My Creative Self - A Learning Curve

For the discussion in week two I chose Catherine Martin as my Colonial Author, an Australian writer and yet is relatively unknown in today's literary world which to me is a little sad.
The book I chose to review is An Australian Girl (1890) and was a great read, albeit a fast read and one that when I have more time would like to re-read and take more of it in.
Similar in style to Jane Austen's Emma, it's a story about a young woman Stella Courtland who is good looking, smart and rich and very independant. The novel follows Stella's journey to maturity as she toys with the idea of marriage, but also within the confines of a woman's life in the 1800s. A well educated, rich, beautiful young woman who had no desire to tie herself down to marriage was not part of the norm for the era. Young women were married off to suitable suitors of her station to lead gentile lives in the new world. Ahh yeah!!
Catherine Martin's own life paralled her heroine's although it is a fictional story.

After the introduction there is a small note on the text added which gives an insight into Catherine's intelligence and forward thinking as an author of the nineteenth century.

"An Australian Girl was first published by Richard Bentley in London in 1890 in the then standard three volume form. In January 1891 the publishers wrote to Catherine Martin asking her to agree with to some abridgements of the text for a cheaper one volume edition. Wither her somewhat reluctant consent, many of what Bentley's referred to as 'metaphysical observations' - discussions of religion, Darwinism and other current intellectual issues - were omitted, along with much material in the final section of the novel relating to German socialism..."

I would love to get hold of a copy of the original work to see just how much they 'censored' her work and creativity. Does make me wonder if that would have been done if the author was a man?

Anyway this all brings me to the way I look at myself, and My Creative Self. I have been writing in one form or another since my early teens, with short stories, fanfiction (before it was given a name and made a genre), and poetry. No one ever read my early works unless it was something I had to do for school.
I found at an early age that the best way I could express myself was through something creative or imaginative if not writing then it was handcrafts, sewing, knitting, crocheting etc. But writing was always my passion.

It also stems I think from a love of reading ... I'm a voracious reader ... and a love of movies from watching to making them to writing them ... Perhaps it started as a form of escapism for myself throughout the tougher parts of my life, perhaps it still is today there is nothing better than finding yourself in a fantastic new world filled with characters and situations so far removed from everyday life. Food for the soul!

I have notebooks filled with observations about people I have watched and taken an interest in, might have been an item of clothing that stood out, or a mannerism that caught my eye anything that was of interest to me ended up in my pool of potential characteristics for my own characters.
Photos that I have taken of scenery ir pics I've found, often end up in the files as well, I am a visual writer and the photos and pictures help to actualise the landscape I am creating.
One thing that I have made a conscious decision to do when writing now is to work on the descriptions of places and people; to enhance the reader's visual perspective. In one story I am working on for Supernatural fanfiction I am creating a post-apocolyptic landscape, one reviewer asked if I could add more to the way I describe it. After re-reading the chapter I could see where I could improve on it without it becoming too much. To 'paint' the landscape rather than 'sketching' it and to give the reader a chance to feel the desolation and isolation of a decimated society.
So is that part of the writing process as well? To give your reader a tactile experience when reading your text. That they can virtually see, hear, smell, and to want to reach out and touch your world.

Just a few thoughts for now...

My journey already so long and lived; will once again start with the next moment to come.

First Official Entry

It is within literature that we come to understand fictional truth. It offers us models,
ideas, borders and boundaries that we can work within and also move away from; it
offers us the capacity to make judgements of ourselves and others without being
judgemental. It is a world of reality that is also a world of fantasy. Thus we meet people
whose attributes we know and don’t know; we hear dialogue that we have never heard
before yet recognise; we commit acts of love, kindness and hatred; and we are
vituperative and even heinous in our nature in way that we could never essay in our own
lives. Thus we meet ourselves and do not meet ourselves. We are extended and
controlled, enacting reality in the imaginative arena. (Arnold, Josie Dr. 2011)[1]

This is my very first official entry for the unit and thought that the quote from Dr Arnold's lecture was a great starting point. I have been writing in one form or another ever since I was a teenager and never really sat down to think of why I write, what I write and how I write it. It has always come naturally to me and I have found that in my writing I can express myself a lot easier than I can in other ways.

I am a visual writer, I write as though I am watching the story play out in front of me, not fluid like a completed movie but in bits and pieces to work into the final piece. If I can't see it then I can't write it.
When I was reading Dr Arnold's lecture for this week she discusses understanding "fictional truth" through literature. This made me stop reading for a moment and to just think about the term, "fictional truth", the truth of the text written no matter how fantastical it is, "enacting reality in the imaginative arena".
It is interesting that we can live another life through literature whether as a reader or as a writer and often as both. I think that's why Dr Arnold's lecture resonates with me so much this week, 

I am dabbling in the magical realism realm at the moment, creating a supernatural setting in a contemporary world. Where it is the norm for supernatural entities to lives amongst humans and interact with them in an everyday way. Vampires for example live openly in society and are more or less accepted as a minority although were-people especially wolves still try to live in secrecy. The more human the preternatural beings are the more accepted they are by society; animalistic creatures are still considered monstrous even though they are more human than most humans.

As well as the basic backstory with relationships developing between characters I really want to explore the way in which those who are different to the norm are treated, why do we have to hide our differences instead of celebrating them. It will be a novel by the time it is finished and though it is not a "literary" novel I am aiming for more than just a quick read.

The author-as-god may be dead, but as a writer I am still striking notes on the
keyboard, as are so many working writers in all genres. It is the record of these that the
readers bring to life through what they bring to individual readings. Understanding this
enables us as writers to understand something of writing that moves it from the
AUTHORitative to the explorative and even speculative.[2]

So I'm gonna leave this post here but I will be back very soon ...

My journey already so long and lived; will once again start with the next moment to come.

References:

[1] Arnold, Josie Dr: LPW700 The Writerly Self - Language and literature and the un-named native informant 2011
[2] ibid

First post

This is my first post on the new blog and I guess a little explanation about why I have started it.

I am currently undertaking an MA in Writing through Open University Australia and Swinburne University of Technology. As part of the major assessment for one of my units Critical and Creative Practices: The Writerly Identity we have to keep a reflective journal on our writing journey.

I am hoping to inspire not only myself but those who read the posts and help me on my journey in writing and studying.