Karen Comer

Collecting Stories

Structural editing and aborio rice

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Although you may not think that editing and rice should appear in the same sentence, I have just proven you wrong! This week, I have been immersed in the structural edit for my Hachette young adult verse novel, Grace Notes, out February 2023.

My publisher, Kate Stevens, sent me her thoughts. Plot holes. Characters who need a back story to explain their motivation. Scenes which don’t advance the story. Stilted dialogue through text messages. Shall I continue? You get the picture!

I read through Kate’s notes, started work.

On Tuesday, I planned to cook chicken risotto for dinner. Checked I had all the ingredients. In the evening, I set out the larger frying pan for the chicken risotto, the smaller pan for the vegetarian version for Miss 15, the saucepan for the stock. Found a bottle of white wine so I could add the half cup to the risotto dish. Poured myself a glass – even though it was Tuesday. Poured the oil in, chopped the onion, pulled out the rice. Relished the idea of slowly stirring the risotto, idly watching those grains of rice plump up with my homemade stock while solving plot problems.

Problem – similar size to one of my plot problems. Jasmine rice, not aborio. You cannot cook a risotto with jasmine rice. Could have cooked up the chicken and rice separately but that combination wasn’t doing anything for me.

Took a sip of wine, turned off the stove, looked in the freezer. Thanked my past self for her efforts as I pulled out a beef ragu for three people, a tomato-eggplant sauce for one, a sausage and broccoli sauce for one. Found enough pasta. Served my dinner medley.

On Wednesday, I thought about eating chicken risotto for dinner while I focused on my street artist character’s dilemma – how could he get out to paint in Melbourne’s lockdowns? I worked through scene after scene, making notes, rewriting lines, making more notes. I guessed I’d have to open another bottle of white wine, even though it was Wednesday – risotto really needs that white wine to absorb before the stock goes in.

That evening when Cleo, our dog, nudged me at the desk for dinner, I thought it was probably time I started cooking our dinner, too. Fed Cleo, opened that bottle of white wine, went to grab the bag of aborio rice.

But. I had not left the house all day. Not even to buy aborio rice.

I did check the freezer but my past self had nothing for me. We ate Chinese takeaway. (Note to my kids – there will be none of the usual takeaway over the weekend!)

But yesterday, dear readers, even though I barely left my desk, so focused on fixing up those pesky plot holes, I sent Mr 18 out to the supermarket.

The risotto was delicious. As was the white wine. On a Thursday.

Immersion into other worlds

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I’m not back into writing yet – I still need to conserve my energy after getting Covid almost six weeks ago. I’m back into my editing work and am edging my way back to writing by immersing myself into research for my third book.

This book for young adults has a fairy-tale theme, and I’ve been reading many scholarly works by Marie-Louise von Franz, Bruno Bettelheim, Joan Gould and Lisa Marchiano on fairy tales.

But as I’ve spent a considerable amount of time lying down over the past few weeks, i’ve been using that time somewhat productively by watching Once upon a time, the Disney series.

I’d watched the first three (of seven!) seasons a few years ago but decided to rewatch them to immerse myself in a visual fairy-tale world.

The premise for the show – the evil queen, Regina, (the stepmother in Snow White’s story) has cursed all inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest, transporting them to a small town in Maine where they have led controlled, dull lives for 28 years, with no knowledge of who they really are until Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter (sent through a portal before the curse) wakes them up.

The characters play dual roles, each with a contemporary modern existence with flashbacks to their lives in the Enchanted Forest. For example, Jiminy Cricket in the Enchanted Forest is now a psychologist in Storybrook, Maine, the evil queen is the mayor and Rumplestiltskin is Mr Gold, an antiques dealer.

Occasionally, I’ll roll my eyes and wonder how many more portals and strange lands can these characters fall into but most of the time, I love the characters and the way their hidden depths and secrets are revealed. As I’m looking at my book through a Jungian perspective, I’m really interested in the split roles of the characters, how the ‘evil’ characters are often a catalyst for the ‘good’ characters to wake up and how most characters are a fascinating blend of good and evil.

I watch each episode with either my phone or a notebook, so I can pause the show and take notes.

I’m up to season 6! I can strongly recommend films and television series for a visual immersion into another world!

And thank you all so much for your kind comments – I really appreciate your support and interest in my writing.

A publishing contract with Hachette!

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I’m so thrilled to share with you that this week I signed a publishing contract with Hachette for my debut young adult novel, Even the ocean! It’s due to be published in February 2023.

This is a verse novel about two fifteen-year-olds living in Melbourne during 2020, trying to hold on to their creativity despite being restricted by both lockdowns and their families. Crux wants to be a street artist but it’s illegal for kids to carry spray cans in public. Talia wants to become a professional violinist but her family has academic expectations. It’s a book about self-expression and resilience.

Oceans of thanks to Danielle Binks, my agent, and Kate Stevens, Hachette publisher, for their belief in this story from the very beginning. Their enthusiasm came through my screen in Zoom meetings during Melbourne’s lockdowns!

Hachette publish some of my favourite young adult and middle-grade authors – Danielle Binks, Pip Harry, Cath Crowley, Jessica Townsend – I’m in excellent company!

I’m looking forward to sharing more details about my research into street art and my violin lessons. Warning – I do not share my characters’ talents in these fields!

It was so wonderful to receive the contract this week – I’m almost five weeks past getting Covid (hence my silence on the blog) and I’ve been struggling through Covid brain fog and physical exhaustion. The Hachette contract is absolutely a highlight for my year!

Where do ideas come from?

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Thank you so much to all the new blog readers, especially the year seven students who have signed up – I really appreciate your support!

My middle-grade verse novel Y is a crooked letter will be published next year and I’ll start working on the structural edit in a couple of months. I thought I would explain where some of my ideas for this book came from.

It’s a story for 9-12 year-olds, set in Melbourne, about a girl called Freya (aged 12) who is passionate about basketball and fearful about lifts. The book opens with a scene of Freya and her mum moving house, from their home in Eltham to an apartment in Abbotsford. Freya can see the neon sign of the Skipping Girl from the apartment’s balcony.

Basketball – for quite a few years, my three kids played a lot of basketball. This meant that my life involved driving them to training, supervising training sometimes and watching their games. Because the thud thud thud of the basketball became the soundtrack to those years, it naturally wove itself into my story. I’d never played basketball and I never intended to write about basketball but I thought that Freya needed to have a sport so I gave her basketball. Then it turned out that not only did she play basketball but she loved it. It was her favourite thing in the world! So although I intentionally included basketball in my book, I had no idea it would feature so prominently.

Skipping Girl – one of my school friends, Kathryn, had told me years ago that when she was a little girl, she loved driving past the Skipping Girl sign at night a few times a years when her parents would drive home from a city excursion. She loved seeing the Skipping Girl lit up at night – it was something to look out for, something special. Another friend had a small son who would climb on to their wheelie bin, hold on to the fence, crane his neck and just make out the Skipping Girl in the night sky. Again, she was special. When I was thinking about Freya moving house, and how she had left behind a part of her family, all of her friends, her basketball team, I thought she might need something that represented stability and certainty to her. I can’t even remember how the Skipping Girl sign came to me but once I thought of it, I knew she would be important in my book.

So that’s how two of my ideas for Y is a crooked letter came about! I’m writing my third book now, and it still feels the same, like I’m a magnet attracted to everything I need for my book, even if I don’t know exactly what I need.

We need a lot of dreaming time to allow ideas to rise up to the surface. If we’re constantly on screens, constantly being passively entertained by screens, constantly filling our heads with other people’s words and ideas, then there’s no room for our own ideas to fill our heads. I try to be as mindful as I can – I walk every day and I make sure I only spend half my walk listening to a podcast so the other half is for dreaming. Sometimes I drive in silence when I’m alone in the car, no music, no radio, no podcasts, no calling a friend. Ideas come in the gaps of our days – when we’re in the shower, walking, washing dishes, on the tram.

I hope you are filled with ideas in your week ahead!

A publishing contract!

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Dear blog readers, I have some news! I’m thrilled to share with you that I’ve been offered a publishing contract with Allen & Unwin for my middle-grade verse novel, Y is a crooked letter!

This book began life 11 years ago as a picture book, then turned into a middle-grade novel, then metamorphosed into a verse novel.

That’s 11 years of words – cutting, rewriting, adding, deleting, rearranging, polishing, choosing, discarding, speaking, scribbling – until I finally had something that sung.

I’m so excited to be working with Allen & Unwin! I have attended a few of their courses through the Faber and Faber Institute, met their wonderfully talented editors and read so many, so many of their beautiful books. It is an honour to be connected with Allen and Unwin, and I’m looking forward to a creative collaboration with their lovely publisher, Anna McFarlane. Dream come true!

So grateful to my agent, Danielle Binks, for signing me, giving me such wise counsel in her writerly feedback and in navigating me through the process of pitching to publishers and negotiating deals. She is a gem!

Y is a crooked letter will be published in June 2023, and I look forward to sharing more of the publishing and writing process with you next year.

And stay tuned – I may have more exciting news early next year!

Wild scribes

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I’m excited to share with you that I’m facilitating an online writing course through the Springfield retreat centre! Springfield conjures up creativity and magic for me, and I hope to do the same with the Wild Scribes.

I stayed at Springfield in the beautiful Southern Highlands in February 2020 for a writing retreat with Canadian writer Sarah Selecky. Thanks to Covid and the lockdowns that started at the end of March, I formed an online writing group with the wonderful writers who attended that retreat. I have since led that online group, and have now been invited to start another online writing group.

Springfield’s new online offering, Wild Scribes, will give you the motivation, accountability and support you need to add another 5,000 words to your writing project. Regardless of whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, adult or children’s literature, a novel or short story, this six-week program will help you clarify your ideas, hone your craft, and most importantly, offer support and encouragement. I’ll share tailored feedback each week, based on twenty years of editing experience as well as my own writing practice.

Join me for six weeks, every Tuesday evening 7.00-8.30pm, from 26th October to 30th November. We’ll be a supportive, encouraging class of six to ten writers, submitting 1,000 words on our writing platform Wet Ink and reviewing two writers’ work.

Equal parts motivation and momentum, you’ll have an extra 5,000 words towards your writing project. Something to celebrate at Christmas…

You can find out more on the Springfield website or you can send me an email here.

Late ideas

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When I’m in the flow of my writing, I feel like a magnet drawn to exactly what I need – a dictionary word, a Netflix episode, a twitter post, a conversation with a friend, anything. Connected to anything that will serve my story.

I’m not even consciously seeking ideas – they come to me.

Does this happen all the time? Absolutely not!

But when it does happen, it’s magic.

Last month, I deleted 5,000 words of my 25,000 word middle-grade verse novel, pulling out chunks of text – sometimes a line, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes a few pages. I had found an inconsistent element in my novel and drastic work was needed.

I knew I had to cut it out – and I’d known it for a while. I had tried to smooth it over, hide it with lyrical words, an exciting scene or two, a few magician’s tricks. Didn’t work.

I needed something else to fill the gaps – a little bit more than painter’s spackle. It had to look flawless, not tacked on.

I thought about my grade six protagonist, I thought about my grade six son. Nope, nothing.

One night, I made a quick leap from my desk to the kitchen to cook dinner in a hurry. Dinner never needs to be cooked early during lockdown – none of us are going anywhere. But my grade six son had an online talk with parental involvement on sex education.

I had left cooking too late – we ended up, the whole family, eating in silence, a laptop sitting on the kitchen bench, camera off, microphone off while my grade six son cringed as the educator talked about body parts and conception. His older siblings grinned, nudged him, made faces.

Body parts. Conception.

Goosebumps.

I could feel it on my skin. My grade six protagonist who has started her final year of primary school in a new school, now has to sit through sex education classes in her second week – with kids she doesn’t even know.

Goosebumps.

A leap from the kitchen after dinner back to my desk.

My words were enough not only to fill the gaps but hopefully make them so seamless that readers will never ever know they weren’t there originally.

A late dinner, a late idea. Connections.

Equal parts creativity and logic

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Dear blog readers, it’s been a little while. My family has faced a couple of obstacles in the last month which have taken up my time, attention and energy. And then there’s lockdown #6…

However, I am pleased to report that I am almost ready to send off my second book to my agent for her thoughts in a few days. Working on this third draft has been a mix of strategies – equal parts creativity and logic. One of my characters is a violinist, the other is a street artist – both creative teenagers.

I have used the talented writer Asphyxia’s art book methods for brainstorming and planning this book. It has been so incredibly helpful to have a visual place to keep all my ideas and nut out all my questions. I have deliberately kept it messy – sometimes the neatness of a journal can be intimidating – and there is nothing neat about writing a book!

I have also used a table as a different way to visualise my story. This helps me with the practical side of things – dates, tension, character arc. I can see instantly whether my stakes are a little light in a particular scene. When you can’t see the wood for the trees, it helps to have a way to separate out the different elements. It might not be as pretty as an art journal but it’s just as useful!

And part logic, part creative, the third thing which has really helped me write this book is the walks and talks I’ve had with my husband and one of my brothers. When they ask me about my book, and I tell them I’m stuck with one particular thread, their questions have helped me pinpoint where the problem is as well as possible solutions. Walking along the Darebin Creek has been a huge source of creativity for me during lockdown!

I hope that this month has been kind to you. Let me know in the comments whether you’re a creative or practical person for solving problems, or a combination of both.

Some news… a literary agent

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I have some news to share – I have a literary agent! Danielle Binks from Jacinta di Mase Management offered to represent me. Dream come true!

I signed up through the CYA conference for a few manuscript assessments, and sent in the first 2,500 words of my middle-grade verse novel.

Even before our meeting, Danielle asked to see the full manuscript. Our online meeting last weekend was a quick exchange of pitches and questions – and then an offer for representation with the contract emailed within an hour!

I am beyond thrilled Danielle is my agent – her passion and knowledge for the middle-grade and young adult Australian market is exceptional.

Danielle will now pitch my middle-grade and young adult verse novels to publishers later in the year.

Danielle is also an author – her middle-grade book, The years the maps changed came out last year and her young adult novel, The monster of her age, will be published next month by Hachette.

You can see my profile on the JDM website here!

Kind eyes

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I’ve been working at different levels through my three books – revisiting my first book in preparation for a couple of online conferences this month, polishing the second draft of my second book and gathering ideas for my third book, at this stage a fragile bubble of an idea.

Looking at these three separate ideas, I’m observing both the influences from other writers as well as the experiences in my life which, although separate, have grown into connections, plots, characters, books.

A constant thread is my need for kind eyes – in writing and in life. Look at these characters, I want to say, look at what they’re going through. See how they suffer through their own unknowing or the circumstances they find themselves in.

It’s the same way I look at my friends, my family, my community. Look at these people, I want to say, look at what they’re going through. See how they suffer – she is worried about her widowed mother in another state, he is not happy in his job, she is lonely after her divorce, he is at a loss as to how to parent his child, she weeps at being separated from her children.

And there are always the smaller moments, my favourite ones to write and observe. Look at my character, see his joy at playing basketball with his daughter – this moment is everything he thought parenthood would be.

Observe my friend – she is tired, her work is overwhelming, she doesn’t have the energy to go grocery shopping for her family, her hair is greying at the roots (that hair I once braided for her in Year 8) but see how she lights up when her child sidles up to her for a cuddle and see how he smiles when she whispers she has a bolognaise sauce to defrost from the freezer.

See my fifteen-year-old girl character, see how she banters with her bestie on the way home from school and steals a chip from the greasy box from the fish and chip shop.

Look at my friends, this couple – watch how she beckons him in a crowded room with her eyes, see how he smiles, walks towards her, places his hand on her hip, see for a moment their younger selves.

Look at them with kind eyes – see them all.