Keira has been performing in her first ever school play this week. This is the same girl who point-blank refused to have anything to do with the farewell concert at preschool last year. Of course, when I say ‘performing’ I really mean ‘singing as part of a group with her classmates’. Nevertheless, it is all very exciting and we are proud to the core.

…just remember Robert McKee’s words:

Let’s say that this morning our storyteller tells her friends the story of “How I Put My Kids on the School Bus.” Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, she hooks everyone’s attention. She draws them into her spell, holding them slack-jawed over their coffee cups. She spins her tale, building them up, easing them down, making them laugh, maybe cry, holding all in high suspense until she pays it off with a dynamite last scene: “And that’s how I got the little nosepickers on the bus this morning.” Her coworkers lean back, satisfied, muttering, “God, yes, Helen, my kids are just like that.”

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.”

McKee, Story, page 28

Many writers will be familiar with Story: Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting - a fantastic reference. I read it last week while I was panicking about the book and it calmed me down again. I know what needs to be done.

Federation Square, setting of the Melbourne Writers’ Festival*

Gauging from the audience questions (both during, and those coming people up to me afterwards) at our ‘Author as Brand’ session yesterday, it seems this subject is a hot one. I’m not surprised. I suppose it goes back to that old catch-22: to get a publisher, you need an agent. To get an agent, it’s often after you’ve been published. It helps – in both circumstances – to already have an audience or readership. It might be the difference between being taken up or being passed over. This is where blogging can help.

But it’s not easy.

So today I thought I’d write up some quick bullet points that will go over some things we covered for those of you unable to make it (and for those of you who are curious), and how I think they wind their way into blogging.

1) The day blogging changed forever for me was when I published The Psycholanalytic Implications of Blogging.

It was my first determined effort to sit down and put in words lots of ideas and thoughts I’d been having about blogging – at least in the Bigger ‘Meta’ Picture sense. I haven’t had a chance to expand on it since (not since a PhD scholarship application of mine along a similar vein was rejected last year – a story I haven’t told yet because I’m still annoyed about the whole thing went down). It’s NOT a perfect post by any means, and I would write it differently today, but it provided a pretty basic framework that I could (and have) used for a reference.

Moral: Blogs have crucible moments throughout their life. Remember them. They are important. Learn from them.

2) I occasionally publish posts that I’ve laboured long and hard on, I tinker, I fiddle, I anguish – and they don’t make a splash. Nada. Zip. Then there are others, like If Prime Ministers Were Chosen On Masterchef, which I throw together purely for fun and boom! They’re popular.

And I like both kinds of posts equally.

Moral: Publish posts you’re happy with and can stand by in whatever circumstance.

3) Along with a great many other people, we went along to see Joss Whedon at the Town Hall on Friday night. As you’d expect, he was very interesting and funny. The one thing that struck me was how honest he was about the demise (some will say tragedy) over the short life of his Firefly television show. “There isn’t a day that goes by I don’t think of a scene I could’ve written for that show,” he said regretfully. But as we all know, he’s kept on working and creating, turning into almost a juggernaut. Dare I say, his own ‘Brand’?

Moral: There will be artistic/creative disappointments. In blogging, that may take the form of someone pinching your post or meme ideas (or just flat out pinching your content), partnerships fall through or were not as they initially seem. But you pick yourself up and keep going.

4) Kathy Charles and James Othmer both came to writing savvier about marketing and advertising from their professional backgrounds than I did. What I know now has only been cobbled together over the years. But one thing we were all in agreement about yesterday was when it comes to interacting with your reading community, your readership, that genuineness was key. Authenticity. If, from that, as James said, you can create a sort of “umbrella” for yourself from these factors then that is a pretty good place to be.

Moral: Be engaged. Respond to comments. Thank people. Be friendly. It might mean a book sale – or a new subscriber to your blog. Kathy talked about authors making for themselves a Key Marketing Document: a list with all the essential points about your book to mention in an interview: title, a brief plot synopsis, etc. This is a good idea for blogs, too. Be upfront about the main points of your site: create a landing page, a sneeze page, or at the very least an ‘About Me’ or ‘Professional Me’ style of page.

5) I still have a blood blister on my big toe from last month’s half-marathon.

Moral: There is no moral. I just like saying I ran a freaking half-marathon. Heh.

*Photo credit: vincentq

The builder turns in uncertain angles, scuffing the ball of his foot, as he talks on his mobile. The phone is crushed into one ear, his finger jammed into another, as he struggles to hear the voice on the other end over the sound of drilling. As he turns, the sunlight bounces off his silver-and-yellow protective vest; squinting, I lower my eyes back down to my computer screen.
“All right I’ll wait…” he says loudly, striking the floor with his foot again. He looks at his watch. This call is obviously on the clock. “Hello!” he says. His chin lifts; as does his mood. He stops pacing. “Buddy! How are you! I missed you this morning. What are you doing? Having lunch? What are you eating?”
A pause.
“That sounds yummy. Are you dressed yet?” Pause. “You got wet?” Pause. “At the park?” A longer pause, followed by a laugh. “That’s no good. Best stay inside this afternoon, eh? Better put your mum back on the phone. See you tonight.”
This conversation has lasted mere minutes, but when he returns to work, he takes the stairs two at a time.
Happily.

*

A mother and her two young sons later walk past as he is about to slide the retractable door shut between the public area outside and the building site. The builder stops, feigns exhaustion, and says, “I don’t know if I can do this all by myself! Can you help me?”
The boys run forward, and together they pull it closed; the builder looks at his helpers from the opposite side and sticks his hand out through the metal framework.
“Thanks boys, give me five!”
Palm slaps enthusiastic palm. The mother smiles and thanks the builder before ushering her boys away. He lifts his hand in parting and turns around to go back to work.
The mother and I exchange a quick look as she passes. I believe we have had the same thought:

We like the builder.

I have been working these past few weeks supervising an art exhibition. In the quiet times between when there are people in the gallery, I have been writing. Last week I was tidying up some poems and short stories. This week – and the ones to come – I’ve decided to pick up the long-neglected novel again.

Here’s where the words get hard:

I just…

It’s that…

I feel…

Lost, I suppose.

And I don’t know if what I’m chasing is worth finding.

Photos taken at the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

This piece first appeared online at the Melbourne’s Child website back in 2004. It’s no longer available there, so I thought I’d re-post it here. This is the sort of thing I was writing about parenthood before this blog came along…

I think I was born under the wrong star sign. I should have been a Taurus – don’t they make endless ‘to-do’ lists, spring clean in every season and vigilantly maintain order? So, I felt no small relief when I discovered I was pregnant after only a few months of trying. My body had responded – the willpower, which ordinarily got me through the day, had succeeded. No luck was involved, or so I thought.

Little did I know that we give ourselves up to luck more often than when we buy our weekly lottery ticket and hope for a miracle.

My pregnancy was boringly predictable, textbook: morning sickness by eight weeks, first movements by twenty. As labour loomed, imagine my joy when I read in a magazine that it was time I devised a ‘birth plan’, a set of guidelines for the big day. Finally, some distraction and a chance to put my skills to use!

I followed their examples judiciously:

Aromatherapy? TICK! (After all, everyone likes a nice smelling room)

Dimmed Lighting? TICK! (Nothing wrong with adding a little ambience)

Right to Privacy, as much as plausible. TICK! (Not too much to ask for just my husband and medical staff to be present…is it?)

Pain Relief? Natural Remedies; analgesics administered on pain of death (No irony intended)

After printing and re-reading, the plan seemed simplistic, clinical and slightly clichéd. Nethertheless it was folded up and placed in my handbag, ready to show my obstetrician at the next appointment. I felt like a schoolgirl again, proudly returning her homework to the teacher.

Except this piece of work was never to see daylight again – at least not at the moment it mattered. For giving birth is a lot like a space launch. There are high expectations, plans and strategies but, conversely, there are the false starts and dangers.

I first suspected my plan was going to go astray when my due date passed without incident. I was induced ten days later and there went my first wish for labouring at home, for the contractions began immediately.

From then it spiralled downward:

Aromatherapy? Having heard that Clary Sage ‘may’ provoke contractions, I had been sniffing the stuff for some weeks, like an eighteenth century dandy with his snuff box. But forgetting the fact it stinks like weeds, I defy any woman to even try using their sense of smell to boost their comfort levels with any success during labour. I was more likely to rip the electric burner out of the wall before filling it with oils.

Privacy? No such thing, especially when window washers descend on their outside scaffolding like archangels right when you are beginning to push. There is nothing more distracting than three, burly men loudly discussing the football results from the weekend as their radio blares Britney Spears singing ‘Hit me baby one more time..’ I know who I would have hit, given half the chance!

Dimmed Lighting? Halogen bulbs, deadlier than any women’s changing room. On-Off switches only. I’ll say no more.

Pain Relief? Let’s just say I was a quicker convert than St. Paul on the road to Damascus.

Yet to quibble over ‘best laid plans’ seems moot after the eventual – and blessedly uncomplicated – appearance of our daughter. Others do not have the same bragging rights. To use the space analogy again, a mission’s journey is often lost in the bang of lift-off. Exploration, the unknown and unknowable is more important – as is a baby.

So, ladies, write your plans. If you’re lucky, you will get to follow it. If not, well, like mine, it will provide a good belly laugh afterwards. Or be a handy piece of scrap paper.

The Age is declaring the nation’s fate rests with five men (two represent the areas surrounding where I grew up).

The news and social media are understandably alive this morning with post-mortems and campaign critiquing. I have seen reports of people being afraid (or outraged) that this election result might boil down to behind-the-scenes deal-making.

This air of uncertainty and perplexity, and the lack of discernible immediate future that surrounds us this morning? Do you know what it’s made me wonder?

I’m wondering if we’re experiencing but a taste of what asylum seekers feel every day.

I’m sorry I’m late: I’ve just logged on to see how many of you have been checking in! Apologies! I didn’t mean to keep you on tenterhooks.

The winner was commenter #1: Jasmine. Congratulations! Enjoy your Readings voucher! Ooh, I’d make quick work of it. So many lovely things to buy…

I hope at some point to write a post (or a series) on each of the questions, and why I chose that particular text or person. For example, like Quincey Morris? Books like my annotated Dracula (with an introduction by Neil Gaiman I haven’t yet read! For shame!) will tell you that it’s been contested over the years if Dracula had a ‘true’ death or not because he wasn’t conventionally staked with wood. Interesting, yes? I think so.

Have a lovely weekend. I’ll be watching the voting results tomorrow, along with a lot of you…