Karen Comer

Collecting Stories

Readings YA Prize announcement

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This post was going to be all about the wonderful night Miss 14 and I had last night at the Readings Young Adult Prize announcement, held at the State Library. The Prize recognises exciting emerging voices in Australian young adult literature. Miss 14 was going in her capacity as a Readings teen advisory board member (corporate-sounding title, isn’t it!) and I was going because I love young adult books (and I’m writing one!).

However, due to the fifth Melbourne lockdown beginning at midnight, we decided not to go, even though technically we could have gone. Not worth the risk.

However, I can still bring you the vital information. The shortlisted books were:

  • Future girl by Asphyxia
  • The end of the world is bigger than love by Davina Bell
  • The F team by Rawah Arja
  • The boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough
  • Metal fish, falling snow by Cath Moore
  • Where we begin by Christie Nieman.

Miss 14 has read all six titles, I have two more to read.

Congratulations to all the shortlisted writers, especially Asphxia who won the Prize. Miss 14 reviewed Future Girl here – a gorgeously illustrated novel, set in the future, narrated by a Deaf teenager.

Here’s hoping we will all be able to gather together soon.

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.

Two new YA novels

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Miss 14 is part of the Readings teen advisory board for 2020 and she is lucky enough to receive advance copies of young adult books. And I am lucky enough to read them, too! This week, I read two wonderful young adult books.

The boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough was published in February 2020 and Henry Hamlet’s heart by Rhiannon Wilde is due out next month.

I loved the characters in Henry Hamlet’s heart – Henry’s family, including his bisexual Gran, is quirky, and his group of mates are believable, authentic teens. Henry is geeky, literary, clumsy and hasn’t kissed a girl. He’s in his last year of school and doesn’t know what he wants to do – or be. His best mate Len has always been there, and now he’s both pulling back and leaning forward in unexpected ways.

The boy from the Mish is about Jackson, a seventeen-year-old Aboriginal boy. His aunty and her kids come to visit for Christmas, bringing with them a boy called Tomas who has spent time in ‘juvie’. Jackson has always thought he’s straight – you couldn’t really be anything else in the Mish – but after spending time with Tomas, he’s not so sure.

Two fabulous reads with wonderful characters that kept me up way past my bedtime!

Fabrics to break up the words

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I’m in the middle of three editing projects. I’m in the middle of editing my young adult verse novel. I’m in the middle of explaining two Shakespeare plays, one for Miss 14 and one for Mr 17. And I’m deep in the middle of the ABC website, following their coronavirus blog like many other Victorians.

I need a break from words!

So I’m going to immserse myself in a different type of material. Fabric!

Ever since our family friend C (long-time blog reader!) gave us a wedding quilt (23 years ago!), and then helped me make my first one, I have dabbled in quilt-making. I made one for each of my three babies, plus another couple. I finished the bugs and butterfly one above during last year’s second lockdown.

I have a few boxes of my kids’ baby clothes that hold many stories. I did give away most of the clothes to younger cousins and friends but there were a few special pieces I wanted to keep. Mr 17’s green checked shirt that he wore on his second Christmas. Miss 14’s red gingham dress with the white pom-poms. Mr 11’s blue linen shorts that are almost threadbare because he wore them so often. Some pieces I’ll keep as they are – too beautiful to cut up – but there are so many pretty patterned fabrics that will most likely never see the light of day unless I repurpose them.

I’ve washed the baby clothe and have drawn up a rough design. I know quilting is an accurate craft and I know I have a tendency to dive headfirst into projects but I’m going to wing this one. It’ll look good in my head! My husband always reminds me, ‘Measure twice, cut once!’

A couple of friends are going to make a quilt, too, in this, our winter quilt challenge!

I am hoping that while I cut and sew this quilt made of my children’s stories, that some of the tangled storylines in my verse novel will loosen themselves while I give my mind a rest.

A beautiful question

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I recently finished reading Sarah Wilson’s This one wild and precious life, a book on climate change and activism. Her title comes from Mary Oliver’s poem, The summer day, which asks us to question what we will do to make the most of our brief, wonderful life.

Wilson’s book is full of a range of sources from conversations with the Dalai Lama, interviews with Bill McKibben, phone calls with Sister Joan Chittister, books from James Hollis. Her book alone could give you a reading list for a year, and she has many resources on her website here. She also wove in personal stories and accounts of her hikes through different parts of the world.

It would take me quite a few blog posts to discuss her ideas, so I’ll focus on just one. She quotes David Whyte, the Irish poet, who asks – but what is the most beautiful question here?

‘I’ve heard David explain that asking the more beautiful question (invariably the courageous one) delivers us the answer we seek. A question can often be laced with blame or rage. (‘Why did he do that to me?’ ‘Why won’t she just learn to recycle properly?’) But when we dig a few layers deeper to the more delicate, beautiful question (‘What need in me is not being met?’ ‘How can I better connect with this person?’), we find ourselves going to a kinder, more considered place in ourselves and each other.‘

Wilson also frames it this way later in the book when she quotes Jungian psychologist James Hollis who suggests asking:

‘by way of a technique for living a true life: ‘Does this choice enlarge or diminish?’ Now that is a beautiful question. Hollis added that in most circumstances, when we ask this question, we should know the answer immediately. We do, don’t we, when we’re brave enough to put things through this simple lens.

What is the most beautiful question you could ask yourself right now? Will your next choice enlarge or diminish?

Blood moon – the book and the event

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Reading a book called Blood Moon during the week there was a blood moon is definitely synchronicity!

The title of Lucy Cuthew’s young adult verse novel is so apt – it’s about British fifteen-year-old Frankie, who unfortunately gets her period during an intimate moment with a boy she likes. Frankie is a science nerd who works at the planetarium and spends every full moon night with her best friend Harriet in their old treehouse. The poem below comes at the end of the book, when Frankie and Harriet watch a blood moon.

We set up the telescope,

watching red

seep into the moon

at its edge….

Blood red,

impossibly lustrous,

suspended over us

three hundred and eighty-four thousand

kilometres

away.

The beauty of the blood moon

reminds me that

the universe is huge

and we are tiny,

but so lucky,

because we get to

witness its beauty.

On Wednesday night, my family watched the moon rise over our back fence. My phone pinged with messages from friends in Victoria and other states – photos of their russet-red moon risings.

So wonderful to watch a beautiful moon from your backyard.

Take care, Victorian readers – I hope you feel the moon’s calmness over the next week.

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!

Elsewhere girls – book review

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Last week, I went to the book launch for Elsewhere girls, a middle-grade novel by a pair of well-known Melbourne writers, Emily Gale and Nova Weetman.

Their book was launched at Bargoonga Nganjin, North Fitzroy Library by Leesa Lambert from The Little Bookroom, with sparkling wine and cupcakes, beautifully decorated with images of the characters.

Jane Pearson from Text Publishing introduced the writers. She told us it was a publisher’s dream to have writers of Emily and Nova’s talent approach her with a ‘thing’ they’d written, wondering whether Text would be interested.

Emily and Nova gave us a glimpse into their collaborative writing process with the way they laughed and chatted together. They spoke of their different approaches – Emily’s organised approach versus Nova’s wing-it ways – and their research trip to Sydney, which involved swimming in Wylie’s Baths.

Elsewhere Girls is the story of two swimmers living in different times. Fanny Durack is from the Sydney of 1908 – she lives over a pub with her parents and eight siblings and regularly escapes the chores of skinning rabbits and washing bedlinen by hand to swim instead. Cat Feeney lives in Sydney, 2021, getting up early every morning for squad training, even though she’s not as committed as she should be. Thanks to an old timekeeping watch, they somehow swap bodies and timeframes. While both are swimmers, their lives are different and each girl has a greater understanding of her own life while living someone else’s.

The story is told in first person with alternative chapters from Fan and Cat. Often a dual narrative means a reader will like one character over another. I loved Fanny and Cat equally! Fanny’s general all-round-loveliness and her kind, loud, hard-working family were delightful company and Cat’s uncertainty about her swimming future, and her courage in facing a new home, school and friends makes her an endearing character.

While I am in no way, shape or form a swimmer (I used to pretend to be sick on swimming days at primary school, thanks to a nasty, inappropriate male swimming teacher) I did enjoy all the swimming threads – the beach swimming, Wylie’s Baths, squad training, early starts. It was told so vividly, I could almost smell the chlorine!

This would be a perfect book for a 9-12 year-old reader, particularly sporty kids or those readers who love a time-slip story. Happy reading!

Blessings for mothers

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Soulful, deeply-connected mothering isn’t really talked about, even in this week leading to Mother’s Day. There’s a profusion of pink cards in supermarkets, glossy magazines with beautifully curated gifts and sentimental advertisements on television but not much about how mothering requires every emotional fibre of your heart, and then some.

This week, I’ve immersed myself deeply in my current editing job, a slim sixth edition book on childbirth, as well as a friend’s beautiful heartfelt book on parenting and three school masses celebrating motherhood.

The childbirth book has made me feel queasy at times – so many potential interventions! So many things to think about for first-time mothers! So many new things to learn while recovering from the birth and learning to care for a newborn baby! But the sheer miracle of creating and nurturing a new little life is so beautiful and hopeful an act of love that I am in awe again at this miracle.

My friend is a psychologist and a mother of five adult daughters. Her book is part memoir, part parenting guide and I so wish I could have read it while my children were young. The section on listening deserves to be distributed to every new mother in hospital. My friend’s gentle, wise words on using reflective listening to truly connect with your baby, child or teenager comes deep from her experience of mothering and providing psychology sessions. I’ve carried her words around deep inside me.

I’ve attended two school masses for Mother’s Day, with one more to come today. And oh, the music – teenage boys singing You raise me up, teenage girls singing psalms. And the blessings – because mothers need blessings. Oh, we need the blessings for the times when the baby cries inconsolably at three in the morning, when the toddler won’t get in the car when we’re running late, when the seven-year-old doesn’t get invited to a party, when the teenager won’t do their homework or stays out too late.

And we need to remember my friend’s suggestions to listen – not only with our ears – when they won’t tell us about their feelings of loneliness or not-enoughness or social media angst.

And we need to remember our feelings of love when we first gazed at their wonderful unique selves after the ordeal of childbirth. Soulful mothering – it takes everything we’ve got.

This weekend, there are families missing their mothers, mothers missing their children, childless women enduring a day of celebration that doesn’t acknowledge their choice or loss, mothers who don’t quite feel their own enoughness. Blessings to all of us.