How ideas turn into books.
This week was intended to be focussed on writing, only there were a few distractions. However, it occurred to me that it's often when ideas bubble away in my mind. This week started slowly, but later in the video I’ll take you with me on a whole creative Saturday.
So how do ideas get turned into books?
For Violetta and the Paganini Poltergeist, I’m in the final stages. As you could see over the last few weeks, books have been printed, but the final job is approving the files for distribution to book stores. I’ll show you more about how those get created later. On Monday I also wrote a newsletter. I recorded the return of the Paganini theme and fixed the size of one of Pierrette’s videos. My books are a little unusual as there are quite a few parts involved. Illustrations, music, writing and mask videos. Next week I’ll reveal a little more about the masks.
Later that night, I did my fortnightly cook-up and while I braised this cabbage, I remembered a Brother’s Grimm Fairytale called Donkey Cabbages. I’ve written a few drafts of the third Violetta novel and short story, set in Budapest in 1914, but often pieces slowly fall together when I least expect…like when I’m cooking cruciferous vegetables.
Of course there are more obvious places for inspiration, like books and movies. I watched a little of this one for research as it was set in Budapest in 1939, and had a laugh at this lady playing the air violin. Oh, and the bowed saw! An instrument I’ll definitely include in the third album. I also love the delight on her face as she plays. It looks like great fun!
Later that night we watched another film ‘The House with a Clock in its Walls’. There was a lot of magic and some nice historical references, and I appreciated Jack Black’s unique magical gift presented through music! The home-made frozen yoghurt balls were also yum and the scene with the spinning universe was especially splendiferous. The main character was also fond of words, a little like Violetta.
I also have a pile of books I’m reading, so I did a bit of that in the evenings this week.
However, ideas come from all kinds of places. My stories often have animal characters and whenever you are writing characters, one of the important things is to consider their motivations. For instance, if there is a stick around to be chewed, would that be more important for my favourite puppy dog than being patted? It seems so. Then again, if there’s a suggestion of food, this is likely to happen. However, when nothing else is doing, pats can go on for hours.
Walking and running leads to all kinds of unusual sights, and wonders. Like this fur seal having a rest on the boat ramp…if he was a character what would he be like? I imagine he’d be fond of the finer things in life, fine restaurants, hand-made chocolates and he’d probably wear tailored suits.
Or dragonflies! When I filmed the video there were three playing together. They’re hard to capture, but I’ve never seen that before. I always think they’re magical insects. A bit like fairies. Then of course there’s music. Sorting through my library of music books that I’ve collected over the years led to some nice surprises. Some have been kindly given to me and luckily Brahms, Bruch and Bartok are in the next Violetta book. I didn’t realise I had this copy of Kol Nidre. Excellent.
Friday was a catc up on another few jobs, some teaching and practice, and I did some work on the Paganini album. However, I thought it might be fun to go through a whole creative Saturday. This year, Saturday’s a creative work day for me, as I’ll be elsewhere during the week, so I started at 6:00am!
The first thing was to go for a run followed by a bit of yoga. The wallabies are often out at that time of the morning. Then after a shower, comes breakfast. Today we had heaps of yummy summer fruit and I had some leftover cinnamon bun. A Saturday treat washed down with a healthy green tea. A quick catch up on emails, then into the office.
I introduced you to my kitchen timer last week, but I usually put it on for one and a half hours. It sits beside a couple of other things on my desk, my figurine of Doris Day playing the violin oh and of course, another cup of tea. Today, I’m resizing the book files for Signore Maggiorino. I’d really like to get it done today. It’s a bit of a slow process, there is a quicker program I use for the novels, but I go through my process of how I use InDesign.
The jacket is a similar process, but hopefully a bit quicker, and finally there are end paper files to create.
Saturday was a perfect day, so I took a walk to the beach. The water was actually warm and fortunately I narrowly missed a couple of jellyfish. Lunch was followed by a bit of practice. It’s hard to tell from the video, but I’m standing on one leg. Weirdly it can sometimes help balance out my shoulders.
I always have quite big to-do lists, but this year’s a lot about finishing things. I have seven first drafts of some other murder-mystery adult books I’ve written, so I’m going to take another look at those this year and begin to self-edit them. I also have the third Violetta draft and the third short story draft, so I’ll begin sorting through those to see what needs to be done. But where to start? It’s a bit daunting sometimes, so I made a plan…and decorated it with stickers. Sunday was reading, and in the video I also describe my editing process before a manuscript goes to the professionals. I did some calculations and I'm hoping to get onto Violetta 3 by next January!
It’s amazing what can get done in small snippets of time. However, it can be hard to stick to doing it every day. Often I find myself saying that 30minutes isn’t enough, or I’ll skip it today and do an hour tomorrow. Now I’ve learnt that it’s much easier to do a little every day. That doesn’t mean it’s any easier, but I know those minutes add up and it’s how I managed to write all those first drafts. Now, I just have to finish them.
So…have you got a story you’d like to tell? If so, maybe you’d like to start writing it with me? I’ll be here every morning, even if you don’t see me. I’ll be doing ½ an hour of practice and ½ an hour of writing, and I’m planning to create a way we can check in. Perhaps the Practice Pineapple? I’ll mull it over a bit more and I’ll have an answer for next time.
Anyway next week is all about the masks… a mystery in themselves!
Until then, Happy Creating! Bye for now.
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