Gillian Pollack had the great idea of celebrating Women's History Month on her blog. Some of her writers stuck to the topic a bit better than I did, so have a look at the series. There is actually a link to history in mine, but since I'm not ready to share the new idea, you won't see it... Anyway, this is what was in my heart as I wrote.
gillpolack: Women's History Month: Wendy OrrMy first guest I met through another Wendy - Wendy Dunn - when Wendy Dunn invited us both to be guests at an online writing festival for schoolchildren. Jodie Foster had just been signed to appear in the film of her book, so I was prepared to be intimidated. Wendy Orr is not intimidating, it turns out. She is, however, exceptionally interesting.There ought to be a word for the time between finishing one manuscript and starting another. (I mean apart from ‘relief’ and ‘now I really do need to get around to all those other jobs I’ve been putting off for the last year’ – which may also be the best incentive for starting a new book.)
Of course each time is different, but this time sending off the fourth book in my upcoming Rainbow Street Animal Shelter series (for the in USA), coincided with the publication of
Raven’s Mountain, my new middle grade novel in Australia. (By the way, I hate the term middle grade novel: it always makes the book sound as if it got a C grade. Must get over that.) But the timing means that I’m determined to take a couple of weeks off, not just for catching up on fan mail and accountant queries, and the perennial post-deadline task of trying to find my desk, but for reflection. And not just reflection for the purposes of interviews on the new book – because honestly, who doesn’t enjoy insightful questions that help trace our pathway through a newly completed work? This writing hiatus is a time for true reflection, on why I write, and why I write what I do, and then that sudden gift of inspiration which makes everything else fade into the background, as I get the first glimpse of what I want to write next.
Well, that’s the theory, but in the middle of my tai chi class last week, I suddenly felt the beginnings of a new book. Since finishing the last proofs for Raven, last October, I’ve been playing with the idea of returning to a world that I’d created twenty years ago, when I first started writing and was still searching for my voice. I have no desire to go back to the mammoth adult manuscript that I wrote then, but the world itself is still alive for me. Travelling to India in November, for the Bookaroo Children’s Literature Festival, somehow confirmed my desire to return to this world, although I didn’t think it had much in common with the India that I saw. And then, in that dreamy tai chi state, I heard new questions about the main character, suggesting that she is totally unlike anything I had expected, and had an image of the story idea floating in soap bubbles above my head, fragile and iridescent. The image moved me to tears. (Luckily everyone else in my tai chi group is equally vague in the beginning, familiar sequences, so no one noticed that I was crying.)
The next day I saw what I thought was a small dragonfly hovering above our pond. The wings were exactly the same iridescent blue as my story idea bubbles, and I felt I had to take it as a sign. When a twitter follower identified the insect as a damselfly, I knew that it was.
On the other hand, the fragile insect flying off into the distance could also be a sign that it’s time to let Raven go. I’ve lived with her for two and a half years, and it’s hard to remember that I created her as well as her mountain and all that happens to her. She is so real to me it feels as cruel as letting a flesh and blood eleven year old out into the world alone. But perhaps that damsel
The talented Simmone Howell is hosting a series appropriately titled: Anatomy of Novel on her blog:
post-teen trauma: Anatomy of a Novel: Raven's MountainHere's my contribution for Raven's Mountain, which I put together using Polyvore, as Simmone suggested - a fun concept.
And in the next couple of days I'll get up some pictures of the launch, and blog about the Perth Writers Festival, which was amazing. Meanwhile...
Anatomy of a Novel: Raven's Mountain
1). The Fox and the Child: I saw this film when I was on about the sixth draft of Raven's Mountain, and the little girl reminded me very much of Raven, although she's prettier and a bit younger. She was red-haired, and though she's wandering alone in the mountains by choice, unlike Raven, she still faces the challenges of being out in the wilderness and interacting with nature. The first influence on Raven being a redhead is probably Anne of Green Gables, but the film represents my visual idea of Raven.
2) The Bear: Growing up in Canada means that bears are a background to any mountain hiking or camping, deeply embedded into the subconscious in a combination of fear and fascination. Our family mythology contained a few stories of close encounters with bears, including a home movie of baby me on a picnic rug... cut short as my father spotted the approaching bear and raced me to the car. Later, as a teenager, I was chilled to hear that a grizzly had taken someone from a tent not far from where my cousin and I had camped out in just sleeping bags. And yet I love to see them - at a safe distance, or in a film or documentary.
3) Snow White and Rose Red: Unlike most fairy tales, this one doesn't have a good and bad sister: they're simply very different: Snow White is blond and gentle; Rose Red is dark and lively. Raven sees her older sister Lily as a golden girl, and herself as the opposite. The fairy tale girls' mother is a widow, and once again, there's a bear... but it was the difference between the sisters that I was drawing on as the girls grew in my mind.
4)Pikes Peak Country: Climbing Pikes Peak with our dad, when we were ten and twelve, was highly significant to both my younger sister and me; there was obviously a tremendous sense of achievement, but it was so outside normal life that there was also a kind of 'otherworld' appeal. I'm not surprised it finally made its way into a story.
5) Mean Girls: I loved this movie; I felt it really captured a lot of those adolescent feelings that Raven is confused by as she sees her sister Lily changing from a caring big sister into a 'mean girl.' It also touches on the dislocation that Raven feels as she moves across the country into a totally different environment.
6) The Algonquin Legends of New England: I chose this because I couldn't get a cover image of Glooskap's Country, the collection of Algonquin legends I grew up wi
Join Wendy Orr, author of NIM’S ISLAND, for the launch of her new adventure novel
RAVEN’S MOUNTAIN
2:00, Saturday 26th February
at Robinsons Books, 3/11 Station St, Frankston
9783 6488
“A wonderful read.” Michelle Hamer, The AGE
“Raven is a great strong character, who is certainly a lot more resilient at the end of her few days in the wild.” (4 stars) Australian Bookseller & Publisher
A great action-adventure piece with a wonderful protagonist who is immensely likable. … It is a lovely lovely read. Paula Mazur, producer Nim’s Island
Well, what do you know! I just googled to see if I could find that quote for you, and though I didn't find it, discovered that Facing the Mountain was Commended, Best Books for Kids and Teens, Canadian Children's Book Centre, 2012. 
