Writing update

First up, my thanks again for all your emails and messages; it’s lovely to hear from you and I’m delighted that you’re all enjoying The Janna Mysteries so much. I’m also interested in your comments about Janna’s love life. Keep reading!!!
I’ve been busy lately. I’ve now sent in to my editor at Random House the mss of Book 5 of The Janna Mysteries, Sage for Sanctuary – I hope she likes it! Watch this space for news of publication dates.
I’ve also done one of two sessions with postgrad students at Sydney University, talking about my work and passing on some tips for their own writing. The students are certainly keeping me on my toes! I’ve had some excellent questions, some of which I’m still thinking about and will have to answer at my next session. The value, for me, of doing something like this, is that it has forced me to look very carefully at how I write, what inspires me, what themes I keep coming back to, and so on. Often, writing seems to come from the subconscious – at least, it does for me. I sit down and, without labouring the point or thinking too deeply about whether I’ve got it ‘right’ or not, I simply write down the story as it comes to me. (Yes, I listen to voices and often I’m also just writing down what my characters say to each other – or to me!) I think there might be a danger of becoming too self-aware and too questioning when writing. If your left-brain starts ‘interrogating the text’, as the postmodernists would have it, you could find yourself with big-time writers’ block. For me, writing is an act of trust, trusting that the words I need will come to me so that I can write them down without feeling self-conscious. The editing comes later – and also the analysis, which is what I’m doing now when I’m talking to these students. Sometimes it’s a fascinating excursion (sometimes scary) into my psyche! It’s certainly a valuable exercise for me, and I hope they’re getting something out of it too.
In our next session I shall be doing some ‘show and tell’ – giving them a look at some of the stuff I’ve used in researching my novels – books, maps, photos and so on, and we’ll also look at a couple of my short stories, from their conception (where do ideas come from?) through to theme, characters, setting and so on – in other words, answering all the who, what, where, when, why, how sorts of questions that need to be answered when you’re writing a story.