Thornwood House (61 page)

By this stage I’m usually impatient to start the plotting process, which I really love. For me, there’s nothing more enjoyable than sitting at my ‘plotting table’ with a thermos of tea, and assembling the skeleton of a new story.

I love making a mess with scraps of paper, jotting down ideas for scenes and plot points and possible twists, and then puzzling them all together like a huge unwieldy jigsaw. The plot is always organic; when I start drafting, the story flies off on tangents and I invariably write myself into a corner. Back I go to the plotting table and re-shuffle my paper scraps until the problem is solved, then I return to my embryonic story and redraft. This phase of the process goes on for many months, and is a mental and emotional rollercoaster ride!

Some scenes – endings in particular – are more difficult to write. I enter avoidance mode: gardening or knitting or
brushing the dog, or collecting wildflower seeds for my various regeneration projects – meanwhile freaking out over the gaps in my story, worrying myself into a state of creative agitation. By the time I’m ready to write my most challenging scenes, I’m a mess . . . but that’s good! Angst and chaos are part of the writing process, too, and are frequently the catalyst for better work.

Often I write to silence, but some scenes require that I work from a place of heightened emotion. If this is the case, on goes the music – Mumford and Sons, Will Oldham, Yma Sumac, Roky Erickson, Loreena McKennitt. For especially dark brooding scenes I play Espers, Six Organs of Admittance, PG Six, Nick Cave; for the ending I’ll crank up Muse, maybe a few Metallica tracks, or some weird obscure 70s folk rock. At some stage during a critical scene I’ll pull out Evanescence and have a great old cry.

Understandably, after all this intense focus, the story lines begin to blur; it becomes easy to overlook mistakes. One of the most exhilarating (and terrifying) parts of the process is handing over the novel draft to my agent and editors . . . and my eagle-eyed sister. They are the ghosts in the novel machine, and without them the story would be a shambles. An editor’s job is to pick apart a story and then send it back for the writer to fix. If someone points out that part of the plotline or a character doesn’t work, I gladly make the changes, knowing the story will be better for it. It’s a daunting process, but my ‘behind the scenes’ team always gives me deeper understanding and insight – not just into the novel we’re working on, but more importantly, into the craft of storytelling.

Another vital part of the process – especially after slogging towards deadlines – is clearing the brain fog. For me, this usually involves vanishing deep into the bush never to be heard from again . . . well, at least not until dinnertime! I’ll swim in the river, or climb into the hills and daydream on a bed of wildflowers. When I finally return to the world with the peppery scent of
yellow-buttons clinging to my clothes, my brain and body are fully recharged.

One of my favourite quotes comes from Joseph Campbell, who said, ‘Follow your bliss.’ For me, the process of creating a novel is very much about following the trail of ideas that I find most intriguing and inspiring . . . a strategy that works well for writing in general, and also for life.

Anna Romer

May 2014

THORNWOOD HOUSE

First published in Australia in 2013 by

Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

Suite 19A, Level 1, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

This edition published in 2014

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© Anna Romer 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

Author:

Romer, Anna, author.

Title:

Thornwood House/Anna Romer.

ISBN:

9781922052407 (paperback)

9781922052414 (ebook)

Subjects:

Family secrets – Fiction.

Country life – Queensland – Fiction.

Inheritance and succession – Queensland – Fiction.

Dewey Number: A823.4

Cover design: Christabella Designs

Cover image: Mark Owen/Trevillion Images

Internal design and typesetting: Midland Typesetters, Australia

The paper this book is printed on is certified against the Forest Stewardship Council® Standards. Griffin Press holds FSC chain of custody certification SGS-COC-005088. FSC promotes environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world’s forests.