PTSD in the ADF needs to be treated as a workplace injury

In a recent radio interview with David Curnow (listen here), he asked what could be done to help those who have served in the military deal with their psychological wounds.

My answer strayed onto the way the system makes it very difficult for those who are struggling to seek help.

The way it works is this:
1. If you report you are having psychological issues to the ADF you are often deemed unfit to deploy
2. If you don't deploy there is no place for you in the army

Now when I first heard about number 2, I couldn't believe it was right. But when I questioned the validity of the statement an army psychologist confirmed it was true.

I still grapple to understand how this can be the case. The ADF is a workplace, no? You acquire an injury (this time it happens to be psychological) at your workplace. Does it not count as a workplace injury?

According to the framework of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 (WIRC Act) which aims to help injured workers achieve an early return to work, employers like the ADF should:
– increase the provision of suitable employment to workers who are injured to enable their early return to work
– enhance flexibility in the system and allow for adaptation to the particular needs of disparate work situations
– provide a framework for the effective occupational rehabilitation of injured workers and their early return to work

I just don't see how the ADF is doing this. The headline of a recent article read,
ADF personnel seek PTSD treatment in secrecy to avoid 'career suicide', members say (read here)
It describes how people serving in the ADF are being forced to seek psychological assistance in secret so their careers aren't ruined. How can this do anything but confirm that the system is not working?

Sure, some people will recognise they have a problem and pay to see a therapist in their own time. But others may not. They might be so scared about admitting anything is wrong that they are unwilling to take this kind of action. What happens to them? When they return home to their families, what happens behind those closed doors.

The psychological cost of being deployed on life-threatening military operations is beyond imagining for anyone who except those who have been there. The level of trauma left behind can be so large that it fills, then spills over the top of an individual, splashing onto the family of that person.

If the ADF doesn't do more to help, many people's lives will be broken. Veterans will continue to take their lives. Partners and children will continue to bear the brunt of the system's failure. Something needs to change.

The picture, the words

My fellow school captain, Patrick, unearthed this photo of us. It appeared in the paper when we became captains of our primary school. I wrote about it in my book from memory, but this is the first time I have seen the actual photograph in many years.

Here's how I described it in my book...

'What a pretty face you've got, love,' the photographer had told me as he squished me beside the boy captain for our shot in the mayor's office, after our official welcome into our new roles. 'And you must be smart as well, to be captain. Bet the boys love you.' I wanted to believe his words, but the ideas rested on my skin, unable to penetrate.

When the photo had appeared in the local paper, a big grin lighting my face as I pushed my badge into the lens for the whole world to see, Mum had smiled and hugged me. But her eyes had still been puffy from crying and they hadn't quite met mine. How could good stuff happen to me when she spent ten hours a day sobbing.

Anyway, thought some people who read my book might be interested to see a photo from that time.

The Real Reason Authors Should Be on Social Media, or The Shame of an Audience of Zero at Your Author Talk

I would like to play out a little moment in time that happened to me recently surrounding a Q & A event for my newly published, and first ever book, Enemy.

Scene 1

(Location: Bookshop)

Event Organiser: So how many people do you know are definitely coming tonight?

Me: Umm… I’m not exactly sure anyone is coming. I kind of used up my friends for my book launch

Event Organiser: (Panic stricken look on face) Have you told people about it on social media?

Me: Yeah

Event Organiser: I’m sure people will come. It’ll be great

Fade on my face showing that I am100% sure she is wrong.

Scene 2

(Home)

Me tweeting and facebooking the event again, trying to outrun the growing feeling of shame that comes when planning a party nobody wants to attend. Three responses ping back to me. All friends. All saying something along the lines of, “I was planning on coming, but something has come up.”

Holy Crap.

Scene 3

(Home)

Me:  (text to publicist) I just wanted to let you know that it seems highly unlikely that anyone will be coming to this talk tonight. Sorry for being such a no-friends loser.

Scene 4

(Home)

Publicist: (on phone) I’ve spoken to the bookshop and Cate [my publisher who was doing the Q & A with me]. They both know it may be a no-show. If it is, you can just have a glass of wine and chat with them. You won’t be the first author this has happened to. It’ll be fine. Try not to worry.

Great. So now my publisher knows they should never have produced my book and this bookshop now wishes they had not sacrificed their precious shelf space to stock it. Kill me now.

Scene 5

(Home)

Another message chimes, this time from someone I went to high school with who follows my page on facebook but who I haven’t seen for twenty years.

Friend: I’m still coming tonight, but don’t know how long I can stay.

Me: However long you can stay is more than fine. Look forward to seeing you then.

Brilliant. Now I have a lone witness to my absolute failure as an author and human being.

Scene 6

Just before event

(Location: Bookshop)

Me: Sorry about this. The only people I knew were coming are now not coming, except one guy who probably can’t stay very long. It’s all a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?

Event organiser: I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Woman 1: Are you Ruth Clare?

Me: Yes… are you… here for the event?

Woman 1: Yes. I found out about it on twitter.

Me: (nearly sobbing with relief) I’m so glad you’re here, I thought no one would come!

Man 1: Hi. We met on twitter.

Me: We did! I wasn’t sure if you would come!

Man 1: I’m looking forward to it.

Scene 7

(Location: Bookshop.)

A crowd of eight people gather, looking attentive and friendly.

Cate: Let me welcome you to this event…

END

***

Now firstly, let me say, I am extremely grateful to be in the lucky position of having a bookshop host an event for me at all. May I also say that this particular bookshop did a fantastic job of promoting my Q & A event in their newsletter, in-store and on social media.

My publisher also got in on the act, promoting the event to the large number of followers on social media. I have less than zero complaints that everyone did their absolute best to spread the word about the event.

Let me also say, that in the few weeks since my book, Enemy, has been out in the world it has had some pretty amazing media coverage. I have talked about it on Conversations with Richard Fidler (an hour-long radio interview that broadcasts Australia-wide and has a huge podcast following both here and internationally). It has had a multi-pages excerpt in one of Australia’s largest circulation newspaper publications, The Good Weekend Magazine, which subsequently rolled out to regional centres. It has had an amazing review in The Australian, as well as a few more community radio interviews. It pretty much could not have had a more amazing amount of exposure.

But let’s look at the reality of the situation. This is my first book. People don’t really know me. To ask someone to come to an event like this means asking them to arrange babysitters to put the kids to bed, or leave the excitement of their after-work drinks, or interrupt the very lovely eating of takeaway while watching Netflix.

To attend an author talk takes effort and energy. If people are going to do it, they need to have a good reason why. So what was that reason? For my event, the reason boiled down to the effort I had made at connection on social media.

Apart from one person who attended after reading the excerpt in The Good Weekend, every single person who came to my event was someone who I either met exclusively via twitter or facebook, or who was aware of my event because they followed my posts.

I really had no idea if anyone would come. I was beyond delighted that they did, but I know that unless I had put myself out there, the attendance at my event would have been one person. So if you have been umming and ahhing about whether you want to get involved in social media, may I suggest that you picture yourself in the position I was in.

Your first book is published. You have the opportunity of doing more than one event to promote it. Who are you going to invite? How are they going to know about it? Even if you are with a big publishing house, you are still one person trying to compete with the lure of binge watching House of Cards or Nashville.

People are people. When you are starting out in your career as an author it may be the personal connections you make on-line and in the real world that save your event from complete disaster.

Let the shame of the no-show override your shame of being a blowhard. Start making connections now!

Honesty versus loyalty in memoir writing

Last night I had one of the most vivid and disturbing dreams I have had in years. In it, my father put his hands around my throat and tried to strangle me. After an initial struggle I managed to overpower him, wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him.

Normally, that would have been quite enough to be going on with, but, in the way of dreams, I realised that earlier in the day I had somehow also been responsible for killing my mother. In the dream I was not overly upset by their deaths, my major concern was over how to dispose of their bodies without being caught.

Jump to a moment of me chopping up bodies and putting them in a suitcase (I have recently watched The Jinx, I am hoping I can blame it for this turn of events!). Then jump to a moment of me shoving the suitcase in the back seat of the car I was using to drive me to bookstores to promote my newly released memoir.

Now I know people say that hearing other people’s dreams is about as interesting as watching paint dry, so most likely there will be very few people still reading at this point, but for those of you who have persevered, this dream feels like it is a doorway into the deeper feelings I have about putting my story out in the world.

Writing a memoir is, by its nature, a very personal experience. I am telling the story not just of my life, but of the lives of others. I have tried my hardest to do that story justice – to be honest, transparent and generous. But a lot of the terrain I have covered in my book is not pretty. And I do wonder how my Mum and Dad would feel to see themselves represented through my lens.

There’s a saying that goes, “Blood makes you related, but loyalty makes you family.”

I have thought a lot about this during the process of writing my book. So what is loyalty? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution.”

It also defines the word “betray” to mean, to “expose (one’s country, a group, or a person) to danger by treacherously giving information to an enemy.” Or, in another definition, “Be gravely disloyal to.”

Intellectually, I know that in family systems, especially family systems where abuse is occurring, the concept of loyalty can be extremely damaging. It can mean that children become secret keepers. That they see themselves as worthy of abuse rather than asking whether what their parents are doing is wrong. It can mean that they would rather betray themselves than their parents. It can also mean that when these “loyal” children develop into adults, they stay true to the dynamic of their family of origin, which may mean that their own children may be doomed to live within familiar patterns of abuse.

There can be big downsides to loyalty. But there are some pretty major upsides as well. For me, the biggest upside is the sense of belonging. I think one of the reasons writing a memoir is difficult, and is now giving me nightmares of myself as a callous murderer, is the deep-seated fear that I am now moments away from being thrown out of my tribe.

There is also the fact that I generally think of myself a loyal person. If I love you, I will fight for you, defend you, sing your praises, help you succeed. I am loyal to my Mum, my brother and sister. I am loyal my husband and kids. I am loyal to my friends.

But I also have a strong need for openness and honesty. If there is an elephant in the room my brain keeps shouting, “Elephant! Elephant! Elephant!” so loud that the words often end up trumpeting out of my mouth.

The people in my life who get me, love that about me (thank God, because seriously I can’t seem to shut myself up!) But not everyone is so keen on honesty. Some people think that loyalty means seeing no evil, hearing no evil, keeping quiet and toeing the line. For those people, loyalty and honesty are completely at odds.

But for me, they aren’t. I want the people in my life to speak their truth. I want them to tell me when I step on their toes or push against a boundary or say something that hurts them. And I want them to know that though the moment might feel a bit awkward and full-on, and though it may not always be handled graciously, I will always circle back, reflect on what they have said and hear them.

In making room in my relationships for both loyalty and honesty, hopefully it will mean that I have the privilege of truly knowing the minds and hearts of my nearest and dearest, so I can connect to them more deeply. That has got to be a good thing.

So maybe I can find a new way to interpret the dream. Reflecting on my childhood has allowed me to see my parents as flawed people who were doing the best that they could, rather than merely objects that failed to fulfil the needs and wants of my childhood. Maybe the father and mother I murdered was the outdated image I was held of them from the past. Maybe I needed to chop my parents into pieces so I could put them back together again in a way that made sense to me. (But don’t tell the dream police, I’m not sure they would understand.)

What do you think? Is it possible for loyalty and honesty to exist together? Would you ever write a memoir?

One of my darlings I had to kill

William Faulkner wrote, “In writing you must kill your darlings.”

So what does that actually mean? It means that piece of perfect prose or amazing analogy you have spent weeks agonizing over, the one that elevates your work to a new level but doesn’t fit with the story you are telling, must go.

It can be hard to say goodbye, but if you want to write with clarity and strength, rather than meander through a series of prettily written passages that take the reader nowhere, kill your darlings you must.

I recently had to do it in my manuscript. I had discovered an image that not only drew comparisons between my childhood story and a weapon of war, but that also hit me on a visceral level as a true representation of how the disintegration of my family felt. It was a shining beacon of perfection. But there was a problem.

This glowing passage, by its very nature, had to be written in an adult voice. And my story is written from my child perspective. So, though I loved it, still think it is a brilliant analogy, you will only find echoes of it in my book. And I am okay with that, because though I love clever writing, I love story more.

That doesn’t mean, however, that no one will ever see the analogy. You can see it right here, right now. How lucky are you! So here it is, the darling I had to kill.

***

When a bomb goes off, it causes damage in different ways – rupturing, tearing and piercing.

Firstly, the blast forces highly compressed air particles to travel faster than the speed of sound, rupturing air-filled structures like the lung, ear, and gut.

Then, more intense energy in the form of shockwaves passes through the organs and tissues, disrupting molecules and tearing at internal structures.

Moving into secondary fragmentation, the bomb casing and shrapnel is thrown violently outward piercing soft flesh and releasing more dangerous fragments when it strikes buildings and glass.

Finally, when the vacuum created by the rapid outward movement of the blast refills itself with the surrounding atmosphere, it creates a high-intensity wind that causes people, buildings and fragmented objects to be drawn back in toward the source of the explosion.

I didn’t know it yet, but Dad’s leaving had thrown a bomb into our family. In a few short days, our lives would be blown apart. I was about to spend the next six years sifting through wreckage…

I reassured myself that tomorrow Mum would be back to her old self, standing at the stove cooking chops and veges for dinner…

It turned out, I was very wrong. The highly compressed air had already blasted from the bomb. The concrete structure of rules and schedules that had defined my life with Dad was razed to the ground, and the mother I had always known was never coming back.

***

So there it is. My darling does live after all. Have you killed any darlings lately?

Stop comparing. Be kind to your writing self

When I decided to try my hand at writing a book I did what I normally do when embarking on a journey into the unknown: I researched. 

I read books on story structure, creative writing and memoir. Armed with all of this helpful information, I began the task of getting words down onto a page.

  

Once I was a ways into my manuscript, I listened to podcasts like this one and this one, and wrapped my head around the difference between plotters and pantsers, the merits of a crappy first draft and how best to utilize beta readers.

When I was nearing a stage of being ready to show my work to someone, I poured over blog posts on author platforms, the publishing process and pitching.

In the past few years have managed to write and edit a manuscript, get an agent, find a publisher, and am now on the cusp of launching my first book. Some might say that is a reasonable effort.

But during my on-line research, I read (continue to read!) many accounts of authors finishing their first book, starting immediately on their next, and continuing a cycle of churning out books at a dizzying pace. One book a year. Often two. Some people hammering them out in a few short months! I wanted to be one of those authors.

For most of my life I have pushed myself hard. Take no prisoners. Cut no slack. I am a doer who gets things done. In my work as a copywriter, I am the queen of quick turnaround. I gain great satisfaction from beating deadlines and exceeding expectations.

I planned for it to be the same with writing books. But I hadn’t counted on the way delving into my emotional world could sap my drive.

In all my years of writing copy for brochures, websites, and business plans, I can’t say I have ever shed a tear. The same cannot be said of writing a memoir covering such light-weight terrain as my deepest childhood wounds and the trauma of war. (There are funny, happy bits as well – promise!)

Still, despite the fact that some days I felt so drained I could barely put one foot in front of the other, I tried to stick to my guns. I was determined to have the first draft of my next book, a young adult fiction, completed by the time Enemy hit the shelves.

With that goal set, as soon as my memoir manuscript was with my editor, I started in. I began churning out words and managed to get about a quarter of the way into the draft. Then the edits came back, and I had to rake back over that old ground. Each time I re-worked a section I re-lived the experience on which it was based, feeling those old feelings so I could distil them into the purest emotional truth I knew.

By this time, I had started to feel tired. Deep down to my bones tired.

But I have never been one to let the mundane fact that I am human stop me from pushing myself like a machine. So when I finished that next editing process, I jumped straight back to my other manuscript.

But I could feel my blood running thin, like my foot was on the accelerator but there was nothing in the tank. Finally, after finding myself wide awake night after night with stress pulsing in my gut, and hacking up a lung each day for three months from a cold I couldn’t shake, I began to question what the hell I was trying to prove. And to whom.

I think part of my motivation was fear. I felt so lucky to have had a book accepted for publication that I wanted to prove – to myself, to my agent, to my publishers – that their faith in me was not misplaced. Another reason I wanted it done was because I had heard that writing a second book was harder than writing a first, and I wanted to see if I could do it. There was also the fact that before someone suggested I should give fiction a go, it had never occurred to me. And I was really excited by the idea.    

But though I still think about my YA book all the time, I have had to face up to the fact that I am not going to be one of those quick turnaround authors. My first book is hitting the shelves in three days time, and my second manuscript is not finished. And you know what, I am okay with that. More than okay.

I am a first-time author. I am still figuring out what my writing process actually is. So I am taking the pressure off. I am not going to fall into the comparison trap. I am practicing being kind to myself, instead of always expecting more.

Besides, I have written a book. An actual factual book that people can buy from bookshops. That is a peak life experience right there. I need to spend the next few months mooning about the place with a big smile on my face, letting the wonderful delightfulness of it all sink in.

Then, once my feet touch the ground again, I am going to get back into my YA. Not to prove anything to the imaginary critics in my head. But because the guy in it is so hot. And my lead character is so funny. And I need to figure out what happens between her and her mother. And what goes down between her Mum and her aunt…

Now that I have had a taste of writing books, I am hooked. I want to do it for a long time. That means protecting myself against burnout, and choosing the carrot over the stick. No more comparisons. Just me with a laptop having fun with my imaginary friends.

Each person's creative process is as unique as the work they produce. How do you approach your writing?

How to narrow the focus of your memoir

One of the main issues I have found with memoir writing is not lack of material, but rather too much. Each day has moments worthy of notice and attention. If you add a lifetime of days together, that is a ridiculously overwhelming volume of material to work with.

Another problem is, that although there are moments from your life that are incredibly important to you on an individual level, they may not be at all important to your memoir on a story level. So how do you narrow your focus?

I heard a piece of advice (from a podcast I listened to years ago and I can no longer find- doh!) that helped me enormously in this process. The wise person said that she saw memoir as a piece of non-fiction writing where you are making an argument for something, and your life story is merely an illustration of the point you are trying to make. The example she gave was that someone could write a memoir making the argument, ‘Life is better when you share it with a cat.’ You would then go on to draw examples from your own life that demonstrated this.

I love the way this concept stops your memoir merely being about you as an individual and broadens it into something larger and richer. When I took her idea and applied it to my own book, it took me months of driving myself bananas to come up with something that I thought really captured what I was trying to communicate. I decided the ‘argument’ of my book was: ‘If we don’t look after veterans, it is not just them, but their families, who pay the price.’

This was a very effective way to separate out the stories that needed to be included in my book from the ones that didn’t. That’s not to say it was easy. Some of the stories I left on the curb were favourites of mine. ‘Killing your darlings’ takes on a whole new meaning when the story you are abandoning is very personal and intensely meaningful… but it is necessary.

A memoir is not a journal. It is something you are writing for an audience. If you can’t make tough decisions about what belongs and what doesn’t, you will never create the clarity necessary to transform a bunch of stories into a book.

What about you? What techniques have you found helpful to help narrow the focus of your memoir?

A few memoirs to get you started

If you are new to memoirs and looking for a few recommendations, these books are well worth a look.

If you like witty hilarity and outrageous extremes, read 'Running with Scissors' and 'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs. His writing is amazing as well.

Like a beverage or two? I do not mind a drink myself, and I am now desperate to go out drinking and hanging on every word Judith Lucy says after reading 'The Lucy Family Alphabet'. To be fair I have wanted to go out drinking with Judith Lucy ever since I first saw her comedy…

One of my favourite books from childhood, 'The Story of my Life' by Helen Keller, stands the test of time. An amazing piece of writing, and an insight into living in the world as a deaf and blind person.

'Angela’s Ashes' by Frank McCourt plunges you into the wet misery of extreme poverty in Ireland. Set amongst a backdrop of Catholic guilt, and told with wonderful lyricism and humour, it was one of the books that changed the way we now think of memoir. Read this if you love a good tale, well told.

If you want to run away and live in an abandoned villa in the Tuscan countryside (yes please!), read 'Under the Tuscan Sun' by Frances Mayes

I was transfixed by A.B. Facey’s, 'A Fortunate Life', when I read it as a teenager in the Rocky High library. Such an open, emotionally vulnerable account of a child’s relationship with his mother, especially given the era. Read this if you want to learn something about Australian history and hardship and how to keep rising above the circumstances you find yourself in.

I was completely captivated by the way James Frey described his rage in 'A Million Little Pieces'.  I don’t care if he made up some of the book, his emotional truth is indisputable.

If you like Amy Poelher, you will love her part memoir/ part manifesto, 'Yes Please', for its wisdom and laugh-out-loud moments.

I wanted to become part of Ahn Do’s family after reading his memoir, 'The Happiest Refugee'. Some of his stories made me snort with laughter, others made me cry. Read this if you love a positive take on life.

If you like the idea of going on a pilgrimage from the comfort of your own home, you will like 'Wild' by Cheryl Strayed. Wonderfully written, it made me want to take off into the bush on my own, though I did spend the entire book thanking my lucky stars that it was she, not me, carrying her ridiculously heavy backpack.

I have always loved Alan Cumming as a performer, but I mostly loved his book 'Not my Father’s Son', as it is one of the few memoirs I have read that covers the terrain of a child’s experience growing up with a violent father, and the way that relationship evolves into adulthood. I related to so many aspects of his life. 

'Too Close to the Falls' by Catherine Gildiner was an absolute pleasure to read. A wonderfully quirky story of a girl who didn't fit the normal mold, but carved a niche for herself regardless. Read this if you love beautiful writing and delightful characters.

Magda Szubanski’s 'Reckoning' is a wonderful memoir. Though Magda is a celebrity, this is not the story of her public life. It is a far deeper and more meaningful search for authentic identity and a quest to understand more about her father, a World War II veteran, all underpinned by a love for her family that was palpable throughout.

I could go on, but these are a few to get you started.

Where do you work when you write?

When I initially decided 2014 was the year I was going to finish my memoir, I went to the office to work (my husband and I are business partners in a graphic design/copywriting studio, Mono Design, where we share space with architects, event managers, film makers and exhibition designers). But after a few weeks, I came to realise that while I can stand constant interruption when I am copywriting, it is not the same for me with creative writing.

When I am inhabiting a scene, tuning into sights and sounds, capturing voices, feeling the way my body is responding to the world I am creating, I don’t want company, or any other version of reality infringing on my headspace. When I am boiling down the essence of what something means to me, I might spend over an hour trying to get a sentence right. I can’t afford to have any other words in my head except my own, otherwise I might miss the click when the world suddenly shifts into alignment and everything sounds exactly the way it is meant to. So I have spent the year working alone at home in blissful silence.

Where do you work when you write?

The Shame Game

I recently read the document Change the Story: a shared framework for the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia.

It states:

Australia has a choice. We can change the story that currently sees a woman murdered every week by a current or former partner…

Violence against women and their children is not an inevitable or intractable social problem…

Although there is no single cause of violence against women and their children, the latest international evidence shows there are certain factors that consistently predict – or drive – higher levels of violence against women. These include beliefs and behaviours reflecting disrespect for women, low support for gender equality and adherence to rigid or stereotypical gender roles, relations and identities…

What this framework makes clear is that gender inequality is the core of the problem and it is the heart of the solution.

Discussing this report with some people at a barbeque the other day, someone floated the idea of shared responsibility. They suggested that if we witness a man inflicting violence against a woman, even if it is their intimate partner, and we do nothing to act, then we have to consider ourselves part of the problem.

In some ways, this seems like a valid idea. I know that when I was a child and people witnessed my father acting violently toward me, I interpreted their not stepping in to mean they thought I deserved to be treated that way. As a reaction to this, throughout my life, I have stepped in on multiple occasions and told men off for acting like arseholes. But I have to admit, in doing so, I think I probably put myself in dangerous situations that I was lucky didn’t turn seriously bad.

Since I have had kids I know there is no way I would be willing to put them at risk in this way. If they were with me, the best I could do would be to call the police. And given how stretched they already are dealing with domestic violence, would that end up being effective?

I also wonder, if I brought to a man’s attention, whilst he was already in the middle of a violent rage, how wrong he was, how badly I was judging his behavior, would that make the situation turn out better for the woman? Might he not be likely to punish her more when he got home? Would I also be in some way responsible for that?

I am a massive fan of Brene Brown’s work. (If you don’t know her, start with her Ted talk The Power of Vulnerability. Seriously mind blowing. https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en) One of the things Brene’s work as a shame researcher has revealed, is that shame is highly correlated with violence, aggression and bullying. This is the result of decades of research in the area. So I think it is safe to say that heaping shame on people who are already acting violently is unlikely to achieve the outcome we want.

It breaks my heart to read ‘in Australia, at least one woman a week is killed by a partner or former partner’. It appalls me that ‘intimate partner violence contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 15 to 44 than any other preventable risk factor.’

Obviously things need to change. And though I wish we could wave a magic wand and stop the violence now, I know this not going to happen. This situation has been going on for a long time. It makes sense that it will take a long time to effect real change upon it. But since Rosie Batty won the 2015 Australian of the Year, it feels like we are at last owning up to the problem. That is always the first step.

But there is one more thing we can all work toward. If, as Change the Story suggests, inequality is the ‘core of the problem’ and ‘heart of the solution,’ as a society we can work together to make it completely unacceptable to treat women as less than. This means respecting their value on every level, ensuring they have equal rights, equal pay, and access to services that allow them make appropriate decisions for themselves and their children.

Help your book succeed

When it comes to the world of writing, my approach has been to focus on the things I can control. I can’t control whether my book is a best seller or wins literary awards. But I can turn up. Do the work. Finish the book.

(Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design)

After finishing my manuscript, I couldn’t control whether people were going to respond to my work the way I wanted. But I could take the pitch I wrote seriously and do the very best job I was capable of doing. Part of the way I did that was to build connections via twitter and facebook to demonstrate to publishers my willingness to engage with the wider world. 

Why? Because even with all our technological advances, most people still read books based on recommendations from trusted sources. I wanted to increase the network of people I spoke to, build relationships with them so that maybe, just maybe, some of these people might read my book. And maybe, just maybe, they would like it. And maybe, just maybe, they would tell their friends about it. So that some day people outside my family and friends might actually be willing to read something I had written.

Sure, some authors refuse to engage with twitter, facebook, pinterest, instagram etc. They stay in their writing cave and produce wonderful works. Some of these authors are very successful and they don’t need to do anything more than put words on a page. If you are one of these authors, I salute you. You rock.

If, like the rest of us, you are starting out on your career, you might want to consider getting over yourself. Like it or not, publishing is a business. The business of selling books. If you are lucky enough to get a contract with a publishing house, your book becomes a commodity. Your publishing house will work their butts off to make sure it sells, but your efforts as the author of the work, can make a real difference.

From where I stand (someone whose first book is about to come out) it seems like a very risky move to loiter on the sidelines and hope for the best, praying that you are somehow special; that you will be one of the chosen few who need to make no effort apart from writing a book, for it to be successful.

Before selling this manuscript, I didn’t really understand how the publishing industry worked. I thought when an author got an advance, it was a lump sum payment for the years of toil it took to create a book. I then imagined as soon as the book hit the shelves, an author started earning royalties. 

But that is not how it works. If you are lucky enough to sell your manuscript, the amount they pay for your book is an advance on sales they anticipate your book will achieve. Once book sales have paid back the advance, then you start pocketing extra. Of course this makes perfect sense, but it also means I now feel a genuine responsibility to pay back the money my publishers have invested.

I am lucky enough to be with a big publishing house, and they have put their large marketing team behind the book because they too want to earn their money back. But I need to do something with the anxiety I feel that my book will turn out to be a total failure and everyone will hate it and only ten people will buy it and the lovely people at Penguin will put a black mark next to my name that says, “this author sucks and she stole our money,” or something like that.

The way I am choosing to deal with this anxiety, is if there is something within my power to do – get on twitter, write a facebook post, write an article, think about what I am going to wear to my book launch – I am going to do it.

I am going to go all in on this, because at least then if I fail, I have done so giving it everything I’ve got. I will not walk away saying ‘what if.’ What if I had done more. What if I had tried harder. It seems a bigger risk to me to be half-arse because “real artists don’t promote themselves,” than it does to do the best you can at everything related to your book.

I am not talking about spruking your book on high rotation on your twitter stream. That is totally half-arsed. If you don’t know how to use facebook or twitter, read articles on how to do it. Arm yourself with knowledge to make sure your efforts count. Lots of people have written excellent blog posts on this stuff. Seriously. If you don’t know how to do it, figure it out. It doesn’t cost any money, and you might even come to enjoy it.

Some people think the marketing stuff is below their dignity. I say screw dignity. Help your book succeed. Go all in.

Is writing a memoir cathartic?

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

During the past year, when I have told people the book I was writing was a memoir, one of the most common responses they had was to say, “That must be cathartic.”

To me, these people (most of whom like to point out to me that they don’t read memoir) seemed to have the notion that a memoir was like a journal; an unfiltered blah about your life heaped onto a page.

My initial response was to bristle at the implication. I was writing a BOOK for God’s sake! A serious tome of great literary value! I was not (insert shudder here) keeping a journal (sniffs and walks off).

I found myself saying to these non-memoir reading folk, “I have had a lot of therapy. I would definitely say I found that cathartic. I’m not sure I would use that word to describe the process of writing a book.”

But on reflection, I think there has been catharsis during the creation of ENEMY (my book).

The word catharsis means:
1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art.
2.  the discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation of symptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.

 In relation to definition one, I have definitely found myself shaking with fear, sobbing or laughing during the writing of this book, so there is that. (But I also think many creators of works of fiction describe having these bodily responses as they write. How else can you give authentic form to intense emotional moments?).

But not only did I feel those feelings, when I now look back on the memories from which they sprang, they don’t seem to have the same hold on me. It feels like much of the emotional energy tied to those moments are trapped inside the book (kind of like Voldemort putting part of his soul into the diary Ginny writes in in Harry Potter, though hopefully with less potential for part of my soul to be killed if someone stabs the book with a Basalisk fang).

Looking at the second definition of catharsis, it is the word permanent that stands out for me. Only time will tell, but I do feel there may have been a profound ongoing shift in the way I think about my Dad after writing this book.

It is true, a large part of ENEMY involved bearing witness for the child whose voice was never heard. But the other part of the book, the research into the Vietnam War, trying to understand what it was like for boys who were sent there to fight (Dad included), and what they went through when they returned to home soil, that process of discovery has ceased to be an intellectual exercise for me.

By struggling against my innate desire to continue to see things from my childhood perspective – black and white, right and wrong – I have allowed my memories of Dad to soften into a more complicated shade of grey.

Douglas Robert Callum was not only my father. He was also an innocent boy, who at the age of 20 was conscripted to fight in the Vietnam War. He came back damaged. He needed help. He didn’t get it. His family bore the brunt of his pain.

The way I now see my dad will forever be re-shaped by my understanding of all he endured, and the inner battles he was struggling with. I could never condone or justify many of his actions, but I have tapped into a well of genuine compassion for him that I really hope is permanent.

So if anyone now asks me if writing a memoir has been cathartic, I believe I can answer yes.

ENEMY is due for release in March 2016 through Penguin Books.

Making time to write

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

I don't know about you, but I love seeing how people fit writing into their lives. Here’s the way I found time to write my first book.

To paint a bit of a picture of my world for you, you need to know I have two kids, Mister Three and Miss Seven. Miss Seven is at primary school Monday to Friday, and Mister Three is mostly at home with me, but goes to child-care two days a week.

Those two days are my absolutely non-negotiable, bum-on-the-seat writing days, though they are never long enough. (I still have to drop Miss Seven to school, where I am NOT allowed to leave before final farewell kisses after her morning assembly, then drive Mister Three to child care. At his drop-off, there are more farewell kisses and an elaborate routine of pretending I have lost him, asking people if they have seen where he is, before he “surprises” them with his presence from behind my back. By the time I am back home, it is ten o’clock… on a good day.) At 3.25 pm I then hurl myself through the school gates to collect Miss Seven, before picking up Mister Three.

Though I am not naturally inclined to work at night, when I started to get pressure from a publisher to show him my book, I realised those ten hours a week were not going to be enough to get the job done. So I scrabbled around to find more time, aiming for two hours each night once the kids were in bed.

When I sent the manuscript to an agent and she urged me to have a draft ready for publishers a month ahead of the deadline I had set for myself, I squeezed out extra time on the weekends. Near the end of my ready-for-publishers draft, I was doing ten hours on Mister Three’s child-care days, two hours a night seven nights a week, and at least six hours a day on the weekends. That’s thirty-six hours I managed to steal out of my life (though it did mean I barely saw anyone except my husband and children, and them only during meal times).

 Still, though at the time I thought it would kill me, I managed to get my draft out within a reasonable amount of time.

 I have now even forgotten the promise I made to myself that I would never write a book again. It’s kind of like giving birth that way. You think to yourself, “Who would put themselves through that again?” Then you start looking at Huggies commercials and thinking, “Aren’t babies cuuute?”

So while I am waiting to begin editing my first book, I am using the spare time I have carved out of my world to begin sketching out ideas for the next one. 

 How do you make time to write?

Improve your writing voice by reading what you REALLY like

A few weeks ago, I heard an interview with crime author Nigel Bartlett on my favourite writing podcast: So You Want to be a Writer.

In the interview, Nigel spoke about the way the friends he was holidaying with, looked down on his reading matter when he produced a page-turning crime thriller, instead of one of the more literary books he normally forced himself to read. He has now gone on to be a very successful crime writer, so I hope he told his friends to stick that in their pipes and smoke it.

I have to say, as a new writer, I do find a lot of members of the writing fraternity guilty of the same snobbery. I have been accosted a number of times by wannabe writers who have demanded I tell them my favouirte books/ authors. When my answer doesn’t match their far superior literary tastes, the holier-than-thou sneery look they give me lets me know I am now an object of pity, right at the bottom rung of their “worthy of talking to about writing” ladder.

Well, I have news for them. I don’t give a toss about their ladder. I think most of them are phony baloney. Surely, if the number of people who allege to love literary fiction actually loved it, those books would be on best-seller lists, rather than struggling with modest sales.

I am an avid reader. I have pretty much read at least a book a week since I was a kid. During my many decades long love affair with books I have gone through a horror phase, an Austen phase, a feminist phase, a classics phase, a self-help phase, a memoir phase, a crime thriller phase, a chick lit phase, a young adult phase, and yes, of course, a “worthy literarature” phase.

Some of the genres I have read I have fallen deeply in love with, and continue to read to this day. Others have been flings that I look back on with a chuckle. Some books I have read because I felt I ought to. Other books I couldn’t put down. While I can appreciate the “important” tomes, it is the ones that get my heart racing that I really love.

We are all a unique bundle of genes and life experiences, on our own distinct journeys. Why shouldn’t our diversity extend to our reading tastes?

Reading the books you are “meant” to read because they have “literary merit” is a sure-fire way to suck the fun out of reading. The people who tell me they struggle to read a couple of paragraphs the book on their bedside table each night ARE READING THE WRONG BOOK. It’s time to take a different fork in the road.

So how does reading books you don’t love affect your writing? I have not conducted scientific experiments on this, but it seems logical to me that if you write in a way you think will make you seem impressive and “literary”, rather than the way that is true to who you are and what you REALLY like, your reader will be able to tell because your voice will sound self-conscious. And if you don’t even feel comfortable admitting to reading what you like, how are you going to be comfortable writing what you like?

Because if you aren’t comfortable it will show in your voice.

 On Grammar Girl’s, Quick and Dirty Tips (http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/understanding-voice-and-tone-in-writing) Julie Wildhaber describes it this way…

Voice is the distinct personality, style, or point of view of a piece of writing or any other creative work. Voice is what Simon Cowell is talking about when he tells "American Idol" contestants to make a song their own and not just do a note-for-note karaoke version. Many musicians have played "The Star-Spangled Banner," for instance, but there's a world of difference between the Boston Pops' performance and Jimi Hendrix's, even though the basic melody is the same.

From the reading I have done, voice is the one thing that can’t really be taught. It is the thing you as a writer need to discover for yourself, and my non-scientific theory is that it is closely connected to knowing who you really are, including being true to the types of books you really, in your heart of hearts, like to read.

Do you think being true to yourself as a reader could help unlock your writers voice?

How to keep going when you hit a hump with your writing

Illustration copyright Matt Clare at Mono Design

I have to tell you something about myself. While I probably err on the side of the half-empty glass in many areas of life, when it came to writing a book, I saw a cup not only half full, but overflowing.

I blame copywriting. After being a copywriter for a decade, I have become pretty good at a quick turnaround on my words. I figured writing a book would be like writing 1000 words multiplied by 80. Easy peasey.

But oh, ho, ho, how wrong I was. I have read that it is unseemly to complain about how hard writing a book is. But IT WAS REALLY HARD. There. I’ve done it. You are free to call me unseemly, or a whinger, or an unseemly whinger. Whatevs.

Since I am now already labelled, let me wallow a bit more. For a start, having never written a book before, I didn’t expect it to be so complicated. It might seem apparent to everyone else in the universe, but it wasn’t until I started this process that I realised a book is not just a Frankenstein collection of disparate thousand word sections – at least not the kind of book I wanted to write – it is a living, breathing beast that has to work as a whole. Before I found scrivener, I nearly drove myself RED RUM crazy trying to devise ways of keep up with the flow of the story. (If you are struggling with this, scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php is seriously awesome. And no, I am not paid to say that).

But still, scrivener wasn’t everything I needed to hold the book together. I had to understand how a book worked before I could feel like I actually knew how to write one. I read obsessively on scene and structure, plot, character development, style and voice. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts on writing techniques as well as author interviews. Though I also read fiction, I couldn’t switch off. While occasionally getting pulled into the world of a book, more often than not I analysed the writing, took apart the structure and tracked the character arc. (Did I mention I trained as a biochemist and am prone to obsessive, scientific analysis when I feel out of my depth?)

So, why am I telling you this and how does it help you to get over your hump? On reflection, I think my panic at not knowing what the hell I was doing was actually a good thing for keeping my inspiration going and helping me avoid writers block.

Writing a book requires a step-up of energy that can be hard to muster, especially if you are also working a day job and/ or looking after kids. To make this new energy, you have to feed your creative fire.

I am not suggesting everyone go to crazy town in  exactly the same way I did, but if you are sitting in front of an empty screen feeling defeated, it is easy to let the voices creep in, the ones that tell you you aren’t any good. Those voices drain your energy and make your creative self want to curl up in a ball. It is hard to keep your fingers on the keyboard when you are hunched over in foetal position.

Even if you don’t let those voices win, and remain diligently locked in a battle with the empty page, there is no guarantee the muse is going to turn up. Sometimes, when you feel stuck, or low on motivation, filling your head with techniques and ideas from people who have walked the path ahead of you can be a great way to keep your juices flowing and the ideas coming.

It might not work for everyone, but if you are feeling down in the dumps about your draft, why not try hunting for inspiration? Pick up a book on writing, read a publisher’s blog, find a new podcast, get lost in a book by an author you love. The worst thing that could happen is you learn something; the best might be that you  finish your book.

Study into the impact of Vietnam War on the next generation

Photo of my Dad at the site of the Battle of Coral

A few years ago, I was one of 27,000 Australian people who participated in an intergenerational Vietnam Veterans Family study. The results of that report have just been released. In many ways my memoir is a personal story that makes meaning of these statistics.

Extracts from the study
The report contains hundreds of pages of documentation. In italics below I have included some of the key findings that most strongly relate to the themes of my book.

The answer to the question of whether the service of Australian men in the Vietnam War had adverse effects on the physical, mental and social health of their sons and daughters is ‘Yes’. It is enormously important to have that answer, but that was not the only thing the Vietnam Veterans Family Study brought to light. Collectively, the study projects show that the experience of war is not confined to the time between the passing-out parade and returning home and that families as well as those deployed are intimately involved in the experience.

The first important thing to note from the findings for the sons and daughters is the pattern of the differences found. Significant differences were found for most of the measures of mental health (ever diagnosed with or treated for depression, anxiety or posttraumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts, and suicidal plans or actions).

In the case of physical health among the sons and daughters, only three measures out of 16 showed significant differences between the two groups. Notably, those three measures were all conditions for which psychological factors are strongly implicated—skin conditions, migraines and sleep disturbance.

In the case of depression, anxiety, and suicidal plans and actions, the sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans were almost twice as likely as the sons and daughters of Vietnam-era personnel to report being diagnosed with or treated for depression, being diagnosed with or treated for anxiety, or making plans for or attempting suicide. Reports of being diagnosed with or treated for posttraumatic stress disorder were three times more common for the sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans.

In relation to the measures of family environment when the children were growing up, three of the eight factors differed significantly between the Vietnam veteran families and the families of Vietnam-era personnel (as reported by the sons and daughters)
1. a father’s caring attitude towards his child
2. a father’s overprotective or controlling behaviour
3. an indicator of harsh parenting during childhood.

23 per cent of offspring of Vietnam veteran families reported at least one of five items on harsh parenting; this compares with 9.1 per cent of offspring of Vietnam-era personnel. It is noteworthy that the three items that contributed most to this difference were:
- verbal abuse
- too much physical punishment
- and a question covering humiliation, ridicule, bullying or mental cruelty

Strictness and regimentation were recurrent themes in the accounts of growing up in a Vietnam veteran family: ‘His whole life he was a disciplinarian and I think sometimes he went too far’ and ‘He treated us like we were in the Army’.

The extent to which some fathers ‘went too far’ was alluded to or more overtly described in other comments.

For some of the sons and daughters these events influenced their view of themselves. They grew up thinking their father’s volatility was their fault and they were ‘bad kids’.

The sons and daughters themselves were aware that their father’s wartime experiences had contributed to problems in their family and, even if they had been born after their father’s return from Vietnam, knew the war had made a difference: "My Mum said that my Dad came back a completely different person. Before he went he never smoked or drank and when he came back he did both. He had bad dreams but we were shielded from all of that."

For many Vietnam veterans and their families the war did not end in 1973. Nor did it end with the 1987 Welcome Home parade or the 1992 opening of the Vietnam Forces National Memorial in Canberra. It is hoped that publication of this report will prompt new initiatives. The research thus far has produced findings that can help direct assistance for Defence Force families in the future, in order to diminish the intergenerational transmission of problems seen among the sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans. That alone would be fitting recognition of the efforts of those who lobbied for and participated in the Vietnam Veterans Family Study.


Knowing so many other people whose fathers served in Vietnam had childhoods like mine makes me feel very sad. But this last idea, that we can learn new strategies for helping defence force personnel so their war doesn't get passed onto their families, is something very dear to my heart.

Has anyone else had a personal experience of living with a parent who has been to war? I wonder whether these statistics ring true for you too.

To all the Children of Vietnam Veterans out there, I hope you are being kind to yourselves.