I do not consider myself

- despite yesterday's blogpost - to be a writer of short stories.
The topic came up again yesterday afternoon. I took Nicola Morgan's book "Write to be Published" along to the library. I had been telling a member of the knitting group about the portion which talks about "dealing with taxi drivers". Her day job can produce a similar reaction and she wanted to read it.
After looking at the book she asked me, "Does the author write short stories?" I told her I did not know. I had not read any. (Nicola if you are reading this you might let me know!) Why was she asking? The book is laid out in bite size chunks and it made her wonder.
Then she asked me whether I had written any and I said, "No, not really - just a couple." I do not suppose that is any sort of answer but it was the one I gave.
I have written two Tom and Lizzie stories. The first one appeared in 100 stories for Haiti under the title "And the first note sang". I came home from an event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of a friend becoming a nun. As Polly is not in the least bit nun-like it had been good fun rather than a solemn occasion. I sat down at the computer to do something entirely different - and wrote the story. It just happened. I have no idea where it came from.
Yesterday's story just happened too. I have no idea where it came from either.
I rather suspect that both stories were heavily influenced by reading the late (and great) Joan Aiken. Her short stories for children still have to be the best I have ever read.
As a child I was not particularly interested in short stories. If they were good in the way Aiken is good I wanted more story. If they were mediocre or poor in the way that I found Enid Blyton to be then my reaction tended to be "so what?". Even as an adult I feel the same way. I probably should read more short stories than I do. It would be good discipline but I am not a disciplined leisure reader. I have too much reading to do in my day job for that. I read for my own writing too - both the research and what is being written by others. When I read for pleasure I do not expect to be required to read something because it has won an award or because it is on the best seller list of the day.
That means I probably do not read enough short stories to write them well. Nevertheless Tom and Lizzie are there and they might want me to write more. I just do not know.

Leaf Music

When Tom and Lizzie moved into their house in Harpcottle there was an oak tree at the very end of the long, thin garden. It was still a very small oak tree, not quite as tall as Tom’s harp. Tom looked at it but he did not touch it.
Musicians are generally not good gardeners. They have to keep their hands clean and cared for in order to play their instruments, especially something like the harp. That meant that Tom did not do any gardening. Lizzie did.
As soon as they had unpacked and settled in Lizzie grew beans and cabbages, spinach and tomatoes. She grew gooseberries, rhubarb and strawberries. She talked to all of them as she weeded and watered. She talked to the oak tree as well. It was a very special sort of oak tree, a Harpcottle oak. They did not grow anywhere else in the country. It was considered to be a great honour to own a Harpcottle oak and owners were required to take great care of them.
Lizzie was very careful of their Harpcottle oak but it did not thrive. Despite all the talking the oak tree never seemed to get any bigger, indeed it seemed to be getting smaller. Lizzie worried about this. She read books and looked for information on the internet. She did everything that was suggested even when one thing contradicted the other. She gave it fertiliser from Harpcottle hens and then dug it all out again when she discovered that fertiliser should only come from Harpcottle sheep mixed with Harpcottle hay. Then she discovered that the hay should only come from north facing fields and the hay she had given the oak tree had come from a west facing field. She was not sure how you told the difference but the book said it was important. That meant digging out the fertiliser once more and replacing it yet again. The oak tree grew smaller.
She went to the park at midnight and picked up conkers under a full moon, the most perfect she could find, ready to place them in a perfect circle around the tree. When she looked next morning she discovered that the conkers were full of oakworms and no good at all, indeed she had to stop the oakworms eating the last of the leaves on the tree which was now no higher than her knees. This was most annoying because there were plenty of perfect conkers under the oak trees in the park. She saw them there when she went for another walk late in the morning. It was late because she had slept late and that was because she had been to bed very late after collecting the conkers.
The oak tree seemed to shrink even more after that. Lizzie went back to the books and to the internet. It was no good pruning all the lyruncinapinnate leaves. She had no idea what they were and she was not at all sure that the writer of “A treatise on irregular leaf form diseases found in north leaning trees in Harpcottle” knew what they were either.
There was the Widdershins Winding Clock Cure in which you had to string two thousand and one conkers on a left hand string and wrap it anti-clockwise around the thirteenth branch while counting thirteen times. The problem with that was the tree did not have thirteen branches and, anyway, what were you supposed to count? Lizzie did not know.
Perhaps she could try gathering oak leaves from four hundred and forty two oak trees and putting them under the tree. Lyra T E Oakes insisted that it had worked for her in her manual, “The Harpcottle oak tree: growth, management and care of the tree in domestic settings.” Lizzie was not convinced but, just in case, she spent a week finding four hundred and forty-two trees and the most perfect leaves she could find.
She put them under the tree in the approved pattern but it was windy and the leaves would not stay. Mouse, the cat, thought they were something to play with and chased them around the garden.
By then the tree had shrunk to no higher than Lizzie’s ankles. The thought of losing a Harpcottle oak (and the inquiry which was sure to follow) was more than she could bear.
Even Mouse was beginning to look worried. She spent hours every day by the tree making strange little noises that Lizzie did not understand at all.
The day the Harpcottle oak shrank to not much more than the very tip of Mouse’s tail
Lizzie told Tom what had happened. He went pale. Lose a Harpcottle oak? He might lose his place in the Harpcottle orchestra, just as they were going to play the Harpcottle Harp Symphony!
“What it needs is Leaf Music,” he told Lizzie in alarm, “You should have given it Leaf Music. Everyone knows that Harpcottle oaks need Leaf Music. They cannot survive without them. All Harpcottle musicians have a Harpcottle Oak because they know about Leaf Music. All the Leaf Music is there!”
Tom flapped a piece of music manuscript paper at their records and CDs and music manuscripts.
“Now we will have to start at the very beginning.”
He rushed to get his harp and tune it. Lizzie rushed his harp seat outside. Mouse sat guard by the last cat hair size remnant of the Harpcottle oak making small purring noises to encourage it to stay there.
Then Tom began to play. He played the Leaf Music Morning Lullaby and the Harpcottle oak became a little bigger than the tip of Mouse’s tail. He played the Leaf Music Nursery Rhymes and the Harpcottle Oak became the size of Mouse crouching. He played the Leaf Music scales and the Harpcottle Oak became the size of Mouse reaching up to pat Lizzie’s knees. He played the Leaf Music Lilt which all young people in Harpcottle sang and danced at their weddings.
Tom went on and on. While he played the thirteen Leaf Music solos Lizzie rang Harriet Harpcottle the conductor of the Harpcottle Orchestra, to tell her why the Tom was not at orchestra practice.
Harriet Harpcottle promptly brought the entire orchestra around and they played the thirteen Harpcottle Oakleaf Sonatas and the thirteen Harpcottle Acorn Concertos. They went on playing and playing until they had played the Harpcottle Oak symphonies with Harpcottle Harmony Choir joining in the last movement of the last symphony, which is of course the thirteenth.
By then the Harpcottle Oak was so big that it shaded the entire garden. Lizzie wondered if this was not just a little too big so she went and made Harpcottle Oak Leaf scones and cups of tea for everyone.
While they eating and drinking she went and talked to the tree. She suggested it might be a little uncomfortable if it remained that big. Would, she suggested, the tree like a companion? If it shrank to a reasonable Harpcottle oak tree sort of size she would see what she could do about finding another Harpcottle oak. She would also find recordings of all the Harpcottle Oak music and play it for both of them.
“How big?” the tree rustled at her.
Lizzie thought about it and then said, “Big enough for a cat and a girl to lie under and listen to a boy play Leaf Music on his harp.”

"I know you think you understood

what I said but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant."
Two days ago on this blog I tried to explain a very difficult concept. Nicola Morgan and I had been trying to carry out a conversation via Twitter and it did not work.
Twitter is fine. It is a great tool for idle chatter, quick messages, fun, bits and pieces of news etc. It does not work well for serious conversation.
By the time I decided to write the blog post it was too late. Nicola thought I was talking about one thing and I was actually talking about something entirely different. Ouch!
Thankfully for me Nicola has the robust good sense to realise that I was not criticising her writing or even her approach to writing. It works for her - and that has to be a good thing.
I hope we have it sorted out between us - although I know I still have not managed to explain to her what it is I am talking about. (Interestingly I have had several e-mails from people who do not want to comment publicly and they seem to understand. Strange, but true.)
I know people who want to write but do not know how to set about doing it at all. Although it is the advice they usually get I suspect it is absolutely pointless saying to them "just sit down and do it". It may be that they will never be able to do it.
There was however someone I knew who did want to write something for his children and his grandchildren. He felt totally frustrated by his inability to start. He thought there were things he wanted to say. He did not know how to say them.
"I don't know where to begin," he told me.
It was no use telling him "the beginning" because he did not know where the beginning was. He was not even sure what his first memory was.
In the end his grandson asked questions and recorded the answers with the recording device out of view so that the old man would not dry up. After the first couple of tries his grandson came to my father (a former teacher) for advice about how to ask the questions he wanted to ask. That helped.
Eventually they had hours of tape. His daughters are slowly transcribing some of it for the rest of the family.
I have seen some of it. Although he died some time ago I can still hear the old man's voice telling the story. Nobody believes anyone outside the family would be interested but this is "Grandpa" talking and there will soon be great-grandchildren old enough to appreciate it.
It too comes from the heart.

"Kangaroo Island is

at the bottom of South Australia - next to the bit that looks a bit like Italy" is how the location of the largest island off the South Australian coast is often described.
It is also described , in the old terminology, as being "about 80 miles wide at the widest point and about 120 miles long". Right.
One hundred and seventy-five years ago yesterday the first ship landed at what is now Kingscote. The intention was to set up a colony there. Kingscote was going to be the eventual capital of South Australia - until they discovered that there were problems with setting up camp on a relatively small island with water supply problems. The infant colony soon removed itself to a new location - which is where Adelaide now stands. Kangaroo Island remains somewhat isolated. It also has a somewhat chequered history.
My father was posted there in the mid-1960's. He was appointed as the headmaster of the school in the centre of the island and remained there four years. It was an "Area School" which meant that the children came in by school bus from the surrounding farms and other locations. There were eleven school bus runs and a spare bus. The longest bus journey went right into Flinders' Chase, the nature reserve at the far end of the island. It left the Chase at about 7:15 am and was, like all the other buses, driven by a teacher. New teachers were taught the school bus run by the children. The children were often remarkably independent compared with their city cousins. One nine year old even drove a small car (on his family property) to the bus pick up point some miles down the track. He had been doing it since he was seven.
The school itself catered for everyone through to all but the last year of school. If you wanted to complete your schooling you had to go to the mainland - and your parents had to have the financial capacity to send you. It did not always happen. The surrounding farms were largely owned by "soldier-settlers" - men sent to farm after the war because the government did not know what else to do with them. Most of them had never farmed before. They were often mentally and physically unfit for farming. Few of them managed to make a go of it - and the problems were compounded by very bad advice from a government department. There were still serious differences of opinion between the original settler families and the incomers.
Even before my father left it was clear that Kangaroo Island would have to change focus if it was going to survive as a community.
It has changed now. It has become a tourist destination instead. Of course there are still problems. There always will be with a location which is an island and where water supplies are limited but the local community has adapted and diversified and it now works together - although the first settler families retain their pride in being the first.
The rest of us can probably learn from the history and community of Kangaroo Island - if we can be bothered to try.

Who are you writing for and

how are you doing it?
There was a lively Twitter discussion last night (my time). In the middle of it Nicola Morgan said that she tried to write books readers want - that her mantra was to write more for readers than herself. Fair enough. It is one way of getting books published and, hopefully, sold in sufficient quantities to go on being published. I logged off for the night thinking about this.
It seems to me though that a writer is a bit like an actor. They both have to get the story across. While all of them will involve some awareness of audience (readers) surely an actor can go about this in many ways?
Certainly they can act a part to the audience. They can be, as Nicola seems to be, highly conscious of their audience/readers. This obviously has to work sometimes. It must work particularly well for writers of series. The crime writer Sue Grafton started off with A for Alibi, then B for Burglar. I think she has reached the letter U and plans to go to Z. She is contracted to do this. Her readers know her characters. They know what to expect. She is undoubtedly writing to her audience. Trying to pull off major changes simply would not work. She may kill the characters in Z but doing it before then will be a mistake. (Patricia Cornwell tried this and, in my view, it did not work.)
Ian Rankin, a much better writer, could pull off surprises with Rebus because his main character was much more complex but even he must have felt constrained by audience expectations.
Then there is the writer who writes with the audience always in mind. They are conscious of the existence of the audience. It can still, especially when writing for younger readers, make for good writing. There are obvious things you do not write into a book for children. You can also write what you know children want to read - write to them as an audience.
JKRowling obviously knew what children wanted when she introduced Harry Potter to the world. The curious thing about that however is that the adult minders in the audience were apparently not able to recognise what was happening on the stage. The books might never have been published had it not been for the child of one of the Directors of Bloomsbury asking to read more. That seems unbelievable now. Nevertheless Rowling is writing to an audience. She knows they are there and she has been able to use them.
But it seems to me that there is yet another approach. There is the actor who goes deeply inside the part, so deeply inside they almost become the part for a limited time. There is still a thread there to the audience. The thread will be as thin as a spider web but, as spider webs are, remarkably strong. too. It is, for me, the most powerful sort of acting there is - acting which binds the audience to the actor.
And it seems to me that there is writing like that too. There is the author with the story to tell. The author goes so deeply inside the story that it becomes part of them while they write it. The story is not one the reader merely wants to hear. It is one they need to hear and cannot be without. Those have, for me, to be the stories which last.

I saw a beautiful book

yesterday. I was greatly privileged to be shown it.
It is never going to be published. Most people would not even call it a book. It is just four folded sheets of A4 size paper. Nevertheless it has a "front cover" and a "back cover" and a "title".
There are more illustrations than words. Each illustration has been drawn with extreme care and contains quite remarkable amounts of detail.
The font beneath the pictures is uncertain and uneven. There are spelling errors and an "S" has been reversed. The words are simple.
It begins with "Mummy I love you..." and ends "I love you Mummy". In between is a list of things "Mummy" did for him. "Hugs", "Kisses" and "Stories" are all there.
It is a work of art, a beautiful book. It is the only book Daniel will ever write that his mother will see. She died yesterday with his book in her hands.

If an election was called

tomorrow than Labor (as they spell it here) would lose in South Australia. It would also lose a federal election.
For that reason alone we will not be going to the polls any time soon. Labor still believes it can turn the polls around and win the 2014 election in South Australia and the 2013 federal election. Politics, especially Australian politics, is such an uncertain business that this may happen.
But there is another reason why South Australia will not be going to the polls any time soon. We have a "fixed term". Parliament is elected for a term of four years.
On the surface this sounds like an excellent idea. It is said it gives "certainty". We know who is going to govern us for the next four years. Plans can be made and projects carried out accordingly. In short it is supposed to make the business of government easier.
It does not. Our state government won the election with a majority of the seats but a minority of the votes. The Electoral Commission is supposed to review and change the boundaries in order to even things out after each election. In reality all they can do is try and ensure that there are a fairly even number of voters in each electoral district. It is the way the system works and any other system would have other problems. In the interests of "democracy" the electoral system is unlikely to change. Both major parties believe the system can benefit them.
Put that with a fixed term however and you do have a problem. New South Wales had a problem prior to the last election. It also has a fixed term system and the government remained despite the fact that it was no longer capable of governing. They were dismissed in a landslide. Had they gone to the polls sooner they would almost certainly not have won but there would be a respectable opposition.
One of our politicians now wants to introduce a bill into parliament allowing for "recall elections". He is proposing that an election be able to be called if 150,000 voters (about 10% of the state's voters) call for one.
It sounds reasonable and democratic but it almost certainly will not get passed. Politicians will not, on the whole, see this as of benefit to them. Why should they? They do not want the expense of an election. They do not want to do the work involved. They do not want the uncertainty surrounding an election and the fear of losing their seats. An unpopular government will continue to believe it can turn the polls around and their opposition will continue to believe the government will slide still further and thus give them more chance.
It is all about staying in power or obtaining power. It is not about governing people.