 |
| Sergeant, Greenstone Station |
On a Saturday before, I drove to Glenorchy to buy a black horse. The road from Queenstown winds alongside the top zig-zags of Lake Wakatipu. It’s a picture postcard drive. And usually busy with activity like the Earnslaw steaming tourists back and forth to Walter Peak Station under its endless smoke-ring. But when New Zealand closed its borders to international travellers, local tourism businesses closed their doors too.
A pearl-coloured ceiling hung low over the lake. It was a strangely still day. It was the land-of-the-long-white-covid-cloud. I counted three white rental SUVs, and twelve white-chested kereru swaying on powerlines, mostly in pairs, one set of four. I saw those plump pigeons as a sign. A bright sign in an unravelling world. But I write stories for kids and often my imagination must run away with itself, down rabbit holes and beyond. Mostly, always, in humourous pursuit. But on that Saturday, I began to wonder if we might need to revert to hunting for food in an unknown, distant future. I also wondered if the Clydesdale-cross (with hooves the size of side plates) I was going to test-ride would double as a pack-horse, should I need to ride to market to buy a sack of wheat …
Encouraging young imaginations to roam wild is what drives myself and ten other children’s authors to run the online story-writing competition, www.fabostory.wordpress.com With the current lockdown in place, we invite writers aged 7–13 to unlock their imaginations and get plotting!
Each Monday one author sets up the beginning of a story. It always stops with a cliff hanger and gives lots of scope to the variety of ages and abilities who enter to really have fun with their writing. Entrants have until Saturday night to type up their story on the website and hit submit. We usually start in Term 2, but with families on lockdown, we wanted to give young minds a creative outlet now. Occasionally we run a theme but this year it’s open. We’re discouraging apocalyptic and lockdown stories. Personally, I’d prefer young imaginations to escape to their own Narnia. Each lucky winner receives a bookish prize (currently provided by Puffin New Zealand.)
Fabostory is in its tenth year. Our authors have over 100 children’s books and a raft of experience between them. I joined four years ago and was amazed at the quality of writing sent in. All the stories make me smile, in fact. Except the ones that are travelling so well and then end abruptly with and then I woke up. As well as choosing a winner and publishing their story on the website, each author writes a report highlighting favourite excerpts from other participants. Our young writers are really encouraged when they receive this personalised feedback.
Indigo Tomlinson, 12, Ohope, was a standout last year for many of us. She has a huge vocabulary for her age and a great eye for detail and story. This passage is from her winning entry, "Weird Tuesday".
“It was an elephant. A teeny tiny miniature elephant. It blinked, bemused, then looked up at me, sending a small squirt of water into the air with its trunk. It fractured into hundreds of shimmering diamonds and just for a second, it felt like the world was bathed in rainbows.”
Wouldn’t that be nice? Right now. Indigo has been my winner twice. When she’d read my Lily Max trilogy, I asked her if she’d like to be a beta reader on my latest manuscript, as her prize. She jumped at the chance. And read it twice. She pulled me up on quite a few things - stronger verbs I could have used, cajoled instead of called for example. She wrote a very succinct report. I can see Indigo as an editor, should she follow a writing career.
Another outstanding writer, from 2010, was Angus Smith, Auckland. He could have won each time he entered, but that’s off-putting for the other regular entrants. Angus ended up winning an overall prize and acting as a Fabstory author, writing the story set-up, one time. It’s cool to feel this competition may have shaped future writers. This year there will also be an overall winner who’ll receive a Puffin prize pack.
My slot is scheduled mid-August. Hopefully, by then, we’ll know a different New Zealand. However, I’m guessing my story-starter will have a mediaeval theme. With horses. There’s a tiny historic stone cottage just over the fence from our property. Over the years, we’ve found lots of treasures from the family that lived in there, back in the 1900s. I’ve dug up a child’s leather boot, a tin gunpowder pouch, and numerous apothecary bottles in blue glass and clay. Even beer bottles along an old fence line. I’ve often wondered about that family, whether they had a daughter who picked the wild plums and gooseberries that spilled over the fence, back when times were simple and they rode the bullock trail into Queenstown, with no jetboats roaring through the Shotover canyon (like right now.) I cannot meet this family, so I’ll have to unlock my imagination and make them up. Hopefully, while riding a large black horse.
The FABO team of fabulous children's authors are: Weng Wai Chan, Sue Copsey, Maureen Crisp, Elena de Roo, Helen Vivienne Fletcher, Tania Hutley, Kyle Mewburn, Michele Powles, Melinda Szymanik and Kathy White. And me!
No comments:
Post a Comment