Joanne Schoenwald

Letting a Book Go

Joanne — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:23:38 +0000

Before

I really haven’t solved the question of how to let books go.

Some of you may remember the picture I posted a while ago of my bookcase, overflowing with books. And you may remember that I ended up simply buying another bookcase instead of letting any of the original books go.

Well… some months on… my husband and I are in a wild de-cluttering frenzy at the moment, in part because we’d like to move house by the end of this year and our rationale has become ‘if we were to move house tomorrow, would we take this with us?’

The main bookcase has long been in need of de-cluttering but we’ve managed to do wild cleaning out of the kitchen pantry, cupboards, the shed and various drawers, each day passing stressful eyes over the bookcase, which has sat there silently, reminding us to do something about it. (We couldn’t even open the doors safely for the books that came hurtling out towards us.)

Yesterday, we finally did something. And we talked a lot about the process and just why is was so damn hard to let a book–any book–go from our life. We love books. We value books. We treasure books. We see books as artworks, repositories of wisdom and knowledge. But it’s more than that. Every book we’ve read becomes a part of us. And we become a part of that book. We give a piece of ourself to the book and the book becomes a piece of us. Letting go of a book is like letting go of a friend, a memory, a sensory experience.

: After

What do you do with the books that you re-read every few years or so? Or the books that you adored but will probably never read again but still can’t stand to let go? Or the novels that you probably won’t read again but you feel you should keep ‘just in case’ you need them as references when writing your own stories? Or the books from childhood that shaped your imagination and spirit but that are literally falling apart and mouldy?

The de-cluttering resulted in three massive horse-feed bags filled with novels and non-fiction to be donated and a whole lot of space left in our precious bookcase for more gifts to come into our life. But it didn’t happen without vigorous debate, considerable angst and even some tears. It was a deeply emotional experience. Letting go of a book is not just letting go of a ‘thing’; it’s letting go of a living energy.

I still don’t know how to do it. We just did it as best we could: messily, angrily, sadly, and hopefully.

The only bright side in saying goodbye to these friends is that new ones will soon be here.

Life Changing Moments

Joanne — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:05:32 +0000

I’m madly editing my women’s ficition novel manuscript right now… riding the wild donkey as the inspirational Goddess Leonie calls it. And I am doing some serious rewriting of one of my main character’s journeys. In particular, I’m looking at her motivation and her passions. And it prompted me to think about those life changing moments that our characters need to have, as well as my own. I stumbled across someone’s list on the intermawebby thing where he listed his top 101 life changing moments. I don’t have time to do 101 (I have a wild donkey to ride), but I thought I’d throw out 25 to ponder.

25 Life Changing Moments (in no particular order or chronological plan)

Being shortlisted for the Text Prize
Winning One Book Many Brisbanes
Attending my first dogger sale (horse meat auction sale) and spontaneously saving four horses
Starting my own horse rescue charity (Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue Inc.)
Having ankle surgery
Meeting my husband as he rushed into Tongue and Groove cafe in West End, late for our first date after we met online
Becoming a teacher
Quitting teaching, turning to unemployment and writing my first novel
Meeting Hercules, my first horse and the subject of my memoir, Webs of Light.
Attending my first Woodford Folk Festival by myself, camping in a cow paddock in 40-degree heat, and going on to to write Woodford Virgins.
Getting married to my love.
Falling pregnant, having a miscarriage, falling pregnant again.
Swimming with a mother humpback whale and her calf in Tonga in 2009
Finding myself alone in Athens, with taxi cabs on impromptu strike, in searing hot temperatures, unable to speak Greek, pulling my luggage over cobbled roads and playing charades with Athenians to find out how to get to the airport.
Getting my dog, Daisy, as a puppy and as a surprise gift from my boyfriend (now husband), forcing us to move out together for the first time so Daisy could be in a dog-appropriate home (and my sister/housemate didn’t kill any of us for having a puppy in a house with no fences, no prior permission to introduce a dog, and two cats living indoors).
My cousin, Ken’s, death when I was 19. Being at the beside of my Nan when she passed away several years later.
Meeting Justin, my first and most significant long-term relationship prior to meeting my husband.
Breaking up with Justin and feeling the pain cleave through my chest until I was sure I would die. And, later, not dying.
Swimming with wild dolphins in Bunbury, Western Australia.
‘Delivering’ my first foal, Leila, under a full moon at 4.30 in the morning, being splashed with amniotic fluid, wiping the fluid from her nostrils as she coughed repeatedly to clear her airways, and watching her perfect, perfect body spring to life on those long, long legs.
Becoming an aunt for the first time (and the second time).
Moving to rural Australia.
Giving up full time work and working from home.
Working hard in the corporate world, dealing with insane levels of stress and eventually giving myself chronic fatigue syndrome, which took years to recover from.
Buying my first house.

So many more… but I do need to get back to that donkey.

I’d love to hear about some of your life changing moments.

The Messy First Draft

Joanne — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:22:00 +0000

The Messy First Draft

Here it is! My messy first draft of my current WIP, a women’s fiction novel set across Australia and England.

This is, without doubt, the messiest first draft I have ever created. But that’s what the first draft is for: getting it on the page. All 72,000 words of it can now sit and marinate for a month before I get stuck into it and clean it up.

This draft took a lot longer than I usually take to write a draft: three years! Mostly, it took that long because I kept stopping to work on another book project, get it finished, then get back to this one. This is my first women’s fiction novel and the most commercial book I’ve written yet.

And by far the most fun

Basically, I’ve written the book that I wanted to read. And that fills me with much joy

My Top Three Women’s Fiction Authors

Joanne — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:56:32 +0000

Okay, so if I had to name my top three women’s fiction authors (i.e. who write the books I just lurve to read and the ones I’ll go and buy as soon as the new ones come out), I would list them like this (in no particular order):

And it was only in listing these authors that I realised something. I seem to love writers who write about Ireland, England and Australia. It was a completely unconscious thing that drew me to all these authors. The one thing they do have in common, though, is that I discovered all of them by accident, picking up an audio book at the local library to listen to in the car. From there, I fell in love with their works and went and found all their books.

I adore audio books and from that experience of finding these great writers, I have to advocate two things:

Australia needs more audio books on the shelves.
Authors who wish to establish a following would be wise to release an audio book of at least one of their works.

For enjoyable holiday reading, I advocate any book written by any of these writers. Enjoy!

My Novel’s Progress

Joanne — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 03:20:30 +0000

: The Abbey Medieval Festival, Caboolture

I’m pleased to report that I attended two days of The Rabbit Hole event and wrote almost 10,000 words. I was pretty happy with that as I was aiming for 15,000 words (half of the event target of 30,000 words) over three days, so I was on track. I made a last-minute trip to the Medieval Festival at Caboolture on the second day. I just couldn’t resist that opportunity to ‘fill the well’ with mind bending sights and sounds. (And, wow, if I am ever researching a book set in that time period, I’ll certainly be going back. It’s a very rich and stimulating place for a writer.)

Today, I am feeling very sluggish, so I’ve done one thing to move my novel forward. I emailed three questions to a friend of mine who lived in England so she could answer them for me. See, that’s called outsourcing

Going down The Rabbit Hole: Writing Event

Joanne — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:15:48 +0000

I’m blogging in advance, clearing my emails, baking and setting boundaries. This weekend, from Friday to Sunday, I’m going down The Rabbit Hole. And you can join me and many others. This is a writing event set up by the Qld Writers Centre. I’ll be working on my women’s fiction novel. I’m currently in “the middle” so am hoping to get to the other side.

Here’s everything you need to know:

Friday 8th July to Sunday 10th July

Wherever you write – Join us here on Facebook

OR register at 9am, Wednesday June 8 to join us at QWC, level 2 State Library, Cultural Centre, Brisbane. Places at QWC are very limited but everyone can join us here on Facebook

______________________________

The Rabbit Hole is a three-day, 30-hour writing frenzy where participants aim to write 30,000 words OR the words ‘The End’ – whichever comes first!

If you can’t make it to The Rabbit Hole in person (places are very limited) join us here to post your progress and boast about your wordage. To let us know you’re in, just RSVP to this page.

To register forthe live event at QWC, send an email to RabbitHoleWriting@gmail.com with your name and contact details.

Registrations will open at 9:00am on Wednesday, 8 June 2011.

QWC will take registrations sent to that email address, in sequential order, until all the available places are filled.

My bookcase: to purge or not to purge

Joanne — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:39:59 +0000

Why is cleaning out my book case so hard? Because I love books. And I can’t bear to part with them.

But at the same time, I live in a tiny house and I try to follow Oprah’s clutter clearing expert, Peter Walsh’s, advice to “respect the limits of my space”. That is, I can only have as many books as I can fit into my bookcase. Every now and then I brace myself and have a big purge of books.

When I lived in Brisbane, I used to haul them down to the Ferny Grove flea markets of a Saturday morning and liquidate them. But now that I live in a rural town, my options are limited. Sometimes I try to ebay them, but the postage costs are generally prohibitive of making the time invested worth the return on what people are willing to pay. So, I try to give them away. But I can’t give them away as fast as the books keep coming in the door.

There’s only one thing to do. I’ve gone against everything Peter Walsh advises, and I have invested in a new bookcase. A brand spanking new, tall, white bookcase just waiting for me to fill it.

What can I say? I’m an addict.

Saving my skin

Joanne — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 02:35:41 +0000

I can’t believe I’ve ever written a novel (and I’ve written a few now) without Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat book and his BS2 plotting board. Although this book was written for screenwriters, and is all about creating a blockbuster movie, the principles are largely transferable to the novel and his insights have Blown My Mind!

the BS2 board... complete with cat

A lot of the information I either knew from having attended writers’ workshops, or I had picked up intuitively, yet the way Blake Snyder writes this book is infectiously energising (and funny) and made me totally reassess the way I’ve written books before. Structure has always been the part of my writing that I’ve needed to work on the most. And this book just nails it so succinctly that structure is now my most favourite aspect of writing. Yes, I knew about the three-act structure, the midpoint and the quantity of words in every act. But I just didn’t love it the way this book makes me love it. And I didn’t have all those signposts within the acts that I can now turn to for support when I’ve lost my way. Suddenly, bridging the darkness of “the middle” is not as frightening.

Do yourself a favour and buy yourself a copy of this bestselling book. You won’t be disappointed.

There’s a lot of blank spots on there at the moment. I”ve just about finished the first act (and actually let out a hoot of excitement when I physically saw the missing part at the end of act one) and am now heading into the wilderness of act two. Wish me luck!

Memoir Shortlisted

Joanne — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 03:55:29 +0000

It was only two blog posts ago that I wrote about how I’d picked up a memoir that had been sitting unattended in a drawer for two years, dusted it off and sent it off for a competition.

So I was thrilled to find an email in my inbox yesterday morning informing me that my memoir manuscript, Webs of Light, had been shortlisted for the Finch Publishing Memoir Prize. The prize was open to any unpublished memoir manuscript, across the nation, and the winner receives a publishing contract as well as $10,000 advance against future royalties.

Webs of Light is about the sixteen years I spent with my horse, Hercules and the way he changed my life. The timing of this email was particularly poignant, as the night before I had just lost the first of our rescue horses to come into Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue Inc. (the horse welfare charity I began last year). As Webs of Light highlights the importance of caring for, loving, and commiting to animals, it seemed a lovely pat on the shoulder from the Universe, a gentle hug to say, it’s okay.

I am honoured to be part of the finalists in this competition. Thank you Finch!

Woodford Virgins now available for purchase!

Joanne — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 07:27:27 +0000

Christmas is just around the corner and so too is the annual Woodford Folk Festival, which begins on Boxing Day for campers. I’ve camped three times at the festival and attended as a day-tripper many others, and it’s still one of my favourite places to be. With such a rich tapestry of events, experiences, sights and sounds, it was little wonder that I chose to “write what I love” and write a novel based at the festival.

A PDF of Woodford Virgins has been available on Scribd for some time and it has received over 8,000 viewings for free on Scribd. Now, it’s available as an ebook (PDF) as well as a paperback from Lulu.com.

I do hope you’ll dip your toe into the spirit of the festival and pick up some fun holiday reading

The ebook is US$5.39 and the paperback is US$14.96.