s the idea of creating something that other people will consume.  But don’t artists do that as well?  Film-makers?  Television producers?  And I’m told that a lot more people watch films and television.  Perhaps, then, it’s that books stay around longer.  Antique books do have a certain appeal, after all.  The classics of the book variety have been read for hundreds of years.  But surely I’m not the only one to be less than enchanted with a 10 year old paperback, one where the paper has turned yellow and the pages are falling out.

I guess when I was young and dreaming of being a writer, it did seem to be somewhat of an easy job.  I imagined the days disappearing as I tapped away on my keyboard, the words flowing effortlessly.  Then I learnt about writer’s block, and word counts, and the edits that need to be done.  And marketing, and talking about your writing, and all that scary stuff.

And yet, I still want to write.  I’d still be in that 10% who’d rather be a writer than a sports personality or event organiser, and it’d great if one day I could call ‘novelist’ my day job.  There’s just something about writing, I guess. 

For anyone else out there who writes, or would like to, what is it for you?

So, it’s been almost a month between updates, and what have I been doing? Somehow I’ve managed to fill in the time.  I know I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but that only took a day. I’ve been writing up some of our travel stories for the Cosmotourist website. I’ve been swamped at the day job. And I’ve been, very slowly, working on the next novel. And other things, I guess.

Meanwhile, Lessons to Learn is out there in the world, and every now and then, I get to hear from people who’ve read it. Just today, I noticed that it was called a ‘delightful’ on Beattie’s Book Blog.  A couple of weeks ago, a classmate forwarded me a Sunday Star Times review which contained the words ‘gifted with a flair for deadpan comedy’ and also ’sex-mad Aussie sloven’ (the latter luckily referring to a character). 

And then there’s Fiona, the editor of AUT’s student magazine, debate, who has forwarded me some copies of Issue 16, which contains an interview and a way-too-large picture.  And there’s the people who’ve read it through Bookcrossing, and my lovely friends who pre-ordered their copy or have bought it from the stores. 

It’s strange to think of the book in other people’s hands at the other end of the earth.  It’s like leaving a part of me at home, it’s keeping that connection, while here in London, I catch the tube and walk along South Bank, and what is normal life for now continues.

Headed northwards for work today.  This morning, with a few minutes to spare before our meet-up at St Pancras station time, I diverted to Kings Cross to check out Platform 9 ¾.  I walked past the cafes and the convenience stores, along Platform 8 and there it was, between Platforms 9 and 10.  A sign saying Platform 9 ¾ and a baggage trolley cut in half so it looks like it’s disappearing into the wall, and London’s commuters rushing past as if it wasn’t there.

I guess you could say that I’m a fan of Harry Potter.  I’ve known the launch date for Book 7 longer than I’ve known my own.  I went to a ‘come as your hero’ ball as Hermione Granger.  I’m a geek, yes, that’s a given.  That said, I’m not as fanatical about the series as I used to be (I no longer have a Harry Potter toothbrush for example).  My interest peaked at Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,when the kids I was teaching at the time were all talking about the book as if this Harry Potter was the latest kind of Pokemon. 

When I read Book 5, I thought it would make a great movie – all the battle scenes, and flashes of light coming out of wands.  And indeed it did make a good movie (the boy and I saw it in the weekend), but in the book, all of Harry’s angst and DIALOGUE IN CAPITALS did get to me after a while.  And, while I did intend to read Books 1-6 again before Book 7 came out, life and other novels have got in the way, so I don’t remember the five uses for Dragon’s Blood, and I can’t give a well reasoned argument about who will die before the end of the series.

That said, I’ve got my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ordered from a local bookstore (luckily, given the recent news stories, not from Asda).  And I will be queuing to collect it as midnight approaches this Friday.  Harry’s been part of my life for about six years now, and I can’t wait to see how the story ends.

One thing on my had-to-do list before leaving Auckland was pick up the July issue of the New Zealand youth magazine, Tearaway.

Tearaway’s one of those magazines that I read religiously when I was at high school and that I still flick through whenever I get the chance, so it’s exciting to see Lessons to Learn on the books page of this issue.

They’ve got five copies of the novel to give away to their readers. For more details, check out this article on their website.

At 7.50pm last Thursday, I got on the overnight bus from Auckland back to Wellington, home to Matt and me from February 2005 to September 2006. It was wonderful to be back, and Wellington turned on its best weather for me. The sun and blue skies almost made me forget about those mornings when I needed to wear my gym track-pants under my skirt and over my stockings on the windy walk to work; those afternoons when just getting across the road to university would leave me soaking wet, and my useless umbrella turned inside out.

Arriving before 7am on Friday, I was too early to check into the hostel. But I left my bags there, and checked through their book exchange for Bookcrossing labels (none found), and waited for the cinemas to open, so I could see the day’s first screening of Becoming Jane. And I know I’m back in Wellington, when I can go to a central city cinema, for a current release, and share my theatre with six, perhaps seven, other people. And I think that it would’ve been so much more romantic to be a writer in Jane Austen’s day. But there would’ve been disadvantages too, such as having to write by hand.

In the afternoon, I went up to the IIML, where I studied Creative Writing and wrote the first drafts of Lessons to Learn. It’s still there. The view is still incredible. The Cable Car up the hill now has Melbourne-style ticket gates and increased prices.

That’s what is perhaps most obvious, going back. The things that are new. There’s a new supermarket in the train station. There’s a huge new Borders in Lambton Quay. They didn’t have Lessons to Learn in stock, but further down the road, Dymocks had 10 copies – the most I’ve seen in a single store so far.

But it’s also a good reminder of how things were in a place where you often accidentally run into people you know on the streets, where you can get fish and chips from the store next to New World and eat them in the grounds of Parliament.

And there were things too, that I didn’t remember. One such thing was the exact location of The Chocolate Fish Café. I thought it was a bay or two around from Oriental Bay. It wasn’t. And it wasn’t in the bay after that, or the bay after, and so on. Eventually, I started seeing signs to the airport, and I was probably closer to there than to Wellington City so I walked all the way to the terminal then paid $5.00 for the bus back into town. I never found that particular café.

But later on Saturday, I had hot chocolate and a bagel in Olive Café with a Bookcrossing friend, who goes by the username Sherlockfan. I caught up with her news and shared mine, and signed another copy of the book.

That night, I went to an art exhibition in Guznee Street, where prints had been made to accompany poems by well-known New Zealand artists. The prints and poems were auctioned off for what seemed both less than they were worth, but more than I could afford.

On Sunday morning, I went to the Katherine Mansfield birthplace, but I’ve already written about that. Later in the day, having collected my bags from the hostel lockers, I was back at Olive Café, to catch up with some of my classmates from the IIML in 2005. It was great to be there, and to hear what they’re working on now. I miss our classes, and the food that was brought along, and being so familiar with a group of other writer’s projects. Much as I’m enjoying London, I do miss Wellington; as I do Waitakere; and Melbourne; and Vermont; and all the other places I’ve lived. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve already lived in too many places.

Sunday night and I was back on the bus. Many unsleeping hours later, I arrived in Auckland.

One of the things I always meant to do when we were living in Wellington was visit Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace. A year and a half of residing and working and studying there, and I didn’t make it. However, with a morning spare yesterday, I decided to make the trek across the city to the house at 25 Tinakori Road in Thorndon.

Katherine Mansfield is arguably New Zealand’s most famous short story writer. A young woman who left home for London and to write journals and letters and nearly 100 short stories, to befriend D.H. Lawrence and to be part of the Bloomsbury Group, and to suffer from tuberculous and die in 1923 at the age of 34.

My favourite of her stories have always been the ones from her New Zealand childhood: The Doll’s House, Prelude, At the Bay... These are the stories which we studied at high school, at a time when I was only just starting to discover the magic which words can do. I spent three or four hours wandering the rooms which these stories were set in, and then, in one of the upstairs bedrooms, watching a video about Katherine Mansfield’s life.

Like Mansfield, I can understand the excitement of living in London, amongst it all, but also the need to write about the home-across-the-seas, the memories of the landscape and the weather. And while, I can’t hope to match her cleverness, the strength of her descriptions, and while I perhaps don’t want to match the way she struggled for her art, it was inspiring to wander round those dark rooms with their black and white photos and period furniture. If I want to be a writer, I have to keep writing, here in New Zealand, in London, round everything else, somehow, it has to happen.

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Katherine Mansfield

More information

• Wikipedia article: Katherine Mansfield
• Katherine Mansfield House, Wellington

Just sent off my membership renewal for the New Zealand Society of Authors, and this year I could tick the full membership “had-a-book-published-by-an-established-publisher” box.

*Squeals with first time author excitement*

I was lucky enough to be able to take three weeks of annual leave for the book launch.  Three weeks without work, on the other side of the world – I thought I’d be able to get a lot of the new book written.  One week in, and I’ve only done about 4,000 extra words.

I’ve also signed my name quite a lot.  Yesterday, as I was listening to the radio interview, I was sticking post-it notes onto copies of Lessons to Learn which have been pre-ordered by family and friends.  The day before, I signed 20 more, which are travelling back to Australia for Matt’s family.  They looked so pretty, all stacked up on top of each other.  I had to restrain myself from taking more photos.

This morning, as she dropped me off for my appointment, Mum pulled out a copy to show her dentist.  He started reading it in reception, asked what it cost, and bought it off her – which was great, but didn’t quite make up for the mouth pain inflicted on me a few minutes later.  And I’m sure going to have to sell a lot of books before it becomes a feasible way of paying dental bills!

And there’s always the distraction of looking for copies of Lessons to Learn in bookstores.  The first place we tried was Time Out bookstore in Mount Eden.  It wasn’t on the shelves when we went in last Monday, but when Matt went back in and asked, “Do you have Natasha Judd’s book?” the staff member he spoke to said, “That’s Lessons to Learn” and produced a copy from the back room that had been pre-ordered (I know a couple of the readers of this blog have pre-ordered from Time Out, so thanks if it’s you!)

The first place I found it on the shelves was in Dymocks Newmarket.  Walked past the New Zealand shelf, and there was the familiar green cover.  Facing out too, so that everyone could see the title, those apples, the picture of the cover girl who everyone says looks so much like Charlotte.  It was amazing to see it there, alongside other New Zealand authors whose names start with letters close to J: people like Elizabeth Knox,  Stephanie Johnson, Witi Ihimaera, Lloyd Jones, and then there’s Natasha Judd… It’s surreal!

Also quite surreal is the thought that people I don’t know are now reading Lessons to Learn; that people are buying it as a gift for others.  Before she left for work, Mum had me sign a copy “To a very special lady.”  It’s going to one of her colleagues, who wants to give it to her mother-in-law.  I put the New Zealand/Australia Bookcrossing copy in the post today too, so that’ll be soon arriving at the first stop on its ring of readers.

Still, this week should be quieter, and once my mouth stops hurting (I’m such a wimp when it comes to dental work), I should be able to concentrate on getting more of this new second-book-first-draft written.  I’ve talked about it on National Radio now, after all…