Australianised American books

I don't know how I feel about this.

Okay so I've been noticing something lately, where American books have been Australianised for the aussie readers.

I approve of this, yes, I do. I imagine the idea is to help us keep our culture and not become Americanised, and start saying things like sidewalk, and talking about inches and feet when we work in metres and centimetres.

And some words are being 'find and replaced' to accommodate our spelling (favoUrite/favorite, mUm/mom) but I'm feeling a bit weird about it lately.

It's a good thought. I like that there's some effort, but there doesn't seem to be ENOUGH effort. Feet has been changed to metres but tank top hasn't been changed to singlet, thongs refer to underwear and nickels and dimes haven't been changed to five and ten cents.

It's a nice thought, to protect our culture and spelling, but in what I've been reading lately, it feels a little half-hearted. And because of this, I doubt it's working. The books are still about american kids. They go to middle school. They catch the big yellow school bus. They are cheerleaders and play on the varsity sports teams. They drive at the age of sixteen and call each other dude and ass hats and that college (university) application process they go through? Man. Teens are stressed about their VCE and HSC and International Baccelarate(sp?) in Australia but it's NOT like that here.

So I guess what I'm saying is, considering the culture in the book is still American, why Australianise some words, but not others? Like the language used in dialogue, Australian teens mimic what they see on American tv shows and read in books. The only thing we're doing by changing favorite to favourite is safe-guarding our spelling.

When books are clearly about American teens, readers will be able to tell. So lets let them be about American teens who have moms and talk about their favorite thing which is six feet tall. (I don't know what that would be mind you...)

If the book could be set anywhere, then I'm all for giving the Australian edition an Aussie flavour.

I hope to get that opportunity with my own books.

That's all I have. It's just something I've been thinking about.

Sairz

The Beauty of an Agent and OMG how am I getting these books home?

Ha. It's been a bit longer since I last wrote than I realised. Sorry about that.

November was a pretty full on month!

Two hospital visits, 2 essays, a weekend in Wales and a friend from Australia visiting (Yay!) and another round of edits on my manuscript as well as starting edits on another and all of a sudden November was gone. Done and dusted.

And now it's December. And Christmas is most definitely here, in England. It is Christmas EVERYWHERE.

But that's not what I was wanting to discuss today.

I realised since my agent Jill Corcoran and I both (electronically) signed on the dotted line over 6 months ago, I haven't actually talked about how that's going. What it's like going from no representation, to representation.

Well let me tell ya, it's great. I most definitely recommend going the agent route, over submitting straight to a publisher.

Firstly, I love Jill because she's always on my side. She says I'm a talented writer and she love love love's my book which is OH so helpful in those moments that you doubt yourself. She's in the publishing industry. She is swamped with query letters and manuscripts and she reads a lot of childrens and YA books. She has middle grade age and teenage children. She knows the market, what's selling and what is popular with the kids. And she loves me as a writer.

That encouragement from someone other than your parents who love you anyway is worth every penny. Not that there are pennies involved as yet.

Secondly, she has a gazillion contacts! When trying to submit to publishers without an agent, so many doors are closed to you because they just don't accept unsolicited manuscripts. Well let me tell ya, those doors are WIDE open to me now.

Jill is an extremely hands on agent as well, and as much as editing and editing my book and editing it some more can make me want to tear my hair out - I know every suggestion she makes has been thought about, and I agree with the majority of them. Each round of edits we go through is making what I already thought was a good, solid book, into an even BETTER book.

She looks at the big things and the little things.

For instance, we were recently exchanging emails about boys and giggling.

JILL: "Boys don't giggle, they laugh. You should use the word laugh"

ME: "True, boys don't usually giggle. But these are 13 year old boys looking up porn on the computers at school. In this instance, they are probably giggling." (That's totally not a spoiler)

By doing all of this we are making sure editors are seeing the best possible book. Which they will have changes for, but still -we're making it the best WE think it can be. An editor will have more ideas on how to make it better AGAIN!

And something else I love about her is that she is super fast at replying to emails. Getting back to me about questions, regardless of how little and stupid they are. Though I try to limit myself on those ones.

So yeah, it's great having Jill on my team. I don't have to worry about submitting, perfecting my query letter any more. I just have to worry about the writing. And the rewriting. And the rewriting some more.

And reading!

I've been a crazy lady and bought lots of books while traveling. And now that the end is nigh (okay so it's still 2 months away, but I know it's going

to go fast) I am starting to worry about just how heavy paper in the form of books can be. Becaus

e I have some pretty stringent weight limits for my luggage.

Eep. But what have I been buying while away?

I love love love Paper Towns and Wimpy Kid. I haven't read 13 Reasons Why or the Graveyard Book as yet though. Why? Because I've been getting into some TV shows and the like that I totally wasn't aware of in Australia.

I mean, I knew about Degrassi: The Next Generation, but I wasn't into it. I am now. I'm kinda hooked. They really don't shy away from the tough subjects on that show. For instance, in the very first episode, a 12 year old character decides to meet a boy she met on the internet, and she meets him at a hotel, but it's not a boy, it's a 30-something pedophile. Tough subjects.

And onto something lighter, I'm a big Jane Austen fan. Well, I'm a big Jane Austen MOVIE fan. I tried to read Pride & Prejudice as part of my high school coursework and never actually finished it. And I haven't tried her other ones yet. But I love the movies they've been making of her books.

Lost in Austen is a GREAT take on the whole thing. Where a modern girl swaps places with Elizabeth Bennett in Pride & Prejudice (her family think Liz is staying at Amanda's house in Hammersmith, and Amanda is staying with the Bennetts) and just by her mere presence, everything "goes tits up". People marry the wrong people, run away with the wrong people, are better/worse than they seem in the book... I was giggling like a school girl watching this mini-series. So. Much. Fun.

But back to books: What did I buy today? Cos I was walking past Borders in Leeds and it was having a big CLOSING DOWN SALE. Argh! What am I supposed to do, NOT buy books in a closing down sale?

Today I bought:

Wow, blogger doesn't seem to want me to put up any more pictures.

I also bought Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Hooked by Les Edgerton and The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler. The last two are writing craft books, and I have to say, I love reading these and have a bunch at home, but none with me whilst out in THE WORLD. I always take away at least ONE thing from reading a book on writing, and it helps me become a better writer. It's like homework. But homework I enjoy.

Speaking of which, I have 900 more words to write on my essay before I get to start the one about Harry Potter. Yay! 900 ESSAY words are so much harder than 900 fictitious words. Sigh.

Okay, I think that's a long enough post for now. What show/movie/book are you hooked on at the moment? Have you heard/read any writing advice that just stuck with you forever more? I wanna hear all about it!

Ciao for now,

Sairz

The Fires, reading and what the BLEEP should I write

My mini holiday to relax in a cottage and take in the history of the Gold Fields has been postponed due to the horrendous heat of yesterday (46 degrees Celcius) in which half of regional Victoria has gone up in flames.

"Poor me", right? I don't get to have a holiday. It's okay, I'm not that shallow. I can't believe that last night while I was hanging at a friend's house, and while I was sleeping I was blissfully unaware that houses, hundreds of thousands of acres of bush land, and worse still - people - were burning.

I'm in Melbourne at the moment, the highway back to my home was closed off at one point, but I think it's open again now. My family are seriously thinking about making a fire plan now. We should have done it long ago. However, if you're not home when there is a fire (i.e our kitchen fire mid last year) there's really nothing you can do about it, nothing you can save.

I feel for the people of Boolarra and Yinnar who are now surrounded by more fire - even in Churchill, where my Uni is. Churchill was under threat earlier today and I don't know how it's going now. My thoughts are with everyone living and working down there.
I haven't been back in the area since November, and I can't imagine what I'm going to find. I have a meeting on campus on Thursday, so I better prepare myself for the devastation. I feel for the animals that couldn't get out. I know there are a lot of wallabies and rabbits in the area.
Fire would be a horrible, horrible way to go.

Okay, let's shake it off. Shake shake shake, get onto a nicer topic. And of course, that would be writing.

I'm doing my head in at the moment as new ideas are flooding me and I'm getting so confused as to which is the best one, which one I want to write first.

Do I write the one about the Aussie girl who through a serious of circumstances gets swept up into Hollywood and the tabloid feeding frenzy?

How about the one about the girl who's twin brother is a huge gamer, and when he dies she decides to infiltrate the gaming world and try and win the championship he was so close to winning?

Or the one about the twelve year old who's family move a lot, and she doesn't have any friends - except for a stray dog that she meets in her newest town, that teaches her and those around her a lot about friendship and love?

Oh! Or the year 12 student who's finding her friends growing up too quickly, driving, moving out, having sex, and she's determined to make the most of her last year of her youth - and she's certainly not going to fall in love!

What to do what to do...

Well what I've decided to do is block my ears and say: "Nar nar nar nar nar" and read.

I went to Borders today - always an expensive exercise - and have a bunch of new books to start reading. I'm reading about 5 at the same time at the moment which sort of proves where my head's at. It's all over the place.

Ah well. What I'm reading today are:



I know, aren't I naughty? Are you there God I believe is the YA most banned book ever, for its racy content. It was written in 1970, and I'm gonna say their definition of racy writing is a bit different to ours today. For instance, Gossip Girl is not banned.

And TTYL was banned for awhile there, too I believe. It's a part of writing for YA and younger that I hadn't thought about, censorship. It's something I tend to do to myself, which I shouldn't. But that's a topic for another day. When I've finished these, I look forward to sinking my claws into:



Sink my claws into. Get it? Get it? I know. I amaze even mySELF at my sheer Dad joke abilities. It's a gift, it really is. How gorgeous is that cat though?

My parents have a ginger cat. Well, technically he's mine, because his mum was mine and she had kittens, so he and his sister are mine. But they live with my parents. Anyway, he's ginger and has a bit of a lion's mane like that and thick furry trousers, as Georgia Nicolson would say. So we named him Booffie because that's what he is. We should have called him Sir Drool-a-lot, because that's what he does. The point I think I'm trying to get at is he looks a bit like that cat, Dewey.

Okay, that's all for now. Gonna get to my books!
Sairz