By way of random, writing process-related thoughts, I’ve been reflecting on how the first draft of almost everything I write (accepting that it may well be different for other authors), whether novel, short fiction, or poetry, always contains elements of what a friend, poet Joanna Preston, calls “scaffolding.”

Exactly as with physical construction, literary scaffolding provides a framework that allows me, as writer, to come to grips with the structure of what I’m building / creating.

For example, with a short story, I may spend the opening sequences “building the scene”, only to realize later that all that careful work was scaffolding, allowing me to work my way into the story until I get to the point where I no longer need it. But with the scene set in my mind, I may then be able to cut straight to the subsequent action without losing the story’s sense of milieu.

A big part of any second draft, therefore, is to identify what is scaffolding and what the ‘real deal’ of the creative work — and diligently remove the former.

I never regard the scaffolding as wasted words or effort, however, since without their help I might never have come to grips with the “real” poem, story, or novel.

St Clair beach, Dunedin

Last week, I revealed that I’d been on a bit of a road trip and promised pics to come.

On Monday, I took a closer look at Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden and on Sunday 19 (while actually on the trip) I snuck in a few pics of glorious autumn colour around Lake Hayes.

The emptiness of Kaka Point beach, after the storm

My route took me south from Dunedin, down through the South Island’s south-west corner, known as the Catlins, before I looped on through Southland and back up to Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown—wonderful ‘wild south’ country as I hope today’s photos will prove.

Wild sea

The wild began at St Clair beach in Dunedin (above left), but some unseasonally cold weather struck as I headed down through the Catlins, so there are fewer but also bleaker photos—and as I think the ’tilt’ on the trees shows, this can be very bleak country indeed.

By the time I headed north again, the sun had come out but the snow remained, so the wild was all in the mountains and the deep blue of Lake Wakatipu (right and below.)

Queenstown itself, and its outlying settlements, such as Jack’s Point, lie at the feet of a mountain range known as the Remarkables—not because of their stunning looks but because they run true north-south, which is apparently rare in mountain ranges.

Ever feel dwarfed?

They also made many appearances in The Lord Of the Rings film trilogy—entirely, I imagine, because of their stunning good looks.

So yup, the trip did have its “inside Middle earth” moments, but then again, it’s hard not to do that in NZ these days.

And there are some moments and vistas that are just, well, remarkable without being too wild or leaving you feeling over-awed—like these famous “Queenstown views” (below.)

Classic Queenstown

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.

Armistice

11/11/1918 New Brighton
.

What is wrong?
All the aunties are crying,
then laughing
with my mother.

If I stand on the green sofa
I can see through the curtains
people’s heads bobbing past,
and such a noise …

We find our Union Jacks
go out onto the Esplanade.
The man from next door
is playing his violin,
‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’
as he marches on the footpath.

They dance, hug, still crying,
now here comes the band,
tummies and cheeks puffed out –
‘There’s a long, long trail
…………a-winding …’

Who is this man
dragged along behind a cart
a rope around his neck
head wobbling, arms flapping?

I scream.
Warm arms grab me.
Her voice says,
‘He’s only the wicked Kaiser,
and he’s a straw dummy!’

Now we are all saved.
.

by Lorna Staveley Anker

from  The Judas Tree, editor Bernadette Hall, Canterbury University Press, 2013.

Reproduced with permission.

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With this April marking the centenary of ANZAC participation in the invasion of Gallipoli in World War One, I have been featuring poetry on the theme of war and its consequences throughout the month.

It seems appropriate to conclude with Laura Staveley Anker’s Armistice, marking a child’s-eye view of the conclusion of World War 1 — a poem that concludes on a fittingly spare note, which may be sincere or may be irony.

Bernadette Hall, the editor of The Judas Tree, notes that another of Laura Staveley Anker’s WW1 poems, Ellen’s Vigil, arises from a time when as:

“…a very small child, she lived for a time with her grandmother, Ellen. This poem arises from her wartime memories of her grandmother’s grief stricken household.  This is the most frequently published of Lorna’s poems. It was included in Lauris Edmond’s 1986 collection of prose and poetry ‘Women in Wartime’ … A copy of the poem lies in the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in front of the National War Memorial in Wellington.”

You can read Ellen’s Vigil here.

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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here.

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

~ Aristotle, 384-322 BC

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When I saw this quote recently, I thought how perfectly it expressed my understanding of art and creativity.

Perhaps the most apt analogy from writing is found in Japanese haiku poetry. Although based in concrete observation of the real, the haiku should nonetheless add up to a whole that is greater than the sum of its constituent parts—what is sometimes referred to as the ‘a-ha!’ moment when, to return to Aristotle, the reader realises that inner significance that is more than the concrete elements (usually in nature) that are being described.

Also something to reflect on, given on our age of incessant ‘chatter’ (what Herman Hesse, in his novel, The Glass Bead Game referred to as The Age of Feuilleism, which is now even ‘more so’ with social media) — Aristotle’s reflection on art was made almost two and a half millennia ago and is still just as relevant today.

Entry to Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden

When I posted my first road trip photos on Friday, Paul (Weimer) commented on how much he loves the Chinese Scholar’s Garden tradition — so here, if only just for Paul 😉 , are a  few more photos from the Dunedin garden that was established to commemorate the contribution of Chinese immigrants to the history of the province, both during the Gold Rush period and through to the present day.

Much the same could be said about the whole of New Zealand and it has been good to see the Chinese strand of our history increasingly recognised in mainstream literature over recent years.

Falling water over rocks brought all the way from China.

In my Waitangi Day post I mentioned:

Alison Wong’s historical novel As The Earth Turns Silver (Penguin, 2009)

Chris Tse’s How To Be Dead In A Year Of Snakes (Auckland University Press, 2014)

In previous year’s I have mentioned Kelly Ana Moray’s Bloom (Penguin, 2003), which explores the intertwined stories of Maori, Chinese, and European characters.

Other recent publications include Maxine Alterio’s Ribbons of Grace (Penguin 2007), set in Arrowtown during the heyday of the 1860s gold rush era.

NZEF Trooper 203453

He was born at Longton Avenue
in London
not far from Crystal Palace

High tea on Sunday evenings
with the mater and the pater
then minor public school

Gallipoli washed away all that –
carnage at Chunuk Bair
flyblown corpses in the sun

His number was not up:
a shrapnel wound and fever
saved his life

Rehabilitation came
land impossible to farm
near the Bridge to Nowhere

The Depression brought ruin
too old to fight
in a second war

Crumbling health
memories of friends
long dead

His ashes cast
on the cleansing waters
of a mountain stream

In Aotearoa
on Taranaki Mountain
not far from Dawson’s Falls
.

© Leigh Vickridge, 2008

Published in The Christchurch Press, 23 April 2008

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April 25 is ANZAC Day—ANZAC standing for the Australia New Zealand Army Corps—and today marks the hundredth anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli:

“Gallipoli washed away all that –
carnage at Chunuk Bair
flyblown corpses in the sun”

I first posted this poem in 2011, but re-post it again today, both because it addresses the Gallipoli experience, but also, as I said in 2011: “The poem has an elegaic quality that I always feel “speaks” quite profoundly to the ANZAC experience.”

To read other poems that speak to the ANZAC experience, click on:

Ellen’s Vigil by Lorna Staveley Anker

Ellen’s Vigil is inscribed in NZ’s national memorial to the Unknown Soldier. I featured it as part of my 2013 war poetry series:

“Benjamin……..Isaac…….Tom
Passchendaele…..Ypres…and Somme
…………….three ovals float
…………….on the cold wall
plastered whiter
………………………………..than their bones…”

Also:

Lijssenthoek by Joanna Preston

Entry to Dunedin’s Chinese Scholar’s Garden

So yesterday I told you that, “I’ve just been on a busman’s holiday, masquerading as a road trip…”

“Waddya mean, a busman’s holiday?” you may well ask. “And why a road trip, anywayz?”

Well, as I hope yesterday’s post proved, road trips are traditional for those with aspirations to live a life littéraire.

Also, I had promised myself one when this last round of editorial tweaks was done, so as soon as they were done I was awa’, awa’… But—and here’s where the busman’s holiday part comes in—I also wanted to check out potential locales for a few new story ideas I’ve had kicking around for a while.

St Clair beach, Dunedin

“But,” you may cry, horrified, “you haven’t finished the WALL series yet. You’ve still got a whole book yet to write!”

Indeed I have—and fear not, a little location scouting doesna mean that any other story shall be muscling its way in ahead of WALL4.

But as you’ve no doubt detected, story wrangling is a business that takes me some time to bring to fruition. So checking out potential locales now is a sound basis for the sort of mulling that may result in pen being set to paper some time hence.

St Clair again, with a little bit of ‘wild’ in the ‘south’

In the meantime, though, it’s fun taking a few (OK, quite a few!) pics and jotting down some initial ideas to go with them.

And as promised, I’ve included a few of the pics with this post, just because… 🙂

I’ve just been on a busman’s holiday, masquerading as a road trip…

Possibly two of the most famous literary expositions of the road trip are Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (1957) which the New York Times described (contemporarily) as:

“…the most beautifully executed, the clearest and the most important utterance yet made by the generation Kerouac himself named years ago as ‘beat,’ and whose principal avatar he is.”

The second that immediately springs to mind, for me, is the Japanese poet, Matsuo Bassho’s Oko no Hosomichi: in English, The Narrow Road To the Deep North. The journey is composed of haibun, a prose poem form that is always illustrated by and/or juxtaposed with haiku. According to the 1966 Penguin edition, it is considered “one of the major texts of classical Japanese literature.”

But as soon as I began writing, I immediately remembered another personal favourite, Xenophon’s Anabasis (translated as The March Upcountry), which US writer Will Durant (1885-1981) described as “one of the great adventures in human history.” Xenophon was a 5th century BC Athenian soldier and writer whose Anabasis records the famous march of 10,000 Greek mercenaries—once the Persian prince who hired them (Cyrus the Younger) died in battle—from the heart of the Persian empire, i.e. through hostile territory, to the coast where they could take (er, extort) passage home.

Yet another personal favourite is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879.) I used to own a beautiful, A4 scale, illustrated edition of this book but lost it somewhere in the course of my own travels — but it’s a wonderful record of a cross country trek (with Modestine, the eponymous donkey) that has remained enduringly popular.

Last but not least, I also possess a battered edition of Laurie Lee’s As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969), a fascinating account of his journey through Spain on the eve of the 1930’s civil war. He leaves as the war breaks out, evacuated with other British citizens on a destroyer sent from Gibraltar:

“All I’d known in that country – or had felt without knowing it – seemed to come upon me then; lost now, and too late to have any meaning, my twelve months’ journey gone. Spain drifted away from me, thunder-bright on the horizon, and I left it there beneath its copper clouds.”

All wonderful accounts, and wonderfully written, from Xenophon in the 5th century BC through to Lee’s 20th century narrative.

My own brief trip is by no means of the same order, but I shall be posting a few photos and accompanying words from time to time over the next week.

Sir Julius Vogel Award

On April 5, Rebecca won the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Fan Writing, for a body of work that includes her Big Worlds On Small Screens column here, regular posts on her own blog and SFF reviews on Fantasy Literature.com.

So I decided to postpone Rebecca’s review of Sound of My Voice in favour of the opportunity to respond to her award win — and here she is!

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Rebecca Fisher On Her Sir Julius Vogel Award Win For Best Fan Writing

When Helen asked for my permission to nominate me for the Sir Julius Vogel Award for best Fan Writing, my first reaction was simply: “why not?” Though I was familiar with the awards, at the time I was not even 100% sure what the term “fan writing” actually meant.

I’ve been writing Big Worlds on Small Screens for almost two years now, and reviewing and interviewing for Fantasy Literature since 2008. My personal blog, “They’re All Fictional”, has been active for a year, and my LiveJournal since 2009, two forums in which I informally write about anything that takes my fancy: films, books, television shows, theatre productions, usually in the format of reviews and meta. This, as my preliminary research told me, was what encompassed “fan writing”.

I write and post such things for one straightforward reason: because I enjoy doing it. Whether you’re predominantly a film-lover or a book-lover or a theatre-lover it all comes down to a love of stories, and there are millions of individuals out there whose social media platforms revolve around discussing, exploring, critiquing, supplementing and analysing these stories in whatever form they may take.

Such discourse can result in all kinds of things, from obtaining further insight into a piece of work, to honing your own writing skills by examining the strengths and weaknesses of someone else’s, to (most importantly) being exposed to new material that you might not have otherwise discovered.

That an award for “Fan Writing” even exists is a validation of on-line communities that devote themselves to discussing the stories that exist all around us, and as such it’s simultaneously humbling and gratifying to win an award for doing something that I love.

I’m very honoured to have been included in this year’s shortlist of nominees, and would especially like to thank Helen for her nomination, June Young for guiding me through the process, and of course everyone out there who voted for my hobby!

~ Rebecca

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About Rebecca:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Today I am the guest editor on The Tuesday Poem Hub, featuring The quiet life at Glenfinnan: 1877, Runs 458/ 468 by fellow Christchurch poet, Robynanne Milford.
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“By the East Matukituki in a shieling picket fenced with currants
gooseberries, oats and ducks, Mrs MacPherson, her heirlings, and
Forty walls of deadfall water incessant cascade drowning
lip-sound. Inside and out avalanching ice, thousand-foot roars
into cauldron scoured, reverberates unseen Duncan’s gone on
government work rumbles round and round…”
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To read the poem in full, click on:

The quiet life at Glenfinnan: 1877, Runs 458/ 468

You’ll also see that the poem is taken from Robynanne’s new collection, Aspiring Light (Pukeko Publications) that was launched last Sunday, 19 April. If you love poetry, social history, or the Wanaka region of Otago, I suspect it may be well worth your while seeking out.

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To read the other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, check out the blog roll in the Hub’s left hand sidebar once you’ve read The quiet life at Glenfinnan.