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Interview with Trent Jamieson

Trent Jamieson, Brisbane short story demi-god, local luminary of the writing scene, University teacher, Aurealis Award winner and Clarion South tutor, has written his first novel: an urban fantasy “Death Most Definite”, and soon to be the first in a trilogy.

How did you get your start in writing fiction?

I’ve always written fiction, well, since I could hold a pen and write. And I’ve always written Speculative Fiction. It’s what I grew up reading. Everything from the Magic Pudding, Lord of the Rings, and Lud in the Mist, to Dan Simmon’s Hyperion Cantos. Spec Fic has marked the important moments of my life: it’s been a comfort through some pretty horrible things, and an accompaniment to some wonderful stuff as well. So it’s natural, I guess, that I’d want to write it too. Not that I don’t read other literature as well, but Spec Fic will always be at the heart of my reading and writing.

You have an impressive number of short stories publications. Was it a big leap to moving from short stories to the long form of novels?

Not so much a big leap, just a different direction. They’re two very different modes of writing. But I’ve been writing both for a very long time: it’s just that the short stories started selling earlier.

How did you get your break with the Death books?

Persistence. Seriously. Orbit opening their offices in Australia certainly helped. It’s a bit easier to get your foot in the door, if there’s a door to put your foot in. I found Orbit to be very approachable and fortunately they liked the idea of this series and loved the first book. Hard work, lots and lots of hard work, luck, and good timing all played their part too. And my biggest break was marrying Diana. My wife has always supported my writerly aspirations. That kind of belief is incredibly important. Without her I may have given up a long time ago. And Diana is the reason I fell in love with Brisbane and ended up writing a novel(series) set there. Diana is the keystone to all my fiction.

Your trilogy is essentially being published back-to-back over the next 2 years. Has it been difficult writing each novel in such a short period?

I’ll let you know when I finish the third book. Like any long project it has its ups and downs, but, in the main, I’ve loved writing the books. I think novels suit my temperament.

Have you had any issues with maintaining consistency between the novels?

Not consistency, my stories are very much about voice, and I think I’ve got a very clear idea who my protagonist is and how he sounds. Steven de Selby is the glue that holds those books together and, while he changes, and grows up a bit, he has very peculiar world view.

Can you tell us about the process of deciding the style of covers?

I’ve not had that much of a say in it – though I love my cover. Of course, I’ve been shown it at various stages of its development, and my opinion’s been sought, but the decision hasn’t really been mine. And, to be honest, I really don’t think it should be. I’m not really about having a cover that I love and everyone else hates.

You were a tutor for the first time at Clarion South in 2009 and we have often heard of Clarion experiences from its students. What was it like from the other side of the desk?

It was wonderful, exhausting, and exciting. I’m quite sure I learnt much more than I taught. The worst bit for me was that I had caught some sort of virus and I had to push through the fatigue – you don’t get a lot of sleep when you’re tutoring. The best was seeing all that potential in the room, listening to all those insightful critiques. You really start to feel invested in the student’s future. I’m always so excited to hear of a sale or some other milestone reached. Oh, and jealousy, definitely jealousy. I forgot about that, you’re all so much more talented than me, damn it.

Is Clarion South comparable to the QUT short story writing course you teach?

Well, this year I haven’t been doing much teaching, so many deadlines! Though I’m back in a month or so. But not really, they’re two very different things. At Clarion you are living and breathing short stories, meeting tight deadlines, and getting in each other’s faces 24/7. The short story course is one of many units a student will be doing that semester, it’s part of an integrated whole. I think either would compliment the other.

You have been writing to various deadlines for the Death books in the past months. How do you motivate yourself each day / how do you ensure you achieve the progress you need to meet those required submission dates?

It’s just a matter of breaking it down into achievable targets, knowing there’s a bigger picture, but not thinking about it too much. I’ve still got a couple of deadlines to meet yet on this series so I don’t want to be too smug about it.

What is your opinion on the recent debate over e-book pricing? Are there plans to release your Death books for e-book readers as well as print?

I must say I don’t have an opinion, but I guess it comes down to content, and what the-book contains that the paper-version may not. E-books certainly allow for a richer environment – though that makes them somewhat different to books, more book as app, then book as book. Regardless of format the e and hardcopy books go through the same editorial process, and that `ain’t cheap. So, hey, I do have an opinion. Yes, my books will be available as e-books.

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Trent’s own site can be found here and a review by Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus here .

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Posted by Ben in writing process | 0 comments

Lazy sentences (lazy author?)

When editing my own work, the following words keep popping up and are almost always indicators of a sentence that just isn’t right or is carrying a few too many kilos:
- here
- there
- though
- now
These are worse than adverbs for me and deserving of instant death.
I blame the sentences. Tisn’t my fault.

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Posted by Ben in writing advice, writing life, writing process | 3 comments

raison d’ecrire

I’ve finished my first (and second and third) draft of my novel. The first draft took me about 3 years, the next two a few months, and I know I’m not there yet, I’m not at that finished product that I would feel confident in submitting. In fact, I may not be able to get there at all.

I’ve written YA novels before and found that, right or wrong at the time, I didn’t need to redraft a lot. I wrote them, I sent them off soon after, worked with an editor and they were done. Short, sharp, satisfying. For a while. Now, I look back and wonder if I spent enough time on them, if I couldn’t have worked harder on redrafting to a standard that will keep me content to look back at those books and be happy with them. Or is that a pipe dream? Am I always going to look back and see the errors, inconsistencies and literary solecisms in my work ?

This time around, with a manuscript the same length as my previous three novels combined, redrafting is essential. Quite frankly, I’ve overwritten the beginning and underwritten the ending in my rush to finish it. I know what the problems are, I’ve had some feedback from readers that ranges the gamut from compelling mastery (yes, that was from family) to finding it difficult to read (someone more objective). The problem is, and will always be, resisting that intense urge to finish it, wrap it up in a bow and send it off right now. Common advice publishers, agents and established authors give aspiring writers is to rewrite more; you’ve spent all that time writing the first draft, so why not spend a little bit more and polish it up?

So, looking down the barrel of three years of working on a single project, I start to wonder if it’s even of a standard that will be acceptable in a professional market, even after the rewrites. What if it isn’t? Can I accept that it was something that I used to further hone my skills? Can it be a stepping stone to (fingers crossed) future success? To be honest, that’s bloody hard to accept. I don’t have that many books in me and this one took a lot out. To think that all those hours won’t result in a shiny new novel in my hands is very hard to take. And I’m not talking about money (not only). I’m talking about the recognition and reinforcement and validation that comes from having your work accepted by other professionals. It’s easy to say that I write for writing’s sake, for the story, for the act of creation, for the achievement, but I don’t. I write to create stories that others will enjoy. Money may follow, but it hasn’t yet, and may never, so I can dream of it, but I think I have proven to myself that I’m not writing for money.

These are common themes for authors, I would guess. And for artists of all kinds. They are the core of why writing novels can be so demanding. It’s easy to see the final version of a story and be in awe of an author being able to write something so good. In reality, he or she probably didn’t. It was built up, a layer cake of work that resulted in the final version.

So, on that note, in an attempt to aspire to a certain level of quality, I redraft.  

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Posted by Ben in writing process | 4 comments

Diffuse(d) intensity

I’m now in the final stages of redrafting my fourth novel, tentatively titled “The Bhel Sea”. I previously wrote a YA trilogy squarely based on Nordic mythology, but for this latest story, I wanted to create my own world, own peoples and histories. A big ask, and overwhelming at times, but satisfying when little parts of this new world become filled in, bit by bit. On the other hand, this has been the source of a universe of frustration for one (or actually two) big reasons*: my wife and I had a baby just after I started planning the novel. Then two years later we had another one. All of a sudden, my consistency in producing a novel a year nose-dived. I’m absolutely sure this is the same for most people, if not with kids popping out, maybe with other life distractions and interludes and events. But for me, having now finally completed this new, longer work of fiction, I can look back and see just how amazingly difficult it can be to adjust a writing habit around family. And that’s how I thought of it, which already shows the difficulties I had. You don’t adjust anything around family, not when it arrives in the form of newborns. Family was it. Basta. Period. At least at first. Gradually, over weeks and months I found time around work and home to plan some more, write some more, create my world some more. But it’s tough, and frustrating (really? only 30 minutes this week?), and guilt-inducing (shouldn’t I be spending time with daughters/wife/parents instead? shouldn’t I be working on my novel instead of just spending time with daughters/wife/parents?) and the fear of failure and of writing drivel and of never improving sufficiently is ever-present. I guess I had to learn a new way of finding time. I call it “diffuse intensity”.

- think about the story most days, particularly while commuting to generic office job that isn’t particularly fulfilling
- take notes and record ideas at spare moments
- wait days, sometimes weeks
- then write your butt off when you get half a day or even a few hours.

It still adds up. It still got me to the end. Maybe half an hour every day of the week would have been better, but for me it just wasn’t possible.

Most of all, I learned something about what realistic expectations were. Maybe 500 words in a weekend was all that I could do and not the 2000 words I expected. Maybe the final chapters wouldn’t be done in 3 weeks, but would need 12 weeks. In fact, I originally hoped to have the story written in just under 2 years. It’s now almost 3 and a half. And all of it is OK. It really isn’t a race.

Let’s have another list and call them rules. Here’s my five for writing with a young family:

1. Don’t start. Quit now.
2. If you do start, don’t expect to get anything more than an hour or two clear in any day week.
3. Don’t insist on a certain start or finish time. (You won’t get them. If you get a finish time, your 1 year old will bring it forward to 2 minutes after your start time.)
4. Don’t think you can have special music, or quiet time. (You’ll almost certainly have Dora the Explorer, The Wiggles or Play School on in the background. These can all add flavour to that fight scene you’re writing.)
5. Be grateful if your partner understands what you are doing, but don’t expect him/her to. Don’t expect him/her to read what you write straight away, or to even like what you have written. (Raising one child is a full-time job. Add more jobs for more kids. Reading a 145,000 word fantasy epic might be one job too many.)

Or just break all these rules, like I did.

*For the record, my kids are each worth a best-seller to me (i.e. true love). This isn’t a “oh-poor-me-who-has-a-family-whinge” but it might sound mighty close to it…. Maybe not three best-sellers though.

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Posted by Ben in writing process | 0 comments

Feeling derivative

Borrow, steal, pervert.
Imitate, warp, combine.
Create.

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