Archive for the ‘Life lessons’ Category


No More Misses Nice Writer

November 17th, 2007 by janet

Not long ago, I wrote a post about Writers and Censorship.

One of my short stories had been accepted by a magazine for school kids, which had me doing cartwheels and bouncing off the walls. But then the editor wanted some changes, and they weren’t just minor.

“Welcome to the world of professional writing,” one of my writing colleagues told me. She qualified this by saying that censorship in the education market is particularly rife. In fact, the do’s and don’ts are so numerous, that a lot of writers stay away from this field.

Now I know why.

As I mentioned in my last post, I adhered to the first request to “water down” my story. I made a couple of changes, removing the “violence” (the normal argy bargy between brothers and sisters), and made my burglar get caught by the police. I wasn’t too upset by the changes – the tone hadn’t altered at all, and the story was still funny.

But if I thought that would be the end of it, I was very wrong.

A follow-up request arrived from the magazine editor. This time, the list of changes and the attitudes that backed up the need for the changes staggered me.

I wasn’t allowed to let the brother call his sister by a name he’d made up as, heaven help us, what parent in their right mind would allow such a thing! (Note to reader: niether parent appears in the story.) They were still unhappy about the brother’s treatment of his sister, but weren’t at all concerned that the sister was a pretty rough character and gave as good as she got. Oh, and my gripping opening had to be changed completely: goodness me, you couldn’t expose children to a brother giving his sister’s doll a haircut, now could you?

I sat back and had a good long hard think about what I was being asked to do – after I’d ranted and raved at the computer screen. If I went ahead with the requested alterations, my story would lose so much. It wouldn’t be funny anymore, there’d be no engaging interaction between brother and sister, and the tone would be lost. In fact, there would be no story.

I imagined any kid sitting and reading my story in the magazine. What would he or she say at the end of it? “Boring…”

And how would I feel about my name being printed on such a boring story?

That was it, the answer. I replied to the editor, explaining how ridiculous these changes were – in a very nice way, of course.

The result is that the story has been withdrawn.

Immediately, I felt enormous relief. As a writer, I like to write gripping and interesting stories for kids. I want to find a different angle, something that stands out. And I want to show real life situations, like brothers and sisters arguing with one another.

This experience has made me wiser. Perhaps writing fiction for the education market isn’t for me.

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Writers and Censorship

October 31st, 2007 by janet

I’ve often read with interest how writers deal with their work being censored by editors. I’m talking about the small scale stuff here, where the editor doesn’t like the language used, or feels the story has too much inference to delinquent behaviour, drink and drugs and the like.

And, of course, I’m talking about stories and books written for kids.

From what I’ve read, writers have different reactions and approaches to censorship. Some fight to retain every word, preferring to withdraw their work than change it. Others acquiesce, not wanting to ruin any future relationships with that publisher or editor. I suppose it comes down to a few things, like whether or not you’re already published and can pick and choose, how strongly you feel about changing your story, and how desperate you are to get your name in print.

I think I fall into the desperate category!

I just heard from an editor in the education market who had accepted one of my short stories a few months ago. It has now been re-read by a committee of millions, by the sound of it, and they have some concerns. Could I either address these, or would I like them to do it?

I shouldn’t have been shocked by the elements that gave rise to concern, as I’ve heard other writers mention similar things that have raised eyebrows in the education market. But still, it did amaze me.

Firstly, they were worried about the “violence” between my brother and sister character and how disingenuous the brother is towards his little sister. My characters have a bit of a rough and tumble, instigated by the sister, and the brother insinuates that he’d rather not have a sister. Now that’s pretty normal stuff, I’d reckon. Siblings fight, right? Kids wouldn’t be shocked by that, would they? How many siblings get on really well when they’re young?

My story is a humourous one, where this brother is so naive that he helps a burglar nick stuff from the family home. Now that’s a big concern for the publisher. It’s not right that the burglar wins. So I have to rewrite the ending so that the family don’t lose out.

Maybe I’m naive. After all, look at the Brady Bunch. Weren’t they all lovey-dovey? Nothing bad happened to them, did it?

So what am I doing? Well, the rewrites, of course. After all, they’ve paid me, and I don’t want to give the money back. And I want the work to be my own, not a composite of their words and mine.

When I’m a well-published writer, I’ll fight for my characters and my ideas. But right now, I just want to get my foot in the door and keep it there.

Back to the keyboard. My burglar is about to come to a sticky end. Ooops, that would be violent, wouldn’t it?

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Out of the Mouths of Babes

October 27th, 2007 by janet

As a writer for children, I’m always listening to what kids say, absorbing everything about them, their mannerisms, personalities, peculiar quirks.

And as a speaker, I love addressing school groups, especially primary school kids, because they give so much and can produce pearls of wisdom.

One of my friends in my writing network sent an email that touched my heart. She had collected a list of quotes from four to eight year olds about the meaning of love. This is what Billy, a four year old, said about love:

‘When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.’

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Public Speaking Rule No. 1: Always Be Prepared

May 11th, 2007 by janet

In all the research I’ve done on the art of public speaking, one important factor has always stood out – be prepared for anything to go wrong. Speakers are advised to imagine all the technological things that go awry – like lap tops and projectors failing, lights suddenly going out etc – as well as things like getting a bad introduction, dealing with a heckler, having a blank “senior’s” moment. You end up with a long list of what could go wrong, for which you need to find solutions so that absolutely nothing fazes you on the day.

As a blind public speaker, I think I’ve had to come up with disability-specific things that could challenge me on the day.

I must admit, I haven’t had a lot of these over my time as a speaker. The last one I remember was about three years ago when my guide dog and I almost got mashed in a revolving door as we entered the venue where I was addressing about two hundred senior staff members. The person escorting me to the venue didn’t think to tell me we were going through a revolving door until we were in it. Just in time, I realised that my dog would be crushed between the edge of one of the winged doors and the wall, so I did the only thing I could. I screamed, dropped Lucy’s lead and prayed. Luckily, Lucy backed up quickly and escaped the inevitable. I was so shaken afterwards, that I could have used a stiff drink. Instead, I had to pull myself together, focus and do my talk as though there had been no near death experience fifteen minutes before.

Well, this week the gods decided I needed to be tested again on my ability to rise above the disability challenges of public speaking. I was addressing a group of business professionals when I had my most embarrassing moment. Before the event started, I was being shown to my seat at a table to enjoy a lovely breakfast, when I did the dumbest thing. I felt my jacket hanging on the back of my chair, didn’t check which way the chair was facing, decided it was facing me, so turned and sat down. Needless to say, I found myself on the floor. The room went deadly quiet. No-one knew what to say, do or probably, where to look.

I went straight into damage control. I didn’t want these people to think that all blind people miss their chairs when they go to sit down. So I made a joke of it, saying ‘the problem is that I keep forgetting I can’t see!’, and ‘I’ve never done that before!’. Now, believe it or not, this became a useful lead in to my presentation. I used it to put people at their ease, so that they could see I laugh at myself.

It worked well, and I had a great presentation. In fact, I found this group – Perth Business Swap – such a knowledgeable, professional and ecclectic business network, that I am thinking of joining them.

So falling down on the job isn’t always a bad thing!

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Taking a Break From Novel Writing

April 20th, 2007 by janet

I’ve heard of and experienced writers’ block, but I’ve never really been through writers’ burn-out.

That’s what I’m calling my slump in the novel writing this week. For the past six or seven weeks, I’ve been solidly writing scenes and chapters for my young adult novel, never missing a day and loving every minute. But this week, it all came to a grinding halt. I had no ideas at all for the next scene, and no enthusiasm to find them. It felt so awful, but I couldn’t do anything about it in terms of making it happen.

So I did the next best thing. I wrote a whacky little short story to lighten me up a bit. I didn’t consciously think that this might shift things for me, help me get back into the novel, but it has.

And it makes sense now that I look back on it. When you are bogged down in something and can’t move, doing something completely different is often the best way of becoming unstuck. I didn’t want to stop writing – especially as this is my career – but I had to get away from my novel. The light-hearted, quick paced story I wrote has done the trick.

In this story, I wrote about a totally unbelievable situation with a gullible character. It was meant to be whacky and way-out. I sent it off to my tutor for feedback, which in a way, I knew was dumb. My tutor has taught me to write realistic scenes with believable characters. Needless to say, she was very sceptical about my whacky story. But I’m not worried because it has worked its magic. Maybe I needed to go a bit wild for a while.

I’m still going to enter my short story in a competition and see how it is received. There’s no harm trying. But now, it’s back to the novel.

If you feel stuck with something you’ve been doing for a while, try doing something completely different. Dont’ worry about time loss through doing another activity; you will feel refreshed and attack your old task with renewed energy, and therefore be more productive.

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Celebrating International Womens Day on the Radio

March 13th, 2007 by janet

International Womens Day was last Thursday, March 8. I’d thought about going along to one of the many events that I’d heard about through email, but decided I was just too busy. And so the day passed me by.

But not entirely. I got a call on Thursday asking me if I’d be part of a panel of women to participate in a segment on the ABC’s morning show with Geoff Hutchinson. It was the After 11 segment which runs for an hour. I agreed, not really knowing what I’d manage to come up with that would be of any interest.

The session turned out to be a lot of fun. There were four of us – an MP, a state netball coach, an ex-governor’s wife and me. I don’t think any of us were sure how it would go, what we would say, but we ended up having a lot to say.

I’m not sure how the host, Geoff Hutchinson, felt during the session. We challenged him on a few male attitudes about women. What was particularly interesting was the way women in politics are viewed, how comments are made about how they look, sound etc, and yet this doesn’t happen for men.

Geoff gave us a quote from Jane Fonda (sorry, I’m not sure how to spell her last tname) which said something like: ‘You either shut up and say nothing, or you speak out and learn from your mistakes’. We were all asked to respond to that. And despite our age differences, with the ex-governor’s wife being in her 70s or 80s, we all said we couldn’t ’shut up’, that we always spoke out, especially when we came across injustices.

I went in worried but came out exhilarated. And I think that reflects one very important quality women have. And that is, women are good at networking, forming communities of similar interest, and communicating.

I look forward to another opportunity to be a part of a radio program. It’s fun and interesting watching how it all works. I’m glad I just have to answer questions and not keep an eye on monitors, the producer signalling through the window, press buttons and make things happen when they should.  

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A funny thing happened in the city today

February 5th, 2007 by janet

I took advantage of the slightly cooler weather today and caught a bus into town to pick up a library book that was waiting for me. I was standing at some traffic lights when the audible signal indicated it was safe to cross. Just as I gave Lucy, my guide dog, the signal to move forward, a lady stopped me with a question.

She sounded Asian and her english wasn’t good. She wanted to know where the shopping centre was, and a particular bank.

It’s not unusual for me to be stopped by tourists asking directions, but it always amuses me. I’m not sure why they think a blind person would know where to find shops, streets etc. I had to tell this lady that there were many shops in the city, and that I didn’t know where that bank was. Luckily, another man overheard and helped out, pointing out where the big shops and the bank she was looking for, which he could see across the road.

In saying that it surprises me that I get asked directional questions, in another way, it makes sense. I am pretty aware of where I am, the streets around me, and where particular shops are located. I have to know. I keep a mental map in my head all the time. On buses, I often answer passengers questions of the driver about where a certain street is. I even tell them I’ll let them know when they’re there, which astounds them!

So even though I had a bit of a giggle, it’s quite a sensible thing to ask a blind person for directions. 

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Following your dreams, literally

February 1st, 2007 by janet

Last night I had a dream that made no sense at the time. But in the morning, I worked it out.

In the dream, I was on a train. The train stopped at a station, and I left my seat to get off. I knew the station and was sure it was time to disembark. But then I became aware of my Dad. He told me to “stay on the train”.

I didn’t want to stay on because I didn’t know where the train was going. It all seemed so foreign to me. But I did what he said and sat back down. As I looked around, I noticed that the train itself looked different, somehow unfamiliar. But my Dad’s words hung around me: “stay on the train”. Despite my discomfort, I stayed on that train.

In the morning, I realised what the dream meant. My Dad died nearly fifteen years ago. I’ve always missed him, even more so now that I am in my own business. He would have been a great business mentor for me. The message of “stay on the train” was really telling me to not give up on some new business ventures I have in mind. There are two in particular that I’ve been toying with for a while but have been unsure about how to develop them. I almost gave up on one of them entirely.

But today, quite by chance, I’ve pushed through one of the blocks to one of those ventures. I’ve found the right contacts to get me started on something I’d love to do – blogging for other businesses. There’s so much information on the internet about how easy this is to do, but it’s difficult to know where to start in such a huge potential market. I am going to start small with someone I know, and take it from there.

Dreams tell us a lot about where we’re at, what we worry about. Sometimes I find my dreams keep me inspired and motivated. If a particular scene in a dream stands out, no matter how disjointed or crazy it seems, I know I need to analyse it.

Now I’m definitely staying on the train. 

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Is facing your fear always a good thing?

January 2nd, 2007 by janet

How many times have you heard the phrase “face your fear”? As a social worker, I’ve handed that phrase out many times, and I still hand it out to my friends.

But recently, I was the recipient of this seemingly harmless little phrase, and I didn’t find it at all useful or uplifting.

I was staying on a farm in the south west of Western Australia over Christmas with my mother. As it was warm and there was plenty of bush on the property, I made a firm statement right from the start that we’d only walk in the open paddocks where it was possible to see snakes, if they were around. I have a huge fear of snakes, which was magnified on this trip because I had Lucy, my guide dog with me. Labradors are pretty clueless when it comes to wriggly things on the ground. I could just see her running up to a snake to check it out.

Well, everything was going well until the supposed marked bush walk we took started to deteriorate. The track actually disappeared, the bush closed in, and we were soon stomping through really dense scrub, over logs – which I imagined were the homes of at least one big snake – and climbing through dense grass trees. Lucy was out front on a long lead. I kept telling myself, as my pulse rose and rose, that if she sensed a snake, she’d stop dead. But at the same time, I felt so responsible for her and worried that she’d get bitten. I high stepped through the grass, stomped my feet hard to make lots of noise and tried walking on air.

One hour and twenty terrifying minutes later, we arrived back at our chalet. Even though we heard no rustlings around us, and saw absolutely nothing in the form of wriggly and bitey things, my fear of snakes has not changed. I have no idea why we escaped without at least a sighting. Maybe someone was looking after us?

That little soiree hasn’t given me any more confidence to walk in the bush in summer. I’ll be keeping away from long grass and dense bush from now on.     

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A positive rejection letter from a publisher

December 22nd, 2006 by janet

Writers and authors who have been working on their craft for long enough know that rejection letters from publishers are normal and expected. In fact, if you don’t get them, then you’re not a real writer, because you’re not submitting, submitting, submitting. But getting rejection after rejection doesn’t make it any easier to take.

Except when the rejection letters start turning into positive rejections.

What do I mean? Well, they’re not the standard “thank you for your submission but we won’t be offering publication of your manuscript at this stage”. Instead, they become more personal, with comments about your work in the letter. And editors only do this when they recognise good writing.

I got one of those today and boy, am I bouncing off the walls. It was from a major publishing company in Australia, which makes it even better. They said that although they could not offer publication, their editors feel that my manuscript has “real promise”, and they hope I won’t be discouraged and will continue to try and get it published.

Whooppee! That was for my junior fiction novel, “Seeing Dogs”. Just yesterday, I was thinking maybe I should abandon any idea of getting it published, maybe it was just not good enough. Now I have renewed energy and enthusiasm to find the right publisher.

The message to all writers is never give up. We hear it all the time, but sometimes we just need reminding. So here’s to a better future for “Seeing Dogs”. May it find a publisher in 2007.

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Posted by janet Posted in Books, Guide dogs, Life lessons, Motivation, Writing | 4 Comments »


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