Writers At Work
This is the fourteenth in Ravenshead's series of interviews with
writers.
Lorraine
Cobcroft is the author of
Melanie's
Easter Gift and has ghost-written dozens of books. In this
interview she discusses her life as a writer and gives an insight into
the unusual profession of ghost-writing.
Lorraine is currently working on what promises to be an enthralling
account of her husband's
traumatic childhood under the child welfare system of the 1950s.
Ravenshead (RH) interviewed Lorraine Cobcroft (LC) in February
2010 and the interview is reproduced here:
An Interview with Lorraine Cobcroft
RH: Please tell us a bit about your
background.
LC: I’m
a small town girl from rural New South Wales, Australia.
My dad was killed in a motorbike accident
when I was six weeks old. As
the only
child of a poor widow I
enjoyed an idyllic
early childhood, surrounded by a big, loving
extended family and
wonderful
neighbours.
When
I was twelve, my mother remarried a fellow she had met years before who
had
migrated to California and made his fortune. I spent four fabulous
years in Southern California. They divorced, and we
returned to Australia and I went through a period of trauma and unhappiness, ending when, at
20, I
rushed headlong into marriage to a soldier musician and went with him
to live
in Singapore. Thirty-eight years later, he is my best friend and
supporter and
I am still madly and passionately in love with him. We’ve raised three
beautiful
children together, and now have four delightful grandchildren to light
up our lives.
I excelled at school, but sadly the untimely change in family
circumstances ended
my education prematurely and I never got to go to College, but I never
stopped learning.
It’s a passion. I
devour knowledge with
a hunger that never abates.
RH:When did you start writing?
LC: I don’t really remember when I started. I’ve been writing for as
long as I can remember. I have a vivid memory of my mum pretending to
be a rabbit, trying to get my older cousin to describe what she was
doing. He was about nine, I think, and I was only a toddler. She was
trying to teach him how to write descriptions. She must have got me
started. I won a road safety essay competition when I was in grade
four, and about that time I wrote a story about fairies living in a
hollow tree trunk that the teacher insisted I must have copied from
somewhere, because a kid my age couldn’t write that well. I got serious
about writing when we went to California. The teachers there were much
more encouraging, and I started writing poetry and articles for the
school magazine.
Lack of confidence held me back. I never believed I could be a
published author, but I used to write articles in response to things I
read in magazines. My husband sent one to “Woman’s Day” and it was
published. I was blown away! They paid me the princely sum of $70, but
the real buzz was the mail from readers. I guess it was a controversial
topic, because over 1,500 people wrote to congratulate me on speaking
out. I didn’t really do much with my writing, though, until I was over
40. I was importing and selling software, and one great product had
terrible documentation. I wrote a 1,500-page self-paced correspondence
course in computer programming with a visual tool, and it was a huge
hit. I went on to write software manuals and business documents, then
gradually moved into freelance business and ghost writing.
RH: Do you have a special place for
writing?
LC: I wish! I find my office depressing, but I do love
nature, so I recently bought myself a
Neo so
that I can sit on the
beach or in a park and write.
RH: Do you get a lot done that way? Is
the Neo something you’d recommend?
LC: Absolutely! I love my
Neo.
It sets me free to write
anywhere, without worrying about laptop battery life, interference with
electronics (It’s quite safe to use when planes are taking off and
landing, so you get a lot more done on a flight!), or damaging a laptop
in less than ideal conditions (like on a sandy beach). It’s also much
more compact and lightweight than a laptop. It’s simple to use and
distraction-free (no temptation to go off browsing the web or reading
emails!) and has plenty of storage, and it takes seconds to transfer
files to my computer when convenient.
RH: What makes you write?
LC: Anger at social injustice; frustration at others writing badly or
presenting a point of view I disagree strongly with; hearing an
inspirational story; or discovering information that can enhance other
people’s lives. I’m a fighter for social justice, and I find the pen is
far mightier than the sword.
RH: What's the easiest thing about
writing? What's the hardest?
LC: It’s easy to write. The hard part is editing and rewriting. I get
emotionally attached to sentences and I find it really hard to delete
them, even when I know they don’t work. Getting started is often hard
too. Blank pages are intimidating!
RH: Any tips for getting started?
LC: Newspaper and magazine articles are good for generating ideas. My
husband is also a great source! Just watching people in a public place
and trying to imagine their private lives works for some. Why is that
girl looking impatient? Who is she waiting for? Why does that man look
so sad? Listen to friends. Get them talking about their experiences and
the people they know. Ask questions about their hobbies and interests.
Simple comments can trigger the imagination and evolve into a great
story.
RH: Have other people’s comments
affected your writing?
LC: Absolutely. For the most part, early in life, they discouraged me.
It wasn’t that they were critical, but rather that well-meaning
relatives and teachers told me writing was something you do for fun and
I needed to look for other ways to make a living. I guess the message
they were trying to convey was that finding a publisher isn’t easy, but
they didn’t recognise the wealth of opportunities in business writing,
journalism, copywriting, and ghostwriting. The best thing I’ve done for
myself is to join a Writers’ Group. My friends at
Fairfield Writers’
Group are wonderfully supportive and great at critiquing each other’s
work. I’m less serious in my writing now. They’ve helped me relax and
write for fun.
RH: Which writers have influenced you?
LC: I must have read thousands of books, and I would find it hard to
name an author who didn’t influence me. I enjoy reading
Wilbur
Smith,
Colleen McCullough,
Bryce Courtenay and
Irwin
Shaw. I try to read a
wide variety of works. I look for books by little known authors. I
frequent second hand book stores to find books by unknowns. Even the
bad ones are helpful, because they show me what not to do.
RH: How long does it take you to write
a typical book? Do you have to revise or rewrite it much?
LC: When I’m ghostwriting,
time
is money and I have to get it out
quickly. Clients won’t pay for extensive revision. I typically finish a
book in
two to three weeks. When writing for myself, I struggle to
finish at all because I’m never satisfied, unless I have a deadline,
and then I can write at lightning speed. When I was writing the course,
I was turning out a book (a hundred and fifty pages on average) a
month. I once wrote a 350 page e-book on setting up a web hosting
business in three days, while my husband was away on a long weekend. I
finished it, and then realised I’d hardly eaten and hadn’t slept since
he left. Within a week of starting it, eleven hundred people had
downloaded it.
RH: You’ve recently written “Melanie’s
Easter Gift”. How did this come about?
LC: I wanted to convey a message to my grandchildren, without being a
lecturing grandma. I was looking for a way to teach them empathy and
compassion. I wanted them to appreciate their good fortune and be
charitable to those less blessed. My younger daughter was running
marathons for charity, and she told me a story about a young leukaemia
sufferer and her family that touched me. I wanted to support her
efforts to raise funds for leukaemia research, and to help families
like the one she had described, and I saw an opportunity to do that,
while helping my grandchildren to appreciate how lucky they are to be
healthy.
RH: How did you find writing a
children’s book compared to your usual projects? Was this harder or
easier?
LC: I’m a little nervous about answering, because everything I read
says children’s writing is really hard to do well. I found it quite
easy. I find, though, that I can’t just decide to write fiction. It
comes to me. I wake up in the morning and I can see the story just as
if I were reading a book. Or I’ll “hear” a voice reading it out loud
when I’m taking a shower. I have to race to write it down before I
forget what I read or heard.
RH: You’ve written dozens of books as
a ghost-writer. Do you ever wish you got more recognition for these?
LC: Absolutely! I find it very frustrating to see others taking credit
for my work.
RH: Is it ever possible to get joint
writing credit?
LC: Yes. Some clients will agree to this, but interestingly the less
capable someone is of writing their own book, the more likely they are
to want everyone to think they did! People hate to confess to their
shortcomings and inabilities. If they believe they could write a best
seller if they wanted to, they are more likely to be quite content to
share the credit. There’s also the financial aspect. Many people assume
that joint credit means joint profit, and they don’t want to share the
proceeds of a book they anticipate will sell well. A fixed up-front fee
is much more attractive to most than an unknown profit share.
RH: Have you ever been asked to write
a book about an unfamiliar subject?
LC: Often, and I really enjoy doing
that.
RH: Why's that?
LC: It’s fascinating to learn about new things. Last year I wrote a
book on body building. It was fun, and I learned a lot about health and
nutrition that has been really helpful.
RH: You’ve written several successful
software manuals. How do you approach such a technical task?
LC: The hardest part is getting the programmers to answer questions in
plain English! I spend a lot of time just playing with the program,
trying to get the hang of how it works. Then I’ll make lists of
questions to ask the developers. Then I start a tape recorder running
and I recite what I’m doing as I work through procedures.
Software manuals are hard work because you have to go over and over and
over the text to check for accuracy and clarity. You write a set of
instructions with one step missing, and no matter how many times you
proof read and test, you don’t pick up on the fact that it’s missing
because your brain inserts it somehow. Everyone I speak to who has done
this sort of work agrees this is normal.
RH: I know exactly what you mean!
LC: You have to get someone who doesn’t know the software at all to
proof read the manual and test all the procedures. That’s difficult,
because your proof reader learns the program, and that disqualifies
them as a proof reader and you have to find someone else!
RH: How has your writing developed or
changed over the years?
LC: I used to think every story had to have a moral or a serious
message or purpose. I’ve learned to be more concise and objective, and
to relax and enjoy writing about trivia.
RH: Where do you get your ideas? Do
your own experiences appear in any of your books?
LC: Yes. I write from my own experience, and the experiences of people
close to me. I can write instructional-style books from research, but
when it comes to stories about people and life, I have to have lived it
and felt it, or be close enough to someone that I can live the
experience through them and really feel their emotion.
RH: You’ve lived in Singapore, the USA
and Australia. Which of these has most influenced your writing and
outlook?
LC: All three in different ways, but my years in the US definitely
shaped my personality and thinking. It made me who I am. Perhaps it was
because I really grew up there, but I think it was more because I had
been a poor kid in a class-conscious society, expected to grow up to do
what my parents and grandparents did for a living. Education meant rote
learning. In the US, our family was affluent and I lived in an affluent
area. I went to a progressive school that focused on building
confidence and ambition and teaching kids how to find and use knowledge
and to how develop their natural talents. School was an adventure.
That’s where I developed my insatiable thirst for knowledge.
RH: Which writing project has given
you the most satisfaction?
LC: That’s a tough question, because each project satisfies in a
different way. I guess I’d have to say the software development course,
if only because it was enormously profitable as well as being
personally rewarding. It gave me confidence that I could write for a
living, not just for fun. That first published article gave me a buzz
though, because I was flooded with responses. It’s an amazing feeling
when you first realise that people are reading and reacting to what you
write. My tag line now is ‘nudge the world a little…’ because writers
have enormous power to change people’s thinking and make a difference
in the world.
RH: What are you currently working on?
LC: I tend to work on several projects at once, and I probably
shouldn’t! I’m working on a series on improving business productivity.
I’m also writing the story of my husband’s life as a stolen white
child. And I’m putting together a series of letters for a book that
reflects the very different experiences of three generations of women
who spent their early adult years a long way from home..
RH: When is your next book published
and what is it about?
LC: I’ll be e-publishing the first title in the business productivity
series. All of those books will be e-published. I am hoping to find a
publisher for the story of my husband’s life, and my husband and I will
be publishing a series of coffee table books about our travels around
Australia. We plan to head off at the end of April for a six month tour
of the
Northern
Territory. ‘Hubby’ is a photographer and artist, so
we’ll be producing compendiums of photographs, art works, and stories
based on the lives of the iconic characters who are the essence of the
Australian outback.
RH: What do you enjoy doing when
you’re not writing?
LC: Reading, sewing, listening to interesting stories told by old
timers, playing with my adorable grandchildren, and just lounging on
the beach or in a park soaking up nature’s beauty.
RH: Finally, do you have any advice
for anyone who has just started writing or is thinking of becoming a
writer?
LC: A writer is someone who writes. Write, write, write and write some
more. You improve by practicing, not by waiting for inspiration.
Read everything you can get your hands on. If you can find a writers’
group in your area, join it. If not, try to find supportive friends who
will critique your work honestly, but kindly. Most importantly, believe
in yourself and the opportunities that are out there for you. Anyone
with a passion for writing can learn to write well by practising.
Anyone who writes well can be a published and paid writer if you master
the basics of marketing and develop confidence and perseverance.
RH: Thank you for taking the time to
answer our questions, and good luck with all your future writing.
LC: Thank you.
