Tag Archives: rabbithole

Bringing disparate bits together (or: Return of the Blog)

“I think I’ll go and write a novella. brb.”

That’s how I signed off my previous post here, 9-odd months ago. As far as last lines go, I think it has a certain charm. If I had to end my blog there, I guess I’d be okay with it. Although, I wonder if a blog ever truly ends, or just sits there waiting, not like the finality of a novel’s last lines, but with its own literary quality, a kind of time-stamped acronym-tinged wit, update pending…

But I’m not talking about novels or blogs as such (and although I am fond of that last post, I’m quite eager to actually be back updating and continuing this thing) — no,  I’m talking about that novella, or an equivalent body of works, wordcount-wise. Yeah? How did I go? Did a novella-length work (or works) gestate and emerge, gloriously imperfect but formed and real and true?

Well, no. I got to about 10,000 words that weekend, which is still a pretty jolly good effort if you ask me. Other co-participants did better, some did worse, we all received a few nice little prizes, we interconnected with one another, and some participants had their words published. All in all, not bad at all! For my part, beyond that original blog post, a few good (if unfinished and unevenly formed) pieces emerged from the process, so I think I’ll get more out of it eventually, maybe even a novella! But not yet. Still, I had a good enough time, and in other gains, I think I re-learned some old lessons: sectioning off time for writing and nothing else, even for a 25-minute Pomodoro at a time, is a good way to go; I still don’t write very well to music except for light background noise, although there are some lyric-free, droney, repetitive, unintrusive and/or otherwise special exceptions; and I don’t think I really want to do any more of those frantic wordvomit sessions like Rabbit Hole or NaNoWriMo — I’m more interested in working at my own pace, with my own lone effort of writing and editing (and publishing!), without really focussing on wordcount. Having said that, maybe it could be otherwise.

I remember now (as I look back over old notes, trying to recall and tie so many disparate bits together) how Rjurik Davidson discussed his experiences (post-24-Hour Book Project, orchestrated by the increasingly interesting if:book) of writing as part of a group and bashing out thousands of words in a short time-period. Maybe it’s true, as he suggests, that all these habits and ideas we have about ourselves as writers are a lot more malleable than we realise. Context, digital media, collaborations, (self-)editing, time-constraints — maybe they all can help to bust up myths we tell ourselves about our preferred writing habits, practices, identities even? Sure, sometimes these are matters of necessity, sanity and circumstances. But that’s not always the case. I guess it’s good to be flexible and adaptable, experiment, keep moving and trying new things. Go with what works, but don’t rely on one way of working. Changing ways can be hard, but maybe that’s just the exercise of mental muscles, all that ol’ brain elasticity. It’s also a question of whether you fit writing into your life, or plan your life around your writing. Priorities. And other recurring word and themes. I’m babbling. Basically, it was interesting and worthwhile and it allllll gets me thinkin’.

But that was that, so enough of that.

Still, it has been 9 months. 2013 has begun in earnest. April arrives again, and with it, thoughts of impending winter, hibernation and hunkering down like a hermit to write, despite frozen fingers, with renewed hopes of wriggling out of those old habits, routines, boundaries and categories. It has been a while between posts. There has been a veritable mass-spawning of other happenings in this 9 months, as you’d expect. Life tends to be fecund with happenings. Life is also, for me (lately? or always), fecund with lists, so here’s a pair:

A List of 10 Things, or Groups of Things, That Have Been Some of the Good Things of  the Past 9 Months or So

  1. Incheon, London, Halesworth, Okehampton, Paris, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Perth, Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Narranderra and Canberra again: we travelled a lot and it was up and down, this way and that and wonderful.
  2. Being part of Scissors Paper Pen as we continue to make lit happen with stellar people: At Arms Length, WORDLABs, Something Elses, Papercuts and more and more to come. Rad.
  3. YOU ARE HERE 2013 WAS EXCELLENT AND I WANT TO GUSH ABOUT IT.
  4. A good friend’s bucks weekend! Weddings, engagements, births, couplings, friends, family. People at their best. People.
  5. Won the first poetry slam I entered. Had things published. Enrolled in a short story course. Wrote.
  6. Went to TiNA and it was pretty darn good.
  7. The King is Dead, Jens Lekman live, Berbarian Sound Studio, Looper, Ngapartji Ngapartji, Corinbank, Darren Hanlon live, The Secret River, Cloud Atlas, Breaking Bad, Life of Pi, board games and poetry and stories and morrrre. So many good things.
  8. Still employed. Still going well.
  9. Started planning a wedding with the woman I love.
  10. Christmas. New Year. Birthdays. Lunar New Year. Small gatherings. Kitchen wins and tasty meals. Plans. I saw Prime Possum in person in the library. I’m healthy and well. I’m ridiculously fortunate, really.

A List of 10 Things, of Groups of Things, that have Been Some of the Bad Things of  the Past 9 Months or So

  1. Speeding tickets, parking tickets. 
  2. Arguments and discomfort.
  3. Getting sick. People I know being sick. (Distant) people dying.
  4. People at, or near, their worst.
  5. Not enough. Rejection. Failure. Loss. Distance.
  6. Kitchen disasters, clumsiness, carelessness.
  7. Leaks from upstairs.
  8. Busyness/privileged whining.
  9. [Insert all the fucked up shit happening in the world here]
  10. And what’s up with my nose? I sneeze too much.

More lists? More lists.

The first 1000 words I wrote yesterday as I burrowed into The Rabbit Hole

Okay so this is it! I’m starting off with a frantic blog post to get things warmed up. I’m already hating what I’m writing and resisting the urge to edit as I go, because editing comes later and posting this will probably come after (light) editing, but who cares because right now it’s about writing.

Sorry. I should explain. It’s just hit six o’clock on Friday June the 1st 2012, which means that as I write right now, I’m putting words toward a count of 30,000 words, along with dozens of others across the country. Again: thirty thousand words. I’m going to spare myself the pain of checking the word count too frequently, but I’m guessing I haven’t done 0.00001% of that. And also, my mathematical capabilities are not so great. Lucky I have words. Words!

Hey, so now the frantic initial rush is beginning to wear off and I’m getting into a groove. So I think now I’ll write out some of my plans, hopes, goals and other scattered thoughts. Apparently I will be writing out a lot of my thoughts as they arise. This is good. This is progress. This is pure. First thought, best thought, Allen Ginsberg said. I think. But then I think Ernest Hemingway said something about the first draft of everything being shit and there’s probably a really smart quote from a woman too, but I don’t know it.

No. I must resist the urge to read over what I’ve just written. At least until I get to the 6.25pm mark. This is because I’m using the Pomodoro technique. I would add a hyperlink there, but I’m sure you can track down details about it if you’ve not heard of it before and I’m not about to waste time with hyperlinking and stuff. That comes later. As does tea and biscuits and stretching and checking and updating my progress on the social networks. Who knows what things are currently blazing past like a waterfall on fire in the middle of a tornado? Not me. Because I am writing. Okay, you get it, I get it: I’m writing. Good.

If in doubt, answer rhetorical questions, no matter how lazy a technique it is. Why am I doing this? Well, Phil English of Toothsoup put me up to it. There are apparently various other incentives and rewards for various word counts. It’s an interesting experience. I get to work on all sorts of writing projects (both shortish and rather longish) that I’ve had sitting in my notebook and on scraps of paper and in my brain, little  ideas that now get a bit of expansion. And I thought it’d be an interesting challenge. Something I’ve never tried before. As I think I already mentioned, I’m a notorious over-editor and a slow writer. This is all about stretching unfamiliar muscles, mostly in the brain (metaphorically – I know the brain does not have muscles. My knowledge of anatomy is close to my knowledge of mathematics, but I know that much) but also in the fingers. I may get back pain as well. I just cracked my neck. It’s just as well my girlfriend is in the next room and the door is closed. She hates when I crack my neck. She wasn’t happy about this challenge either. Funnily enough, my girlfriend likes to spend time with me on the weekends. Ah, the eternal balancing act between competing loves.

That’s about ten minutes. Let’s sneak a look at word count shall we? 500 words, almost exactly! That’s 1000 words in 20 minutes, and 3000 words in an hour! Surely I can’t keep that up. I’ll probably slow down a little and take a little more care once I get to fiction writing. I only really wanted this to be maybe 1000 words max, so I’d better move on. I wonder how everyone else is doing?

So yes, I have some short story ideas, some potential novella ideas, a few blog post ideas beyond this one, a couple of reviews, some poetry, maybe a little non-fiction, maybe 1000 or so words of pure stream-of-consciousness writing (because what better time than now?) and who knows what else will emerge? After two hours of this tonight I’ll have dinner, maybe write a little more into the late hours. Then it’s up bright and early for a full day of writing tomorrow. That’s the true marathon section. I have no real commitments then (well, except for my aforementioned girlfriend – oh my, she just came in as I wrote that [I scrolled the page down to blank and she accused me of not having written anything; “copy, paste, copy, paste,” she mocks] and showed me this amazing craft project she’s been working on for me. Ah! I am not worthy! BUT DO NOT INTERRUPT). And then on Sunday I have work, which knocks off about 7 hours including travel time. So a bit more writing before work, and then after work it’ll be a final dash to the finish line at 8pm Sunday.

I already have a slight headache, but that might be the sugary tea and biscuits I gorged on beforehand. And there’s more where they came from. Woah, and just about time for my first Pomodoro break! The action, it simply does not stop!

I feel a lot of this is babbling, and would probably otherwise be edited out but I don’t think it’s utterly terrible. I wonder if I continue writing like this, whether the raw, unedited stuff gets better? I think I need to find a balance slightly more geared towards quality, while maintaining quantity. I think a real benefit of this (and the Pomodoro technique) are that they just force you to write. Not sit on Facebook. Not umm. Not ahh. Write. And the good stuff will come. Hopefully.

Thank you and my apologies if you’ve read this far.

What else do I have planned? Experiments with listening to music while writing (I’m usually the silent type) and updates on Facebook and Twitter (#rabbithole and #ewf12). What else?

Well, this and many more questions will surely be answered as I go deeper and deeper down the Rabbit Hole.

See you on the other side.

Wait, so then it’s more of a Rabbit Tunnel?

Again, all will be revealed.

Okay. That’s more than 1000 words now. Just gotta do that 30 times.

I think I’ll go and write a novella. brb.

Things To Do At The Emerging Writers Festival (When You’re In Canberra)

I attended the Emerging Writers Festival in person two years in a row when I lived in Melbourne, in 2009 and 2010.  I volunteered, helped with sitting-behind-zine-fair-table duties and largely just participated enthusiastically. It’s a valuable, wonderful, recommended time for anyone passionate about writing in any of its forms and offshoots.

But for this year’s fest, as in 2011, I’m several hundred kilometres away, in Canberra. This is fine, I love Canberra (in a complicated way). But I would still like to be at the fest. Maybe you’re the same. Maybe you’re even further away, or tantalisingly close, but otherwise engaged.

Not to worry! Because the EWF is awesome, they’ve thought of plenty of opportunities for participation, engagement and development, using this internet thing that everyone’s talking about.

The EWF itself is already up-and-running, May 24 to June 3, but in the middle, kicking off and on and on between May 28 and June 1 there’s EWFDigital, a program specifically made for the online space. Take note: this is rad, and Festival Director Lisa Dempster has put together some really interesting thoughts on literary participation in an online space, so you know they’re taking it seriously, and it’s not just a sidenote. This year, there’s something called Stories in Your Stream, online panel discussions, TwitterFest, online exhibitions, an interactive keynote and probably stacks more.

Watch this space, I guess. [EDIT: The afternoon after I wrote this post, EWFDigital was properly launched. This all feels a bit premature now. All I can say is: go. Get amongst it!]

For now, it’s probably even worthwhile delving 20 pages or so into the EWF Blog archives to check out last year’s EWFDigital programming.

Speaking of which: the EWF Blog. It brings together posts from a variety of bloggers, from the aforementioned festival director to a wide variety of EWF attendees and participants. EWF attendees and participants are awesome. They write summaries and reflections regarding festival events, experiences and even the after-parties. Keep an eye out.

Then there’s EWF’s Twitter profile, and the #ewf12 hashtag that will be flooding people’s feeds. These will lead you to further goodness and good people.

And I’m keenly awaiting the arrival into my earholes of I Heard You Like Rereading Books?. It shall be a wondrous fusion of JoMad and The Rereaders, recorded live in front of an EWF audience, for our later listening pleasure.

And I may just have written one of the upcoming reviews of self-published books for the NSW Writers Centre’s blog, as the Emerging Writers Festival joins them for 366 Days of Writing.

Oh, that’s right, AND I’m participating in the Online Team (AKA Team Awesome) for The Rabbit Hole. We’re each gonna be aiming to write 30,000 words in 3 days next weekend. Meh, no biggies (ie I AM QUIVERING). More on my plans for that soon, hopefully. For now, follow #rabbithole I guess!

And there’s probably more! Who knows what else is in store for a digital attendee of EWF? At the very least, do the festival proud and write like you’re possessed by a writing fever that can only be cured by writing writing writing. Like the hokey pokey, that’s what it’s all about.

I think it’s important to recognise, and embrace, both the limitations and the possibilites of digital participation in a festival, and with literature generally. Really, nothing beats attending a good festival in person, but then there are some things you can only do in an online space. Ideally, experience both, if you can. But if, like me, you’re a writer (or an emerging writer, or whatever writing-inclined label you wanna give yerself) who can’t get anywhere near Melbourne’s CBD over the next few days, why not participate online?

See you at the fest.