

Deborah Burrows – A Time of Secrets

Last month I hit two scary milestones – my baby turned 1 and started childcare, and my novel went out on its own for a manuscript assessment. The first day of childcare happened to coincide with me dropping my manuscript off so of course I began drawing obvious parallels, things like recognising that my novel has been with me for the last seven years, in my thoughts daily as I work on it, helping it grow so it can go off one day on its own, just like a child. It’s kept me awake at night, and some days I’ve felt like all I’ve done is wipe excrement off it.
Of course you can’t really compare a manuscript to a child but I was equally as nervous dropping off my baby to his carer’s as I was dropping my novel off to the assessors. But I think manuscript assessment is an important step for a few reasons:
Will I take on all of the feedback that Jill provides? Well…I guess only time will tell. Will I be drinking champagne or gin? Probably both.
Please let me know about your experiences of manuscript assessment and how it has worked well (or not) for you.
Over these last few months I have experienced the death of two people who were close to me. In the more contemplative moments of my grief I have tried to piece fragments of my loss into words. And while I have had little success in putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard as the case may be) I’ve though a lot about the act of writing and the triggers of imagination.
I attended the funeral of my father’s best friend, Graeme Clement, in June. He was a man that I had known for twenty years. He regularly commented on my blog, or facebook account. He knew that I studied literature, wrote poetry, was working on a novel. But what I didn’t know about him, was that he wrote as well. At his funeral some of his poetry was shared.
I wish I had of had the chance to discuss poetry with him. I can imagine how it would have gone. Perhaps sipping a Central Victorian Shiraz somewhere near a fire – but more likely drinking beer in Dad’s lounge room during the footy, comments only allowed at half time. The discussion would have been antagonistic. I would have introduced something feminist, he would have scoffed. I would have introduced something political, he would have compared me to Julia Gillard. We would have agreed to disagree on most poetry, but I think we would have shared a love of Australian poetry.
So while we never had the chance to ‘speak a bit of shit’ about poetry, Graeme has taught me that while some poetry is great to read alone, sharing poetry with others (like-minded or not) is worth the time, you never know what you might agree on. (I can’t help but think that he’d smile reading this – me admitting that he taught me something).
My grandmother, Norma Watts, also passed away this year. It was sudden and I had only seen her days before where I had the chance to tell her that I was returning to Uni to commence a PhD. I could tell that she was pretty proud of that but, as she watched my toddler and six month old climb over me, that she was calculating exactly how I’d do it.
What I didn’t get the chance to tell her was how much she has inspired my writing. She wasn’t a writer, not a big reader, but she had an interest in family history. Not the ancestory.com type of thing, but more making sure that we had an appreciation of our ancestors. Every school holiday my brother and I would visit and my grandparents often took us around various goldfields towns showing us significant sights like the houses they grew up in. At the time I likely rolled my eyes.
However, I have just spent the last 6 six years working on a novel set on the Victorian Goldfields in the 1880’s. I can honestly say that I would never have written a novel like that if it wasn’t for my grandparents.
Just before Nan passed I had been working on a poem about her. It is about collecting her old Fowlers Vacola bottling kit, brining it home and trying to use it. The poem ends with me calling Nan a few months later when I opened my first jar of preserved Apricots. I haven’t worked on it since, but I will get back to it and try to find a fitting home for it one day.
Unfortunately I never read her a draft. But I can just imagine her if I had of told her about it. She would have given me one of her very common responses:
‘Nan, I’m writing a poem about using the Fowlers Vacola.’
‘Are you darling?’ She’d reply, eyes wide, smiling and nodding. She was never any good at faking her response and her tone of voice and facial expression would indicate that inside she was thinking something along the line of ‘I don’t understand these kids, why on earth would you bother spending your time writing about preserving fruit?’ Then she’d go silent and let me fill in the gap with my own rambling that she’d nod along to.
Poetry, farm life, bottling fruit, whatever your inspiration… share it.
In October I had the good luck of meeting and Interviewing Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project.
He was a guest of the Ballarat Writers for one of our ‘Reading Nights’ where we host a guest author to discuss all things writing with our members. There was much excitement about Graeme’s visit due to the success that The Rosie Project has had this year. I held off buying the book so that I could get a signed copy on the night (I’m always secretly worried that our guests will travel from Melbourne and get zero book sales, a small turn out, then a long and lonely drive home.) I’ve had a chance to read the book now and I can see why it’s been a hit. However what I learned from my interview and Graeme’s presentation was more about what makes some people succeed. Continue reading →