What did my Book Week look like?

Book Week is always lots of fun. And always terribly hectic. This is what my Book Week looked like this year:

• One road trip to Canberra for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards announcement.
• One broken down car at Canberra airport where I stopped to pick up author Claire Saxby. Sadly, said car needed to be towed away and have a short holiday in our national capital - which meant I missed most of the award ceremony!

• One yummy CBCA ACT Book Week dinner.
• Many many hours of driving (in Pete's car) in terrible traffic and even worse weather to schools for school visits (all on the other side of Sydney to me). 
• Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of smiling faces and enthusiastic young readers and writers. I am always blown away by the creativity, enthusiasm and passion of the kids I meet (and their teachers). 
• One trip to Melbourne for the Book Design Awards + author meetings + a visit to Melbourne Writers festival + a little book research + beautiful sunshine.



Graham Byrne and Claire Saxby
Graham won the Crichton Award for 
Big Red Kangaroo

• One radio interview with Julie Clift on ABC Broken Hill about Book Week and writing for children (while sitting on the floor in Melbourne airport - I'm all class!).

BEST MOMENTS!

• When one child brimming with excitement declared: "Oh my God, I can't believe the real Sue Whiting is really here!"
• When about two hundred children spontaneously, unexpectedly and joyously joined in with my reading of The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, which they ALL knew off by heart. It was a little overwhelming actually and left me a little dazed - in a good way. (I think I had a bit of a rock star moment - got the feeling of what it must be like when an audience sings your lyrics back to you.)

The actual week is over - but the festivities aren't! The next couple of weeks are pretty hectic too starting with the CBCA BIG BOOK DAY OUT tomorrow at the NSW Writers' Centre.

Capturing

How can you not love a book that opens with the line, “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”?

I have just completed I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. This is a gorgeous novel written in the 1940s. I absolutely adored the eccentric cast of characters and their bohemian life in a crumbling English castle.

Of particular interest to me was central character and narrator, Cassandra, who fancies herself as a writer. The novel is written in the form of her journal where not only does she recount the happenings of her life and the goings on within her family, but where she also intends to capture all their characters and “put in conversations” in order to improve her writing style, which she feels has been “stiff and self-conscious” up to date.  

She is not always satisfied with her “captures” and vows to work harder at her craft.

“I am aware this is not a fair portrait of him. I must capture him again later.”

“How can one capture the pool of light in the courtyard, the golden windows, the strange long-ago look ...?”

“Capture father! Why, I don’t know anything about anyone!”

What glorious fodder for a writer – and what excellent advice. I love the notion of “capturing”. Isn’t this exactly what we try to do as writers? To capture characters, moments, feelings and places and somehow translate them into words on the page. To capture them precisely or evocatively or eloquently. Or originally? Uniquely?

It is also interesting to note that Smith was so anxious about her novel that once she completed the manuscript, she worked on her revisions for a further two years, where she wrote and rewrote every line. It shows! The characters are so superbly drawn and deliciously quirky, the relationships between the characters complex, authentic and true, and the voice of the narrator doesn’t miss a beat.

For writers and aspiring writers this book is a must-read. There are so many lessons hidden within each page. I don’t know how I have managed to get through life without reading it before now.