Write Night 4

In process (Photo by Tseen Khoo)

Since I last notched up a Write Night post, two things to report: one major, and the other minor and good.

1. MAJOR: The Write Nights, as originally envisaged, are no more.

That’s not to say the writing is no more, just that the one-evening-a-week schedule for #shutupandwrite sessions with a local buddy are no more.

The problem, right from the start, was a basic mismatch in expectation and will. I was dead keen on the format and was ready to get into it each time we met. She had just finished a full day’s teaching and wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the writing that she’d bring along to do. Thusly, she was much more interested in chatting than writing.

 

Write Night 3

In process (Photo by Tseen Khoo)

I felt a bit of a fraud writing the last post about work on my fiction and, for this one, I feel even more so.

After the household illnesses came the catching up, then the realisation that I’d possibly over-committed myself on the writing front. I used to over-commit myself on the academic front all the time, saying yes to committee work, events organisation, joining associations and doing project things. It felt good to be collaborating with a broad network of people, doing different types of work. That’s how I thought of the amount of stuff I said ‘yes’ to, anyway.

While shedding academic commitments, I’ve filled the space with writing and blogging ones, including a bunch of promised guest blogposts and other short pieces and interviews.

 

Write Night 2

In process (Photo by Tseen Khoo)

The Write Nights have been dealt a blow recently due to the trailing illnesses that families circulate among themselves. First, it was me; then my buddy had to bail from the night to tend to her partner’s man-flu. We’re on for a session next week, bacteria willing. We’ve only been doing these for a relatively short time, but I missed it. The focus on one piece of work. No internet distractions. Just me and my Word file.

Of course, I can do it at home, but home comes with its share of distractions even though the kids are asleep.

My mum, for example. Love her dearly, but she doesn’t seem to understand the block-out of conversation/responses that I aim for when I’m embedding myself in the text and creating the narrative. So, she’ll ask me something, or be telling me a long and involved story. Because I’m not responding or making any supportive noises, she comes closer and closer as she’s talking. I usually end up having to laugh, and take time out for the conversation.

 

Write Night

In process (Photo by Tseen Khoo)

I’ve managed to live many years without the habit of making New Year’s resolutions. In the odd years when I did make them, one or two would last through the year; others fell by the wayside after a few months’ novelty value.

One thing I semi-resolved to do this year (my commitment is stunning, I know) was to write more and to do it for fun, not academia.

The past year has taught me one thing and that is this:

I don’t think I can do worthwhile academic writing while I work full-time in a non-academic job AND want to keep evenings and weekends for myself and my family. Academic articles/chapters and the heap of reading that should inform them just isn’t on the cards.

I don’t want to change the balance of my days (which I’m loving), or shut the kids out on a regular basis while I pursue a line of research/writing that I’m considering untenable and (dare I say it) pointless for my current circumstances.

What I want to do is spend more time developing my non-academic writing habits.

Since June 2011, I’ve been writing regularly for The Research Whisperer (weekly posts). I’ve never had to have this kind of writing discipline before; I’ve always had to write in my job, but it wasn’t to a schedule, like a blog.

I like the scheduled-ness. A lot.

 

Literary prize lists + winners – a load of hoo-ha?

Courtesy of sarsaparilla lite, the 2009 Miles Franklin Award long-list:

• Addition by Toni Jordan (Text Publishing)
• A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz (Penguin Books)
• Breath by Tim Winton (Hamish Hamilton)
• Fugitive Blue by Claire Thomas (Allen & Unwin)
• Ice by Louis Nowra (Allen & Unwin)
• One Foot Wrong by Sofie Laguna (Allen & Unwin)
• The Devil’s Eye by Ian Townsend (Harper Collins)
• The Pages by Murray Bail (Text Publishing)
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas (Allen & Unwin)
• Wanting by Richard Flanagan (Alfred A Knopf)

It’s testament to how much I’ve fallen off the ‘literary’ wagon that I have read none of these novels. That said, while I loved Murray Bail’s Homesickness (the only book of his that I’ve read) and thought Christos Tsiolkas’ Loaded was a welcome change to the Aust.Lit scene, I don’t find myself particularly enamoured of much Australian literature. Or drawn to support it in specific ways. Hypocritically, I find myself championing it against charges of parochialism, but I can also be ambivalent about the use of ‘local colour’ in vernacular and setting for some narratives…

*waits for lightning bolt of outrage*

I worked on ‘Aust.Lit’ for many years. My theses (MA and PhD) were both engaged with the notion of what might constitute and/or challenge the Aust.Lit ‘establishment,’ positioning of ethnic minority authors on literary scene, and how notions of ‘Australian-ness’ were conveyed/examined/refuted in various narratives and personas.

I haven’t really worked with literary texts for about five years now, and have regained my love of reading as a hobby. Colleagues have pointed out to me that I have obviously ‘moved away’ from literary studies. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I think it’s something to do with my more frequently verbalised and disparaging remarks about certain novels and types of writing. I used to be painfully wary of being un-judgemental about Literature, mostly because so many people out there were more than happy to sink the boot into anything that may require more thought and engagement than they were willing to give. Now, I fear that I have become one of ‘those people,’ especially when it comes to finding some books/writers consistently overrated and pretentious.

I don’t tend to read books just because they have nice gold stamps on the front declaring they’ve won some literary prize or other. In fact, I tend to swerve away from anything that won a Nobel Prize for Literature (worthy and D&M narratives have their place; that place just usually isn’t my couch at night when my brain is only partially active), but am happy to give Orange and Booker Prize winners and shortlisters a go. One of my all-time favourite books was an Orange Prize winner: Anne Michaels’ debut novel, Fugitive Pieces. Pulitzers normally don’t get a look-in and (I feel I should say this sotto voce) neither do Miles Frankliners.

My reading habits these days are highly variable, shifting from blockbuster genre fiction (usually crime/spy thrillers) to independent press ‘local’ novels to books that could be categorised as ‘International Literature.’ While I’m supportive of experimental writing and textual adventures in principle, I feel sometimes that I need to preface discussion about my reading with, “Hello, my name is X, and I like my books to have a narrative…”