On Tuesday, the seventh letter in the series was posted, (open The Shoe Box to read the letters so far) but Jude has only had two. Readers have seen a lot of Ella-Louise and can glimpse into the darkness that is her past. Jude, on the other hand, is a mystery. Ostensibly, he is the character I am writing as he responds to the letters of his best friend of 20 years ago, Ella-Louise Wilson.

The premise of the project is the exploring the relationship between two old friends who shared a very close friendship, reconnecting after 20 years. But what do you say to someone after 20 years of silence once the ennui and minutiae have been covered?

Initially Jude is reluctant to reveal his present situation to Ella-Louise, for fear of offending her. Even as Ella-Louise opens up about what has happened to her, Jude remains closed, reticent to confront the collision of the past and the present.

The intensity of their friendship and its sudden dissolution left many unanswered questions for both of them. In Jude’s mind it is safer to reconnect through shared memories of events that were significant, from Ella-Louise’s arrival in Piper’s Reach to skinny-dipping and sneaking a glance, to the Year 12 Formal and after party.

Jude is an “everyman,” yet more than that. In the initial exchange of letters, I feared Jude had nothing to say in comparison to Ella-Louise’s revelations of the darkness of her life. It felt too light (emotionally, spiritually, relationally) but he could not see the balance he was to Ella-Louise.

In the present Jude remembers Ella-Louise as she was in the past and the relationship they shared. He loved Ella-Louise but something held him back. The strong nostalgic sentimentality prevents him from fully understanding of how Ella-Louise has changed, and from understanding her intentions (which may or may not be clear).

But I am writing his letters some months later and a lot has changed. What I am looking at now is Jude’s emotional capacity. Was he emotionally naive in high school to be able to cope with what Ella-Louise was going through? Is he emotionally unready to deal with it now? Is it the cause of his inability to share?

The reader is about to embark on a very intense emotional journey with both characters in the coming weeks, almost voyeuristic in the intimate details shared, in particular by Jude. He is enamoured by nostalgia and in his letters  recounts in vivid detail the moments he remembers sharing with Ella-Louise; what he did do, what he didn’t do and what he wished he did.

There are lots of questions, as there are revelations.

Jack presented his left forearm and unwrapped the bloody tea towel.

“That’s a nasty cut. Come on through.” The nurse pressed the door button and Jack heard a buzz and a click to his left. Leaning over his wife kissed his cheek.

“I’ll take the boys to the cafeteria. Keep them out from underfoot.”

Making his way through the heavy doors, Jack followed the nurse to a small room and sat in the seat he was directed to.

“The doctor will be with you shortly.”

Jack stared at his arm resting on the arm of the chair, the towel loosely reapplied. He thought back to his eldest son’s bicycle accident two years ago and the chunked up mess of his knee. It required eight stitches and the extraction of five pieces of gravel.

His son was chuffed knowing there would be a cool scar, once the tears had subsided and jellybeans were offered.

Where the skin had grazed, shredded by the coarse gravel to form scabs, fascinated Jack. It reminded him of his youth and his own grazes, scratches and stitches. As a boy he imagined scabs were rough foundations of igneous rock, blood like lava pouring through the wound, cooling and hardening in the dry atmosphere outside the skin.

He would wait a few days to pick at the edges, exposing the new pink, puckered flesh beneath. Pick too early and it simply bled again. Sometimes he did it to prolong the healing process and give him more scabs to pick at.

Playing “volcanoes” he squeezed the scabs and watched the blood rise through new cracks. It was a bonus when pus splurted out. Dabbing with a tissue he squeezed again until the wound rinsed itself with blood.

If caught picking, his mother insisted on applying a Band Aid to stop him. Later in the bath, Jack soaked the Band Aid off, his downy hair providing little resistance. Later in life, he grimaced as he pulled at the edges, lifting the hairs with the intensity of tiny pinpricks, before ripping it off hastily.

“If you keep picking at it,’ his mother scolded, “It won’t get better.”

He always picked and it always healed.

“What do we have here?” said the doctor, the snap of rubber gloves sharp in Jack’s ears.

“I was cutting some of the low branches down the backyard with the bush saw. I had my hands above my head, cutting through the branch. Thought I had the weight but it was heavier than I thought. Don’t know if it was the edge of the branch or the blade or both that hit me.”

“Let’s take a look.”

Peeling away the tea towel the doctor examined the gash on Jack’s arm, prodding gently with his fingers. “Let’s get that cleaned up. About five or six stitches as it’s pretty deep and jagged.”

As the doctor prepped to suture his arm, Jack watched mentally from a distance and remembered the nicks, scrapes, grazes and cuts of childhood and adolescence. All healed with time, as the skin rejuvenated leaving no trace of the injury.

His father’s sharp words of disappointment and criticism directed towards seven-year-old Jack, echoed in his mind, “Look what you’ve done to yourself. And ruined your good trousers.” Thirty years since the event and five years after his passing the words retained their sharpness.

The playground mantra “stick and stones will break my bones…” formed on his lips but he wavered and did not complete the line, knowing the ironic absurdity of its meaning. Unseen wounds that never healed despite not picking at them.

Jack winced as the needle was pushed into his flesh beneath the surface. He felt the push of the anaesthetic and tensed in anticipation of the second injection.

It was always with words. Some grazed and stung, others struck deeper, lacerating and eviscerating. Even when words were withheld they struck with the biting sting of hot bath water on a fresh graze until the wound acclimatised.

“Can you feel anything?” asked the doctor.

Jack looked down to see the point of a needle pressing against the wound and shook his head.

“Won’t take much longer.”

The needle entered the skin and Jack sensed rather than felt the slight tug of the black thread as it trailed behind the needle. The beginning of the healing process, drawing the sides of the open wound together, forcing two old friends who became enemies to reconcile their differences and embrace, forgiving the hurt and the pain. With time the rift would close leaving a faint raised line of hardened tissue.

He made every effort to choose his words carefully with his boys, to avoid careless words. Silence was another danger he recognised, not in the words withheld to manipulate, but words not spoken lest he cause damage.

From time to time his wife interjected, “You sound like your father,” when he failed in his best intentions and the wound tore open. It was said at his request to help him, not to criticise.

“There you are, all done,” said the doctor as he peeled off the surgical gloves.

Six black knots tied the edges of his skin. It reminded him of spider webs in the tensile strength of something so light holding together the strength of his skin.

“I’ll put a water-proof bandage on it so you can shower. When was the last time you had a tetanus booster?”

Jack shrugged.

“I’ll give you another because of the saw blade.”

“Bloody tetanus shot hurts worse than getting stitches,” said Jack.

“True. I’ll send the nurse in for the shot. See your local doctor in about a week to have the stitches removed.”

Waiting for the nurse, Jack was left with the silence of the room as the bustle of the hospital moved passed the door in pedestrian fashion, desperate to see his wife and sons.

He spotted his wife and boys in the cafeteria, the detritus of a small feast laid out: an empty chip packet, crumpled muffin wrapper and two empty juice bottles. Kissing his wife on the cheek, he trailed his hand across her back as he crouched down between his boys, an arm on the back of each chair.

“How many stitches, Dad?”

“Six.”

“Can we see?”

“Not today. When I change the dressing I’ll let you look. Hey boys, I love you.”

“Love you too, Dad.”

Two heads buried themselves into Jack’s shoulders before returning to vacuuming the leftover crumbs from the table.

2. You cannot name a single new song on the radio, but you can know all the words to The Wiggles and Hi-5

3. Silence is when you get to go the toilet without being interrupted

4. “Legato” is not a musical term, but a means of finding pieces of Lego lost in the carpet in the middle of the night with your toes. They wedge themselves in-between your big toe and second toe, sharp edge first

5. You make a sandwich for your spouse, cut the crusts off and cut it into 4 small triangles

6. Quality time with your spouse is having a cup of tea or coffee and it doesn’t get cold and require reheating

7. You’re helping with their mathematics homework and you forget 2+2=4

8. Nudey runs from the bathroom (by you) are becoming a source of amusement and embarrassment (for your children)

9. “Bum” is still considered a rude word and is said with subtle sniggering

10. You look at their toys and wonder if any of them will ever become collectibles so you can turn a profit when they turn 21

Add your own ideas to the comments below.

They were seemingly random selections taken from my memory or from play lists on my computer. Despite the diversity of genres and the different eras of music represented, each song has an emotional connection to me. Nothing world shattering or significant but a connection to the groove, the lyrics or the overall feeling of the song.

I love my music and play drums (not a bad level of playing suckage). I listen to a broad range of genres (rock, pop, jazz, whatever), but particularly like heavy metal. Engaging with the music I listen to, there is an emotional or spiritual connection with the music.

Let me talk drums for a minute. The essence of drumming is rhythm and the focus of rhythm is the pulse.  The earliest pulse we hear, but more accurately feel, is the pulse of the human heartbeat within the womb. 

Drumming is physical, spiritual, ethereal, primeval, tribal, conscious, unconscious and subconscious.  It moves your feet and taps your hands.  It provides a rhythm for the cycles of everyday living.  Relaxes the soul and hastens the heart. Drumming is sensual and visceral.

Drumming drives the rhythm.  Even in the absence of a played drum groove, the beat and rhythm are implied. Time can waver, become loose or tight depending on the emotional moment, but the pulse is never lost. 

There is a spiritual element to drumming and rhythm.  The pulse and the heartbeat of music is the driving force.  The pulse and heartbeat of rhythm can be found in the cycles of life; from the measured ritual of a cup of tea to the flow and movement of words across the page. 

As a musician, alright a drummer, I want people to engage with the music. As a writer I want the reader to engage with the words I have written, to find an emotional connection, a similar spiritual experience.

When writing I use music as a background soundtrack to either create a mood, a head space for writing or to suit the mood of the scene I’m writing. Some writers prefer the sound of silence when writing while others prefer a specific genre, band or song to help create the mood or atmosphere. Of late I have preferred instrumental music (sleepmakeswaves, Steve Lawson, Meniscus).

In Post Marked: Piper’s Reach, my character Jude, uses music as a reflection on his head space, or as a link to the past with Ella-Louise. If the reader is familiar with the music referenced, it creates a connection between the reader and the character whereby the reader is able to inhabit a similar emotional space because of the music.

Music is a conduit between the reader and the text; a pathetic fallacy to represent a character’s emotional or mental state, a reflection on their culture or the zeitgeist, or just because they’re really hip and are listening to bands you’ve never heard of. It’s another tool to draw your reader into the world of the narrative. In the novel I’m working on the main characters, both of whom play an instrument, music creates another level of characterisation.

I could fill post after post of music and musicians that inspire me, but here are a few that have inspired me of late.

Imogen Heap – Just for Now I love this song because of the live looping Imogen performs. Brilliant.

Steve Lawson - Don’t Stop Believin’ 

Steve is a solo bass player who loops his instrument live. I often use his music as the background music when writing. Beautiful atmospheric and melodic playing.

Meniscus and sleepmakeswaves – Two Sydney (my home town) based post-rock instrumental bands. Brilliant live acts and wonderfully complex music. Never far off rotation on my player when writing.

A couple of other Aussie artists worth checking out: Andrew Drummond, Helen Perris, Emmy Bryce, Lissa, Telefonica. I’m pushing my hometown here, and if I could get my best mate, Steve, to hurry up and finish his album I’d promote it here, too.

I’ll have another post where I go \m/ >.< \m/ heavy metal crazy.

What music do you listen to when you write?

It is a useful diagnostic tool but the problem lies with its disconnection with the current English syllabus. The incoming National Curriculum addresses some of the issues by having a focus on traditional aspects of literacy – spelling, reading and writing.

However, the breadth of the English syllabus (especially in high school) means I cannot give adequate time to developing these skills. I have to assess the modes of reading, writing, speaking, listening and representing.

Representing will disappear from the new National Curriculum, but it requires students to present written material in a new form, often visual (poster, website, advertisement). It requires learning a new form of literacy: digital literacy.

A New Language

In our visually saturated society, we have to learn to read the information presented to us in the form of advertisements, web pages, comics, films, television shows, street signs, text messaging, multimedia. We have to learn to read colour, form, shape, camera angles and techniques, line, placement, design concepts in order that we may read the message correctly. I teach film to students, teaching them to read a film in the same way I teach them to read a novel, play or poem.

Today’s students are well versed in digital literacy but I do not think they have learned to read it well because their fundamental understanding of traditional literacy is weak.

Technology is touted as the way of the future for education and pedagogical delivery. It will revolutionise the way teaching is delivered but it will not change the core business of teaching.

A tension exists between the need for traditional literacy (in the form of novels, plays, poems, short stories) and digital literacy (television, film, web and other visual texts). Digital literacy may promote greater student engagement, but what are the essential platforms required for student understanding?

Students are adept at using technology to create. It is quick, easy to use and they are capable of producing fantastic products. They often know more about the programs and technology than I do. However, their ability to articulate their ideas in written form is lacking. I sincerely believe a student will create a better digital product like a film, if they are able to clearly, and with a developing sophistication, express their ideas in writing.

Students are quick to brainstorm their ideas and begin creating a product quickly. The brainstorming phase is essential to develop ideas, but students neglect or ignore the editing and refining phase. This is where a good idea becomes fantastic.

The fluidity of modern language, expressed for example, in text messaging, needs to be balanced with an understanding of formal levels of language usage. Technology may shift the focus from traditional methods of print to laptops, e-readers, tablets and i-devices, yet underpinning the reading experience is an understanding of traditional literacy. Using technology for the sake of engagement (kids like things to be ‘fun’) is not teaching our children to read properly. It assumes students have a good knowledge of digital literacy. They don’t. They need to be taught digital literacy as well as traditional literacy.

Throwing this out there: traditional literacy v digital literacy. Which promotes greater critical thinking? Books or multimedia, both or neither? Does it come down to the person teaching you to think and to learn?

For Writers

As writers, we need to understand and maintain high levels of traditional literacy and be conversant with the language of digital literacy. We may not be screen writers for film or television, but we can endow our novels with an understanding of our audience and open up greater possibilities for new multimedia products.

It’s an emphatic, declarative statement.

There is an assumption that the innate talent inherent in a person to be a writer is woven into their molecular structure. It is used to differentiate between those who can write and those who cannot.

The intention behind the statement is that a writer knows, without a doubt, writing is their passion, their career, their life. They cannot see any other path than being a writer.

You know the person; they are the ones who say, “I’ve always written. I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t writing” or “I’ve been writing since I could hold a pencil.” They then proceed to show you their scribblings in a scrap book from when they were three years old. Or worse, whip out their ipad and show you their blog.

You avoid them at dinner parties like you avoid the asparagus entree. I’m not one of them but I have aspired to write for many years. Looking back I can see an interest in writing (letters, stories, journals) yet it has only been in the last 3 years that I have actively pursued writing.

But I want to deconstruct this statement a little.

Each person understands there is a distinctive purpose to their life. Usually this distinctive purpose or passion is revealed in an occupation. We identify ourselves by the things that we are passionate about.

The other manifestation is an interest or hobby. This extends to volunteer work, art or music, community groups, religious fraternities, sports clubs and associations.

In terms of careers and occupations, if you were to speak with a representative, I posit many of them would feel they were “born” into their occupation or interest.

I completed high school without a clear direction of what I wanted to do as a career. I went to university and completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and History, the subjects I enjoyed most at school. At the end of my Arts degree the question was asked, “What next?”

The societal assumption was to become a teacher. I enrolled in the Master of Teaching course and within the first week, I knew this was my career.

Was I born into it? I don’t think so. I have a natural inclination for teaching and working with people. “Born” becomes a substitionary word for a person’s natural personality and character traits which helps them understand the career path they have chosen.

You could rewrite this statement, substituting “writer” for the career of your choice.

Is a writer ‘made’?

A writer is born, not made.

Imagine a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters. Now imagine the noise and the poo being thrown. No work being done there. The opposable thumb allows us to grasp a pen with ease, but being born with it doesn’t make us a writer or chef, nurse, landscape designer or rocket surgeon.

The statement seems to be made by writers to distinguish themselves from new and emerging writers. It is said in a slightly disdainful way.

If our natural inclination manifests in a passion to pursue a specific career, can we change the definition of “made?”

My passion is to teach and to write, thus being ‘born’ with it. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I still had to be taught to become one. I still undergo professional development to improve my knowledge and understanding of pedagogy and teaching methods.

A writer is born. But a writer is also taught.

The cornerstone of developing and maturing as a writer is education, formal and informal. Education is about the application of knowledge in order to make our words the best they can be.

Ways of improving your education as a writer:

• get a mentor
• read articles on the art and craft of writing
  
• find a writing partner
• sub to competitions or participate in online writing communities
  
• be a beta reader for someone
  

A new and emerging writer is an apprentice writer, one who is learning the art and craft of writing. I’ll be exploring this in a blog post on Write Anything later in the month.

Final Thoughts

I don’t believe a writer is born, any more than a teacher, nurse or chef is born. We are taught.

What do you think?

Here are 10 signs your child is destined to be a writer (hopefully without the social mores of Hunter S. Thompson).

1. The first gift they ask for is Roget’s Thesaurus and a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary (the 20 volume hardback edition, including supplementary volumes).

2. On their birthday they receive a card and gift certificate from their local bookstore AND local stationery supply store.

3. At bed time they don’t ask for a bed-time story; they ask you to read from Roget’s Thesaurus and the Oxford English Dictionary.

4. Your child categorically states, “a red pen is not for marking, it’s for editing.”

5. Your child is editing the work of other students. In kindergarten. For a fee (usually biscuits or first turn with the toys).

6. Your child has memorised the Associated Press Style Guide.

7. Your child no longer refers to you as “mother” or “father.” Instead you are referred to as “agent” or “publisher.”

8. You spend more money on printer ink cartridges and stationery than clothes for your child. You’ve even considered buying stocks in companies producing printer ink cartridges and paper manufacturers.

9. Last week’s family argument suddenly appears in the latest edition (completely fictitious, mind you, so they say) of their weekly web serial, “Stress Family Robinson.”

10. Your child edits the family Christmas letter and sends it back to you for revisions.

It’s a weird situation re-reading the early letters, knowing what revelations and intimate details lie ahead in the coming weeks. Yet their future is uncertain and unknown. I am about to sit down and read Ella-Louise’s 8th letter before writing Jude’s response.

We’ve maintained our strict “no spoilers” policy which has made for entertaining reading and frustrating writing.

I have come to love Jude and Ella-Louise as characters. In the initial letters there is a hesitancy, an uncertainty of themselves and of each other. Ella-Louise reaches out from the past, interrupting Jude’s acceptance of it and questioning who and what he was back then. Jude saw Ella-Louise from one perspective when they were growing up but is forced to confront it by reliving the significant events.

They remember different events, different versions or perceptions of shared moments. As the letters continue Ella-Louise and Jude offer the reader an intimate insight into their lives and their memories.

See if you can spot the continuity error in Jude’s letter today; you will need to re-read Ella-Louise’s last letter. Jodi and I like to think of it as two characters remembering different aspects of the past. As a writer, I cringe at the mistake. However, it lends an authenticity to the writing of Jude and Ella-Louise.

At the conclusion of the letters, I would love to compile them as an ebook. There’s something quite ironic about archiving a story written in letters as a digital footprint. But I love the contradiction.

In the meantime, their letters are being collected in The Shoe Box for you to read.

1. We believe we have a capricious muse who wanders in (rarely) and out of our head space (often at the worst possible time). We curse him or her or it (can’t be genderist) when we can’t write and praise and worship when the words flow with the viscosity and taste of honey. We are kidding ourselves when we say, “I couldn’t write today because my Muse was off at the day spa and didn’t invite me.”

2. We invent characters loosely based on the our own fears and misgivings, but make them thinly veiled caricatures of people we know (yes, you have irritated us once too often, so we made you into a character who dies a slow death by having your buttocks scrubbed with sand paper and washed with lemon juice).

3. We eavesdrop on every conversation, squirrelling away choice bits of dialogue, character traits and personality tics. Whenever the family gets together our brains melt with all the juicy tidbits. On Christmas Day we experience the high of a sugar junkie.

4. We haunt twitter and facebook and any other avenue of social media to pimp our wares. Support for one another is important, but we end up feeding the circle creating narcissistic, preening believers of our own onanism, making us grow extra digits, and probably another head. Look beyond the immediate circle and seek an audience. Do something that doesn’t involve writing.

5. We believe our ego has the tensile strength of an egg shell. And I’ve seen a raw egg thrown a fair distance only to bounce and not break. If you can handle being popped out a sphincter with no harm done, you can handle a bit of criticism and rejection. Go and play in the dirt like chickens. It builds character.

6. We can teach glaciers a thing or two about procrastination. Apply a blowtorch to the things that have frozen up, and liberally spray WD-40 as if it were a can of Lynx deodorant body spray and create your own climate change. Get it done!

7. We believe we hold the monopoly of ideas creation and generation (along with artists and musicians). Psst… look at the business world, corporate strategy, management, child care, education, health care. They have some bloody good ideas. Now, go outside and play, and learn from other areas of life.

8. We arbitrarily create rules for writing. And then change them because we anticipate the ad break to allow us to void our bladder. Rules are cultural, aesthetic and social constructs of ‘taste’ when it comes to writing. I will use adverbs summarily. Simply write to your purpose and function, not ideas of fashion and taste.

9. We complain, whinge, tweet, start flame wars, and troll about the publishing industry because it’s in a state of flux and we are afraid of the changes. When the dust settles, publishing will still be there. It will look different, but there will still be avenues to publish, even if we have to invent it.

10. We believe reading, and our words,  is important and therefore require recompense. We do not have a right to make money from our art. It’s a privilege. Even if we don’t get paid, let’s use our words to reflect, question, entertain, amuse, horrify, and challenge, even in the one story.

In a little over 2 years I have had my first 2 stories published (the Literary Mix Tapes anthologies, Nothing But Flowers and Eighty-Nine) and had 3 pieces of flash fiction picked up by Ether Books.

And recently I signed on as part of the team of Write Anything, submitting blog posts twice a month.

This is all really cool and a great way to expand and improve my writing skills, and as an emerging writer, I am becoming acutely aware of my strengths and weaknesses.

To help me in the early stages, I must acknowledge the help of a wonderful group of beta readers who helped shape stories, narratives and ideas: Jodi Cleghorn (@JodiCleghorn), IcySedgwick (@icypop), Jason Coggins (@JaseCee) and Laura Meyer (L_Meyer). I know I have forgotten others and I apologise for the omission.

I am very thankful for the opportunities I have been given through different avenues and now it is time to return the favour.

Do you need a beta reader?

I want to develop and depth my skills in beta reading. If you are an emerging writer and want to take your work to the next level, I am offering my services as a beta reader. As others have helped me, I want to extend help to others on the journey.

Am I the right reader for you?

I write contemporary fiction/suburban realism and YA with a literary bent. I read fantasy and sci-fi, genre. However I am not a horror or writer or reader, but that might help. If I’m scared, you’ve achieved your goal. The same applies to romance.

I have limited time and will take on what I can around my own projects. If I cannot fit you in, I will let you know. At this stage, the offer is for flash fiction or short stories, not novel manuscripts.

Send me a message if you’re interested.