Please join Alan Brough at a celebration at the State Library on Friday 20 March, 4 - 5pm when he announces the the top five books, as voted by Victorian readers in the State Library of Victoria’s Summer Read program 2008-9, and voter’s prizes.

Experimedia
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street, Melbourne

RSVP by Wednesday 17 March 2009

Telephone                   8664 7555
email                          learning@slv.vic.gov.au
book online                summerreadawards.eventbrite.com

As Jeff and Nam have written, and every other writer knows, procrastination is something those of us without a ‘day job’ have to face. With procrastination comes anxiety, guilt and evasive behaviour. 

I have just come back to this warm climate after freezing to death in Europe for almost six weeks. It was wonderful in Paris, but wonderful also to throw off the layers of jumpers and skivvies and singlets, hats and gloves and scarves when we stepped off the plane in Melbourne. While I was away, I took a break from my writing. I shut away the manuscript I am working on and left my SLV instructions for Summer Read blogging on top of my closed and turned-off computer. It was not easy leaving that computer behind, but I did. All the while we were away, I kept telling myself that when I got back home, I would hit the ground running, finish the last chapter of Eileen’s story, get all my blogs done at once, and prepare for the impending Summer Read gigs. 

Did I do that? 

No.

I did turn on my computer the minute I got home but only because I had felt like  part of my body had been left behind when I left it on my desk six weeks earlier and I needed to re-attach myself. I turned it on, but instead of working I read the New York Times. Then I mucked around with e-mails until my jetlagged brain couldn’t take anymore. I glanced at the blogging instructions, turned away with a moan and collapsed on the couch. I’ll get to it when I know what day it is, I thought. But… the next day was no good. We had to watch the inauguration, an important historical occasion we rationalised. We couldn’t allow ourselves to miss the moment when the helicopter flew the former president away from the seat of power so we could believe that, at last, the world was in safe hands. Then came the tennis. Down to Melbourne to sit with our friends in Hisense (I wonder how long that name will last) Arena in the blistering sun and watch Serena defeat that tiny girl with more power in her racket than seemed possible. We stayed until Tsonga won his match. Too long. Back home we caught up with country friends at the Japanese place in Inverloch and then it was imperative that we participate in urgent anti-desalination plant activities, rallying as many people as we could through the phone tree to attend yet another protest at Williamson Beach.

Now, at last I am once again before my computer. I am actually writing my first blog. I am procrastinating no more. As Jeff said, a writer has to set aside a certain time each day to work or it doesn’t work. We have to put fences around ourselves with set times and set routines because writing is difficult and it is so easy to put it off. I don’t find writing hard and agonising as Jeff says he does, but I find the intensity, the deep focus, the zone you have to get to in order to write exactly what you want to write difficult to find some days. When I get there my body tenses up, I lose track of real time and place and enter another world. In my journal, which I keep erratically, I wrote down a comment by Peter Carey way back in 1997. He said, “A certain nagging ache lies behind all but the most exhilarating moments of writing. Invention remains the difficult part. Most writers I know can’t invent for very long. They can write for a long time, but they can’t invent. After three or four hours, people have done most of the inventing they can do. Then you sit down and do the craft things. But mostly you are exhausted.”

I find quite a few exhilarating moments in writing, possibly because of the kind of work I do, unravelling other people’s lives, finding a narrative strand and shaping it to bring out meaning. There are often moments of epiphany followed by great excitement and urgent writing. In my book, Cups with No Handles, when Bette momentarily questioned her dedication to the Communist Party, wondering at her father’s grave if she had done the things she had just so he would love her best, it was an intense moment. For Bette’s daughter, Gina, that admission changed the whole story.  I was in a zone when I wrote that up and it was exhilarating. When I finished that story, I looked up, time had passed and I was exhausted. 

Mostly, writing takes tenacity, perseverance and patience. All those things are hard; they are why we procrastinate. But, you know, all the while we are procrastinating, we are thinking. I heard John Clark say at a party here on Phillip Island that he is always working, “twenty-four seven.” Me too. Once you start on a project you never stop until you write the last word. 

And, how do you get to the last word? You keep going forward day after day until you have finished.

Then you re-write.

Thanks Nam for your beautifully written thoughts about the world of blogging.

Vote for The Boat or SMS BOAT to 13 46 88

The Boat by Nam Le has been included in the New York Times ‘100 Notable Books’ list.

The New York Times has just announced its list of 100 Notable Books of 2008. The list is a selection from books reviewed in the newspaper since 2 Dec, 2007.

The opening story of Nam Le’s first collection, a writer named Nam, who is on a tight deadline during his “last year at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.” Read more …

Nam Le’s book The Boat is one of the books on the Summer Read shortlist.

Nam Le will post on the Reading Victoria blog from 16 – 20 of January 2009.