While visiting my brother he showed me some photos I can’t ever remember seeing. These photos were originally on slides but John had converted them to digital images and could show them to me on his television. Many of the photos were of John’s pride and joy: his tractors. He thinks he has a photo of every tractor he ever owned – except one.

While this was interesting, what really grabbed my attention was that several of the shots showed me aged between eight and fourteen. It triggered in my mind a desire to focus a little more on writing about my childhood days. Here is a largely untapped resource of experiences that I can use in my writing. It is a deep well of interesting and colourful incidents that can only enhance my writing.

A word of caution is needed. Approaching a topic like this in a dry, journalistic way would be of interest to no-one. Except perhaps immediate family. A more creative method is required if you are interest a broader readership. This is not a problem if you are only recording your experiences as part of your family heritage.

If you do desire a wider audience for these stories, why not try rewriting your life experiences as a child (or an adult for that matter) as fiction? Take that incident with the bull when you raided a neighbour’s paddock while picking mushrooms and turn it into an exciting escapade, complete with other characters who may or may not have been a part of the original story. Turning fact into fiction can release those creative juices and you will never know where the story will end up. It will surely be a more interesting read than a dry narrative account of the facts.

You never know: one or more of these stories might end up being the text for a children’s picture book, or included in a magazine or anthology.

Good writing.

I was very humbled by the comments made by both examiners. They praised the story in many ways, and both agreed that my novel is of publishable standard. After all that hard work, long hours, many frustrations and long nights of doubt, the story had come through. One of the examiners said she couldn’t put it down; she had to keep turning the pages to see what happened next. Wow! Exactly the response an author hopes for from his readers. One comment like that makes all those anguished feelings just melt away into nothing. That’s why I write.

I am preparing to send the manuscript off the prospective publishers. In the meantime I have to do a few minor revisions before having a few copies printed and bound for the university library, the humanities department and for my supervisors. Just a few typos that slipped through everyone’s keen eyes. Then I’m done. And I get to wear the gown and funny hat in a few weeks’ time. I’ll get some photos to show off here when it happens.

Stay tuned.

Good writing.

I’m currently working on the 9th draft and essentially all I am doing is proofreading. I’m checking that my last rewrite – from third to first person – scraped through with no glaring errors, especially with the changes to the pronouns used. I’m finding a few but not as many as I thought I would.

One of the amazing things about this draft is the errors I’m still finding, mainly missing words. Although this is officially the 9th draft, in reality it is probably the 15th time I’ve been through the manuscript – some sections could well be more. And I’m still finding little errors!

Aaaah!

Who’d be a writer?

Good writing.

It is now in its 8th draft in which I changed from the third person to the first person. So far, so good. I think it has been worth the effort. While I was at it, I made some significant changes to many phrases and sentences, including cutting out whole paragraphs – but also adding quite a few words and phrases here and there. The nett result is an increase of about 500 words over the whole manuscript while at the same time cutting at least a thousand words.

Now this week I am going over the whole manuscript again – this time meticulously. I’m looking for typos, spelling errors, punctuation mistakes, redundancies, and especially the misuse of pronouns, a problem which occurs when one changes point of view. All this editing and checking is wearying but essential.

It is essential because I want this book to be the very best I can do.

Good writing.

For the full list of both the winning books and the honour books click here.

Permit me a few moments of dreaming: I hope one day my name will be listed in these awards.

Okay – dream over – back to editing my novel so that someday I can be in the running.

Good writing.

.

My supervising lecturer recently gave me this book to read. She thought it could be of some use in the writing of my children’s novel which is also set in Nepal. Himalayan Adventures written by Penny Reeve is a charming little book (of only 96 pages) which deals with various aspects of life in Nepal. Each chapter is a self contained story about an animal, bird or some commonplace aspect of village life. There is little connection between each chapter.

The stories are short and written in a narrative style with minimal dialogue. Each is an object lesson in living the Christian life as seen by the author who served as a health professional with a mission organisation in Nepal. While each story is charming in its own way, I would like to have seen some connection between each chapter, such as the same children appearing in each story. This would have allowed more use of dialogue which would also have improved the book.

This book has not been of much value in writing my own children’s book about Nepal because it is so different from what I am trying to do with my story.

Reference:

• Reeve, Penny 2005, Himalayan Adventures, Christian Focus Publications, Ross-shire, Great Britain.

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/book-review-himalayan-adventures/feed/ 4 http://www.trevorhampel.com/where-are-the-writers-for-children/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/where-are-the-writers-for-children/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:00:35 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1591 Adelaide Writers’ Week 2010

Last week I attended three days of the week long Adelaide Writers Week. This biennial event is an integral part of the Adelaide Festival of Arts here in South Australia, one of the leading such festivals of its kind in the world. The list of guest speakers is often a who’s who of the writing world. This time was no exception and the impressive parade of talented writers throughout the week was very inspiring. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

But where were the writers for children?

They were conspicuous by their almost total absence.

Almost.

Only Markus Zusak could be said to be a writer for children – a debatable point as his audience is best described as Young Adult.

Australia has an impressive number of world class writers for children. They lead the world in their chosen field. They are acknowledged around the globe for their talent and many outsell their adult counterparts. Why, then are they totally ignored festival after festival?

Is this a case of literary snobbery on the part of the organising committee? Or ignorance?

Adelaide Writers' Week 2010

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/where-are-the-writers-for-children/feed/ 4 http://www.trevorhampel.com/progress-on-my-novel/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/progress-on-my-novel/#comments Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:14:36 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1362 Over the last ten days I have been steadily working on two aspects of my novel for children. I have been going through the text meticulously editing and rewriting. I have now finished the second and third drafts of the text. I’ve almost finished the fourth draft as well.

Proofreading

In the second draft of the work I used the notes of fellow students for the first seven chapters, plus the notes of a friend who offered to proofread the whole novel for me. She proved to be quite valuable as a reader and she managed to pick up many typos, punctuation errors and a few spelling errors. She found errors on most pages and so it was worth my while getting her to read the manuscript. Her strength is in copyediting, rather than in structural elements, setting, plot or characterisation. She did have a few comments to make about the motivation and attitude of the protagonist which made me think.

Supervising lecturer

On the third draft I used the notes and comments of my supervising lecturer. Rosanne, with all of her experience as a published writer, is able to tell immediately if there are any weaknesses in the story, where things could be improved, elements of the plot that need to be eliminated as well as being good at copyediting. As my supervising lecturer this is a big part of her role. She is also very good at encouragement and also in gently pointing out areas for improvement. If only every writer had such a mentor. Actually-she is far more than a mentor to me; she has become a friend.

Rewriting

During the third draft I also did considerable rewriting, adding and subtracting many words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and even a half page here and there. In fact, during this process the manuscript went from 39,175 words to 39,932 words, an almost 2% increase. And that was despite deleting many words along the way.

Inconsistencies

On my fourth draft I am on my own, looking at the suggestions of no-one. I am going through the text with a very critical eye. I am eliminating all unnecessary words and passages. I am looking for grammatical errors (a few), problems with point of view (there were many) and inconsistencies with the tenses of my verbs. This latter area will need much attention in my fifth draft, I’ve decided.

Road trip

Over the last five days progress has slowed down considerably due to being away from home. We travelled to Geelong for our daughter’s graduation at Deakin University. She has achieved her Master of Education (TESOL), her third degree. Because we were staying with friends it was part holiday as well. I was able to attend to some editing but relaxing with our friends was higher on the agenda.

Tomorrow I will need to get back into full swing again.

Related articles:

• Writing a novel - a series of articles outlining the processes I went through while writing a novel for children.

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/progress-on-my-novel/feed/ 0 http://www.trevorhampel.com/what-i-am-reading-photographic-books-about-nepal/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/what-i-am-reading-photographic-books-about-nepal/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:31:39 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1343

Ama Dablam, Nepal

Writing a novel: a writer’s journal part 25

What I am reading: photographic books on Nepal.

As a part of my research for background information for my children’s novel, I have been on a few visits to my local public library. Their collection of titles on Nepal is not great, but I did find several interesting titles. Two of these I mention here. Both could be categorised as coffee table style photographic essays. Both had minimal text which was more than compensated for by the brilliant photography. Most people would have found them extremely interesting just from a pictorial point of view. All of the photographs would have found a very comfortable home in publications such as National Geographic.

As an armchair traveller I enjoy the intriguing journeys of Michael Palin. He has an eye-probably two of them actually-for the bizarre, the amusing, the absurd and the downright confronting. This comes through in the various television travel series he has anchored over the years. Inside Himalaya is the spin-off book version of his television series Himalaya. The text in the book is sparse and as such was not of much help to me in my research. Despite that, I still enjoyed the sheer beauty of the photographs.

Pierre Toutain’s book Nepal is very similar. A little more than half the size of the Palin book, it matches it in the beauty of the photography. Palin’s book covers Pakistan, Tibet, Bhutan and Bangladesh in addition to Nepal, while Toutain’s book is totally focused on Nepal and as such, was more useful to me. It also has much more in the way of text (written by Michel Gotin). The text was far more informative and useful for my purposes.

My reading of these two beautiful books had one unfortunate side effect: I have a heightened desire to return someday soon the enigmatic and beautiful roof of the world, Nepal. I must get my novel finished, off to a publisher, accepted, published and then return on the proceeds from my writing. (I can dream, can’t I?)

References:

• Palin, M, Pao, B 2004, Inside Himalaya, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
• Toutain, P, Gotin, M 1986, Nepal, Merehurst Press, London.

Further reading:

• My travels in Nepal – archive from my travel blog
• Writing a novel – more articles in the series about how I went about writing a novel.

Scene from our lodge in Monjo, Nepal

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/what-i-am-reading-photographic-books-about-nepal/feed/ 2 http://www.trevorhampel.com/my-novel-is-finished/ http://www.trevorhampel.com/my-novel-is-finished/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:29:10 +0000 Trevor http://www.trevorhampel.com/?p=1284 Writing a novel – a writer’s journal part 19

I DID IT!

I actually did it. I have finished writing the first draft of my novel for children. I wrote the last words this afternoon.

My target was 40,000 words which is set down as a requirement by my lecturers. (This is my thesis paper for my Master of Arts Creative Writing degree.) In the end I finished on about 39,175 words which is good. It gives me a little flexibility during the rewriting stage. I know there will be extra things I want to include in a few places. The maximum word count is a guide only anyway, but we really can’t stray too far under or over. In reality it may have been better to be over by a few thousand words; it is much easier to cut rather than add words.

Next stage: rewriting

I’m going to let it sit for a few days before getting back to it. Ideally I might be better off leaving it for a few weeks, but with a deadline of the end of November I don’t have that luxury. The next stage is to go through the whole manuscript, rewriting sentences and passages as needed. I know I have some problems with point of view in the early chapters, for example. I will also sit down with my supervising lecturer and analyse whether there needs to be any structural changes. This will inevitably lead to more rewriting.

Editing

The next crucial stage is editing. In this stage I will go back over the whole manuscript, looking at all the fine details of spelling, punctuation, word usage (is this the best word to use here?), grammar and sentence construction. It is a process I do not enjoy. I’ve been trying to get to ‘like’ this stage as an important step in the creative writing process. I don’t think I’ll ever ‘love’ it. At present I tolerate it as a necessary stage towards getting published.

Proofreading

The final stage is proofreading. In this stage I will check every letter, every word, every punctuation mark and make sure everything is perfect.

I have a few busy weeks ahead.

Good writing.

Related articles:

• Problems with point of view
• The importance of editing
• To err is human – to proofread is to be a good writer: seven effective proofreading hints
  
• Writing a novel
  

]]> http://www.trevorhampel.com/my-novel-is-finished/feed/ 8