Winner of the Children's Book Council's Frustrated Writers' Mentoring Competition, 2006
In 2006, my Young Adult Science Fiction manuscript, The Sky Pharaohs, won the Children's Book Council of Australia NSW's Frustrated Writers' Mentoring Competition. This led to an amazing opportunity for me to work with Australian writer, Pamela Freeman, to improve my manuscript. From August 2006 to March 2007, with Pamela's advice and feedback, I wrote two further drafts of The Sky Pharaohs and prepared the manuscript to send to a publisher. I did this while taking care of a baby and my life being in various stages of chaos. I survived and learnt so much from the process and hope I came out the other end a much better writer. Below is my diary from that time...
August 2006
August 5th
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I learn that The Sky Pharaohs has won the senior category of the Children's Book Council of Australia NSW's Frustrated Writers' Mentoring competition. Read more... |
August 21st
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I go to the competition presentation, which is part of Children's Book Week on-board the South Steyne Ferry at Darling Harbour, Sydney. The best part is when it comes home to me that other people have read The Sky Pharaohs apart from myself. I feel as if the story has taken life. Read more... |
September 2006
September 12th
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I prepare for the mentorship programme by reading over the manuscript of The Sky Pharaohs. While I'm reasonably happy with the plot, I cringe at the prose. My biggest fear is that my writing style is verbose and clunky. Read more... |
September 13th
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I meet Pamela for the first time and am very pleased that she "gets" The Sky Pharaohs. I know she is in tune with what I've written. Surprisingly, however, her assessment of the manuscript is the opposite of mine. She looks at the stucture and cogency of the story and tells me I need to add more details rather than fewer. I realise that The Sky Pharaohs has lots of plot holes but at last, after a year of paralysis, I can see the way forward in improving the story. Read more... |
September 15th
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I learn more about structural editing, and summarise Pamela's comments. I think about how best to approach the redraft, which will be draft nine of The Sky Pharaohs. Read more... |
September 19th
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I find my early notes for The Sky Pharaohs' back story and remember how I started noting down the plot when I lived in Japan in 1999. I print out Pamela's questions about the gaps in the plot and stick them in my notebook. From this I hope to make a redraft plan. Read more... |
September 22nd
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I write down answers to Pamela's questions and make more notes about The Sky Pharaohs' back story. Read more... |
September 24th
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Battling tiredness, I continue to make notes for my Sky Pharaohs redraft plan and find inspiration from Hip Hop. Read more... |
September 27th
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I lament that I am still taking notes for the redraft. Will I ever start writing? Will my superhuman race defeat me? Read more... |
September 30th
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I am ill but have made progress with the back story and am making a point-by-point redraft plan. This process is complicated by a baby who doesn't want to sleep! Read more... |
October 2006
October 1st
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Despite being on my last legs, I finish my redraft plan. Read more... |
October 6th
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I have the lurgy and am not able to write but I do make a scary-looking birthday cake. Read more... |
October 9th
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At last, I begin rewriting The Sky Pharaohs but soon learn that small changes have a big implications for the text. Read more... |
October 13th
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I consider putting my baby in childcare for one day a week to give me more time to write, yet my visit to a daycare centre is not what I expected... Read more... |
October 15th
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I finish redrafting the first three chapters of The Sky Pharaohs but the results are still quite rough. Read more... |
October 18th
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My friend babysits and this allows me to tame a nightmare scene. The baby, however, is not so easily tamed... Read more... |
October 21st
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I am frustrated by my slow writing pace but the poem "Mr Over" by Stevie Smith inspires me to persevere. Read more... |
October 24th
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I spend an entire week writing two paragraphs. Wading through treacle would be faster. And our water is off yet again. Read more... |
October 29th
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I reflect on why chapter four was always a problem chapter. I believe it might finally work. At last the character of TyVelle is convincing because I've stopped trying to tone him down. Read more... |
November 2006
November 7th
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Roget's Thesaurus takes over my brain. Read more... |
November 14th
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I'm halfway through the redraft! But I'm exhausted. Then I manage to reduce my blog to pulp... Read more... |
November 17th
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As if life wasn't difficult enough, the Person from Porlock comes a-knocking on my door. Read more... |
November 18th
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I think about what makes me happy, and I'm especially glad to have won the mentorship programme. Read more... |
November 30th
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I am furious with myself for, on past occasions, listening to criticism that my writing is verbose. I see that in past drafts I ruined The Sky Pharaohs by slashing an essential piece of action. Read more... |
December 2006
December 5th
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I go to the Lady Cutler Award Dinner and feel inspired. Read more... |
December 7th
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After struggling for two months on the rewrite, I reach chapter fifteen. Read more... |
December 17th
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As I move into redrafting the final section of The Sky Pharaohs, I realise I'm completely exhausted, but my stars have wise words for me. Read more... |
January 2007
January 3rd
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Following a fun festive season in which I end up in the Emergency Room on Christmas Day, I find myself taking up residence on Stuck Mountain. Despite being on chapter seventeen, I have to backtrack through the text and rewrite several sections. Read more... |
January 16th
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I complete draft nine of The Sky Pharaohs. How on earth did I get this far on so little sleep? Read more... |
January 17th
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Although I've made progress, I feel discouraged. I cheer myself up, I think about my Grandma's favourite motivating saying. Read more... |
January 20th
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How did it happen? Through redrafting The Sky Pharaohs, I have managed to add a hundred and one new pages! Read more... |
January 24th
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The completed draft of The Sky Pharaohs weighs in at 2.1kg, contains 405 pages and is almost 90,000 words long. I send the finished manuscript to Pamela for her feedback. I'm happy to have come this far but I know I will have to write another draft. Read more... |
February 2007
February 20th
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Pamela gives me her feedback on The Sky Pharaohs and I start on a rewrite plan for draft ten. Write, I tell myself. Just write. Read more... |
February 23rd
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I take a photograph of my writing place. Read more... |
March 2007
March 1st
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Having trouble focussing on writing draft ten of The Sky Pharaohs, I decide to stop using the internet for three days. How will I cope? Will I be a more productive writer? Read more... |
March 5th
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My experiment to stop using the internet doesn't make me more productive but I realise, yet again, how exhausted I am. I vow, however, that no matter what happens in life I will still find time to write. Read more... |
March 12th
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After all the exhaustion and frustration and six months of redrafts, The Sky Pharaohs is finished. For now... Read more... |
The Children's Book Council Interviews Helen
Below are the answers to questions the Children's Book Council asked me about winning the Frustrated Writers' Mentoring Programme. This appeared in the CBC NSW's newsletter at the end of 2006.
Why did you enter your manuscript for our 2006 award?
In early 2006, I was in a library with my then three-month-old baby. 2005 had been a difficult year for me, both personally and with my writing. After finishing the eighth draft of my young adult manuscript, The Sky Pharaohs, in July 2005, I had been able to see no way forward with it and had abandoned it. I knew the manuscript could be improved but I could not work out how. I felt that making one change would be like taking the bottom tin of beans from a display pyramid in a supermarket. The lot could come crashing down on me.
On that day in early 2006, as I waited in the queue to borrow my library books, I noticed a stack of fliers on the desk. I was close enough only to make out the words: “Frustrated Writer”. I laughed to myself and thought: “That’s me!” and picked one up. I must have laughed out loud because the man behind me gave me an odd look. I thought: “Well, it’s true! I don’t care what he thinks,” and put the leaflet in my bag.
I printed out a copy of The Sky Pharaohs and sent it the Children’s Book Council, along with the application form. I didn’t enter with the expectation of winning. The gesture of entering was, for me, more like breaking down a psychological barrier. I had gone through 2005 feeling utterly defeated by so many situations in my life. Entering the competition made me feel as if I was saying: “I believe in this manuscript. I believe in myself.”
When I heard I had won, I felt as if someone was saying back to me: “I believe in you too.”
How do you feel about winning in your section?
Winning the senior category of the Frustrated Writers’ Mentoring Programme has given me new confidence in my writing abilities. I have been writing stories since the age of six and The Sky Pharaohs is my fourth novel-length fiction manuscript. I have made numerous submissions to agents and publishers over the years and have received numerous rejections. In many cases, it appeared that the agent or publisher was too busy to read what I had sent them. Although several agents did ask to see more of my writing, they ultimately decided not to take me on. I tried to stay focussed and think positive but my morale became quite low. I was writing every day, sending out submissions, and reading books on improving my writing. Yet I was getting precisely nowhere. Winning my section of the Frustrated Writers’ Mentoring Programme renewed my faith in myself and what I was doing. I was so happy to learn that the judges had enjoyed reading The Sky Pharaohs. I felt as if I was finally succeeding in what I have always wanted to do: write books that readers will love.
I appreciate the way that winning this competition has forced me to take my writing seriously on a practical level. To complete the latest redraft of The Sky Pharaohs I have to write every day, even when I am tired after taking care of my [then] one-year-old boy. I have had to become much more self-disciplined than I was before. Through winning the competition, I have learnt new work habits which I hope will last for a lifetime.
Finally, and most importantly, I am so happy to have been given the chance to work with my mentor, Pamela Freeman. When I started The Sky Pharaohs in 1999, I had a clear idea in my head about what the story meant and what kind of world the characters inhabited. Only now, with the help of Pamela Freeman, do I feel as if I am bringing across to the reader those ideas as I originally intended them to be. I am so grateful to have this opportunity.
Where do you see your writing going in the future?
My main goal is to be a published author of young adult novels, but it is equally important for me to continuously improve as a writer. I want to write books that readers will love. I want to be an author that Australia can be proud of, even though I am not yet Australian by nationality. I am currently working on making The Sky Pharaohs the best story it can be, with the aim that it will be published. I am also in the process of writing another young adult manuscript, based on Norwegian mythology, in which a girl searches for her missing rock star father, and I am making notes for a teenage time-travel adventure which will be about Jane Austen and Princess Charlotte, the daughter of George IV.
