The Plunge Down Under

Secrets of Becoming a Writer

One of the beauties of deciding to become a writer is that you need no particular qualificiations.  When asked at a dinner party what you do for work, you can reply, "I'm a writer."  As long as you aren't required to list out everything you have published, you are all set.  This is also a problem, of course.  Anyone can say they are a writer.  How do you go from making the decision to write to actually becoming a respected, published author? Considering that fewer and fewer people are reading anything other than headlines on the internet, is writing even a profession worth pursuing these days?

I don't know the answer to that question.  I am only just beginning to delve into this world.  What I have been told so far is that there are no real secrets to beoming a writer.  Rather there is hard work, more hard work, and then, most importantly, knowing the right people.

My second class on writing a non-fiction book started out much more happily than the first.  I did not take my camera (street photos are from last week), but instead headed straight to the CAE where I discovered that we had been moved to an air-conditioned room on the third floor with plenty of natural light.  This in itself was a big improvement from the stifling, noisy basement room to which we had been relegated last week.

We had been told to bring a favorite non-fiction book to share with the class, and this helped get an interesting conversation going before our instructor entered the room.  We soon confirmed that all of the would-be writers in the room shared a passion for reading, and within minutes books were being handed back and forth with recommendations and additional suggestions.  I was fascinated by the cross-section of Melburnians in the classroom.  They ranged in age from a very young twenty-something who admitted to us that she had never voluntarily read a non-fiction book in her entire life to the retired school principal that interviewed me last week.  The latter brought a tall stack of favorite non-fiction books with her.

After we had each had our turn sharing with the class what we hoped to gain from said books in relation to our own aspiring writing projects, the instructor turned to her topic of the day, "The Pitch."  In its simplest form, the pitch is a seven-word, no more and no less, phrase that encapsulates the book you are writing.  It must be punchy and fast, and ideally contain words with multiple associations.  The reason you need a seven-word pitch is so you will be prepared when you bump into an editor, publisher, or agent, or anyone with lots of money, at a writers' conference.  "What are you working on?," you will be asked, and you can speedily reply, "The Waltons Muck in with Crocodile Dundee."  

The next thing you need is the "Elevator Pitch."  This happens when you find yourself travelling from one floor to the next with the publisher, and should consist of about one hundred words.  In those one hundred words you must give a synopsis of your book, provide a rationale, discuss its markability, and also prove that you are qualified to be the author.

Researching marketability brings me to another assignment for would-be writers.  We were encouraged to visit our local bookstore regularly to find out what books are selling. Generally books are given a month to generates sales or a particular title will disappear.  Now this assignment I like.  Since Amazon has not yet taken over this part of the world, we have several bookstores within easy walking distance.  I have a favorite, and I welcome another reason to visit.  We were also encouraged to keep abreast with trends on Amazon, particularly in our areas of interest.

After discussing the pitch for some time, our instructor next spoke to us about demographics.  Writers generally should target a specific type of person to come up with an idea of audience---an ideal reader. This needs to be more than age and income bracket, and should also take into account interests and hobbies.  Once the ideal reader has been envisioned, a would-be writer needs to think about marketing herself.  The first task is to publish, publish, publish anywhere and everywhere.  This can be accomplished by submitting articles to free magazines happy to print just about anything, entering writing competitions, or also by starting a blog.  

At this stage a full three hours had passed since the class began, and I was eyeing the clock anxiously thinking about the whereabouts of each of my children. Our instructor quickly finished, however, with her final words of wisdom:  the most important thing that we will take from this course is a network of people in the writing and publishing world.  Knowing the right people makes all the difference for a writer.

I will leave you with the three, seven-word pitches that I have developed for tomorrow's class.  The last one is the one that interests me most for a book idea.  I would like to write a memoir-style account of our adventures living in Australia. I have three possibilities for a seven-word pitch for it.  Please let me know which one you like best, and any other suggestions would be welcome as well!

1.  Australian English Explained for Confused, Curious Travelers

2.  Global Families Survival Guide to Relocating Overseas

3. a.   More to Oz than Bondi and 'Roos

    b.  American Family Survives and Thrives in Oz

    c.  Expat Family Lives in and Loves Australia

 

 

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Back to School, Reprise

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Back to School, Reprise

This back to school post will be different from my previous ones.  In this case I am the one who has gone back to the school rather than my children.  I am not attempting anything too ambitious at this stage, but I have to say that getting back into the classroom is a very good feeling.  The course, offered by the Center for Adult Education in the heart of Melbourne's CBD,  is titled "Writing a Non-Fiction Book."  The instructor assured us today that her goal is to equip us with some of the tools that we will need to become writers rather than to issue us a letter grade, and therefore all assessments will be either a pass or a fail.  That's a good thing, because I have a feeling it will be all that I can do to complete them, let alone to a high standard.

I must say that this course did not get off to a very good start for me.  I left the house last week with plenty of time to spare, but made the mistake of bringing my camera with me.  The day was a brilliant one, and after hopping off the tram just beyond Flinders St., I wandered the streets examining the scenes for photography possibilities. I reveled in the angles of the buildings, the crowds of people enjoying the summer weather, the dozens upon dozens of outdoor cafes, and lost track of time.  I don't even remember whether I took any photos or not before realizing that the class was due to start within five minutes.  I rushed into the building, checked the electronic notice board for the location, found what appeared to be the only possible listing, and entered the designated room right on 1:30pm.

After sitting in the roomful of strangers for some time, in that uncomfortable silence before a first class begins, I was glad to see the instructor finally enter.  Without really introducing herself or mentioning the title of the course, she began sharing random anecdotes from her experience as a writer and editor. Before long however I had that sinking feeling that I was in the wrong place, particularly as more emphasis began to be placed on the editing role.  There was no way for me to escape the room gracefully due to its shape and the location of the door, and no way to find out for sure if I was in fact in the wrong room without interrupting her and making myself look like an idiot.  

For a while I considered staying put for the remainder of the three hour class, such is my pride.  Then I thought about all the effort I had put into registering for this class, lining up a babysitter for James, and how I would explain to my family that I actually never made it to class, at least to the correct class that day, after all.  So I waited for a lull, eventually interrupted the teacher, confirmed my error, and with a red face exited the room.  As it turns out, the non-fiction writers had been banished to the basement, not only in another building, but on another street.  After asking for help again, I found my way, entered more than half an hour late, made more apologies, and considered whether I was really up for the challenge of going back to school or not.

In spite of my misgivings, I determined to persevere,  After introductions all around, the instructor paired us up, had us interview each other and then write up a description of our partner's day up to that point based on the interviews.  My partner for that first exercise was Meredith, a retired school teacher and principal who loves to read.  Our mornings could not have been more different.  She enjoyed a calm, tranquil, civilized breakfast with her retired husband and grown daughter before spending the morning shopping for gourmet ingredients at two nearby markets, a produce stall and an Italian specialty grocery store.

Regular readers, or readers who send multiple children to school in the morning, can well imagine that my morning was anything but tranquil.  In fact, Meredith chose to title her humorous write-up of my morning "Have you ever wondered why you didn't have more children?"  One thing we did share in common that day was that we had both been affected by the teacher's strike.  I had to find a babysitter for James at the last minute, and for her, the tram she planned to take to class had been re-routed due to protest marches by the striking teachers, forcing her to walk.  I was glad to discover that I was not the only one late to class, and I enjoyed living her peaceful morning vicariously as I wrote about it. 

One day my mornings will be calm and quiet.  For now I have four children all clamoring for my attention.  They all need me in varying degrees to help them start their day on the right note, and for that I am grateful.

Here are two photos taken in close vicinity to my new classroom.  I am determined to leave home even earlier in the future in order to spend more time soaking up the atmosphere of the laneways surrounding the CAE before heading to class.  It's another world entirely to the everyday one I inhabit at the moment.

 

Only in Oz: Signs and Notices

For the past year or so I have been mulling over a series of posts that celebrate the unique aspects of living down under.  I suppose in one respect that much of the material in this blog could fall into that category, but from time to time I have taken various photos for no other reason than because they capture some of the essence of this part of the world.   As such, many have been snapped with my phone rather than carefully photographed.  

Today's collection is of signs and notices that have caught my attention.  No doubt some of the situations below could well be found and undoubtedly do occur in other places, but they would almost certainly not be part of life in Pittsburgh.  I would love to get some feedback from my readers if anything in particular catches your eye, or if you have anything that you think should be part of my collection of "Only in Oz."  

 

Australia Day

We have so far always been privileged to have overseas guests to help us celebrate Australia Day, which falls conveniently in the middle of summer, just before school begins again in the southern hemisphere.  Australia Day is the national day of this country, although it doesn't really compare to the Fourth of July in any other respect.  Rather than celebrating independence from Britain as does the glorious Fourth, it commemorates the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in New South Wales in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia.  

You can find a few Australia themed paper goods in the grocery stores, and we witnessed the occasional car with flags waving from the roof, but overall I would say Australia Day is little more than another day off work, an excuse to head to the beach and relax.  We chose to celebrate this year with a leisurely breakfast including pastries and donuts graciously supplied by Paul, followed by a replication of our recent day out in the Dandenongs with my parents.  Cameron and Sophie came along for the ride, knowing that we would likely stop at our favorite cafe for scones, clotted cream, jam, tea, and spiders.

Our first port of call was Sky High Mt Dandenong.  Unfortunately the skies were overcast, obscuring the view of the city, but there were picnickers aplenty on the grounds.  Linda found observing these family affairs most interesting, while Paul wanted to do nothing more than snag a sausage or steak of his own from one of the many barbeques.  

Sophie begged and begged for a turn with my camera.  I typically always respond in the negative to such requests from her, but Linda convinced me to let her have a go.  I attached my macro lens for her, then sat back and relaxed as Sophie went to town.  I must say that her results, seen in the next eleven photos below, were quite good.  I have done nothing to her photos other than slightly crop one or two of them.

We did in fact end up at the Kallista Tea Rooms, but just before Paul and Linda spent a few minutes walking around the National Rhododendron Gardens.  Here are a couple of Linda's photos from this stop.

Paul and Linda ended their time with us with Sunday lunch in our backyard, followed by some cricket.  Once again Paul proved a willing learner and enthusiastic participant, much to Cameron and James's delight.  Sophie again played photographer for the following backyard cricket shots.  My favorite is the one of James just about to catch the ball.

When Linda noticed that Sophie and I had inadvertantly dressed as twins on Sunday morning, she supplied Sophie with a necklace so that we could match completely.  Just before I drove our guests to the airport so that they could fly to New Zealand to begin their cruise, we had this photo taken.

The necklace was then returned, and we said our farewells.  We are so glad that Paul and Linda were able to visit and hope that they have been enjoying their cruise around New Zealand and Australia

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Day Out in the Dandenongs

Coming Up for Air

I am checking in briefly this morning to share a few photos I managed to snatch during the madness of the first week of back to school.  The calm, peaceful, relaxing days of the summer holiday break are a distant memory, and at moments I have wondered if I will in fact survive the new schedule and routines with all of my faculties intact.  That remains to be seen.  Sports bags have been lost, homework misplaced, piano lessons missed, and there have been more frantic, last-minute searches for vanished items than I care to remember, but the children all seem to be thriving and enjoying their first few days of classes.  For that much I am grateful.

Sophie is beginning year 4, and has the same teacher that Katie had for the last few weeks of school in 2010.  She loved her first day of school so much that she could barely wait to go back on Monday.  Now if only she can find some enthusiasm for her French classes, she will be all set.

The biggest adjustment has been and will continue to be made by Cameron.  He has gone from a rather small primary school to a large high school.  There are more boys in year 7 alone than there were in all of the grades of his previous school.  He seems to be thrilled with all of his classes, however, particularly something called "des tech," which as far as I can tell bears some resemblance to what I knew as shop class.  His eyes were shining as he told me about all of the hazardous equipment they will be using in the coming year.  

Cameron's organizational skills have been put severely to the test with this big change, and one can only hope that part will get easier for him as the term progresses.  He has gone from walking a few blocks to school carrying little more than his lunch to taking a tram in both directions with a heavy backpack and sport bag.  This requires him to remember a transportation card and mobile phone in addition to all of the books and equipment required for his various classes and activities.  He has been bailed out a few times already, and in fact I am planning to drop off his sports bag to him within the next hour.

James has gone from being a prep, i.e. an American kindergartener, to a big year 1 student.  He has told me several times about all the "cute little preps" at his school, and his chest swells with pride as he does so.  He is a bit worried about how hard he will have to work this year, but runs off each morning with confidence and enthusiasm.  He has also had his first piano lesson, and I was amused to see him carry his book around for hours afterward, explaining to anyone who would listen all the things that he learned.  He and I have been listening to a dramatized version of Mozart's life in the car each morning, and he thinks it very unfair that Mozart was able to sit down at the piano and play without a single lesson.

Here is James on his first day last year:

Katie also seems happy with the beginning of her school year, and in particular with her maths teacher. She begins the school year with House Concerts, and her contribution to her house will be to play the flute.  Two years ago I wrote about her introduction to high school, and included a description of house concerts at the end.

For fun I thought I would close with a picture of the kids last year, followed by one more from Monday this week.