All posts in Authorship

Writing groups are everywhere. In my home state of Queensland I know of around forty, and I’m sure there are many more. Some specialise – in romance, in poetry, in crime, in science fiction, in fantasy. Some support writers who have novels in progress. Some aim for publication as a group, others don’t. Some just love playing with words and writing in any genre.

I started my writing life with a vibrant group of about ten people, some experienced writers, other novices like me. That was my apprenticeship. We all learned a lot about critiquing – our own work, and the work of other members. It was an absolutely invaluable learning experience.

Aspiring writers take note!

Every so often something happens to remind us that words – those little symbols on the page, the tools of trade of every writer – are powerful weapons.

Recently the doors of Causeway Books in Hong Kong were suddenly closed when its five owners and employees were detained by mainland security forces for selling books that offend the Chinese Government – primarily political biographies and economic analyses. Causeway Books is well known as a source of factual books on mainland China. It appears that the propaganda ministry has banned emotionally charged words (such as ‘slump’, ‘spike’ and ‘collapse’), and has warned against any analysis or assessment of economic circumstances.

So as we writers agonise over word choice – as we do every day – spare a thought for writers in other countries who are trying to get their message out under very different circumstances.

Years later she still wondered about him. It was one of those chance encounters that you never forgot. She’d been in Canada, bussing out of Kingston on a cold, grey, sleety morning. Suddenly a panting, dishevelled man flung himself on board at the last minute and collapsed into the seat beside her.

He started to talk. He seemed to need to. She didn’t have much choice but to listen.

His fingers twisted, his face worked as he talked. He’d been released from the Kingston jail that morning after fifteen years, he told her. Fifteen years? She couldn’t bring herself to ask what he’d done to deserve that. He’d got used to it, he said, it was all about routine. He’d worked in the kitchen cleaning the stoves. For ten hours a day, day after day, for fifteen years. It could have been worse.

Where was he going? He was going home, he said. To his father. His mother had died while he was in prison. He hadn’t seen either of them since he was put away. They’d never visited. Neither had his sister. His father had refused to collect him in Kingston. But he had nowhere else to go. As the miles flew by beads of perspiration appeared. The closer they got to his destination the more agitated he became. Finally he called out to the driver, retrieved his little duffel bag and glanced down at her. His face was tortured. Good luck, she said. I’ll need it, he replied. She glanced back. No one was waiting at the remote bus stop beside the windy highway.

He is a story waiting to be written.

Stories rain down on you at Christmas. It’s a time when families become a magnet for us all – however distant the family, whatever cracks may have appeared in its fabric during the year, its the family we need to be with at Christmas. In a country the size of Australia many of us travel many thousands of kilometres to be with our families – by air, by rail, by road, sometimes by all three. Then there are those family members living overseas who cover ten times those distances – just to be home for Xmas, however briefly.

Divorce, remarriage, and melded families have complicated Christmas for so many of us. Sometimes the planning around Christmas in these households requires almost military precision, to cover multiple family bases on the day. Often not everyone wants to visit every point, but Christmas has its own protocols.

Whoever we are, each one of us is writing our own Christmas story. It’s up to us to plan ahead for a happy ending.

My Christmas will be spent at the beach in midsummer heat, with family coming and going – as have so many other Christmasses in the past. That’s what feels like Christmas to me.

However you spend your Christmas, I do hope your story is a truly happy one from beginning to end.

I often think of her when I walk past her house. She’d be long dead by now. We were neighbours many years ago. Probably she was around sixty then, and her husband was in a wheelchair; their fights were frequent and loud. I was young, busy, out and about. The day I moved in she demanded a new fence. Broke, I asked her to wait until I could afford it. The next week a new fence was constructed and the bill put in my letterbox. It wasn’t a good start to the relationship. I soon learned she was the neighbourhood spy, reporting every minor event to any authority she could think of, interfering in everyone’s business. I dealt with her simply by ignoring her, after I finally paid for my share of the fence – a cheque accompanied by a sharply worded note.

All these years later I can see that her world had shrunk to her street. She was bitter, lonely, disappointed in the hand life had dealt her. She wanted to be significant. In retrospect I couldn’t have chosen a more hurtful response. She even screamed at me one morning when I was backing out – you pretend I don’t exist! I had no answer to that, and just swung off to work.

One day she will appear on a page. One day I will explore the nature of her particular brand of unhappiness. Although I have long since moved and moved again, ending up nearby, in the meantime I see her scowling at me every time I walk down that street.