sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

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There’s been lots of mirth at my house tonight as the Murphlets (my offspring) see me enact new control techniques I learnt today. See, in my day job I’m a teacher, and I have spent today (as well as a day last week and another set for next week) learning classroom management strategies. Some of these are things I’ve known and used for years, others are new, but either way I have come home full of these strategies and ready to try them out. So the Murphlets have been privy to the stare, the minimal verbal command, the gesture, and even the square-off. They’re on to me and know I’m trying out new techniques – so there has been lots of laughter – but at the same time every time I have tried one of these techniques I have reinforced the things I learnt today – and it’s been fun.
You see, whenever we are taught something, we are certain to retain only a portion of what we learn.  But research (and common sense) shows that the sooner we put that learning to use into practise, the more we will retain. So, home from a day of Professional Development (PD), I’ve been busily using those skills so that they stay with me.
Why am I telling you this? Because, if you’re a writer, or an aspiring writer, chances are you are regularly learning new skills – through reading blogs like this one, or attending writing workshops, or reading books on writing. But are you using those skills? All of them? Online especially it is really easy to click on links and read blogs and articles and writing advice. And when you read them you probably nod in agreement or have lightbulb moments when you think “ahhh – THAT is what I need to try.” But do you then sit down and put those things into action? Do you actually write after you read? I know I don’t always do it. Sometimes I think will use the skills  later, but other times, if I’m really honest, I am quite happy to just keep clicking and reading because I can pretend to myself that I’m learning when what I’m really doing is avoiding a deadline, or even avoiding facing the fact that I’m not writing.
Having admitted this so publicly, next time I learn a new writing skill, I’m going to attempt to use it straight away. Because I need to keep expanding my skills base in writing as much as in teaching – maybe more. What about you?

https://sallymurphy.com.au/2011/05/103/

Why I Write Sad Stories

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I was asked recently why I only write sad books. I was quite taken aback by this question, because I don’t think of myself as someone who writes sad books. But at the same time I knew where the asker was coming from. After all, this person may have read some of my more lighthearted stories in the past, but most recently she had read both Pearl Verses the World and Toppling, both of which deal with some pretty weighty issues.

While perhaps this person’s question stopped me in my tracks a little bit, it really isn’t unusual for me to be asked why I write stories that make people cry. Whenever I visit a school and talk about Pearl or Toppling, a child will ask a similar question – especially if they have not actually read the books. And there’s the crunch for me. If you haven’t read the books, you could well hear about them and think they are going to be overwhelmingly sad. After all, Pearl Verses the World deals with issues of dementia, death, and loneliness, whilst Toppling focuses on childhood cancer. These are not light topics, and when I wrote both of these stories I was really confronted with my own emotions surrounding these issues.

But I hope, I really hope, that when young readers read these books the overarching feeling they are left with by the end of each story is not one of sorrow or helplessness, but one of hope. Without giving too much of either story away (I do try hard to avoid spoilers to my books), both stories focus not on easy solutions to these problems, but on young characters finding hope, finding ways to deal with the tough stuff that arises in their lives.

I really strongly believe that kids need books that allow them to cry (if they feel the need to), that allow them to relate to harsh life experiences, to empathise or sympathise with characters of their own age as they go through tough stuff. But I also believe that they need to see that no matter how hard life is, there is always some glimmer of hope.

Does every book need to be sad/serious? No. Whilst I’m really proud of these two books, I am equally proud of my books about frogs that float and bears that sing, and kangaroos that pull Santa’s sleigh. Kids need all kinds of stories, and I’m grateful that I’m able to write them.

Strange Dinners – and the Lessons they Contain

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We had a bit of a strange dinner at our house tonight. My youngest had rugby training, so I didn’t get dinner started until 6.30, planning a simple meal of satay chicken and rice. I boiled the kettle, and got the rice on the stove, then went to dice the chicken. Blehhhhhhh. The chicken had a funny smell. It should have been fresh but it didn’t smell that way, and I don’t take chances with chicken. Straight into the bin went the chicken, and I was left with a pot of rice and no other meat in the fridge (it’s shopping day tomorrow).

I won’t bore with you the details of the umming and ahhing that ensued, but Murphlet 4 found two pizza bases in the freezer and offered to whip up pizzas. Meanwhile, I had enough ingredients to turn the rice into fried rice. Twenty minutes later and dinner was on the table – a choice of pizza, fried rice, or some of each. The Murphlets ate with gusto, and I must admit I quite enjoyed the rice, though I drew the line at combining it with pizza. But no one went hungry and I must admit that the kids didn’t seem to find the dinner as strange as I did. The team from MasterChef would have been horrified, but the Murphlets – teenage boys – were happy.

So, why am I sharing my story of culinary failure with you? Because, as I sipped a glass of red afterwards and wondered at the way a planned meal of satay chicken and rice, became the odd combination of fried rice and pizza – yet satisfied my audience of teenage boys. And I realised that this is just like writing. Sometimes you sit down to write a story, and you know what you want to write – the style, the twists and turns, the character development. It’s all there in your head, maybe even in your written plan, but as you write, something strange happens. The characters won’t behave, or the plot develops a mind of its own and heads off in direction you hadn’t foreseen. But, as you write, you see some hope, some new sense of direction. And, when you finish you realise you don’t have the story you set out to write, but in its place you have something equally satisfying – or even better. In effect you have turned satay chicken and rice into pizza and fried rice – and your young readers may well gobble it up.

So yes, satay chicken is delicious. But if your chicken smells funny, don’t risk salmonella poisoning. Throw the chicken out and try making fried rice. If your love story develops a vampire, go with it. If your feisty heroine develops a foible, explore it. You just might end up with something better – and if not, well, you can always go get some takeaways – or some fresh chicken.

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Because I was kind of busy in January this year (moving house, caring for invalid husband, and so forth) I didn’t sit down and write a list of writing goals for the year. This is something I do every year, inspired several years ago by my writing buddy Lyn Uhlman who suggested that our online writing group KWDownUnder, set and share writing goals every year.

However, this year I’ve been busy and the writing of goals just didn’t seem so important. But the past couple of weeks I’ve been on holidays from my day job and had time to take a deep breath, and realised I wanted to set myself some new goals. I find that without goals, I get less done. Why? It’s simple really. Without a goal, the discipline of sitting at my desk and working becomes harder. When I do sit down I do a bit of this and a bit of that – a little writing, some answering of emails, maybe a little more writing, maybe checking of twitter, writing of a review, checking my Scrabble scores on facebook – you get the picture. At the end of my hour/half hour/two hours – whatever time I’ve devoted – I might feel briefly virtuous that I have ‘worked’ for that time – but when I stop and think about what I’ve achieved, I’m really not sure I’ve achieved anything.

With a goal, or a list of goals, it’s easier both to prioritise and to measure for myself what it is I’ve achieved.

So, I’m in the process of setting myself some new writing goals for the remainder of the year. Once I’ve done that I’ll break them down into smaller, shorter term goals. And I plan to print them out, stick them above my desk and look at them often.

Yes, when I have such a list I’ll still check my Twitter. Yes I’ll still blog and review and all of those other things – because they’re important to me. The difference is that when I’m clear about what I’m trying to achieve I work better towards achieving those goals. I (either consciously or not) prioritise the competing demands of my time and my attention in order to achieve those goals – and I reward myself with the distractions rather than allowing the distractions to come first. And I get a heck of a lot more done because I know what it is I’m trying to do.

So, to goal number one: sit down and clarify my goals.

https://sallymurphy.com.au/2011/05/106/

More Cheers

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What a week! Hot on the heels of the news of Toppling‘s shortlisting for the CBCA Book of the Year Awards, comes the equally exciting news that it has also been shortlisted for the YABBA Awards in the older readers category.

The YABBA Awards (YABBA stands for Young Australians’ Best Book Award) are an annual children’s choice awards, where kids across Victoria nominate their favourite books. Shortlisted Books are then read, discussed and voted for by young readers, with winners announced in November.

What an awesome feeling to know that young readers have nominated my book – and that even more young readers will be reading it. After all, these are the very people I write for, so their approval means the world.

Because this is a children’s choice award I thought perhaps champagne was inappropriate. So instead my bubbles are in the form of soda water. Cheers!

What’s in a Name Anyway?

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I’ve never been great with names. Not just with remembering them – though this is a very real problem for me – but also with making them up. This would be why I have several main characters called Marty – after all, having come up with one name for a slightly cheeky, but generally nice character, why not use it again, without remembering that I’ve used it before? And then there are titles – occasionally, just occasionally, they come easily to me – as with Pearl Verses the World, Toppling and my forthcoming picture book Head Hog (where the title came first and inspired the story) – but other times I agonise and test and try and the title just doesn’t come. And when an editor asks me to think about a new title – which can happen for a variety of reasons – I’m generally stumped.

So yes, I’m bad with names and titles. Which is why this blog has borne the fairly unoriginal name – Sally Murphy’s Writing for Children Blog. This was actually it’s second name, having initially been called Scribblings, which just didn’t fit – especially when one doesn’t actually scribble online. So I changed to Sally Murphy’s Writing for Children Blog. A mouthful, but at least anyone coming across it would figure that it was Sally Murphy’s blog, and that it was about Writing for Children. You’d think.

But the problem is, I don’t always blog about writing for children. My last couple of posts have been all about me. And there are lots of times when I think about blogging about something that takes my fancy but don’t because, I tell myself, it doesn’t fit in with a blog about writing for children. And so, after much deliberation (well, at least five minutes anyway), I’ve decided to change the blog’s name and let the posts take me where they will. I’ll still blog about writing for children, but I’ll also blog about other stuff too, as the mood takes me.

And the new name? You’ll see it above. What do you think?

sallymurphy.com.au