Posts
Where did my writing journey begin? In an attic bedroom in Hobart at eight years old. There was a cherry-plum tree outside my window and I used to see an angel in the branches. I took to writing poems for the angel and putting them on the window-sill so it could read them. Decades later, I'm still writing poems, often about 'angels' or other mythological beings, Orpheus and Isis being two of my favourite writing companions. As a child, I consumed books, particularly fantasy, such as the Narnia books, 'The Hobbit', Susan Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising' sequence, Alan Garner's novels and Antonia Barber's 'The Amazing Mr. Blunden', a ghost story that 'haunted' me for years after.
As my family moved to and fro across Australia, books became one of the constants in life. My mind was brimming with Austen, the Brontes, Dickens, Hardy, Collins, Trollope, George Elliot, Virginia Woolf, and then with French writers; Maupassant, Balzac, Zola, Hugo, Flaubert, Camus. At fourteen I read 'Lord of the Rings' and started exchanging letters in elvish with my best friend, thanks to Tolkien's linguistic finesse. Science fiction came on board with 'Dune', Asimov's 'Foundation' series and Philip K. Dicks. I dived into Egyptian, Greek, Germanic and Norse mythology at the same time and started writing my own mythical world, complete with languages and hundreds of drawings. Amazingly, that storyworld is still with me virtually unchanged, although its characters and their experiences have undergone radical alterations along the way. I continued to write in this world right up to late twenties, but on realising it had become 'tainted' with reflected personal traumas, decided to destroy the lot, some three and a half thousand pages! I stopped writing, except for the occasional poem...and vast amounts of essays, undergraduate and postgraduate research papers mostly on medieval art and films (two great sources of myths, past and current).
During all of that, I kept reading fantasy novels, although I got tired of formulaic repetitions. Then, when I moved house a few years ago and unpacked some old boxes, I found a few remnants of my storyworld that had escaped the purge and began to ponder reworking them into a 'novel'. It seemed a risky undertaking, since it was really 'personal writing', but I started to feel it might have something other readers could connect to or enjoy (or even both!). This experiment has so far taken a couple of years, with pitfalls and stumbling blocks abounding, and is far, far from complete. But I'm gradually getting a handle on the writer's craft, with thanks to my writerly friends, and becoming more determined...which is just as well, since the novel is now turning into a vast epic trilogy!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dark is Rising is still one of my favourites, and the cover with Herne on it is still my favourite cover... and one of my icons too!
ReplyDeleteOnce again I'm struck by how similar our stories are, Joanna! I didn't have an angel in a cherry tree: I had several pretend playmates who were with me every minute of the day and for whom I had to leave room in bed:-) On consideration, I think an angel who lived outdoors might have been a better proposition!
ReplyDeleteI had an imaginary unicorn for a friend.
ReplyDeleteI wish my early reading had been even half as adventurous as yours, Jo. All those French guys, phwoar! :) I didn't read Camus until I was in my 20s, when I also read for the first time Tolkien and The Dark is Rising (which I loved). What was I reading during those years when you were exploring the world through books? I was reading old science fiction novels, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, all those guys. Tremendous fun and all, but now I kind of wish I'd been more adventurous.
ReplyDeleteI also had a few imaginary friends who hung out with me as a child, and started writing, just goofy stuff, often very derivative of what I'd been reading, around then, too.
Your storyworld sounds fascinating, and am impressed with such depth of detail--thousands of pages? [feels all faint] And then having to destroy it all--that must have been awful. Still, good on you for having a go at trying to work it up into a book or three. The very best of luck! :)
PS: Jo, given your interests and so forth, you might *really* enjoy the work of Jorge Luis Borges (if you aren't up on him already). Look for a book called "Fictions", in Penguin Modern Classics (go through the Book Depository in the UK to get a brilliant deal). Borges was an Argentinian writer of short stories, poems, essays, dealing with on one hand all manner of eternal themes, myth, history, ancient books--but also modern conceits like detective stories and even proto-sf. His "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" story (you have to imagine an umlaut over the o in Tlon, btw) is, for my money, one of the best fantasy stories ever written, involving ancient books, hidden/secret histories, a detective story, a marvellously alien and strange world, and a devastating finale, all in about 15 pages. Borges never wrote novels, just these brilliant little miniature stories packed full of amazing stuff. If Molly Meldrum were here, he'd totally say, "Do yourself a favour!" :)
ReplyDeleteOh yes, those imaginary friends. No unicorns though I only have a vague memory of mine but my mother, who had to set extra places at the table and perch on a tiny sliver of the bus seat, remembered them well.
ReplyDeleteI loved - actually still love since I found a copy in a second hand bookshop a few years ago - The Dark is Rising.
And I forgot add, no angels either.
ReplyDeleteOh thanks all! I wonder if all fantasy/sci fi writers had strong relationships with imaginary friends as kids? Perhaps we're the ones who didn't let them go...just transmuted them into other forms and wild stories?
ReplyDeleteThe Dark is Rising, it seems, struck a chord for many of us. Brilliant series...just the ending of the final book left me disappointed...it seemed like a cop out to erase the children's memories. But she got all the rest right.
Adrian, thanks for that recommendation to the works of Borges. I didn't know of him (but then, short stories are sadly lacking in my reading background)...you've got me totally intrigued and I'll definitely see what I can find. :-) Gracias.
As Robin Hobb puts it: "Writers are people who spend a lot oof time playing on a screen with their imaginary friends!"
ReplyDelete