The Goanna Island Mystery Tour

Today I'm happy to welcome Dale Harcombe to Spinning Pearls as she stops by on her Goanna Island Mystery Blog Tour. Read on after my interview with Dale to see the other stops on the tour.

1. Hi, Dale! Seeing Goanna Island on your book reminded me of an old favourite - Dolphin Island by Arthur C Clarke. Dolphin Island was based on the real life Lizard Island. Is Goanna Island based on a real place?

Dale: I have to admit I have not read Dolphin Island. Is it shaped like a dolphin or because there are dolphins there? I didn’t know there was a Lizard Island. To the best of my knowledge there is not such place as Goanna Island. Imagination called it into being after seeing two other small islands at varying times that evoked a response in me. One was in Sydney Harbour. The other up near Fingal Bay. But in The Goanna Island Mystery the editor chose to move it away from the NSW coast to place it near The Great Australian Bite. Not sure why unless she knows something I don’t know.

2. If someone blindfolded you and whisked you off to Goanna Island and ripped off the blindfold, what would you expect to see first?

Dale: Scrub everywhere. Spindly dull grey-green scrub and little black crabs that look like spiders scuttling for cover back towards the black rocks. Behind that I'd see the dilapidated house flaking green paint.

3. What comes first when you're writing - character, setting or plot or theme?

Dale: Nearly always charcter. The rest gets worked out or just appears as I go along and discover more about the character and where the story is leading. With The Goanna Island Mystery that was not the case as it started with the setting and a character that arrived at about the same time. As a child I loved mystery books so that’s probably how the mystery got in the act.

4. Did you consider other titles for this book, and if so, what?

Dale: It actually started life as The Pirate Ghost. I suspect the editor decided to take ghost out of the title because some schools get a bit peculiar about such things. The editor asked for other suggestions from me. After tossing around several, it became The Goanna Island Mystery.
I mostly find titles a bit of a problem. A manuscript I’m working on at present is untitled and probably will reman so till something leaps out of the text. Even with poems, which I also write, the title is invariably last.

5. Any funny stories about the genesis of Goanna Island?

Dale: Don’t know that it’s al that funny but the goanna idea wasn’t originally part of the story. The name refers not so much to inhabitants of the island but to the shape of it. It was a later addition to the story because I was looking for something else to call it other than The Pirate Ghost, so I hit on that idea of having the island in a goanna shape. I decided I liked that idea and so then wrote the goanna shape into the text.
It became The Goanna Island Mystery. This doesn’t give away as much of the plot in the title.
The last short chapter was also a late addition as, even though the manuscript had already been accepted for publication, I wasn't completely happy with the ending. This ending the editor and I both agreed was more satisfying.

Thanks for stopping by, Dale, and all the best with The Goanna Island Mystery.

Catch up with Dale at her earlier stops...

Monday 25th Dee White at http://tips4youngwriters.wordpress.com

Tuesday 26th Sally Murphy at http://aussiereviews.blogspot.com/

Wednesday 27th Mabel Kaplan at http://belka37.blogspot.com

Thursday 28th Claire Saxby at www.letshavewords.blogspot.com

Friday 29th Sandy Fussell at www.sandyfussell.blogspot.com

If you want to buy copies of The Goanna Island Mystery they are $9.95 from Blake Education http://www.blake.com.au/Aussie-Aussie-Aussie-Set-2-The-Goanna-Island-p/9781921255199.htm

Foods and Fats and Heart Disease

It must be a coincidence... but here I am, filling in time between finishing a job and starting a meal when I hear a piece saying heart disease is now a major killer of Australian women. At the same time, 'cos of course I'm multitasking as usual, I see a piece on the internet about feeding the family for under $10.00 a meal.
This sounds good, but I checked the recipes and found most of them are unacceptably high in fat and salt.

Please - remember that buying cheaper (fattier) mince and sausages is false economy. You're better off with a can of no-added-salt tuna.

Exciting new author

I do the occasional editing job for an e-book/POD publisher and I'm quite excited about the ms I have just edited. The author, Donaya Haymond, was born in Thailand to Thai and American parents, lived in China for a while, and seems peculiarly well-suited to write a novel of two people with secrets who come together in a Halloween Romance. Donaya first wrote this novel five years ago, when she was thirteen. She is currently at work on the last book in the series.

I can't say much about the storyline, since the book isn't yet available, but I can say I loved it. It's not a children's book, but adults who love children's books are likely to enjoy it for the depiction of two affectionate families and two groups of friends coming to terms with... but that's two secrets, for now.

When Halloween Romance is released, I'll be able to tell you more, but for now, I can take a leaf out of those weird lists one gets in libraries. "If you love Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Diana Wynne Jones' Deep Secret, the gothic romances of Barbara Michaels, Madeleine L'Engle's YA family stories and Sally Rogers-Davidson's Polymer, then you'll enjoy Halloween Romance as well."

Sally Murphy's on Tour!

Today I'm delighted to welcome Sally Murphy as guest blogger at Spinning Pearls. Sally's on tour with her brand new verse novel, the cleverly-titled "Pearl Verses the World".

Here's what Sally has to say.

Thanks for having me here, Sally.

Today is a special day for me, because it marks the release of my first verse novel, Pearl Verses the World, a verse novel aimed at primary aged children, about a girl dealing with isolation at school, and with her grandma’s illness at home.

As someone who loves to laugh, I didn’t expect to ever sit down and write a book dealing with loneliness, death and grief. But one night as I was getting into bed a poem came to me, speaking of loneliness and isolation. I wrote it down, and left it alone. Soon afterwards, other poems came to me, and I realised I had a story about a girl who was very sad and very lonely. There was a story which needed to be told and I needed to sit down and be the teller.

Pearl’s story was easy to write in many ways. It was almost as if Pearl was channelling through me – she told me her tale, and whenever I felt that I didn’t know what was going to happen next, I stopped writing and waited for it to come to me. And come to me it did; often when I was in the shower, or lying in bed, or doing something totally removed from writing. I gradually worked out why Pearl was sad, and why she felt lonely. She was watching her beloved grandmother fade away, and her grief had forced her apart from her classmates.

Having said that, Pearl’s story was in other ways terribly hard to write. When I wrote the scenes dealing with Granny’s death I experienced grief. A grief so real that I had to stop writing, curl into a ball and howl. Even long into the editing process I still cried. I also had to consider whether the book was too sad for child readers. Did I want children to cry as I had cried? The eventual answer was yes, I did need to share this story with children. They may cry when they read it – but hopefully they will also smile and even, perhaps, laugh out loud. Above all, I hope they will see that although they may experience loss or grief in their lives, life does go on and there is always hope. I also hope they will know it is okay to grieve, in their own way and in their own time.

I hope that readers – young and old - will smile with Pearl.

Thanks, Sally! I feel it in my bones that Pearl Verses the World is going to storm into the world and take it over... by storm. And I'm sure many writers who read Sally's account of the writing of "Pearl" are nodding with sympathy. Some books are just books, but some books, authors LIVE, even if they have never experienced the situations themselves.

Follow the tour!

May 1st - Here at Spinning Pearls. http://spinningpearls.blogspot.com
May 2nd - BJ Cullen - The Writing Life at http://bjcullen.blogspot.com
May 3rd - Tips 4Young Writers at www.tips4youngwriters.wordpress.com
May 4th - Persnickety Snark at http://persnicketysnark.blogspot.com/
May 5th - Let's Have Words at http://www.letshavewords.blogspot.com
May 6th - to be announced
May 7th - to be announced
May 8th - Write and Read with Dale at http://www.livejournal.com/users/orangedale
May 9th - Tales I Tell at http://belka37.blogspot.com
May 10th - Robyn Opie's Writing Children's Books at http://www.robynopie.blogspot.com

Sally Murphy's Favourite Five

Today I welcome Sally Murphy to Spinning Pearls. Sally is a children’s author and poet, with 28 books in print and more in production. She also runs a book review site which reviews only Australian books.

I have sent out an open invitation to authors and readers to nominate their favourite ever children's books. This is Sally's list.

(Note, Sally reserves her right to change her mind as often the book she is currently reading is her favourite book ever and, a her moods change, so do her favourites – but these one are pretty consistently favourite.)

Dragonkeeper Series, by Carole Wilkinson - fantasy as it should be for children – beautifully crafted, and a sense that it is true.
The Naming of Tishkin Silk, by Glenda Millard - a tear jerker. I loved the sequels as well.
C-a-a-a-r, Ca-a-a-a-ar, by Geoff Havel – laugh out loud funny picture book
Gordon’s Got a Snooky, by Lisa Shanahan – also lots of fun, and beautifully illustrated by Wayne Harris
Pearl Verses the World, by Sally Murphy (that’s me) – my favourite one of my own works to date.

Spinning Pearls in Paperback!

I'm delighted to announce my two poetry books, Fernseed for Fairysight and Spinning Pearls are now available in paperback. You can buy them, if you're so inclined, from Amazon. If you prefer the PDF versions, buy directly from www.eternalpress.ca or from Fictionwise.

Guest Blogger Mabel Jean Kaplan!

Today I have a new visitor at Spinning Pearls; Mabel Jean Kaplan, the West Aussie author of "Connie and the Pigeons". "Connie" was illustrated by Kelli Hainke, who drew the entertaining little lizard you see on this page.

Here's what Mabel has to say, but read on afterwards for some of my comments on Connie.

THE BIRTH OF CONNIE

The writing of ‘Connie and the Pigeons’ was a real buzz for me. From the moment I read the six line blurb in a newspaper column, I had a story. An aeroplane of Australian historical significance had been rediscovered in an aeroplane graveyard in Tucson, Arizona by two Australian aeroplane enthusiasts where it had been saved from demolition by a flock of pigeons who had taken up residence inside her. All I had to do was get it out or get it down on paper.

Now I’m a storyteller at heart, so Connie’s first airing was during ‘Celebration of Story’ a storytelling concert in a small hall over Perth Central Railway Station. I thought it went over quite well until I saw myself on video. Ugh! Didn’t know I moved so much. Then I remembered the card I’d received from colleagues when I left one of my previous places of employment. It had shown a picture of a mechanised woman with an inscription that read: You could never be replaced by a machine. Too many moveable parts!

I knew then, this story had to be written down. In my mind’s eye it was already a picture book, I could see those moveable parts as ‘the ground crew climbed over her body, checked her joints, rubbed her down and wiped over her engine parts … put a drop of oil here and tightened a loose bolt there’ and when ‘she felt her body begin to shake so much her wings moved up and down' and again when she ‘shook her propellers and flicked her lights as she bumped over the rough ground.’

MY AFFINITY WITH AEROPLANES

I’ve always loved aeroplanes. I remember as a child living on a farm in the north eastern wheat belt of Western Australia being woken one night by my father to see an aeroplane flying overhead. Since that time I’ve flown in all manner of aircraft large and small. In the ‘60’s, as a teacher on Kalgoorlie School of the Air, it was the Flying Doctor Service plane that took me out across the Nullabor to Cook on the WA-SA border to visit a group of isolated children. This is the desert I saw when I thought of Tucson, Arizona. In the 70’s I worked on an aboriginal settlement on Elcho Island in North East Arnhemland. The plane that took us island hopping was a single engine, two seater. Many a time a group of children and I looked on as an elderly mechanic climbed over the craft and carefully checked the engine parts after each flight. And I’ll never forget my first trip to Vienna in 1983. Vienna was my husband’s birth place and we were on a journey back to the haunts of his childhood. Bad weather prevented landing in Copenhagen, where we were to have changed planes for our flight to Vienna, and the plane was forced to fly onto on to Oslo in Norway. As we waited for our flight to resume, an airport attendant approached us and advised if we didn’t mind flying in an Austrian DC3 over Czechoslovakia we could leave immediately. We accepted his offer and were soon flying so low over Czechoslovakia we could almost see the grass grow. At this time Austrian airlines were one of the few foreign planes permitted to enter then communist controlled Czech airspace.

BEHIND THE STORY

I find researching the background behind a story half the fun. For Connie, the story had all but written itself before I had time to do any research. But I soon discovered that Connie, far from being the name of a particular aircraft, was the generic name for all the Lockheed Constellations of the period from 1947 to the early 60’s. I uncovered a political wrangle between the Australian and British Governments over the purchase of the Lockheeds and in the process found the reason for Connie ending up in Tucson, Arizona. As for the so-called aeroplane graveyard, it turned out to be a museum. Saved by pigeons? Yes. But not because the smell of their droppings dissuaded would-be salvage crews from stripping her down, but because the acid in the droppings rendered the metal unsuitable for melting down and re-use. And the two Australian aeroplane enthusiasts? They turned into a whole team of men and women, members of the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) based in New South Wales who worked tirelessly over many years to bring a Connie back to Australia.

But this was a children’s picture book and I saw no reason to complicate the story line with literal truth. Just knowing this background greatly enriched the story for me.

One piece of information I was really glad I didn’t know prior to writing the story concerned the pigeons. The live pigeons were long gone. Far from shooing pigeons from inside the cabin, the restoration crew spent long hours removing ‘tightly wadded nests of twigs and the remains of dead birds’ and scraping dried bird dropping from every surface and orifice.

The greatest delight of all came after the book was published. A telephone call from a Qantas pilot in New South Wales who had learned about the book from a Western Australian Qantas pilot. He was also a member of HARS and well acquainted with those involved in the restoration and return of Connie. He was full of enthusiasm and generous in his praise. I felt relieved and delighted the book rang true even to those in the know!

EXPLORING MEANING

I never cease to be intrigued by the underlying messages different readers attach to a story. Here are two unsolicited comments about Connie and the Pigeons.

This book is based on a true story and the strange adventure of little aeroplane called Connie (Lockheed Constellation L749). But as with all books there is more. It is also about separation anxiety, friendship, doing what you do best, and even recycling! Kathy Pierce, Pittsburgh USA

The text is pitched towards middle and upper primary, the comic sans font enhancing the lively pace of the story. Kelli Hainke’s illustrations complement the text and encourage the reader to look deep and uncover more. Her wandering lizard has its own story to tell and adds a ‘Where’s Wally’ aspect to the story.

The text is ideal for thematic planning and act as a stimulus and springboard into further studies of flight and the history of aviation in Australia. Within my room I have used the ICP strand in S&E to encourage internet research in several learning areas. Year 5 teacher, Caversham Primary School.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thanks, Mabel, for a fascinating story behind the story of Connie and the Pigeons. The picturebook, (which you'll find reviewed at my other blog, http://readandreviewed.blogspot.com ) tells a happy and simple story, but the guest blog you just read gives us the background and facts behind the story. As Mabel rightly points out, the sweeter and simpler aspects of the story are not strictly what happened, but, they are "right" for a picturebook. This seemingly throw-away comment deserves careful consideration. When turning a real event into a fictionalised story, authors must choose what facts to keep, what to leave out and what to change or smooth. Having been lucky enough to read both versions of the story, I believe Mabel chose well.

Follow Mabel on her blog tour. She is appearing at the following blogs.

Monday, 23 March Sally Murphy at http://www.sallymurphy.blogspot.com

Tuesday,24 March, Sally Odgers at http://spinningpearls.blogspot.com (You are here now.)

Wednesday, 25 March, Dee White at www.deescribewriting.wordpress.com

Thursday, 26 March, Refuelling stop at http://belka37.blogspot.com

Friday, 27 March, Brenton Cullen at www.bjcullen.blogspot.com


Connie and the Pigeons is available through Westbooks in Victoria Park WA (08) 9361 4211

Email: orders@westbooks.com.au; online through http://www.justlocal.com.au/clients/book/mabel-kaplan/ or direct from the publisher Stories for the Telling 54 Hudson Avenue Girrawheen WA 6064 Tel. (08) 9342 7150 Email: mabelka@hotmail.com

For those on the Eastern coast it is also available from

HARS Souvenirs
cnr Airport and Boomerang Roads

Albion Park Rails, New South Wales 2527

and

Qantas Founder Outback Museum
PO Box 737
Longreach Qld 4730