Under the flags

I can't help feeling, right at this moment that I'm a little bit lucky.

I work for an arts festival in one the cities in New Zealand and currently one of the other cities, Auckland, is holding their Arts Festival. My work has sent me up to view a few of their shows, and check out how their festival has been going.

I have a little downtime today, and althoguh the summer in New Zealand is drawing to an end, it is the most beautiful day in Auckland today. Blue skies, not a cloud in sight and the sun is beating down on me.

The festival I work for is going to be bringing down this incredible exhibit by one of New Zealand's contemporary artists, Tiffany Singh. Basically thousands of children participates in these workshops with Tiffany to create flags that reflect their hopes and dreams for the future. They're based on Tibetan prayer flags. They're then hung up in a mass installation so they plays are sending the hopes and dreams up to the sky.

Auckland has the exhibit as part of their festival and I am currently sitting underneath this installation of flags in a lounger with the sun streaming down between the flags.... and i'm writing my book.

This is how I define perfection. I wish you could all be filling up the other sun loungers, having a drink, listening to the music that is being played out over the square and working on your own novels.

It's days like this when I remember why I love New Zealand.

(C) Samantha's Bookshelf

(C) Samantha's Bookshelf

The flying Kiwi returns

It's over. My time in America has finished. While I'm absolutely devastated to have to say goodbye to New York, and the rest of the country which gave me such an incredible experience, I'm excited to see what the future holds.

Living in America was the best decision I have ever made. It gave me so many experiences I would never want to take back, and really helped shape me as a person. It allowed me to discover what I like and don't like, where I want to take my life and where my priorities lie. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would jump at it - but maybe this time I'd try living somewhere else in that incredible country.

Alas, now it is time to return home with my beloved cowboy boots and country music CD's in tow. To "get back to nature". To enjoy the summer weather, watch the stars, have a few BBQ's and of course celebrate my birthday (two days left, woohoo! I'm an old lady)!

One of the biggest reasons for returning home this year was because I want some good quality time to really knuckle down and work on my WIP. It's been kickin' around inside my head since July last year, giving me the chance to develop my ideas and really think about the direction I want to take my novel. I think now it's really time to get it all down on paper. To immerse myself back into the world that I've started to create. To really connect with my characters and let them get out and tell their story.

What I want to know, is for all you people who have a full time job as well as writing - how do you find a balance? How do you fit everything in? Do you set aside a few hours at night? Do you only work on weekends? Or do you sacrifice your sleep to write? If you have any secrets or tips you'd like to share with me.... please do. I love advice and welcome it wherever you've got it!

Gotta jet before I miss my plane! See y'all on the flipside!

Ode to a New Zealand legend

When I started school as a five year old, I loved going to the library each week and picking out a book to take home. In choosing a book I always looked for a particular kind of illustration. It had to be more rounded and bubbly with bright, vibrant colours rather than sharp with darker colours. I guess the pictures I liked were more... modern than the pictures I didn't like.

Aside from the books we chose from the library, we also were given books to take home each night to practice reading. In New Zealand, there was one children's author that wrote hundreds of books throughout her life and it was her books that regularly came home with me, either as the class "homework" reading or the weekly book I'd chosen from the library.

That author was Margaret Mahy. She's what I would call a New Zealand legend. There are very few New Zealander's under the age of 35 who weren't bought up on Margaret Mahy's books. She wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories.

Her most famous children's book would possibly be A Lion in the Meadow, which became known internationally after its publication in 1969, and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate. When I was 12, my whole school performed this book as a two hour long production. I was a pirate and had one line - bonus! Margaret Mahy attended one of the performances and sat in the front row. It was so exciting!

In April 2012, Margaret was diagnosed with an inoperable cancerous jaw tumor and just three months later on July 23, 2012 she died in hospice. For so many of us young Kiwi's who had grown up with her stories, the loss is huge. It's comforting to know, however, that her legacy will live on in the next generations of New Zealander's as they grow up reading through the many books Margaret published during her 76 years.

RTW: NaNoWriMo ... Oh how I wish!

Another hump day which means another Road Trip Wednesday - one of my weekly highlights!

Road Trip Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by YA Highway! The lovely ladies at YA Highway post a topic and everyone writes their answers to the questions on their blog before hopping all over the place to check out all the other answers. It's fun!

This week's question.... Are you doing NaNoWriMo, or have you ever? Does having a deadline inspire you?

The short answer is no. To be honest I only recently found out about this. I'm sorry, I've been living in a cave and should really hold my head in shame.

The longer answer.... I really, really want to do it. It would be such a great experience and would be so much fun! Unfortunately my American work visa expires in November and I'm then taking off with my significant other on a two month road trip across America! (I'm bound for St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, Montgomery, New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Vegas, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Long Beach, Anaheim, San Diego, Los Angeles!) So I'm going to be on the road without a computer for a good part of November, December and January. I'll be in full on tourist mode and will be beyond exhausted.... so unfortunately the prospect of entering NaNoWriMo isn't even a possibility this year. I will be spending countless hours on buses and a few airplanes here and there so will be getting plenty of reading done!

Next year however, I will hopefully have finished my WIP (which has been in the planning phases for the last six months but I'm holding off writing it until I'm back in New Zealand in January and can give my full devotion to the book), and I'll have plenty of peaceful me time that can be devoted to NaNoWriMo. I'm looking forward to it already! I must confess, I have spent a lot of time pouring through the website wishing I could sign up, but I must be patient! Patience, they say, is a virtue.

Just to give you something pretty to look at, this is the view from the balcony of my little piece of paradise, my writing retreat in New Zealand. If I'm lucky and work doesn't get in the way too much, I'll spend my NaNo month up there next year, pumping out a story!

As for the part about the deadline - I love deadlines. I find it hard if I don't have an initial idea, but a deadline really puts my a into g and gets things moving. I often set deadlines for myself, which is why I haven't started writing my WIP yet beyond doing full on plot, setting and character breakdowns. One I start writing I'll be able to put a deadline on myself and work towards that. Without a deadline I'm known to flounder a bit like a fish out of water.

What about you... are you doing NaNo? Have you done it before? I want to hear all about your NaNo experiences! What do you think about deadlines? Do they help you or hinder your creative process?

A Writer's Retreat

A couple of the authors on various blogs I follow have gone on writing retreats lately. I read their updates eagerly and poured through their retreat photos, insanely jealous. Having time to just get a change of scenery and just focus on the writing sounds heavenly!

I've been thinking about where I'd love to go for a writing retreat and there are a number of places that come to mind.

The first is Alaska. Something about Alaska to me just sounds so magical! Sure it would be freezing and I would have to wear hundreds of layers every day ... but having many, many centimeters of snow right outside the window, with all sorts of animals strolling around, and hopefully even the northern lights at night just sounds so perfect. Particularly if I get to snuggle up with a hot cocoa and blanket beside the fireplace while I write. Doesn't it sound like perfection to you?

The second would be somewhere in the Ireland with views of the rolling hills, a steaming plate of potatoes and that accent everywhere I go! I would imagine I would be writing a different sort of story in Ireland than I would be in Alaska but they'd both be fantastic places, don't you think?

Another place I think would be quite interesting to write in would be Venice. I've been in love with Venice since I first visited at the age of 15. The atmosphere, the European culture and the history that is seeped into every canal and street is breathtaking. It would be a fantastic place to set a novel and a great place to write from!

I can certainly tell you where I wouldn't be able to write .... that would by a beach or in a tropical location as I'd be too desperate to get outside and lie in the sand or swim in the water all the time!

Where I would probably end up going for my writers retreat is my family's vacation home in Hanmer Springs, New Zealand. It's a lovely little chalet up on a hill with views of the mountains and forest. In the winter time it snows regularly and in the summer it's just the perfect temperature. The area is a thermal reserve village, so it's also the perfect place to head down to the hot spring pools every evening. It is a great place for a writer's retreat actually! So, who wants to come with me....!

Where would you go for your dream writer's retreat?

RTW: Books from school

Another Wednesday, another Road Trip! Road Trip Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by YA Highway!

This week's RTW comes as the kids of America are heading back to school. So the question - What's your favorite book that you had to read for a class?

This is a tricky one because I did read some amazing books at school. Some classic, some contemporary, some plays like Hamlet, some that I should've loved but found really hard to read like Wuthering Heights and some that I recommended to everyone, like The Tomorrow Series. 

The other reason this is a tricky question, as although it's only been seven years since I left high school, it still feel like a really long time, and I'm having trouble remembering some of the books from the earlier years. However there are some that stick out.

The first is one I would consider to be one of the best books I've ever read. I should say I hated it with a passion when I had to read it. Oh how I hated it. It's long and it's very serious.... it's almost painful. But it was worth the slog. The book is called One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

 

The book is literally that. One day in this man's life. This man, Ivan Denisovich is a prisoner of a Soviet labour camp in the 1950s and the book describes an ordinary day. It's a tough read, because it's pretty close to the truth but it's very moving and insightful. The author of the book was imprisoned in a labour camp from 1945 to 1953 for writing a derogatory comment in letters to friends about the conduct of the war by Joseph Stalin, so obviously had first hand experiences of the hardships. This is one of the best books I read at school simply because of the impact it had on me. Almost ten years later and I still list it as one of the best books I've ever read....

The next book I loved was The Secret Life of Bees

In New Zealand, we don't get taught a lot of American history in school. We may brush over a few aspects like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and we may talk briefly about the Civil War or the Revolution, but we don't really study American history. In one of my classes as a 14 year old, we did, however, study the Civil Rights movement. I am a history geek, you may be able to tell. I became obsessed with learning all about the Civil Rights Movement and so enjoyed this book a lot, which we had to read as a way of getting a feel for the segregation and atmosphere of the time. Anyway, to put it simply, it's a great coming of age story about a young girl who finds herself living among a group of African American women and helping them run their honey business.  It's a great book.

Other books I feel deserve a mention - Mister Pip, The Halfmen of O series (love love love), The Handmaid's Tale (another that I only appreciated later), The Whale Rider - All these are New Zealand books! Oh also To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lovely Bones.

I'm sure there are heaps more but these were definitely some that left a lasting impression! What are yours?

 

Setting a story in New Zealand...

Are you affected by where a book is set? For instance if you're reading a story that could be set anywhere (read: America) but is set in another country that you don't know much about (read: New Zealand), would you still be interested in reading the book?

When it comes to my writing, I always have to think really hard about where my book is going to be set. Ideally I'd love to set my book in New Zealand, which is my home country. It's a truly beautiful place and has so many different areas where you could set a novel.... see....

 

Now I'm no professional photographer so those pictures really aren't doing it justice BUT they more or less illustrate my point that there are plenty of great places to set a story in New Zealand.  (Sorry, I don't have any of those great epic pictures of lakes and mountains on me right now.... but click here and you'll see the more professional epic photos of New Zealand)

The only problem is, so many people don't know where New Zealand is, what kind of country it is.... When I was living in New York I had a conversation with a woman that went something like this....

American - Oooh I love your accent!
Me - oh, thanks ha
American - is it British?
Me - ah no it's....
American - wait, English?
Me - Uh that's the same thing, no it's not from the UK
American - oh.... Denmark? Ukraine? wait.... Russia?
Me - no it's from New Zealand
American - Oh wow! That's far! That's in Asia isn't it?
Me - Uh kind of in the South Pacific, by Australia
American - Australia now that's.... by Thailand isn't it?
Me - o_o

Obviously not everyone is like that, at all. In fact I met many people who had been to New Zealand, had family in New Zealand or were even considering living there themselves. But that conversation got me thinking, if I'm writing a young adult book that I would ideally love to be read and published all around the world, wouldn't it be better to set it in a place that's familiar to a larger proportion of the readers?

Let's face it, the population of New Zealand is around 4 million. New York alone has more than twice the entire population of my country. So how many people outside of New Zealand are going to enjoy reading about a country that's really just a far away fantasy land? A place that a good portion of them won't have been to, and due to it's serious isolation may not have any desire to go to.

I'm actually curious about this - would you enjoy reading and be able to connect with a novel set in New Zealand, even if you didn't really know much about the country to start with? Or would you prefer that same story was set in a place more recognisable, like America, Canada, London or Paris?

The MS I'm working on now is set in the middle of America - for the purpose of the story it fits better being set in a country that has a large landmass to begin with. But for future novels, I'd really love to be able to use the country I know so well as a platform for a story.

Obviously a character who is raised in New Zealand would go through the same growing up experiences as teenagers all over the world - they have friends, first loves, heartbreak, school, sports teams, arts, films.... so character wise, there would be traits others can relate to. But there are also some parts that are strictly New Zealand - the Maori customs and phrases that work their way into our lives - "Kia ora, you wanna have some kai with the whanau?" - this is literally saying 'Hello, do you want to have some food with the family' - but little things like that have worked their way into our lives in New Zealand without us really knowing. How would others relate to that?

What if the character was, like me, obsessed with the number one hit song Poi E? (Check it out it's really awesome). Who else would understand the background of that (okay really I just wanted to put Poi E into this post....)

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I don't want to be an American writer, but I also don't want to be a New Zealand writer. I want to be a global writer that can tell stories to everyone. That I can share these people in my brain with and no matter the setting or the character's background, people can relate. 

Ultimately when it comes down to it I believe everyone would be able to relate on some level. Just like I was able to relate to Hermione in her English magic boarding school, and Fiona in her 1889 East London neighbourhood, and Katniss in her futuristic dystopian society and little Hugo in the French railway station. It's the story that shines through .... but I have also been guilty of putting down a book that's set in a location that is too unfamiliar to me. Places I'd love to go, but haven't yet and don't know enough about.

So what would you do? If you picked up a story that was set in New Zealand, would you find it hard to connect? Would you persevere or would you move on and find something easier to relate to?

 Have some more pictures of New Zealand - i've gotten all patriotic and whatnot now...