Friday, December 20, 2013

Did I tell you they are doing another print run today?

It's not so bad, that next book. The same night I posted a piece of what I now call confected angst, I read over my thesis-come-novel and thought, 'well, it's not really that bad.' There are just different forces at play in writing the story of the sealers and Pallawah women, to writing Salt Story. (Sorry Tom but I'm gonna write about writing here.)

Salt Story started from coming home after a night's fishing and feeding my experiences straight onto my blog for people to read. It was a chatty affair, full of ripping yarns, bravado, pathos and smelly seaweed. Salt Story was a shitload of fun to write and I think that is reflected in the writing itself.

Exiles and Island Wives was born in the archives and my obsession with a man born nearly two hundred years ago.


The novel deals with themes of pedophilia, infanticide, abduction and rape. And that's before you get to abuses of colonial power, contact experiences and the near extinction of fur seal in the early 1800's. It all sounds very grim and I feel that it probably was a grim life for the men, women and children involved, especially before I remove my comfortable contemporary lens to look upon that history. Despite the brutality though, finding beauty in landscape, language and people of the story is not difficult. It's just that sometimes, while writing it, I fall into a big black fucking hole. Reminder to self: invoke your inner Cormac McCarthy, Sarah.

It does bother me that people who have read Salt Story will read Exiles one day and say, "But I thought she wrote funny stories about fishing! This shit is really dark."
It is a re-creation of events gleaned from explorers' journals and Colonial Secretary reports. I've written it to please academic thesis examiners this time around and it will take some tweaking to make it palatable to the public. Apart from short snippets that I've posted on A WineDark Sea, the manuscript is unread by anyone except for my supervisor. It has become an endless feedback loop inside my head at times. So when I say it stinks ... well maybe it does but I'm dealing with my harshest critic here - myself.

There's something else that I would like to mull over regarding sequence and that is the blog-to-book scenario, as opposed to writing an historical novel with only a cat and my handler for feedback. (My handler says nice things. Bobcat also says nice things about my book - when she wants to be fed. She's gaining weight rapidly.) When I first started editing Salt Story with the idea of morphing my bloggy fishing yarns into a book, I simply cut and pasted the whole lot into a word document, printed it out, made a pot of tea and started reading.
It looked absolutely shocking.
Elizabeth Bryer, who posted a great review of Salt Story on Kill Your Darlings' blog Killings (here) beautifully sums up the difficulty of mashing genre and mediums:

It hardly bears stating that blogs and books are very different beasts. Part of the joy of a blog is its immediacy: the way an experience can be rapidly turned into a published piece that is, from that moment, accessible to the reader. As a WineDark Sea reader, I could be sitting at work, bored, and so decide to click through to the blog and dip into what Sarah had done that very morning: interview a fisherwoman, say, or spot the calling card of a shark in the Sound. 
There is such a thrill in knowing that the experience-turned-tale I’m reading right now has played out a long way from me spatially but very close to me in terms of time.  Another difference in form is the need, in a blog (something I struggle with!), for pithy posts that begin in medias res and capture a moment, which doesn’t necessarily translate to a book-length work given the aim, there, of immersion. How then would the tales-as-book, in sacrificing the illusion of time shared by author and reader, and in being translated to long form, fare?
It hardly bears stating that blogs and books are very different beasts. Part of the joy of a blog is its immediacy: the way an experience can be rapidly turned into a published piece that is, from that moment, accessible to the reader. As a WineDark Sea reader, I could be sitting at work, bored, and so decide to click through to the blog and dip into what Sarah had done that very morning: interview a fisherwoman, say, or spot the calling card of a shark in the Sound. There is such a thrill in knowing that the experience-turned-tale I’m reading right now has played out a long way from me spatially but very close to me in terms of time.  Another difference in form is the need, in a blog (something I struggle with!), for pithy posts that begin in medias res and capture a moment, which doesn’t necessarily translate to a book-length work given the aim, there, of immersion. How then would the tales-as-book, in sacrificing the illusion of time shared by author and reader, and in being translated to long form, fare? - See more at: http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2013/12/of-seadogs-and-fisherwomen-sarah-drummonds-salt-story/#sthash.T3FCecvH.dpuf

The time thing that Elizabeth mentions was the main reason why my lovely new word doc looked such a shambles. Although "Last night we fished the harbour ..." has an immediacy that is beguiling and entirely appropriate to the ever-shifting sands of the internet, it just does not work with the solidity and permanency of paper. So it took a good eighteen months for the editor of Fremantle Press and myself to wrestle the chronology of the chaotic, vodka-swilling, teenage street party that was Salt Story into some kind of order.

In the end, Salt Story was constructed in sixty two short pieces. (I use this tradie metaphor often because books are a construction plus I love my work being edited. Being edited is like a master builder coming into your shack, pointing, and saying "If you just put a brace there, that girder will stay put for another forty years and save you three thousand bucks.")

There is another thing about these sixty two pieces. I'm no great believer in the Death Of The Novel. Apparently the novel was borne of the Industrial Revolution and capitalism; when moneyed wives of the owners of the means of production had the leisure to lie about for days and read 'voraciously', supplanting the aristocracy in their access to education and therefore power blah blah blah.

Despite the moanings about the demise of print media during this more current and v. interesting knowledge revolution, I still believe in the novel. But maybe its form has to change as our brains are changing; filtering and adapting to snippets of information rather than long form narratives. Maybe Salt Story's sixty two short pieces, those gleaming moments that make up something greater than the mere sum of its parts, could be the way of narratives in the future. I dunno. David Ireland did it in the 1970s with The Glass Canoe and I believe that some bloke called Dickens did it a long time before Ireland.

Anyhoo ... if you are still with me, here is a link to a new, very lovely review by Lisa Hill: ANZ Lit Lovers.
And my Happy Moment for the week? Fremantle Press clicked 'yes please' on another print run today. Yes. That's right. Salt Story has nearly sold out, six weeks after publication.
Whoo!
It hardly bears stating that blogs and books are very different beasts. Part of the joy of a blog is its immediacy: the way an experience can be rapidly turned into a published piece that is, from that moment, accessible to the reader. As a WineDark Sea reader, I could be sitting at work, bored, and so decide to click through to the blog and dip into what Sarah had done that very morning: interview a fisherwoman, say, or spot the calling card of a shark in the Sound. There is such a thrill in knowing that the experience-turned-tale I’m reading right now has played out a long way from me spatially but very close to me in terms of time.  Another difference in form is the need, in a blog (something I struggle with!), for pithy posts that begin in medias res and capture a moment, which doesn’t necessarily translate to a book-length work given the aim, there, of immersion. How then would the tales-as-book, in sacrificing the illusion of time shared by author and reader, and in being translated to long form, fare? - See more at: http://www.killyourdarlingsjournal.com/2013/12/of-seadogs-and-fisherwomen-sarah-drummonds-salt-story/#sthash.T3FCecvH.dpuf



15 comments:

  1. Since they are doing another print run, I'll forgive you Sarah. That's good news!

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  2. A second print run? Already? That's brilliant!

    I never heard from your publisher after his 'I'm working on it' email but Salt Story is available on Amazon UK with free delivery in UK. This is very convenient as I can have the books sent to any friend of mine on holiday in UK who can then hand carry them back to Angola.

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    1. Goodness, it all looks so complicated. Clive said he would send you some after Christmas via TNT, but they've just sold out I think, so it may be another three weeks.

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  3. That's fantastic Sarah, another print run. Yay. Also interested to read of the process and what's coming next, and how best for you to work that. Well, you can have a very nice summer now, knowing Salt Story is doing good work.

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    1. Yes, thanks Jenny. Now there's just that work I have to do!

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  4. Awesome news Sarah. And well deserved. I devoured my copy very quickly.

    I've had an almost opposite problem - writing a blog from my thesis. I've had to change the language but also reframe ideas so that my blog readers (all 5 of them I think) can understand some very dense concepts. But I love that challenge.

    Make no apologies for the harshness of the tale in your thesis Sarah. This coast is made up of hard cold granite and an equally cold and bad tempered ocean. Nature shapes people and events. Let's face it, this is no tropical paradise, so you would expect a violent past - and present. It's still bloody beautiful - there is exquisite beauty in darkness.

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  5. Yes, you are correct Michelle. I've had a few people who have finished Salt and asked, 'well Sarah. Now what about that next one? Like, no pressure or anything.'

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  6. The novel deals with themes of pedophilia, infanticide, abduction and rape ... I feel that it probably was a grim life for the men, women and children involved, especially before I remove my comfortable contemporary lens

    I haven't read this work (obviously), so it might all be about degrees; but you don't even have to travel outside contemporary WA to find most of what (I think) you're talking about (at least, you didn't have to). The interesting thing, I guess, is the way people normalise what's around them.

    It does bother me that people who have read Salt Story will read Exiles one day and say, "But I thought she wrote funny stories about fishing! This shit is really dark."

    I think that's better than having them say, "Read one fuckin' Drummond, you've read 'em all."

    How's the ebook coming, by the way? I feel like I'm the only person here who hasn't read your first book yet.

    On the novel vs blog thing ...

    Although "Last night we fished the harbour ..." has an immediacy that is beguiling and entirely appropriate to the ever-shifting sands of the internet, it just does not work with the solidity and permanency of paper."

    I dunno. I'm not that widely read, but wasn't there a time, way back when, when it was popular to compose novels as a collection of diary entries and other "source" documents? Dracula comes immediately to mind, and it's stood the test of time, right? Of course, you're still probably going to want "story" elements running through it, like character development, and arcs, and plot threads and whatnot, or otherwise it's going to turn into a hard bloody slog to get through.

    And I don't think I'd be too worried about the novel going away, or even having to change that much. If the direct peer-to-peer, creator-to-audience nature of the internet continues to erode the traditional "gatekeeper" model, I would guess that the problem of having a publisher tell you "we're not interested in 'that' kind of story right now" isn't going to be a problem. Communities will form around all kinds of things, and you can create for whatever audience you please. Of course, the flip side of that is that it probably makes it harder to make something that achieves "across the board" success.

    Of course, it may end up being less a question of what audiences want and more of what creators are willing to endure. As an example, I'll turn again to my favourite comic-book:

    Platinum Grit was a self-published series that moved from print to web during the course of its run. Towards the end, the creator was talking about struggling with pouring so much time and effort into something she could only release a couple of times a year. She asked the audience if there was interest in seeing the series move to a more frequent page-at-a-time format*, but the replies were overwhelmingly in favour of the bigger, meatier, less-frequent releases. She abandoned the project soon after and now makes a single-page, gag-of-the-day type webcomic.

    *Obviously, it's not feasible to self-publish a printed comic a page at a time. In this case, the immediacy of the internet sapped the creator's will to endure what it took to create that thing that her audience wanted. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that was an issue for others as well. I see you mentioning the pressure just know and I know you've talked about writing as a lonely pastime before. What's your thoughts?

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  7. I'll write my reply in bits too Alex :~)

    a) Oh yes! but consider the lens of history. Women being given up for marriage at twelve to someone they may or may not have liked was quite ordinary. Go to Berndt and Berndt archives for more, or try English ones in the 1700s. Things may not have changed, but the law has.

    b) Apparently you can buy it through the Fremantle Press website ... oh look sweet here it is
    http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/books/eBooks/1381

    c)This is really interesting because her readers obviously wanted the bigger, pagier comics they could hold in their hands. They wanted the hard copy, from what you written, or at least from what I've gleaned. It reminds me that people are still hungry for artifacts, for THINGS. And the novel is part of that. You can get text anywhere now. Most of my day is spent consuming or creating text on a screen.
    But you know? I'll pay more money for a single book or journal than I would for a year's online subscription.

    And just how do you get to come from Iceland all of a sudden? Jealous. :~)

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    1. Things may not have changed, but the law has.

      That's a good point. And a good start, too, I suppose.

      Her readers obviously wanted the bigger, pagier comics they could hold in their hands.

      Well, yes, many of them did want the option of physical, printed comics, but no, that wasn't really the point there. The vast majority (including myself) weren't so much worried about whether it was print or web-based (I do slightly prefer web); but they did want to get the story in larger chapter-like installments (usually 30 odd pages), rather than reading it in a drip-feed page-per-week type format -- even if that meant waiting six months or more between installments (writing and drawing a comic can be very time consuming when you have to fit it in around real work that pays the bills). 

      So the real point I was making: The immediacy of the online/onscreen delivery method did not take away the audience's desire to consume something big and meaty; it took away the creator's will to deliver something big and meaty. 

      http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/books/eBooks/1381

      Cheers.

      And just how do you get to come from Iceland all of a sudden?

      If you're looking at my I.P. address, you'll notice I get around quite a bit. It's all part of the magic of the interwebs.

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  8. Not surprised it's sold out Sarah. A great book. If you haven't already seen it, next time you're out for a coffee around Albany have a look at the short review I wrote in Café Capers (coffee shop news). Expecting great (even if dark) things for the next one.
    Crispin Travers

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    1. That's great Crispin. Thanks for writing the review. I'll check it out next time I'm at my favourite cafe. I'd never thought of writing or reviewing for Cafe Capers. It's quite a successful format, isn't it.

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    2. Café Capers is my mother-in-laws Kath's baby. I write most of the copy for her which is a good little pastime for me. I've got good at saying things in 200 to 300 words which is the format for the whole thing. I admire anyone who can write a whole book. I usually try and review any local books as we want it to be a celebration of all things local.
      Crispin

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