Writing Tips/Events

Character Magic Cusack-style – With a Seachange

admin Authors, Books, Creativity, Other Worlds, Writing Tips/Events April 17, 2012April 17, 2012 11 Comments

It’s impossible to constrain the magic of Louise Cusack to her stirring fantasy novels, and I should know – I’ve been under her spell for 14 years. I was a young, passionate journalist when I heard Louise speak at my first writers conference back in ’98 and this was the advice she shared:

Writer’s instinct will stop you sending off many a lame story
The only way to publication standard is lots of practice – practice makes perfect
Follow your heart – don’t be trapped by rules
Most women like a wicked hero, but not a callous one
Let the characters tell you when they want to do something

So I was delighted when this award-winning author left the big smoke for our region’s golden beaches, just in time for the relaunch of her Shadow Through Time fantasy romance trilogy (through Pan Macmillan’s Momentum).

A renowned Queensland writing tutor/mentor and manuscript assessor, Louise is presenting the MasterClass, run in conjunction with this year’s WriteFest. If you have a manuscript you’re working on and want to take it to the next level, this workshop is for you. Louise rules supreme when it comes to creating character and character emotions. I was keen to know what inspired her Shadow series characters and this is what a cup of cyber coffee revealed…

Cheryse: How did rural/regional Queensland inspire your Shadow Through Time characters?

Louise: Some important characters from this series lived in little country towns. Being a city girl, I needed to experience the differences in country-born folk – and see them in action so I knew how they related to my character. During one research trip, I visited a family-run funeral home outside Ispwich, to gather background info on my character Sarah McGuire who finds the Guardian Pagan when he comes through the portal from Ennae, surfacing in a billabong in her lawn cemetery.

C: I love Sarah – and her whipper-snipper!

L: Readers say they find her very real, probably because she’s based partly on a real person. The funeral home was run by the mother. I’d expected formaldehyde bottles, bodies under sheets and echoing lily-lined chapels, so it was a surprise to find a modern set-up with freezer facilities for the bodies, stainless steel everywhere in the prep rooms and carnations in a carpeted chapel. The matriarch led me around and answered my questions, her no-nonsense manner already helping me imagine what she must have been like twenty years’ earlier, when she was Sarah’s age. There was a quiet integrity that impressed me, particularly when she told me her staff were instructed to imagine a member of the deceased’s family was looking over their shoulder while they prepped the bodies, so they would never be disrespectful. Later, when I was writing book two of my Shadow Through Time trilogy and Sarah was trying to decide whether or not to hide an alien (albeit gorgeous) young man and his infant charge, she does what she knows to be right. No nonsense. No drama. They need her help to survive.

C: Do you still love writing about Aussie characters?

L: I’ve just finished book one of a new series where the main character comes from outback Queensland but travels to a lost world discovered and conquered by Renaissance Italians. Dan’s a young shearer studying Engineering at UQ before being pulled into Florentia and embroiled in the Medici Court’s political intrigues when he tries to protect the young ambassador he’s fallen in love with.

There’s something about characters from country Australia that I find romantic. They have a toughness about them, an inner strength, but also a sentimentality that would surprise a lot of city dwellers I suspect! So it’s lovely to now be living around the sort of people who have inspired so many beloved characters for me. I’m looking forward to soaking up more of their fortitude and generosity of spirit while I’m here, and especially looking forward to being able to write more books!

C: Why did you make the seachange to a small beach outside Bundaberg?

L: I’ve always wanted to live by the ocean so last year I made the move and my productivity doubled. Part of that was leaving behind all the writing-related commitments in Brisbane (there’s always something you feel you should attend), and part was leaving my family behind. I’ve been racking up quite a phone bill and commuting to Brisbane regularly to keep in touch with the people who are important to me, but overall the move has been incredibly positive.

C: What do you love about the Bundaberg region?

L: Being near the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef is amazing. My tiny town is surrounded by fields of sugarcane, sweet potato, melons and strawberries that are always growing, being harvested or ploughed which means I never have the same drive through it twice. Even my afternoon ambles along the esplandes are different depending on the tide time, the wind, the cloud cover. So much of Brisbane was the same day after day. I find the constantly-changing environment is really stimulating my creativity. As a fantasy author that’s gold.

Initially I thought I’d miss the ‘culture’ of Brisbane but I’ve attended art gallery openings, art house movies and musical theatre up here, so I’m not feeling deprived in the slightest. My little beach is very tranquil, Bundaberg itself is a very relaxed town, and the arts community is an inclusive one. I haven’t been made to feel like an outsider, which is lovely.

C: What’s your best advice for writers?

L: Just write. Talking about writing is fine, but you have to write heaps to improve your skills if you want to become published. Eighty percent of the work of creating published novels is in the editing so it’s important to learn that art – and also get professional feedback on your work. I know from my own development as a writer how important it was for me to work with published authors to make that leap across the line from unpublished to contract. As a teacher/mentor I’ve been thrilled to see four books I’ve worked on go through to become published, and see many more writers win competitions and fellowships, so I take a lot of pleasure from helping others realise their dreams. There’s a lot more tips at my writer’s blog, http://ifyoumustwrite.com.

Submissions to Louise’s MasterClass at Bundaberg, From character to plot: creating page-turning novels from the characters up, close this Friday, April 20. Visit www.bundywriters.com for submission guidelines.

Louise’s website, http://louisecusack.wordpress.com, is chock-full of advice for both published and aspiring authors and has just been nominated for the Best Australian Blogs 2012 Award so check it out. You won’t be disappointed. Oh, and make sure you download her trilogy set at the same time. If you haven’t met the gorgeous guardian Talis yet, it’s time you did!

Broken bones fail to shatter imagination

admin Authors, Creativity, Shahkara, Urban Fantasy, Writing Tips/Events February 12, 2012November 6, 2013 10 Comments

It wasn’t a very heroic way to break one’s leg.

If I’d had a choice, I would have preferred to go down while knifing a Kraken sea monster in the raging Pacific, or after saving a toddler from a fire-engulfed home, the burning floorboards giving way beneath my feet. Instead, I’d finished a lovely dinner with a vibrant librarian and she accidentally fell against me in the rainy dark. I crashed to the bitumen, breaking and displacing my tibia plateau (top of the shin bone) and later fracturing my fibula (calf bone).

It set off a series of events: an ambulance rushing me through flood waters and a 15-hour wait in emergency for urgent knee surgery, only for the hospital registrars to discover they didn’t have the necessary parts. I had to wait two more days for the procedure which required sixteen titanium screws and a plate to reattach and secure my wayward tibia. Yes, you should see the snapshots.

Certainly, it wasn’t a run-of-the-mill week for this fantasy author whose daily highlights normally consist of grinding coffee beans and writing kick-arse YA scenes.

Now back home, a little muddled, a little drugged, and pain radiating from a braced leg that’s banned from action for six weeks, I ponder upon this spanner in the works and who authored its arrival. Maybe it was Calliope, muse of heroic stories, trying to impart a message of significance or inspiration. Or maybe it was Eris, the goddess of chaos, just yanking my chain.

Problem is… I’ve always been a great believer in destiny, especially that we can be our own creators when we adopt a little imagination and a lot of hard work, but this spanner had me checking the fine print.

Less than two months ago, my life flashed before my eyes when a Landcruiser and trailer overlooked a road sign and collided with our ute as we were travelling 100kmh along the highway. Our vehicle was totalled, but bro-in-law and I escaped the wreckage, but for slipped discs. Now he swears to his wife (my beloved sister) that it’s safer driving a car than dining out (he’s off the hook this Valentine’s Day).

But was the universe speaking to me? Were these signs that I should write more or write less? Work harder or spend more time with loved ones? Focus less on the trivial or more on the positive?

If my heroine Shahkara broke her leg, she’d allow time for healing, but then return to complete her quest. She’d be back on the battlefield as soon as she could wield a sword.

Maybe I, too, need to pay less attention to “signs” and focus on what’s important: Forging ahead with my goals, even if I require a keyboard and crutches instead of Shahkara’s compass and sword.

Now I think about it, I was darn lucky I didn’t break my leg battling that monster – there’s nothing heroic about drifting along the seabed as Kraken poop.

Fortunately, broken bones can mend nearly as quickly as the human spirit. That’s because it’s goals, like our stories, that keep us feeling alive.

Practical Magic… rituals in our writing life

admin Authors, Books, Creativity, Queensland Writers Centre, Writing Tips/Events January 6, 2012 5 Comments

The flame whispered to life within my hands. Leaping from matchstick to wick, it sealed my fate for 2012. Not that I have a witch’s powers (and not that I want them, except to zap the odd workmate into a walrus or fade the aches from my Nana’s bones), but there is a kind of magic within us and it can be found through the art of ritual.

Chilean-born author Isabel Allende inspired me 13 years ago when she described to Sharon Krum in Qantas The Australian Way how she locked herself in her writer’s cottage on January 8 each year and summoned her muses with the aid of candles, incense and meditation.

Such a ritual fast-tracks two early objectives for a writer – setting a fixed date to launch their writing for the year and creating a moment in time where they can tap into their creative powers. This is no easy task in our fast-paced society of digital deadlines and “omnipressive” internet. It’s hard to find a time or a place to be still. Few of us have the luxury of a writer’s cottage, or a quiet place to write, but we can make a promise with ourselves – setting a time where we light our creativity and mentally shut out the noise of the world. Making that promise is possibly the greatest gift that we can give ourselves as writers.

This year, I am making my writing promise two days earlier than Allende’s sacred January 8. The Queensland Writers Centre is hosting a Down the Rabbit Hole marathon (30,000 words in three days) from January 6, so I’m lighting my candles and joining the silent fray.

Thirty thousand words in three days, I can’t do that, I’ll be late, cries the inner rabbit. But the magic of Down the Rabbit Hole isn’t the final word count. It’s having the courage to set a date with your passion. This is a three-day opportunity to focus on your story and write what sentences may come, even if it only results in a dozen paragraphs. There are no shortcuts in any game, especially publishing, but when we dedicate real time to our art, our work grows in depth and intensity until it becomes something we’re proud of and hopefully something we’re able to share with others. The only way you can fail is to never start.

I now understand Australian author Kim Wilkins’ words that getting published is exciting but nothing makes a writer happier than actually writing. If we are courageous enough to put aside that time, we will find happiness. Every day.