Writing lessons – amps to 11 with Pink Floyd!

A few years ago She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were sitting quietly at home watching the 483,986th TV re-run of The Sound of Music. It was a hot evening. The windows were open.

Julie Andrews got up to sing. And suddenly the room filled with sound. The anti-Sound Of Music. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. Undistorted. In our lounge.

I thought it was the neighbours. But it wasn’t. It was someone four doors down and over the back fence, who wanted to fill the evening air with Messrs Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright at planet-engulfing volume.

Impressive. We were 75 metres from source. Yet the whole was crystal clear, balanced, without a skerrick of distortion.

The panel of one of my analog synths… dusty, a bit scratched, but still workable.

Usually, when someone whips amps to 11 all you get is the bass whoomph, which isn’t audible next to the speaker. It’s to do with the way the wave generates.

But not this. I’m talking perfect fidelity. That meant it was a really, really good sound system – set up by someone who knew precisely what they were doing. The secret word might be ‘Perreaux’ (Google it).

And they used this to play Pink Floyd. Sub-zero cool. What made it doubly amazing was the quality. Pink Floyd span the gamut of amplitudes and frequencies. Meaning that not only technically pure sound but also intentional distortion has to be amplified without further distortion, then conveyed over distance. I cannot say how amazing that was, to me at least.  (OK, I’m a geek… hey, it’s the 21st century. Geeks won the war for cool. Get over it.)

Welcome to the machine. We abandoned the Trapp family and went outside. Probably other neighbours hated it. But hey…

All this has a point when it comes to writing. Quality counts. Anybody can whip the amp to 11 – which in the writing sense means splurging out words.

Anybody can write. It’s taught at school, apparently. Can everybody write like Hemingway? Certainly not. And that is the issue. Getting to Hemingway level means evolving skills beyond the point of ‘unconscious incompetence’ into the tortured realms of apprenticeship – of ‘conscious incompetence’, of ‘conscious competence’ – and then ‘unconscious competence’, when writing is second nature.

Possibly all to a soundtrack of Pink Floyd. I like that idea. Do you?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Write it now part 5: what you’re in for as a writer

In this ongoing series on the A-Z of writing, we’ve been looking so far at what writing is, what it involves, and the scope of what there is to learn.

For those who seriously want to do it, writing is also a lifetime committment. So what are you in for? Plus side – the rewards are huge. Writers who make a career of their passion write for the joy of it, and the journey can lead to surprising places. Check out the photo, for instance. That’s me, doing my ‘journalist’ thing. Did I ever think I’d do a ‘Tom Clancy’? Of course not.

But it’s also a hard road.

First off, don’t think it will make you rich.

Where can writing lead? Cool places, that’s where. This is me behind the tac rail of an RNZAF P-3K Orion, hunting submarines during Exercise Fincastle, 1994.

The world’s richest writers are mostly novelists. But for every Dan Brown equivalent, lounging with an ice-cold pina colada in the comfort of their Cessna Citation X as they descend into Majorca for another sun-drenched sojourn at their beach mansion, there are a thousand writers in grinding poverty. Their books are good, their skills top notch – but sales don’t provide a living. The method of publication makes no difference.

That’s also true of other writing – non-fiction, journalism, and so forth. Want to make a living freelancing? Maybe you can. But not, for instance, in New Zealand. I know someone who tried. He did well by local standards – but that didn’t pay the grocery bills, and after about a year, he shelved his typewriter and got a job. One in his field – he didn’t quite end up working as the icing guy in a muffin factory. But you get the picture.

Second, be prepared to work. And work hard. Writing should be a pleasure. That’s why most of us do it. But the reality of assembling the right 100,000 words - of preparing the MS for publishing, of going through the editorial processes (trawling those 100,000 words many times, chasing proof-editors gaffes) - and then promoting it is a lot of work. You have to find ways of balancing the grind so it doesn’t kill the fun.

Third, it’s a solo profession. Sure, there are online communities filled with friendly, like-minded people who offer great support. Sure, there are symposia, conferences and all the other things that writers get involved with. And writing groups abound. But at the end of the day, writing always involves sitting down – alone – and doing it. For hours, weeks, months and years. Alone. Be prepared.

Finally –  it is an endless learning curve. Learning is where innovation comes from. It’s how you hold the audience.  There is always something to learn, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be learned ‘from’ somebody. After a while, experienced writers are good enough at their profession to make their own judgement calls over self-improvement.

Did I say ‘profession’? I did, didn’t I.

Any thoughts?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Coming up: Next instalment of ‘Write it now’, more ‘Sixty second writing tips’. And posts on kindness. Watch this space.

Sixty second writing tips: music for the writing mood

One of the best tools writers have is music, for many reasons. One of them is something to listen to while we write – squashing intrusive background noises. And, more particularly, to put us into the right zone.

That, to me, is one of the strengths of ‘music to write to’. It can help create the right emotional space – perhaps the same emotional space as I’m trying to evoke in readers. For me, it shouldn’t intrude to the point of killing the words and ideas. Usually I’ll pick instrumental music, often chamber music, which is able to set a mood without being too intrusive. That, in fact, is exactly what it was written for (Mozart wrote muzak…get over it…)

There is an exception. If I’m looking to write high fantasy I’ll select Epica or Nightwish (the pre-2005 stuff) at planet-crushing volume (several notches up from “11”).

Do you find music helps you write? Does it set your mood? What music works best for you – and when? And does anything with spoken word kill the words you have in your mind? Do share!

 Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Write it now, part 1 – so you want to be a writer?

So you want to be a writer, eh? Not a bad choice of career. There are worse ones. There are also better paid careers. But then, you’re not in it for the money, are you?

My Adler Gabrielle 25 – on which I typed maybe a million words in the 1980s. See the shine on the keys?

Welcome to my new blog series ‘Write it now’ - an A-Z of writing. I thought this year I’d share some of the tips and tricks that have helped me write and publish over 500 feature articles and 50 books, some 2,000,000 words or thereabouts, over the last 30-odd years since I had my first break, aged 18, with my university newspaper.  Here’s the list.

Each week, I’m going to publish another post covering a different aspect of writing as I see it. And I’d love to hear from you – what you think of these ideas, whether they’re helpful, and whether you’ve got thoughts of your own.

We’re all in it together, you see – writers.

First, a bit about my background. I formally trained in fiction writing at the local polytechnic and, later at university, was fortunate enough to get key writing lessons from Richard Adler, then Professor of English at the University of Montana, visiting New Zealand on a Fullbright scholarship. I wrote my first books as an ‘intern’ with the New Zealand Forest Service a couple of years later – yes, I got paid a salary to write. Later I picked up tips and tricks from a newspaper editor in my home town, and more again from a features editor on the Wellington metropolitan daily, for which I freelanced.

Mostly, though, I’ve written books, published by companies such as Random House and Penguin.

It’s been a lot of fun, and the best is yet to come. Along the way I’ve learned a lot about writing as a profession, about writing as art – and that’s what I’m going to share with you.

How do I see writing? To me, words are secondary. In fact, I disagree with ‘word count’ as a goal. As we’ll see during these posts, it’s simply a tool. And there are many writing tools.

The more important part of writing is purpose. And writing has but one purpose; to elicit emotion in the writer – and to elicit one in the reader. Ideally, the emotion the writer intends.

That’s true of all writing. All? All. Non-fiction included. You’ll see why as these posts develop.

So – in just three words, here’s what writing is:

Writing is emotion.

It’s true. What do you figure?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2013

Next week: ‘Write it now – are writers born or made?’ Along with other writing-related posts, history posts, and inspirational posts.

Pondering the three types of revision

There’s a fair chance that those doing National November Writing Month will be up to revision stage by about now. And it’s something all writers have to tackle.

But what is it, really? What do writers actually DO when they revise? I suspect it has a lot to do with the way writers create. Authors such as Isaac Asimov or Jack Kerouac could create a book near-complete in their minds and then write it down. The result was fairly light revision of the draft, usually for style, and it was done. (Kerouac ran into trouble with publisher-enforced changes with On The Road, but that’s a different matter).

Other writers – like J. R. R. Tolkien – created their work on the stone, through relentless re-writes. I’m reading a book just now describing how Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. There’s no doubt about the quality at the end of it. But it took him seven years, and these days writers don’t have that sort of luxury.

I thought I’d share my method, which I’ve built up over thirty-odd years and 50-odd books. The final book has to test against standards of quality – stylistic quality, structural quality, quality of content. The way to get there is through revising the first draft; and that, like writing itself, can be broken down as a process:

1. Structural revision.
Even with the best planning in the world, the first draft is bound to need structural changes. I usually re-read with an aim to re-cast, re-order or re-jig if needed, looking to improve structural flow. Questions for novelists include ‘does this really move the character arc and plot along’. Structural revision can include cutting. Usually I’ll do this on screen, but sometimes I’ll run a printout, spread the pages out on the floor, and look at them to get an overview.

2. Style revision.
This is another re-read, looking for stylistic improvements. Again, there are bound to be some. And if there is anything structural at this stage, I’ll change that too.

3. Accuracy revision.
Now it’s time to print the document and go through it in pen and ink. There are reasons why changing the format from screen to paper is important. At this stage I look for further wording improvements, check spellings, check consistencies, and make sure everything is polished up.

4. Implementation.
I’ll transfer the written amendments to the on-screen version. This process is important too; things spring out.  Finally – finally – it’s ready for sending to the publisher.

All these steps can sometimes take nearly as long as the original draft in the first place, but it’s well worth it. But revising isn’t finished yet. Finally there is…

5. Publisher process. Publishers apply two types of proofing – proof-editing, which involves consistencies and ‘house style’; and literals, looking for typographical errors. Authors are involved at both steps and sometimes find revisions to make. However, as far as I am concerned, when a book leaves my desk to go to the publisher for the first time, it should be finished. There is nothing worse than continuing to write something a publisher is trying to prepare for release. That’s true of self-publishing too.

How do you revise your material?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Writing inspirations: blustery Otaki beach

Otaki beach, north of Wellington, New Zealand, is a wonderfully inspiring place to visit. It is often blustery, a wide swathe of log-strewn sand backed by grassy dunes.

This beach carries the tales of two peoples. In the early 1820s, Maori surged up and down it, migrating or going to war. It was the road by which the fearsome Ngati Toa chief Te Rauparaha arrived in the southern North Island. It was the route he took in his forays to attack the people of the southern Manawatu. And it was where war parties came in their quest to hunt him down, though he sat safe in his island refuge of Kapiti.

Otaki beach on a blustery October day, 2012, Kapiti island in the distance. I took this at approx 18 mm – you can see the spherical distortions.

Later this same beach was a highway for settlers. It was here in 1850 that Donald McLean intercepted the Lieutenant-Governor, John Eyre, and rode with him for a few hours, sorting out the deal that gave McLean a state salary and set the wheels in motion for the first big government purchases in Hawke’s Bay. A political discussion that shaped the history of New Zealand’s settler world – played out, right here on this beach.

I took this picture of Otaki beach in October 2009. No tilt-shift gimmickry here; this is what came out of a 200mm lens stopped down to 5.6.

Even the name of the place carries inspiration. Otaki means variously ‘the place of a staff stuck into the ground’ or ‘the place of the yellow-eyed mullet’.

Most of the detritus on the beach is swept down the Otaki river. I found this stump in the middle of the river-mouth lagoon in 2009.

It is inspiring to walk where others have walked – to hear the crashing of the breakers and feel the wind-blown sand, hear the hiss of the wind through the grasses by the sandy edge. It is a place to contemplate, a place to think, a place to feel the memories. A place that fuels new ideas, new perspectives. An inspiring place for writers.

Do you ever visit a beach that inspires you?

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Writing inspirations: the Sydney writers’ walk

Last time I was in Sydney I made a point of tracing the Sydney Writers’ Walk – a series of plaques set into the paving around Circular Quay.

It’s different from the Wellington writers’ walk. The Wellington walk celebrates local New Zealand writers. In Sydney the flavour is more international – though most have connections to Australia.

To me these plaques and memories of writers are incongruous; here, amidst the bustle of the ferries as they bustle in and out of the wharves, the rush of city-clad commuters, rattle of trains and to-and-fro of tourists and passers-by. The harbour bridge relentlessly frames the view from every angle, vast, fading into the haze of North Sydney, a monument to 1930s engineering and the ambitions of a nation that saw itself as more than just a subservient child of Empire. On the other side stands Opera House with its sea-shell roofline.

Tens of thousands of commuters stroll back and across these names daily, perhaps unaware of the legacies these writers left and – in some cases – are still giving us. There are plaques to Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries, Robert Hughes, Thea Astley and Jack London, among others. It was another moment to walk, to ponder, to think about the way that writers change our lives. And to think about how these writers were, themselves, inspired.

For me, as a historian and New Zealander as well as a writer, this walk is inspiring on so many levels. Not least because Circular Quay and the old district of Sydney around it is the place where New Zealand’s history also began. Have you ever walked Circular Quay? Or wanted to see this part of Sydney, if you haven’t been there? Is there a city-scape that inspires you, in its own way? Do share – I’d love to hear from you!

 Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Writing inspirations: the Wellington writers’ walk

Take a stroll around the waterfront in Wellington, New Zealand, and it’s not hard for writers to find inspiration. On any sunny weekend this two-kilometre stretch of wharf and water frontage, backed by the national museum, boating harbours and the high-rises of Wellington city, buzzes with people.

Every one of them has their own story, and it’s fun to sit down at the gelato shop, watch, and imagine. Why is that woman jogging with a pram? Is she trying to get fit – or just in a hurry? There are schoolkids, leaping with laughing abandon from the wharf-to splash into deep water below. It’s a major drop. Do they do it for a dare? For bragging rights? Or just because it’s summer, and they are young, and it is hot.

Elsewhere a busker wails over his battery PA system. His voice sounds like he is singing from the bottom of a drain. Does he do it for income, or because he likes singing? Nobody pays him any attention. Maybe he likes annoying people.

Stories flow around this place; real stories, imaginary stories. Inspiring stories. Cool stories, and, I am sure, sad stories. It is a place for inspiration. And the gem – for me at least – remains the writers’ walk. Quotes from nearly twenty of New Zealand’s best known authors are scattered with seemingly joyous abandon across nearly a kilometre of waterfront. The concrete plaques peek, coyly, from gardens; they nestle in shadowy corners of wharves. And they rest where the sea laps across them.

The wisdom of their words – the frozen thoughts of authors whose corporeal forms, in many cases, are now dust – speaks to us across the years. Their insights remain timeless.

Later, I’ll post some of the more interesting ones in detail.

Right now, I’d like to know more about you – do you have a place like this that inspires you? Or somewhere very different, that is personal to your style? Where you can go to find inspiration, people and – oh yes, gelato.

 Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

Awarded the ‘Liebster Award’

This week Cassidy Cornblatt awarded my blog the Leibster Award – go check out his blog. I’m required to answer 11 questions, pose 11 more, and pass it on to 11 deserving bloggers. (Hmmn… the 1331 award?)

1.What keeps you writing when you have writer’s block?
Beer. Well, persistence actually. And keeping away from the internet.

2.Most writers have a literary counterpart—a character from their stories who reflects themselves. Tell us about yours.
I write non-fiction, mostly, but I wrote a biography of Sir Bernard Freyberg and was impressed by how similar his thought processes were to mine, particularly in the way he conceptualised.

3. What are your passions?
Writing. Music. Science. Understanding. Reason. Tolerance.

4.You’ve had a fight with your significant other and you want to fix things. What do you do?
Apologise.

5.What’s one injustice you see in the world that you would fix in a story?
Intolerance.

6.If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
Metabolism.

7.What’s important to you at this point in time?
Writing, which sounds facile, but I’m trying to finish a book and the contract deadline looms.

8.Who is your hero/heroine?
I don’t look on others as role models. I think we make our own way. But there are people I admire. One of them is Frank Zappa.

9.Do you make it a habit of telling others what you thought of their work, even if your experience wasn’t good?
I get paid to write book reviews professionally. I think it’s important to be constructive.

10. What is good will?
A positive and altruistic attitude towards others.

11. What would it take for you to make friends with an old enemy?
I always forgive my enemies; but the decision is theirs as to whether they have the moral courage to accept it.

And now my questions. There are 11 of them in base 2. In base 10 the number relates to 11 as the opposite function of 1331, rounded down from 2.223.

1. Is there anything you would do other than what you already have a passion for?
2. What are your thoughts on reason, reasonableness, and tolerance?

Finally, passing the award on. That’s hard – there are so many great bloggers out there – way more than 11, check out the blogroll, they all qualify. Five bloggers I’ve enjoyed reading lately are:

Karen Huber
http://kmhubersblog.com/

Clare McAlpine
http://clairemca.wordpress.com/

Stuart Young
http://thechangeyourlifeblog.wordpress.com/

Dennis Langley
http://langleyblog.wordpress.com/

Lemuel Lyes
http://historygeek.co.nz/

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012

An ode to my Adler Gabriele 25

I own a mechanical typewriter. An Adler Gabriele 25. One of the last portables made before computers killed the mechanical typewriter forever.

It’s just a typewriter. But it’s my typewriter. I’ve had it since early 1983, and it’s been the vehicle for university essays, research papers, thesis, feature articles and my early books.

I haven’t used it since jumping to computers. But I’ve kept it. I got it out the other day. Time has not been kind. The ribbon has dried. The white plastic cover has gone beige at the top. The rubber bushes in the carry case have marked it. It is dusty and looks unloved.

If anybody asks where I learned how to write – well, it was at the keyboard of this typewriter. It carries memories of failures and triumphs, memories of essays I’d rather not have written, but had to. I remember sitting at an outside table in the sun, bashing out the first draft of my thesis on it while Madonna’s ‘Get Into the Groove’ broke the silence. I remember using it, a few years later, when I got my first full time job – writing history books.

Yup, I got paid a salary to write books, once upon a time.  On this typewriter.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012