Christmas means Family, Friends and Fine Food. Of course, being Chinese, family is of primary importance and next comes food. If you have ever been to a Chinese family dinner you might find that we always discuss each dish as it comes out. Or if not each dish then something to do with food. We like to enjoy the full experience of eating – the taste, smell and texture of every mouthful and you can’t do that if you’re talking politics or footy or debating the latest movie. Being born in Australia has its many advantages. I have grown up knowing both Chinese and Western food. Roast lamb and potatoes and bread and butter pudding and thousand year old duck eggs and lion’s head meatballs have all been a part of my family’s meals since I was small. I have a head full of my mother’s and grandmother’s hand me down recipes. But at Christmas we go Western. Maybe it’s the English tradition that we are used to. When I was little we would go to my grandfather’s house for Christmas lunch and the two things I remember are the presents and the plum pudding with sixpences and threepences cooked inside it. We loved hunting for them.

Only some of the dishes we had yesterday. The rest are being dished out in the kitchen

But it’s desserts where our family truly excels.

My brother and sister-in-law made this Chinese gingerbread box

Open the lid...

My mum, my son, Ren and his girlfriend, Naomi

Tiny Meringue Mice

These meringue mice made by my sister-in-law are always the family favourite on Christmas day. Of course we also have plum pudding and pavlova too and fresh berries and mince pies.

Ahh…the wholesome goodness of Christmas!

Everyone works to the beat of their own drum. Everyone has tools that they like to use. The following are some that I have found most useful.

Laptop or Computer It goes without saying that a computer is essential in this day and age. I do almost all my writing on my laptop unless I go to write in a café. Then I take a notebook. I no longer need to print out pages and pages of hard copy then send it to my publisher via snail mail. All my manuscripts are sent through electronically. Of course, if you are sending your ms out as a submission it has to be in hard copy.

External Hard drive or some kind of backup I use a wallet size external hard drive that backs up my whole computer. I carry this around in my bag with me because I’m paranoid that my laptop might get stolen. The beauty of the latest Macs as opposed to a PC is that you plug in your external hard drive and Time Machine automatically backs up your entire Mac, including system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. And it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on a given day — so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past. Mozy and Dropbox are another way to store files. They are online storage sites, downloadable for free up to a certain size. But they are only good for small files.

Work Table When I work, I surround myself with bits of paper, print out of chapters, reference books, my breakfast, post it notes etc etc so I need a heap of space. I try and tidy my desk and give it a dust and a wipe down once a week. All right, that’s a lie, it’s more like once every two months. A bed is great to have in your office, if you have a dedicated writing room. Sometimes you just want to keep writing and writing without disturbing your partner. It also doubles as a large surface to spread work on.

Printer A reliable fast printer. I use a black and white laser printer. I don’t need colour as I only want to print out documents mostly chapters for me to edit.

Mechanical Pencil Since becoming a full time writer and using the computer everyday, my handwriting has suffered to such a degree that it is almost impossible to read. It’s become like the scrawl on a doctor’s prescription, like the muddled scribblings of a crazed person. So when it comes to editing my work, I use a mechanical pencil. It is a pleasure to work with. The point is fine, there’s no sharpening or mess and the lead lasts forever. I use an HB with a O.5mm lead and my writing is amazingly tidy. It even has a neat little rubber in the end. I love my mechanical pencil.

Internet You need high speed broadband access. When you’re writing and you need to search the internet for a piece of information, you don’t want to be waiting around to be connected. By that time you’ve lost your train of thought. The most recent novels I’ve been working on are historical and I’m constantly googling information.

Spare Paper Lots of spare paper to jot down notes, or a good filing system like file cards or a note book. I use both. But since I’ve begun to use Scivener, I don’t need to use much paper at all. And my table top is no longer a mess.

Scrivener This writing tool is something that I have recently discovered and I love it. It is particularly good for my current WIP which involves a series of four novels. I can see on the one page each novel with individual chapters and all my research. Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers. It won’t try to tell you how to write – it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. And it’s cheap. It only costs $40 Aus.

An Understanding Partner A patient and understanding partner is essential in any relationship but doubly important for writers. Writers need to spend many hours alone without interruption. The best type of partner is one who is not only interested in your work but is a good editor as well. I am blessed in that department.

Then of course you need filing cabinets and bookshelves and good lighting and all the other miscellaneous things that go with running an office.

Okay, now that the basics are taken care of, all you need is to take your imagination and let it SOAR….

I’ve been too busy with my current project to blog lately. I have to complete the first draft of my novel before Christmas so I’m working on a chapter a day which averages to about 1100 words, and it seems to be going well.

I would never show anyone my first draft. I have written it without going back over a single sentence. But the ideas are all there. At second draft stage I will go back through it and add voice and nuance and rhythm and all the little details that hopefully raises it above the ordinary story.

Re-writing is what I enjoy most of all. But there’s a long way to go before I get to that stage.

In the meantime, I was so pleased to learn that A Ghost in My Suitcase is a finalist in the 2009 Aurealis Awards. This is an award for speculative fiction. The Garden of Empress Cassia won the Aurealis Awards Best Children’s Long Fiction in 2002 and The Pearl of Tiger Bay was shortlisted in 2004 so I’m absolutely thrilled to be in the running again.

DO TREES LAY EGGS?

This one did – a golden one.

When writing a novel, especially an historic one, there are so many interesting facts you learn along the way.

This is one I learnt this morning. I was able to use in my chapter too.

The Welcome Stranger, a gold nugget that weighed 210 lbs, was found in Moliagul Victoria in 1869 by Deason and Oates. It was the largest gold piece in the world and was worth $3,000,000. It lay just cms below the earth among some tree roots. ‘Confound it,’ Deason cursed, ‘I’ve broken my pick.’ But then he saw it, sticking several inches out of the ground ‘like a boulder on a hill’. It was so heavy they had to take it away on the back of a wagon.

Miners and their wives pose with the nugget. 1869