Marg McAlister Interviews Bren MacDibble

Bren MacDibble is a children's writer who has had success in several different genres.

Here's a quick look at Bren's achievements:

• had two stories picked up by Nelson Thomson for their Double Trouble series
• had a further three stories published by Blake Ed, in their Gigglers series
• has four books being published this year by Blake Ed for their Sparklers Series
• has a play at the Australian Script Centre for 30+ children and that is put on a few times a year by schools
• was accepted for and completed a Clarion, which is the top workshop an SF writer can do, and involves being locked away with 17 other writers for six weeks ("...and various forms of mental and physical torture," adds Bren), and
• has been published by Orb Magazine, Scifidimensions, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and ShINy Mag, all receiving great reviews

Bren comments: "I have a wacky sense of humour, which rather than being the problem it is in real life, works out well in stories.  Bizarreness with comic timing really seems to suit the Gigglers series.  And as far as the play is concerned: I find it particularly wonderful to think that someone is making an audience somewhere laugh at the words I wrote. I have loads of shorter works published too, across all genres. All of this just keeps reminding me... I AM a writer.  I should write more!"

Here are Bren's responses questions posed by Writing4Success:

1. What kind of writing have you been doing over the years?

I started out writing for children and had reasonably quick successes with educational publishers which got me hooked.   Figuring my muse was some kind of higher life form that had accidentally taken up residence in my skull and could do no wrong, I gave it free reign and it decided to jaunt off down a crooked path of chapter books and novels for older children and YA, all in the genre of science fiction  Then it discovered the science fiction writing scene in Australia and the wonderful magazines of short stories that are put out by small presses and I wrote for them. 

So now I write short SF stories for adults, novels for YA, chapter books for older children and educational fiction for graded reading, and struggle to keep up with it all!  Clearly my muse is not the mesiah, just a very naughty thing that needs guidance!  Fortunately, one educational publisher really adores my work and offers guidance in the form of requests, deadlines and royalty cheques.  Making a little money from writing is a very strong motivator to focus on one area over others.

2. How do you work in writing around other paid work?

I've struggled with this for years!  The balancing act, and with kids in the mix too.  Tip the scales too far in one direction, and someone or something slides off!  Then I wind up very unhappy.

I've taken part time jobs, I've taken full time jobs.  I'm now working on contract basis for a company that has school holiday lulls and I find that fits in with the way I like to work.  I work in short bursts, I like to immerse myself in a story for days at a time and in school holidays, I can do this.  Also, when I'm at work now, I'm with children and other creative people. 

Office work, generally, deadens the brain.  The writing muscles shrivel up and hide in the corner from the alien concepts of conformity and repetition, and people who focus on time and money, but spending the day with children, in creative environments, excites the writing muscles, they sit around flexing all day... begging for their turn as they help children fulfill their creative potential. 

I also build and manage a few webpages, another time-consuming, but creative, job that brings in an income but not a good income per hour.  And I have a cleaning job one day a week, which is cheaper than going to the gym, and pays decent money for the time invested.  Anyway, with all this going on, I am proud to say, I can write and make the equivalent of a really low wage.

(Bren cheerfully admits that she is NOT a morning person. She prefers work between 10 pm and midnight. See her comments about this in Writing a Book in Sync With Circadian Rhythms)

4. What kind of writing do you do that you like best… and what would be the 'dream job' or 'dream writing life'?

I enjoy the immersion of longer chapter books and novels.  The writing I like to do best is set in Australia, New Zealand or Indonesia.  It's close to home, I hope it seems familiar to downunder readers.  It's character driven story and drags in either an element of science fiction, supernatural or mythology.  I try to make connections with the reader, and take them places that they haven't been in other stories.  I like to think it is thoughtful and punchy, both humorous and dark, with a subtext that has to be sought out to be seen. 

I know there's now a push for Sweet Valley High Vampires and things like that, so my dream job would be if the marketplace swung about and embraced science fiction with dark edges as quickly as it swung to boarding school wizards and those teenage vampires.  It seems it only takes one book to do that, so I hope to one day, write that book.  I want to be the innovator that captures the imaginations of one generation of kids.  I want people to like what I want to write and come to me and ask for more.  You did say 'dream.'   So my dream is that the market changes to suit me. 

Realistically, I think the future involves online reading and therefore shorter stories, illustrated/animated stories, so I think I should be using my background in bizarreness with comic timing in other ways.  I'm not sure which direction to go.  I'm thinking some new form of media will arrive and suddenly unlock a world of opportunity.  A new holographic-anime-scratch-and-sniff-feel-a-Kindle or something not yet imagined!  I'm waiting to see it, and grab it and run with it, the moment it arrives.  That is another dream: That I won't be too stupid to notice my boat when it calls in at my dock.

5. How do your deadlines work… do you have to sometimes turn things around quickly, or do you usually have a bit of lead time?

Educational publishers have deadlines.  They plan a series, decide when they need submissions by, and call for them.  Usually there is a reasonable lead time, and I work out ideas in bursts, and rough out stories in bursts, write them, put them aside, and then find myself working till the small wee hours the nights before the deadline to tidy them up and get them sent off. 

Magazines on topics and Anthologies of short stories also have deadlines.  Deadlines are quite useful.  Without them, you cannot imagine how many things or how many rewrites can get in the way of sending something off.  Novels and short stories of course, plod along and go looking for markets in their own sweet time.  

Novels require synopses and cover letters which have to be polished to the nth degree so, of course, they are even harder to send off and I don't send them out as much as I should.  I really need a thoroughly disciplined manager/agent to do these things for me... but, of course, agents are like hens' teeth in Australia, and I should be perfectly capable of doing these things myself.  But there may be a direct correlation between deadlines and the fact that most of my publications were for companies that issued them.

This ends Part 1 of the Writing4Success Interview with Bren MacDibble. Part 2 contains advice for beginners, plus general advice to writers about what does/doesn't work, from the perspective of a working writer.

Read more about Bren McDibble at her website.

Copyright Bren McDibble and Marg McAlister, Writing4Success.