Writing Process #3: Zero Draft

Writing | Posted by Carole on Friday 5 June 2009

This is the third in a series of blogs about the way I write books.

So assuming my publisher didn’t hate my synopsis, it’s time to start writing. For me, this initial draft is the hardest part of the process. I can easily talk myself into doing a bit more planning or a bit more research. Eventually, I put the first words on the page. It’s painful. (And yes, I use a computer. No one can read my writing. Not even me.) I make myself write 1000 words a day. It doesn’t matter if it’s dreadful writing (and it often is), as long as I’m making my way through the story. I cringe at what I’m writing down. I really don’t like this part of the writing process, but I keep going. Sometimes it takes me three hours to write my 1000 words, sometimes it takes all day.

Along the way, ideas in the synopsis change. Not the big things usually. But often things I’ve imagined will work, don’t. It might not be believable or the timeline of the story might not work (too much happening or not enough) or I just come up with a better idea. Almost every day there are decisions to make. Big picture ones: How will I make that bit of the story work? How will the character react? Or small detail ones: What is in her suitcase? Why did they decide to go to the beach? (These are actual questions from the novel I’m writing now). This happens every day. Every day, I write up the questions I need to answer on my whiteboard.

I answer the questions first thing in the morning, which is when my brain is at its sharpest.  I write as many different ways as I can think of to answer each question. (Yes this is a Robert McKee technique!) I write them on the whiteboard, not on my computer. Sometimes I get to 15 options, sometimes I only get to three. Then I stand back and see if there is a good, fresh, interesting, non-cliched solution among them. Sometimes two ideas put together solve the problem.

Every couple of weeks I print out what I’ve written and reread it. I write corrections all over it in red. I add bits, I cross out bits, I move bits around. Occasionally I can see a theme starting to form and I make a note of that, so that I can work on that later. I reread and correct again and again.

An example of me correcting my own work

I stole the term “Zero Draft” from YA author Scott Westerfeld. I think it’s a great way of describing that initial draft. I wouldn’t show it to anyone. It’s too rough. I can hardly bear to read it myself. I suppose it’s a bit like a rough sketch for a painting. Except it takes ages to write, six months or longer. I’ve just about come to the end of this process with the book I’m writing at the moment.

Eventually I’m ready to show it to someone else—my publisher if I think it’s ready to show him, or my daughter Lili if I’m still not happy with it. It has now evolved from a Zero Draft to a First Draft. By this time I have reread and corrected it at least ten times.

Comments (9)

Climate Change Petition

Climate Change | Posted by Carole on Wednesday 20 May 2009

Like many people I am worried about climate change. I got so angry about the Australian Federal Government’s pathetic Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, that I have joined my local climate action group, Yarra Climate Action Now (YCAN). The targets are way too low and will not result in the emissions reduction that scientists tells us are necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. Any reductions in emissions that you and I achieve will be given away as permits for big polluting industries permits to continue polluting.
YCAN is compiling a visual petition on Flickr in protest of the CPRS. Here is my photo on the petition.

If you live in Melbourne and you’d like to take part in the visual petition, YCAN will have a stall at the Farmers Market at the Abbotsford Convent (St Helliers St, Abbotsford) this Saturday, 23 May from 8am-1pm. You can have your photo taken with our cardboard Kev and the speech bubble of your choice. I’ll be there.

 
Dr Richard Denniss of the Australian Institute explains clearly how the CPRS fails to address emissions reduction in this YouTube video

Comments (14)

UK Dragon Dawn

Dragonkeeper Trilogy, News | Posted by Carole on Friday 8 May 2009

I’m pleased to announce that the UK edition of Dragon Dawn will be released on 4 June. Here is the UK cover.

Pretty cool isn’t it?

Just to remind you, Dragon Dawn is a prequel to the Dragon Keeper Trilogy. It is set 100 years before Dragon Keeper when Danzi was younger and more sprightly, and Ping wasn’t even born.

UK readers will get a bonus with this book. Also included is an A-Z of Chinese Dragons. I’m looking forward to getting my copies of the book. I haven’t seen it yet.

Comments (29)

Dragonkeeper Maps

Dragonkeeper Trilogy, Website | Posted by Carole on Tuesday 28 April 2009

I recently received an email from a reader in the US. She was taking issue with the Chinese language puzzles that feature in Dragon Moon. She was learning Chinese and she thought I had got something wrong. I realised that her confusion was because the illustrations of the map that Ping follows don’t appear in the US edition. I had a look through some of the other overseas editions and found that the French edition doesn’t have any maps at all. So I have asked my webmaster to put the map and puzzle images from all the Dragonkeeper books on the web pages for the individual books, eg go to the web page for Garden of the Purple Dragon, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the thumbnail of the map. That will bring up the map of Ming Yang Lodge. This one is my favourite. I drew a very rough plan of the Lodge and Julian Bruère transformed it into a work of art.

Now if you have editions that don’t have these illustrations, you can find them online. Also if anyone would like to print a map, there is a printable version as well.

Comments (7)

Photo Shoot

News | Posted by Carole on Thursday 23 April 2009

Yesterday we had a photo shoot in the lounge room. My daughter Lili and I both needed new author shots. When authors get invited to speak at festivals etc, the organisers usually like you to send them a photo for their brochure. You have to have a reasonably recent photo, otherwise when you arrive they say, “Oh, are you Carole Wilkinson? I was expecting someone younger!”

Anyway, my husband, John, has endless patience and took lots of photos of Lili, but was then a bit bored by the whole thing when it got to my turn. It should have been the other way around, as she is very photogenic and I’m not. 

Here are my favourites.

Comments (12)

RSS feed problem fixed

Website | Posted by Webmaster on Wednesday 8 April 2009

Hello, Carole’s webmaster here. I recently noticed that the RSS feed for this site was failing to validate, meaning that the site feed was not displaying correctly in some feed readers. This has now been fixed. If you’re having trouble subscribing to the feed, please email webmaster@carolewilkinson.com.au.

Comments (0)

Writing Process #2: The Research Phase

Writing | Posted by Carole on Monday 30 March 2009

This is the second in a series of blogs about the way I write. It’s not the only way to write a book. It’s just my way.

So I’ve already got a premise, a story idea. I’ve worked out when and where the story is set. I’ve got a main character. That’s when I start the major research. I now start reading about what life was like at that specific place at that particular time in history. I have to know what sort of clothes they wore, what food they ate, everything about everyday life then. I take lots of notes. I’m also still looking out for additional story ideas or characters that will make my book more interesting that come from actual history.

I like to find pictures to inspire me. So, I find photos of landscape, if it’s not changed too much over time. I find paintings that were painted at the time. And I find pictures of things that were made at the time—furniture, clothing, dishes—in museum and exhibition catalogues. 

By that time I hope that the story is clear in my head and I write down a synopsis of it—a short summary of the story. It might take a page, it might be three pages. Sometimes I do a plot diagram, and see if there are turning points in my story. Are there enough things happening to keep the story interesting all the way through? Does the main character develop and change? Sometimes I can see that there are some boring bits, and I have to think up ways of making that section more interesting. 

When I’ve done that, I send the synopsis off to my publisher and say “This is the book I’d like to write next. What do you think?”

Comments (9)

In Perth

News | Posted by Carole on Thursday 12 March 2009

I had a good time at the Perth Writers Festival. Lots of people came to my sessions, which was great.

One session was with Leigh Hobbs who writes the Old Tom books (among other things). It was interesting for me to hear how he writes his books and illustrates them.

I’ll be back in Perth again in a couple of weeks for the All Saints Literature Festival.

Here is a photo of Leigh and I at the Festival.

Comments (21)

Perth Writers Festival

News | Posted by Carole on Wednesday 25 February 2009

I’m just about to leave for Perth where I will be speaking at the Perth Writers Festival. There are heaps of other authors there, so check out the link.

This will be my first public event this year. I hope I won’t lose my voice!

The venue is the University of WA.

I will be at a school event tomorrow and then….

“Worlds Apart?” with Leigh Hobbs Sat 28 Feb, 9.30 am  at the Fox Theatre

Family Day on Sunday 1 March, 9.30 am in the Kids’ Tent

“Digging Through Libraries” with Bridget Curran on Sunday 1 March, 12.30 (not sure where that will be)

Hope to see some of you there.

Comments (12)

Writing Process #1: The Premise

Writing | Posted by Carole on Friday 20 February 2009

I’m writing a book at the moment, and it’s going to take me about a year. I don’t like talking about my books as I’m writing them. It’s a superstitious thing. So I thought that I might do a series of blogs about my writing process. How it works for me. 

I usually start with a very vague idea, eg “I’m going to write a book set in ancient Egypt”. So the first thing I have to do is think of a story. If it’s a historical book, I like to get some ideas from history. So I read some history books.

At first, I thought the ancient Egyptian book was going to be about cat mummies, so I read all about cat mummies and cat worship, but I couldn’t work out a good story. (It wasn’t all a waste of time, I used some of the cat information in the second book, Ramose and the Tombrobbers, which has a cat mummy, or half of one at least, on the cover. I also wrote a short story about cat mummies which ended up in the anthology called short.)

The story of Ramose that I did end up writing was inspired by a couple of things that actually happened—a Prince who disappeared, palace murder plots. That gave me the idea for the premise. That’s the starting point of the story, the set of circumstances that cause the story to begin.

Some early notes while I was thinking about Ramose.

In Dragonkeeper, the premise was “this is a version of ancient China where dragons exist. A bad dragonkeeper doesn’t do his job properly and a dragon dies. He has to get rid of the evidence.” I didn’t have the whole story, that was yet to come. I just had the beginning.

Some people are surprised that I didn’t make up the way that the bad dragonkeeper got rid of the dead dragon. If you want to know where I got that idea from you can find out here.

This is an important stage of the writing process, even though at this stage I’m just thinking. It needs to be leisurely, unrushed, no deadlines. I usually do this while I’m writing another book. Not while I’m actually typing at the keyboard, but in my spare moments or when I get sick of writing (about lunchtime). I might jot down some notes, that’s about it. It will be months, occasionally years, before I begin writing the new book. The ideas come and go. Some hang around. They’re the ones that end up in the book.

Comments (21)