The New Zealand Freelance Writers’ Association

Making a Start

by EV Johns

There’s a cloudless blue sky and warm sunshine outside. The lawn needs mowing. The garden needs weeding. My wife has just reminded me that I’ve not fixed the door handle I’d promised to last week (sorry, Dear).
My office is a mess, with piles of paper from the project I completed yesterday - phew! It’s gone to the editor before deadline!
I really should tidy up. I shift some paper from one pile to the next, and it doesn’t look any better. I turn on the computer and wait while it warms up, goes through all the start up processes, staring at the screen, not really taking much notice.
It’s a strange feeling, finishing a project. It happens every time, unless I have more than one on the go at a time. It’s a sadness, a death almost, depressing. My child has gone out into the big wide world. It’s too late for me to make any changes, to further its education. It must now stand alone, convince an editor that it’s good enough to be accepted - and paid for.
And then I have to begin the next project, come up with an idea first.
The computer is waiting… waiting… waiting. I open a new document and stare at the blank white screen.
Maybe a coffee will help.
My wife knows my routine and has a coffee ready for me in the kitchen - she’s outside in the garden enjoying that lovely sunshine.
I roam back to my office, place the coffee on my desk and put two reference books back in their place on my bookshelf. There are five pens on my desk. I place them carefully in the pen holder, matching colours with others already in there. I turn the computer mouse upside down, open its tummy and clean the gunge out from the little wheels inside.
The cat roams in for a “Good morning” scratch. I finish my coffee and take the cup out to the kitchen, rinse and wipe it, and leave it by the kettle for next time.
My wife is weeding the flower bed. She’s more methodical than I am. She removes all the weeds down to the very tiny ones.
I return to my office, sit in front of the computer, staring again at the screen. What topic can I use this time? To which market can I angle my next piece? My fingers sit on the keyboard and begin to move. I watch the words form on the screen. “There’s a cloudless blue sky and warm sunshine outside.”
© EV Johns

© Brendan Moore

Have you had a good look at your book collection lately? You’re a writer, surrounded by good quality books by other writers — right? The books you read most often are those in the genre you prefer to write, but you will have others on a variety of subjects by a variety of authors. If you’re like me, many of your books will have come from secondhand bookstores because I just cannot afford to buy new all the books I read. Some of my non-reader friends are stunned when they learn I have over 1,500 books and find it very difficult to believe that my personal library is actually quite small in relation to others I know of.

But these books are all for relaxation, to escape the cares of day-to-day life. Some may be about writers, because you find the subject fascinating — learning how others have coped with the difficulties you face and have gone on to become successful at their craft.

There should, though, also be books about the actual craft of writing. I’m not suggesting you go out and buy all the books you can find about writing — it would be confusing, and many would be of no real help to you. Check at your local library on the subject, and if you find a book that grabs you, comes up with solutions to your particular problems and ideas on how to go forward from where you are, then visit your secondhand bookstore. The people in these shops really know their books. Even if they don’t have in stock the one you’re looking for, often they will put it on their list for the next time they go searching for new stock. Or they might be able to suggest another book, similar to the one you’ve found. Once you have this book, and others, on your bookshelf you will be surprised at how often you refer to it.

Other books you will need are those that specialize in your subject — historians will have history books; travel writers might have books from around the world; writers for children will have children’s books, and so on. No one can afford to buy all the new books that come out, but you should regularly visit your bookstore to just see what’s out there. And every now and then a new book will jump out, grab you, and add itself to your collection.

An important part of being a writer is to also be an avid reader. So use your library as well unless you’re like me and can’t bear to return a good book. That doesn’t mean that my collection is made up of overdue library books, it means I use the library for research and haunt the secondhand bookstores for reading material. And then I can keep the friends I make in each new book I find.

© Kim Griggs

In December’s Freelance, John Dunmore suggests that, in a copyright dispute, that it is not easy to counter the argument that you wrote an article for a fee and therefore no longer own the copyright. However, unless you have signed a contract expressly transferring your copyright to another party such as a publisher, you retain copyright to whatever you write if you are a freelance writer.

To ensure that this is clear, I wholeheartedly agree with John that the best thing to do is to discuss this in writing. Sadly, editors of New Zealand periodicals seldom seem to bring up the issue of copyright when commissioning articles but that shouldn’t stop you from doing so. I’d suggest being quite straight-forward — after all it is a business transaction — such as: “I enclose the article about [topic] which I provide for one-time use in the print edition of [the publication’s name]. If you’d like to use it in another medium, or have queries about its publication elsewhere, then please contact me about this.” I’d also suggest putting the copyright symbol, your name and the year at the end of each article. (You don’t need to do this in order to retain copyright, but it helps the publisher to remember).

For comprehensive information on copyright in New Zealand, I recommend reading the chapter on the topic in the excellent Media Law in New Zealand by John Burrows and Ursula Cheer.

Check, Check and Double-Check by Sera Wells — names are important; What’s on Your Bookshelf by Brendan Moore — have you had a good look at your book collection lately? Making the Break by Jenny Argante — line breaks in poetry; Learning From New Experiences — our editor writes about public speaking; Keep Accurate Records by Alyn Sanderson.

© Sera Wells.

Originally published in Freelance, September 2003.

It seems a simple question and for many people it probably brings a simple reply: we read as part of our formal education, to research, or to relax. But you are a writer, and for you the answer should be that you read predominantly to learn.

You read this magazine in the hope that you will learn something about writing from those more experienced than you, or those who have had similar problems and have solved them in ways you may not have considered.

But what about your ‘recreational’ reading? That novel you’ve just finished, the short story you read in the doctor’s waiting room — did you enjoy them? Why?

What was it the author did that held your attention?

It is perfectly acceptable to read a story merely for relaxation, but if it held your attention to the end it’s not such a bad idea to go back and see why it was so captivating. Was it the opening that caught you suddenly in its net or was the capture a slower process that drew you into the story? Was the writing active, demanding that you keep reading, or were the descriptive passages so vivid that you could smell and taste the words?

I shudder at the number of books for sale that make me feel like reaching for a red pen, or even a pair of scissors. Books that make me aware of the words don’t hold my attention for long.

Authors who can hold my attention and keep me reading without being aware of the words on the page will earn my respect. It is to those authors that I will return, knowing I can truly read for relaxation while at the same time learning from their knowledge of the craft.

I was once an avid collector of books, with many favourites on my shelves. Now a book must pass a tough test to earn its place in my library, and that test is of a writer reading another’s work.

Long-winded sentences; passages where my attention wanders and I skip forward to where it gets interesting again; unnecessary explanations; not enough explanation, writing that makes it obvious the author does not understand the basic rules of grammar — all these things and more would lose my interest in the story and the author.

So next time you read a novel, a short story, or anything else you see as ‘recreational reading’, be aware of why you enjoyed it and use that lesson to improve your own writing.

© Sera Wells.