Competition

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I have found something I want to be competitive in! It will take a lot of time to get this writing right. Time and practice but that’s ok. Having written book one in 6 months I decided to try and write book two in eight weeks. Just under ten thousand words a week should be pretty easy, I thought.

Getting in the flow and staying there is the tricky part. I can go to a cafe and get far too embroiled with the goings on around me. I can let my imagination really go and then go completely off tangent. Then all of a sudden the magic happens. My fingers are typing away and I am not actually thinking about what comes next. The characters take over and tell their story. For a split second I force myself back to reality to grab a sip of coffee and revel in this fantastic flow. I smile and then continue.

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Marvellous Mistakes – Editing

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Editing my first book was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done mentally for a long while.  After rearranging the content of the book three or four times I was sick of the sight of it!

‘Know your book inside and out before approaching anyone with it!’

How can you not know it inside and out when you have read the bloody thing five times! Frustration started to creep in and I still needed to tackle the grammar and punctuation.  Arguments with the proofing tool could go on for hours! Never mind saving expletives for dramatic effect.  I was aiming them all directly at my stilted reflection in the laptop.

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Top Tips from Published Authors

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Now that I am nearing the end of book two, I was thinking about how I got to this point.  I thought I would share with you the top tips from published authors that have kept me writing.

  1. Write Every Day
  2. Follow your passion
  3. Keep the rise and fall
  4. Don’t be discouraged by the first draft, just get the mess out there
  5. Trust your gut
  6. Keep reading
  7. Keep learning
I don’t think you can go far wrong with those seven.  If anyone has any others please post!
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My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
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Anna Karenina & Suicide

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‘Oh Anna’ I sigh.  As she knelt on the tracks and drew her last breath (the television adaption, A Beautiful Lie). I wanted hedonistic Harry (one of my characters) to stroll out of the dark tunnel. He would gather up this exhausted girl into his strong arms and carry her off into the sunset.

Anna’s story has been following me around Melbourne. I was on a train to the city,  when it was stopped at Carrum as a woman was threatening to commit suicide. This woman could have been our modern day Anna.  I’m sure whatever emotions were running through her head were very similar to those of Anna’s grief and isolation.  I hope our modern day Anna found someone to listen to her.

Suicide is one of those taboo’s that we don’t talk about isn’t it. Maybe because I find myself in the happiest place mentally I think I have ever been. I feel the strength to have this conversation.

About 12 years ago I began my obsession with a large oak tree in a country lane. I would drive past it nearly everyday on the way to town. I always thought that tree would do the trick should I ever need assistance in the death department.  There was no heavy opera music to accompany this thought, it was very matter of fact.  That tree somehow gave me comfort, I would smile as I passed it, at the secret we shared.  I would sometimes drive faster to reach it.  However I could never quite bring myself to turn the wheel and face the car in its direction. When I felt the life sucked out of me these thoughts seemed perfectly rational. Luckily I never followed through with my strange exit plan. I dug myself out of that hole and I surrounded myself with wonderful people and beautiful things.

A few years later news came through the village that a Dad had taken his life by crashing his car into a tree.  As I heard the news my face reddened and my heart beat faster. That awful childish guilt of having had the same idea.  But this wasn’t stealing plimsoles or gambling marbles, this was life or death. Had his tree passed him by for weeks like mine? Had he smiled in acknowledgment at his tree too, knowing that if one day he felt that bad there was an easy solution? Or was it a split second decision? We will never know.  I thought about his wife and children.  It must be awful to be the one picking up the pieces, the one left behind that has to carry on.

‘Wasn’t it just an accident?’ I asked one of the ladies, her frown and sadness reflecting mine. I was hoping the village grapevine had got the story wrong.

‘No’ was the short reply, there are few words when it comes to suicide.  We both looked down at our feet, what more was there to say.

I was shocked.  This secret that I had kept was someone else’s too. If I had met him in the pub would we have discussed the amount of large oak trees that lined the country road to town?

Isn’t it awful that we keep our deepest most powerful thoughts to ourselves for fear of being labelled?  Surely letting the dark stuff out immediately takes the burden from our shoulders and makes us lighter, more able to float through life.  We grow stronger because we are admitting the truth.

JK Rowling’s description of depression as the dark ‘dementors’ sucking the life out of you is awesome. I’m sure a lot of people felt relief at this description. Relief to know you are not alone.  I’m glad to say I have never felt that low again.  We all carry the gun powder and the match, lets not ignite it.

I have worried about this piece of writing and how it will be perceived. It has been sitting in my ‘drafts’ for a couple of weeks now. I think it’s time to let it go.

Anna’s story and The Beautiful Lie ended up for me to be the most beautiful truth.  Truth and honesty is what makes good writing.  Sometimes even the writer does not know where that lies.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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The Ping of Hope

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I get home from my writing group and turn on the laptop. Jodie and Tabitha are in Jabiru, Northern Territory, Australia and it’s about 38 degrees. They sit together in the pub supping beer, laughing and joking.  As the sun fades on the horizon their eyes reflect the changing light on the escarpment. After a hard weeks work Victoria Bitter has quenched the girls thirst and soothed their tired limbs but there is an ache they share that VB can’t touch.

Ping!

Finally an email from a publisher, I read it and let out a little scream. They ask me to send more chapters! This is great, they want more. I take the liberty of sending them more from book one but also some chapters of book two which I am now nearly half way through. I arrange my documents ready to send back, read and re-read. Please love it.

I’m so excited and yet I realise this is a drop in the ocean, I might never hear back again. Stay positive, believe. I will get that book deal.

My hunger for this is now quite ferocious. I growl at the laptop as I send my email back trying to send my energy too.

‘Come on let’s do this!’ I say sounding curiously like a tennis player giving themselves a pep talk.

I’m here let’s get on with it, my book is ready to go and so am I!

Before my altercation with the author at the Wheeler Centre. I was sat listening to them talking about the next big thing. It’s me, It’s me! I thought. I know that sounds awfully arrogant but this is different I’m happy and proud of my work. I know these books could do a lot of good. Perhaps break down a few barriers, just as writing them has broken down my barriers. It’s why my emotions run high when I talk about my writing. It’s me on a plate, no holes barred. I don’t care if people like it or loath it, as long as it’s heard. Please world just listen, even if it is background music on your elevator ride. It’s on, it’s alive, it has a pulse, in fact it gives me palpitations!

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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Fight or Flight – Authors

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Flight

Going to the city today I listened to the authors of ‘Queer Literature’ at the Wheeler Centre, although my book might not exactly fall into the genre, I thought it an interesting talk to attend.   I was seen and heard, just maybe not for the right reasons.

Listening to them talk about how publishers would make better tyre companies churning out the same old shit. Then I was seen, as I walked away after being told by a well-known author that trying to give authors a Usb stick was the wrong thing to do, not wanting at all to listen to my story.  Yes it probably was the wrong thing to do but yes I’m desperate for someone to hear my story. On the one hand here they were saying that if you are different and not main stream the publishers won’t listen and yet the authors themselves (sorry one in particular) didn’t want to listen either. I had only knocked on the door and felt it being slammed in my face already.

I’m going to get kicked in the teeth a few times whilst on this journey I completely expect that. In fact if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be on any journey, I would be sitting at home.  So I should be grateful and I am, it ignites the fire within me to a larger degree.

Anyway after (what felt like) being kicked out of the Wheeler Centre I was fuming. Doesn’t this woman remember what it’s like to have this fire burning a hole in your stomach. The fire of a message you need to be heard but when you touch and talk about it, it hurts. Walking back down Elizabeth Street I thought no I’m not walking away with any more pain than I need to and I turned around.

‘I’m going back’

Fight

Walking back to a relatively empty room and after a moment of realisation that yes it was her that I wanted to talk to she gestured to a corner.  Then finally I was heard.

‘I feel like you completely shot me down’ I said through tears of fire.

‘I’m sorry’ she apologised, ‘I’m glad you came back, I was wrong’

And then she hugged me, people often write about awkward hugs, this was the worst, I didn’t want to be hugged and she was about a foot shorter than me which made it even stranger.

The energy, my energy had been re-aligned but why did I still feel so riled up?  Now that I have calmed down I realise that this was fight mode and not flight, not my normal reaction at all.  No-one likes conflict and yet I went back looking for it, knowing I deserved that apology.  I’m quietly proud that I went back.  I’m sure she herself has fought many battles and won but she lost this one.

‘Oh someone wants me to sign their book’ she said gesturing to the table.

‘I hope one day that you will be sitting signing books!’ She said

I nodded and walked away. Yes I will be sitting that side of the table and yes she will definitely be getting an invite to my book launch.   My first experience of the Wheeler Centre was certainly eventful, I do hope to return and hope that next time, I keep my cool and make a better job of networking.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People” will be the next book I acquire.

Watch out world the fire is getting hotter, I may be starting to fly but I’m also ready for the fight.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

Amazon        Kobo       iTunes

Anna Karenina & The Beautiful Lie

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I surprisingly kept my cool as I untangled my earphones to listen to the podcast of Anna Karenina. Too many books sit next to my bedside table and so I take a different route to absorb Tolstoys words. I have been watching The Beautiful Lie, a television adaption of this story and I am hooked. The characters are all so full, brimming with different emotional states.

My teacher at the writing group has encouraged me on several occasions to read this book. As with a lot of messages in my life it takes a few attempts for me to hear it. Surely if I am already watching the modern version I will be able to understand it, follow it and take something from it.

As I listen to the woman’s voice telling the story in my head. I eventually shut out all my other thoughts and hear the words. The sentences are ‘wordy’ they are poetic and have so many consequential meanings. The mood of the book is far darker than the television adaption, maybe easier to achieve with those harsh Russian names, older words and language.

There are a few similarities between my first book & Anna.  In fact there are a few similarities between my life and Anna’s. As I listen hard, more is revealed that I understand, that is a truth in my world, my head, my book and my characters.

Perhaps that is why I was nervous of reading the book. Sometimes the scared little child wins my battles and I believe I’m not good enough. The ‘I can’t’ comes out to play. It really is time to tell that little girl that she can, she will and she is.

I am going into the city today on a mission to be seen and heard. The little girl wants to stay at home, watch some TV and curl up on the sofa. It is time to start believing in myself because if I don’t no-one else will. I hope when I meet other people today I will be able to shake their hand and be strong. I know my voice will quiver but that noise is just the last few bricks crumbling from the wall I built a very long time ago.

I have given the little girl in my head a tune to hum to remind myself that unlike Anna Karenina I am on the right path. Poor Anna, I am not yet at the end of her journey but I am pretty sure her tale will not end happily. I wish I could reach through to her world of fiction and hold her hand, I would listen and talk just like she did with Dolly.  How true that we can be so strong for others and yet sometimes not so for the person in the mirror.

I am lucky enough to have a few people holding my hand. In fact they do a very good relay of passing the Frankie Banks baton. No small feat considering not many of them live in the same country or even know each other! They nudge me back onto my yellow brick road when I stumble into the woods.  So as I hum ‘follow the yellow brick road’ walking up Swanston Street today. Watch out for those flying monkeys and the green faced witch. I am on my way to the Emerald City and about to climb into my hot air balloon.

Thank you Team Frankie Up up and Away!

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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Numinous

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‘If Freud had given somewhat more consideration to the psychological truth that sexuality is numinous – both of a god and a devil.  He would not have remained bound within the confines of a biological concept’ C G Jung – Memories, Dreams & Reflections

I lay in bed last night reading and re-reading a couple of pages of Jung’s book and nothing was going in. I have owned this book for about fifteen years now.  I go back to books a bit like clothes, my old favourite pair of jeans, sometimes they are a bit tight around the waist and don’t quite fit. Other times they fit perfectly and are exactly the right accompaniment to the rest of my attire. Last night Jung’s words just didn’t quite fit and as I was about to turn off the lamp the word numinous stood out.

Jung explains it; ‘numinous – both of a god and a devil’

Numinous is defined in the dictionary; ‘having a strong religious or spiritual quality’

Depending on your religious or spiritual connections would depend on your interpretation of the word numinous. I agree with Jung’s statement about Freud but I think it stretches further than Freud and sexuality.

The Dark Side

Society have always liked to shun the dark side, always trying to be good, on the side of good, making the bed scary. Locking bad away. What would happen if we embrace the bad, give it a platform, give it a voice, let it out. Do we really think it would take over? There is a reason that good generally wins and that is because of human nature, most of us are inherently good.  The problem comes when we are told to hide the parts of us that are ‘bad’.  Whatever that is, from an obsession to a birthmark, to an addiction.  We all have traits that at some point someone has told us are bad.


This comes back to resistance, another word I have come to appreciate and acknowledge.  The more we try to resist anything the stronger it gets. The ‘bad’ becomes stronger and the good becomes weaker. We need to first walk with this bad, let it take a few steps, experience it, talk to it, feel it. Maybe even hold its hand. Take time to understand it and then perhaps when it is released it won’t be the monster we first thought.

Fire Guard

Whilst we were living in England we had three fire places with two small children. One day our friends came over with their two children and not use to fires in the home they asked us to put the fire guard up, which we did. This fascinated their children more than the actual fire, our two pulling them away and telling them ‘hot,hot!’ If you can’t feel the heat of the fire you don’t have the information to make the right decision. Our children have never put their hands in a fire because they they can feel that it is hot.

We are all numinous, whatever that means to you and how you connect to it.  We will always have good and bad and we need to accept the whole if we are to grow. Next time you feel the bad winning within you or next to you or around you, talk to it, listen to it and feel it. Don’t shut it out, shut it down or ignore it. Maybe it just needs a voice or perhaps just wants to be heard. We are all numinous.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park

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My characters in book two are in the amazing Kakadu National Park at the moment. So as I sit in the café in Melbourne, the rain thundering on the tin roof.  I can’t help feeling the weather getting warmer and more humid with every word I type.  The buzz of people around me fuelling my fingertips.


What a wonderful place Kakadu is, whilst I was working there I was lucky enough to share accommodation with three Aboriginal Australian girls. They were amazing spirits, such energy, always smiling, laughing and joking, always so much to say and always so dramatic.

There were many Australians from far and wide and immediately I recognised their accents as very different from each other.  There were a few Kiwi’s and some European’s, Indonesians, Malaysians. What a wonderful soup of souls we were.

As with a lot of lifes rich experiences I took it for granted at the time. When going back to the diary I kept, I was much more interested in recording the wildlife and surroundings than the late night deep conversations of these wonderful people. Oh how we change! If I could travel back in time I would record all of our chats, the facial expressions, the little nuances of these colourful individuals.


I have so many questions to ask of these people that have now probably little or no memory of me. I will have to rely on my recollection and add a bit of artistic license to a few stories. That is the beauty of writing, the thin line between fact and fiction is really only there for the writer to know and reader to guess at.

So as I wonder around the streets and cafe’s of Melbourne, excuse me if I bump into you, I’m not reading my iPhone or trying to get your attention. My mind is simply in Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park. The heat is burning my shoulders, as I scan the red dust for snakes. Watching the heat haze on the horizon which makes the gum trees look like a mirage. The escarpment seems to reach so far, I can see the curvature of the earth. I climb to the top of Gunlom Falls my back wet with sweat and dip my toe into the cooling water, wondering if Crocs can climb. Then I immerse my body in the refreshing serenity of the pool. The huge boulders acting like armchairs to sit upon. If I am about to be eaten by a Croc what a wonderful place for it to happen!

Melbourne is a distant memory, just the place my physical form inhabits as I type away at my laptop. I may be present in Melbourne but my presence is undeniably in Kakadu.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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Horrible Halloween

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It’s not often I am chained to my bed.  Who has the time to be ill! But as I awoke to the sound of thunder on Halloween and thought it quite appropriate. I didn’t realise I would be spending the whole day with my head in a plastic bag. Sitting on the toilet with the plastic bag. Both ends in simultaneous explosions.

 It’s not November the 5th you know! I thought staring at my toes.

I haven’t kept water down since last night and I am gasping. Sipping seems a waste of time but gulping is not an option.

I should be sitting here writing my book, but getting into character would be too difficult. I’m afraid I have to share this horrible Halloween with you instead.

It is strange to wander the streets on Halloween on a hot sunny afternoon. Obviously in England it will be dark by the time all the ghosts and gouls adorn their lamp light streets. It is the one time of year in Australia that I feel like I am on set of a 90’s American film with Corey Haim. It just isn’t spooky enough!

Some people distress at the thought of Halloween, perhaps it being the eve of All Saints Day. Does kind of beg the question is today All Sinners Day?

I definitely believe that we leave a little of ourselves on the Earth. I have witnessed a few little miracles from loved ones that have passed.  Luckily not on Halloween.

However I do recall a Halloween in a house we lived in England where on Halloween the electrics kept switching off. I would go to the fuse box and turn them back on only for them to short again. In the end I decided it was time for an early night.  On another occasion when staying at an old jail in Lincolnshire that had been converted into a luxury cottage.  I lay in bed and wondered at who had been kept there and how awful it had been for them. Immediately the light started to flicker, I tried to think of something else but every time I came back to that thought the light would flicker again.

There is more to this life than anyone knows and a little fun & frolics today for the kids is fantastic. It’s like any other celebration religious or otherwise as long as everyone is respectful of others, including the spirits it should be fun not feared.

I have now managed to keep fluid down for nearly twenty minutes so as usual writing has come to the rescue of my mallady.

Happy Halloween!

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

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