Karen Comer

Collecting Stories

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.

Second drafts

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Second drafts are wonderful to work on because there is so much that is wrong with them and therefore, they are infinitely improvable! At least, that’s the case for me.

I’m editing the second draft of my young adult verse novel. It’s still very loose at this stage, so I’m focusing on the big picture rather than the smaller details. I’m thinking about:

  • would my characters really do this?
  • is the pace too fast or too slow?
  • is there tension in every scene?
  • what is the balance between my two protagonists?
  • how are my characters working to achieve their goals?
  • is the antagonist believable, with a strong enough motivation to stop the protagonists from reaching their goals?
  • and always, always, always going to back to the theme of my book – how do my characters belong in their worlds, yet still express themselves to honour their authenticity?

I’m using Alan Watt’s The 90 day rewrite as my guide. He outlines the main plot points, with lots of key ideas to discover what your story is really about in this draft.

My second draft is full of predictable mistakes. I’ve changed a couple of the characters’ names. I’ve wandered down a rabbit hole, and need to delete that hole entirely. I’ve moved scenes around because they were in the wrong order. I’ve merged two characters together.

I love working on a second draft because it’s so satisfying to fix. The mistakes are so glaring and the solutions so obvious, that the manuscript improves every time I breathe on it.

I’m trying to finish this draft in an impossibly short self-imposed deadline of a month, so I can send it to a friend who is equal parts critic and cheer squad. This means she will rip it to shreds but will tell me I can fix it.

So the third draft will be equally satisfying because I’ll have her notes to help me.

It’s the fourth draft, when I need to focus on developing the emotions of the characters, the nuances of the plot and the subtleties of language, that it becomes hard. It’s not quite singing yet, but it’s not so obvious as to how to elevate my writing so that it does sing.

But that’s at least three months away… nothing to worry about now!

A writing retreat with Eliza Henry Jones

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Eliza Henry Jones is one of my favourite Australian authors – so prolific, so talented! She opened up her flower farm to a bunch of writers last weekend, and I drove away well-fed, with a bunch of beautiful flowers and several exercises to boost my writing. I interviewed her a few years ago about her novel Ache here.

Eliza talked with us about her own writing journey, her four books (two adult fiction, two young adult fiction) and her tips and tricks for developing characters, understanding the difference between plot and structure and persisting when writing becomes challenging.

One of her exercises involved a tour of her farm in the Yarra Valley, with an invitation to collect something that caught our eye – perhaps a flower, a stick, a stone.

After meeting Ferdy the duck and looking at the laden avocado and lemon trees and the sprawling sweet peas, we headed back into the barn to write about our object. My leaf sparked a poem for my current verse novel, set during Autumn and Winter last year.

Our afternoon tea was delicious – muffins, cookies, brownies! – and at the end of the retreat we were invited to gather flowers from the buckets lining the back wall of the barn to create our own bouquet to take home!

I have been to many writing retreats and workshops but I’ve never gone home with flowers before! Nor have I done a writing exercise which involved cliches and a Shetland pony!

Dear readers, it’s been a while

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Dear readers, it’s been a while since I last posted. My website updated itself in December and there were problems that seemed insurmountable because it was December and there were work deadlines and Christmas deadlines and general December busyness.

Thank you to the lovely Nic from Planning with Kids who helped me with the technical side of my blog as well as giving me a big pep talk for continuing on!

There is news to catch up on!

Reading

I’ve been reading a lovely pile of books – my usual mix of fiction, non-fiction, children, young adult and poetry. Standout books include Seth Godin’s The practice (non-fiction), Cate Kennedy’s The taste of river water (poetry), The forty rules of love by Elif Shafak (novel) and The girl who became a tree by Joseph Coelho (young adult). Reviews for some of these books coming!

Editing

I have a mix of projects at the moment which makes my editing life varied and exciting. I’ve almost finished editing a fabulously detailed family history of six generations dating back to Scotland in the 1850s, I’ve proofread a book about wills which has prompted me to have conversations with family members, I’m about to start reading an exciting crime novel for a general reader’s report and I edited a wonderfully lyrical essay on nature.

Writing

My first middle-grade verse novel is under submission so I’ve been researching for my young adult verse novel. I’ve almost finished this now, so I’m ready to look at the structure of the first draft. Are my key scenes in the right places? Do they match up with my research? Do my two main characters meet up at the right moment?

Facilitating

I’m now the facilitator for the online Springfield writers’ group. This is a talented, oh so talented group of women who are writing poems, essays, novels, short stories, memoirs, non-fiction. We meet once a week to discuss two writers’ work and the creative collaboration in this group is a tangible thing.

Creating

Apart from creating a weekly menu of lunches and dinners and snacks which lately have NOT been as creative as my other pursuits, I’ve been teaching myself to weave. Last year during the lockdowns, I found quilting and sewing to be an antidote to the news cycle. I have a beautiful weaving kit and I am making a random, unplanned small weaving in soft dusky pinks, creams and burgundies.

Tutoring

I am constantly telling my children how lucky they are to have me as a mother but it’s only when I cook their favourite meal or help them with an English essay that they truly appreciate me! Mr 17 is in year 12 this year and we have already spent some time together talking through his first SAC. I also read through a few of his mates’ pieces – one of them named a character Karen. I am not sure whether to take it as a compliment or an insult – the character was rather annoying!

Your news …

Please tell me what you have been reading, writing or creating – I’d love to know.

Loose writing

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Writers are often categorised by their planning style – plotters or pantsers. Plotters are those writers who meticulously map out their characters’ motivations, fears, wants, showing the internal growth against the external narrative drive – set out in spreadsheets, taped on walls. They need to know all of this before they can start writing. J. K. Rowling is a plotter. Kate Forsyth is another plotter.

Pantsers (as in, write by the seat of your pants!) like to dive in to writing their novel, holding an image in their head, maybe a scene, maybe a couple of characters who want different things and cross paths. Maybe they know there’s a murder at the beginning, perhaps they have a clear vision of a child’s birthday party or a revealing conversation at a beach in Mexico. Michael Robotham and A. L. Tait are pantsers.

Of course, there’s a spectrum, with vague plotters and outlining pantsers.

For my first book, I tried the pantsing method. I dove in, thinking that all ‘real’ writers knew exactly what they were doing, had a muse of inspiration sitting at their shoulder and that the right words in the right order would naturally flow. Needless to say, there wasn’t a lot of tension or conflict, my story meandered and there were definitely whole chapters that were fairly pointless.

Then I decided to rewrite it. This time, I drew internal character arcs against external narrative plot points. I questioned every single character about their motivation, their childhood, their biggest fear, their greatest want and mapped them in contrast to each other. I meticulously plotted each chapter, determining the purpose, setting, character growth, narrative reveal in a table which was indeed a thing of beauty. But when I came to write it, the writing a was a little flat. Actually, flatter than a footy oval after it’s been mown.

I did rewrite that first book with a new direction but that’s a long story for another post.

I’m now starting to write another novel, following a very loose way of plotting. I’m working my way through Alan Watt’s book, The 90 day novel. He offers a different approach with stream-of-consciousness exercises in five minute blocks to discover what your story is about.

I love it! I love this way of writing – it feels loose and free. I feel like I’m working on my book and progressing it but without forcing myself to think about the structure too much. Watt recommends spending the first 30 days daydreaming about your characters, using prompts to write from your character’s viewpoint such as:

  • The thing that I try to keep hidden is …
  • Justice will be done when …
  • The most cowardly thing I’ve ever done is …
  • If you knew me before, you would have said …
  • I couldn’t live without …

There’s also a section on structure so you can think about your three acts and the major plot points in them.

I am only a little way into my novel but already I can see it starting to take shape. It feels so joyful to write like this.

As for the 90 day promise, that will depend upon the amount of freelance editing work I have on my desk, whether my kids are sent home from school due to the coronavirus and how much writing I can fit in during the Easter holidays.

This stream-of-consciousness writing feels as insubstantial as the dandelions the woman in the photo above is blowing, the seeds dispersed anywhere and everywhere in a single breath. It also feels as freeing as the tiny seeds floating in the breeze and as full of possibility as a child wishing on a dandelion.

 

Springfield writing retreat

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Dear blog readers,

It’s been a while! I intended to take a three-week blogging break after Christmas. Then four of the five of us came down with the flu, then I caught up on my missed editing work, and then I went away for a week. So it’s been a while.

I want to tell you about the amazing week I experienced at a writer’s retreat at Springfield Farm, outside of Bowral, New South Wales. Imagine idyllic green paddocks, a couple of dams, a long, tree-lined driveway leading to a beautiful farmhouse with comfortable, spacious rooms. Gorgeous textiles, furniture with character. Views from every room. Verandahs to lounge in. Plus a writing studio, a yoga studio and accommodation in separate buildings.

There was the soul-nourishing vegan food – home-grown with care, cooked with passion, shared with love. Yoga was optional every morning but why miss out on gentle stretches, loose dancing and mindful movements, taught with lots of heart?

Sarah Selecky, a Canadian writer best known for her latest book, Radiant shimmering light, taught us every day. (You can read my review of Sarah’s book in an earlier post here.) Sarah focuses on using ‘deep noticing’ in nature as a way of connecting to our writing practice. She led us through free-writing exercises, gave us readings for discussion, and walked with each of us to discuss our writing. Sarah gave me tips to make my writing more concrete – I can be a little abstract, too feely-feely, not grounded enough.

The most compelling thing she told us was that our story is wiser than we are, and with a balance of deep noticing and imaginative, creative writing, we can find our way. To trust the space between the concrete words on the page and the reader’s experience of those words because it’s in the space that the magic happens.

There was such a wonderful sense of connection between the nine writers and the amazing support crew at Springfield. (Kinchem, Peter, Eilish, Michaela and Ryan – I can’t imagine how well-fed and well-nurtured I’d feel if you’d move to Melbourne!) Being part of a creative community for a week was an amazing experience – there’s nothing like feeling supported, validated and understood from a creative tribe. I loved hearing the other talented writers’ stories, both about themselves and in their readings on our last night.

While there was much on offer – yoga, foliage creations, bush walks, massages, gardening – there was so much spaciousness to write. I wrote about fifteen poems for my new book and discovered the themes and motifs through writing small pieces.

Springfield, I’ll be back!

Naming – a short story

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Stringybark

A couple of years ago, I had an adult short story published by Stringybark Press in one of their anthologies. It’s part of the collection of modern fairy tales I’m working on. I thought I’d share it here for you to enjoy!

Naming

I watch them every morning from my bedroom window at the front of the house. I kneel on my bed and pull the blind up a little bit so I can see them. They stand between the two cars parked in their driveway. Rob wears a suit with a shirt and tie. Julie wears a pretty dress. Sometimes her hair is in a ponytail, sometimes she wears it loose. They reach towards each other, and he puts his hand on her back and she puts her hand around his neck and they kiss. Kiss, kiss, kiss, for a really long time. Sometimes they say goodbye in a slightly different spot and I can’t see them properly through the bushes between our house and theirs. But I always hear Rob’s car drive off first down the street, then I hear Julie’s car leave. Then I open my blind all the way.

They are so nice, our neighbours. Julie works at the office for a big bakery and always leaves a cardboard box full of bakery sweets, like jam donuts and apple scrolls and custard tarts at our front door on Friday evenings. So now Friday is dessert night. It used to be Saturday, but now it’s Friday.

Fridays are a good day now. They used to be a bad day, because we had sport at school. Well, I have sport at my school. My younger brother, Dan, has sport at his school on Monday and Wednesday. I go to a different school. The sign at the front of my school says it is a special school for children with special needs, so all children can reach their potential. I know this is not true. Because some of the children here have already reached their potential. Sam, for example, is never going to learn any more about maths. He knows some maths, but he’s never going to learn any more and he’s fourteen already. I am only twelve, but my potential for maths is still growing. I heard Mr Tallin tell Mum that I have great potential for maths, maybe up to Year 10. But my potential for sport is not good – I can only catch the ball three out of ten times, and not every sports day. Just a good sports day.

This Friday, when Julie comes over to give Dan and me the box of bakery treats, she tells us she has some news. Some exciting news. She and Rob are going to have a baby. Mum gives her a big hug and makes her come inside to sit at the table and tell us all about it. Dan goes outside to play basketball – he always practises after school until Mum tells him it is homework time – but I stay inside.

‘Is this Julie’s potential, Mum? Is this the best she can do? Is this why it is really exciting?’

Mum and Julie smile a special sort of smile at each other. ‘Well, Pat, having a baby is an amazing thing to do,’ says Julie, folding her hands on our scratched kitchen table. ‘But I think I can have a baby and still do some of my work potential at the same time.’

I open the bakery box to see what Julie has given us today. Lemon tarts, jam donuts and fruit buns. I like the donuts best.

‘Actually, it’s Paddy today. My name is Paddy.’

Julie nods politely but I know she doesn’t understand. My name is very important to me. It’s Patrick David Lamond. Sometimes I like to be called Pat, sometimes Paddy and some days Patrick. Sometimes Boy-o, but only by Dad. Patrick is for a bad day, Pat is for an ok day and Paddy is for a good day.

And I can’t quite work out what Julie means. So I put it in the box in my head marked ‘Adults’ – it’s for things that adults say that I don’t understand. There are a lot of things in that box. But I do know one thing – kiss, kiss, kiss does mean a baby. Lisa in my class told me that. She knows a lot about babies because she has three younger brothers and sisters at her house. And she is always playing with dolls in the home corner. Sometimes she makes me play too. I have to be the dad, and hold the baby while she cooks dinner. She even showed me how to change the baby’s nappy and pat it gently so it would fall asleep. Lisa can’t write very well because she doesn’t hold her pencil properly but she knows how to hold a baby.

‘What about names, Julie?’ asks Mum, bringing two cups of tea to the table.

Julie shrugs her shoulders and laughs. ‘Oh, Rob and I have a list of girls’ names we like, so that’s sorted. But we like completely different boys’ names. So we are just calling the baby Rumplestiltskin for now!’

After Julie has her baby boy, she stays at home and doesn’t go out to work any more and doesn’t give us boxes of bakery treats on Fridays. So Fridays are bad days again because there is sport and there are no treats. Dan thinks Fridays are bad too, because he has no sport and no treats.

Rob goes back to work but Julie doesn’t kiss him between the cars any more. Sometimes I see Julie in her dressing gown holding the baby at the front door, making the baby wave his little hand. Sometimes the curtains are still closed in their bedroom window after I come home from school, and Mum says that Julie might be very tired because the baby might have cried in the night. Julie often comes over to our house with the baby, and sometimes she cries a bit and sometimes the baby cries a bit, and Mum makes her a cup of tea and holds the baby so Julie can go back home and have a shower. She doesn’t wear her pretty dresses any more. Usually, she wears tracksuit pants and a t-shirt.

One day after school I hear Julie’s baby crying and crying. Mum is in the middle of cooking something complicated in the kitchen so she can’t help Julie. I go next door and open the back door. Julie is crying on the couch and the baby is crying, too. She cries even more when she sees me.

‘I can hold the baby for you while you have a shower,’ I say. This is what Mum says.

Julie cries some more.

I walk over to the couch and put my hands out, and Julie gives me the baby. She needs two hands to find the tissues and blow her nose. The baby cries some more but I pat it gently just like Lisa at school showed me. I even sing the traditional lullaby Mrs Blackwell taught us last year.

Sleep, baby, sleep,
Thy father guards the sheep,
Thy mother shakes the dreamland tree,
And from it fall sweet dreams for thee.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

 The baby stops crying. Julie stops crying.

‘I think I have good potential to make the baby stop crying.’

‘I think you do, too, Pat,’ says Julie, and she smiles.

‘Paddy, are you in here? You shouldn’t be bothering Julie.’ It is Mum, standing at Julie’s back door.

‘Oh, no, Catherine, he’s fine. Pat’s helping me out – he’s just stopped all the tears!’

‘Well, as long as he’s helping and not bothering,’ says Mum. She uses her strict voice but she smiles at me. It always confuses me when she does that. And usually she does this when there are other people around. Is she happy with me or cross with me? I can never work it out. Something else to go in the ‘Adults’ box in my mind.

Julie rummages around in the pantry and finds me a chocolate biscuit.

It is a good day.

After a week, I go over to visit Julie to see if I still have my baby potential. The baby is lying on a blue and green rug on the floor, and Julie is waving a rattle in front of him. She lets me hold the rattle and I make a jingling noise for the baby.

‘Hi, Rumplestiltskin,’ I say to him. I know Rumplestiltskin isn’t his name but I don’t like his name so that’s what I call him.

‘See? I still have my baby potential,’ I tell Julie.

She smiles at me and starts to say something but the phone rings. When she answers it, she says lots of words like ‘I agree,’ and ‘Mmm,’ and ‘That all sounds possible.’

I don’t say anything because Mum has taught Dan and me that you don’t talk while someone is on the phone. I just sit next to Rumplestiltskin to teach him that you don’t make a lot of noise when someone is on the phone.

When Julie says, ‘Bye,’ and puts the phone down, she sits opposite me on the rug and touches the baby’s cheek.

‘Gosh, that was someone from my work on the phone, Pat. They want me to start work soon, maybe some work from home next week.’

I just keep waving the baby’s rattle in front of him. Sometimes adults talk like this, and I don’t know what to say. I only know what to say because I say what Mum or Dad or my teachers say.

Rumplestiltskin says nothing too but he smiles at me.

‘You will make an excellent babysitter one day, Pat, you are just so responsible.’

‘Thank you. Can I have another chocolate biscuit, please? And can you please call me Paddy today? Today, I am Paddy.’

Julie doesn’t have any chocolate biscuits today but she gives me a lamington. A lamington is even better than a chocolate biscuit because it is bigger and still has chocolate in it.

Later that week, I visit Julie and Rumplestiltskin again. Julie smiles when she sees me.

‘Come in, Pat, come in. I’m guessing you want to see my little man? He’s just lying on his rug, all wrapped up, ready for his sleep. You can have just a little look at him while I check something on the computer, and then he can have his sleep.’

Julie walks into the study and I look at Rumplestiltskin lying on the blue and green baby rug, then I pick him up to make sure I still have my baby potential. He looks at me and does not cry. Then I wonder if he has potential. Will he be a maths potential baby like me or a catching the ball potential baby like Dan or will he have looking after babies potential like Lisa?

I decide that all babies have the potential for walking. Well, except for Olivia and Bella and Luka who come to school in wheelchairs and can’t walk at all. Maybe I should check if Julie’s baby has the potential for walking.

I hold up the baby by his arms and let him dangle down. He is all wrapped up and I can’t see his feet. I lie him down again on the floor and unwrap him – there is a lot of material that is tucked around him. Once it is off, I can see his little feet, sticking out of the bottoms of his tiny white suit. I can hear Julie in the study, talking to someone on the phone.

‘That’s better, Rumple. Now you can walk.’

I stand over him, holding him under his arms, his feet just touching the floor.

‘Come on, Rumplestiltskin,’ I say in a gentle voice. ‘You can walk.’

He starts to cry. I move him around a bit and hold his hands with mine so his little arms are stretched over his head. He is so little, his head doesn’t even reach my knees.

I bend down over him, still holding his tiny hands. I use my really encouraging voice, the voice that Mrs Breen uses with me when she really, really wants me to catch the ball. ‘You can do it, Rumple, I believe in you. You can walk.’

But he doesn’t walk and cries louder.

His hands start to slip from mine. Too late, I remember that catching things is not my potential.

Julie comes rushing in from the study as Rumplestiltskin crumples onto the floor.

‘Oh, what the hell are you doing, Pat? Oh, precious one,’ she cries, scooping the baby into her arms. ‘Mummy’s here, it’s ok, you won’t get hurt.’

‘You’d better go, Pat. You can’t stay here any more.’

‘Actually, it’s Patrick, my name is Patrick today.’

Different ways of thinking

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There are so many different types of creativity and different ways to harness it. There’s also different ways to be logical and methodical and as many permutations as there are people for combining creativity and practicality.

I am a blend of inspirational and practical thinking – I do love to be organised because it means there’s more head space for creativity. So my pantry is a little obsessively neat and organised because that allows me to be more creative in the kitchen. But creativity comes first – this week, I forgot to put petrol in the car – yes, again!

In the children’s writing workshops I presented over the school holidays, the kids came up with many different ways to plan their stories. I offered both a linear approach and a more free-flowing, visual way to map out their stories in their writers’ notebooks.

Some kids naturally turned to the page with a list of questions and answered them chronologically. Others were drawn to the round diagram of the hero’s journey to generate ideas. Others drew pictures of their characters, created a flow chart or used a combination of stick figures and words to plan their story.

Our world needs diverse thinkers and doers, and encouraging kids to map out their stories creatively – both fictional and real-life – is an important life skill.