writing

THE WORLD OF DEAR MADMAN

/ Edwina Shaw / 2 Comments
Laidley Corn Day

Laidley Corn Day

This is the world I’ve been living in for the past few years as I’ve been researching and writing my latest project, Dear Madman, a novel based on a tragedy that has haunted my family for generations. Laidley is a town in the Lockyer Valley west of Brisbane where the story is predominantly set, one hundred years ago.

I love this photo because it captures just how “edge of nowhere” it was back then. I am especially intrigued by the girl on the pony in the middle on the far right. Pinafore and all. Who is she and where is she going? She could even be one of my great aunts.

For a long while I had this picture pinned up beside my desk to remind me where my characters were living. For them, this was the nearest big town.

I loved living in this quieter time and place where I could hear the thud of horses hooves and my own footfall, not the constant stream of traffic flowing past my home now in busy Brisbane.

I’ve finished the latest draft and have sent it off with fingers crossed and candles lit. But now I’m left, relieved in one way to be free of the madness and violence at the heart of this story, but sad too that I have lost this slower, simpler world.

BACK IN THE SADDLE

/ Edwina Shaw / 2 Comments
horse pulling overloaded cart

how it feels some days

So what have I been doing all this time? Putting too many things in my wagon – that’s what!

Most days I sail along but others, I must admit, I feel a bit like the poor horse in this picture.
I’m teaching narrative at the University of Queensland, and yoga to the performance dance students at the Queensland University of Technology (yes I’m a yogi). I also teach both writing and yoga privately and edit other people’s work,as well as marking homework, looking after my family and keeping the household reasonably hygienic. And helping out my sisters with their small children and new baby.

I’ve also been busily organising a family trip to Europe to visit relatives – a first for all of us. Very exciting.

This has meant not much time is left for my own projects. I have a new short story half-written, and have gone part of the way through reading and marking up the draft of Dear Madman I wrote at Varuna. Oh how I long to return there to have some uninterrupted time to sit and ponder and immerse myself in the Madman’s world so I can better whip the manuscript into shape. A novel is a huge thing, you need time and space to hold it properly in your mind, to be able to figure out how best to bring it to life.

Today I have to agree with Toni Morrison,

“We are traditionally rather proud of ourselves for having slipped creative work in there between the domestic chores and obligations. I’m not sure we deserve such big A-pluses for that.”

She’s right. I’d rather have an A+ for finishing Dear Madman. An A+ for prioritising my own work.
Find some time for your writing today. See how good you feel when you do!

Oh, and Child of Fortune (the Cambodian novel of many names), is being read at a few major publishers as we speak. Getting a major publisher and some royalties coming in is one way to make sure my own work comes first. So cross fingers.