On finding joy in writing
and musings on head-hopping
I woke up today to a ten year old crawling into bed with me for a cuddle and some answers to his questions about geopolitics. We talked about China’s Four Pests campaign and Wai Chim’s Freedom Swimmer. I had a shower, and stepping into hot water on a cold morning felt utterly blissful. I went for a walk to get a coffee, and there were galahs and rainbow lorikeets in the trees.
Why the good mood, Lili?
Because I’m working on something new.
Something very new. It doesn’t have a contract. I haven’t talked to a publisher about it. There’s no deadline.
Right now, it’s just for me.
One of the things I find really hard to talk about (especially to emerging writers), is how the way you feel about writing changes when you become a professional author. It’s hard to express without sounding ungrateful or patronising. But there is a joy that you feel when you write something that’s just for you. When it’s not all tangled up in contracts and marketing and paying your bills and all the tedium of running a small business. I am so lucky to be able to make a living from my writing, and I am deeply grateful. But it can be hard to disentangle the joy of writing from all the other stuff.
I’m feeling the joy today, though. I have three manuscripts on other people’s desks. I have no freelancing work to do. I could do my taxes, but I’m not going to.
I’m going to play with this new thing, that’s (for now) just for me.
On POV and head-hopping
I went to hear my friend and colleague Kelly Gardiner talk the other night about Miss Caroline Bingley, Private Detective (co-authored with Sharmini Kumar), which I cannot wait to read. Kelly is wonderfully clever and thoughtful about language, and talked a bit about her love of head-hopping in fiction, especially when deployed for humour.
My next YA book has dual perspectives, which is a first for me. I enjoyed it very much, crafting the voices of two very different characters. The transitions are achieved structurally, with chapter breaks in between to make it very clear whose head we are in.
But swapping back and forth between characters on the fly—head hopping—is currently very out of fashion. However it used to be pretty common.
I’m currently reading Tamora Pierce’s Alanna with Banjo1, and have been surprised to see how often it is deployed. For example:
Alanna was quivering all over—like a nervous horse, she chided herself. She linked her hands behind her back before answering, “I believe so, your Grace.”
“Oh, please!” he protested. “Just ‘Lord Roger’ is fine, and I’d do away with that, if I didn’t think it would shock Duke Gareth. ‘Your Grace’ makes me feel old.’
Jonathan expected one of Alan’s pert answers and looked expectantly at his friend. To his surprise Alan looked thoughtful rather than charmed.
It feels genuinely jarring to read, now. If I came across this in a manuscript assessment, I’d recommend changing it. But when this book was published 32 years ago, it was perfectly acceptable. I’m not really sure what my point is here, except to say that writing has fashions and phases. Adverbs were verboten a decade or so ago, but they’re creeping back (in moderation). Probably head-hopping will come back, too.
Read
If you love a magical boarding school but hate TERFs, may I recommend The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. It’s told from the POV of a teacher, so there are risk assessment reports and complaints about the demon who has possessed the photocopier.
Raise
Elphaba crowed this morning. Sigh. Does anyone want a very beautiful rooster?
Play
For some reason I was craving Animal Crossing (I don’t know why, I associate it so strongly with the 2020 lockdowns), so I restarted my island and it turns out it’s just as addictive as ever.
Lili Wilkinson is the award-winning author of more than twenty books for young people, including A Hunger of Thorns, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, and was a CBCA Honour Book. Lili has a PhD from the University of Melbourne, and is a passionate advocate for YA and the young people who read it. Her latest books are Unhallowed Halls and the Bravepaw series.
It remains the actual best, in case anyone is wondering. Banjo is transfixed. WHERE IS MY TAMORA PIERCE PRESTIGE TV SHOW?