When Teeing-Off and Writing a Novel Collide
Peninsula Kingswood Country Golf Club Women’s Dinner Presentation - May 2022
Recently two important things happened in my life. I finished writing a novel and I joined this golf club. The novel was written almost by accident during Covid, and I joined Peninsula because my husband suggested I should, although I wasn’t overly keen.And then one day the two events came together when I was playing golf here with a friend. She was intrigued that I had written a novel and asked me how did I go about it, and what was the creative process. I realised I didn’t have a clue. All I remembered was that it had been a bit of a slog with lots of ups and downs, rather like the golf I was playing. This similarity struck me quite forcibly, and I suddenly saw a direct connection between the creative process of writing a novel and playing a round of golf. And I’d like to share this with you, you never know, it might inspire you to write a novel, but I can’t guarantee it will improve your golf. So if you’ll excuse my temerity in turning golf into a giant metaphor, I’ll tell you what I discovered. And don’t worry, it won’t be a blow by blow description, I’ll just pick a few random holes to make my point.
Let me set the scene. I’ve signed up to play golf with three women I don’t know. This game begins on the third hole of the north course. You know, the onewith the high tee and the long stretch of very thick ROUGH sloping down to the fairway on the left. Not much visibility on the right, only a hill of trees with plenty of lowlying bush and high grasses.
As I tee up I’m thinking about an interview that I’d just heard on the ABC about the bulloak Jewel butterfly, the second most endangered butterfly in Australia. It exists today in two small patches of woodland in Queensland, and has a complicated life cycle, being dependent on a particular bird, a particular tree and a particular ant for its survival. It is a stunning example of a web of life that illustratesthe environmental issues we face today. I amfascinated by its story and decide to turn it into a children’s picture book because I believe it will be a great way to introduce young children to the fascinating life of insects, and to show how important they are to our survival.
I’ve written a picture book before, so I reckon it will be easy. Not many words – no more than a 1000 at the most. All I need to do is hit the ball down to the left to get on to the fairway, and I’m nearly there. So I hit off, full of confidence. Surprise, surprise, the ball lands in the rough further down the slope in frontof me, never to be seen again. Undeterred I hit another. Same thing happens. HMMM! This picture book idea isn’t looking so good. I now realise that the story is too static and won’t hold a four year old’sattention, nor is there enough variety to make the illustrations work. I alter my stance slightly and hit another ball. It goes high and disappears into the trees on the right. As this ball is possibly recoverable,I head towards the trees, embarrassed by my disastrous start.
I find a ball, not mine. And suddenly the image of a girl, Holly, floats into my consciousness. She’s in Year 7. I head further into the rough, don’t worry, it’s winter and there are no snakes, and I find another ball, not mine either. Another girl, Azita, comes to life. She’s darker, and foreign, an Iranian refugee, I think. Another ball, again not mine, and I remember a conversation about bullying that I’d had with my granddaughter in Brisbane, and yes, Melissa begins to emerge, the star of the class, who is brilliant at everything and wants everyone to know she is the boss. Another ball, still not mine, and I am thinking about a talk that I’d heard two years earlier about how important it is that girls learn the skill of coding, the language used to design computer software. The suggestion was that if more girls took it up, the subject matter and views expressed through the software might be completely different, and perhaps helpful in creating a more inclusive and kinder society.
Suddenly, without my understanding how, my picture book is turning into a bigger story, with other issues and themes and several characters that are starting to develop. But I have moved away from my butterfly. How is the butterfly going to fit in? I pick up another ball, and Azita’s father springs to life. He has been a Professor of Entomology at the University of Tehran before he and his family had to flee the country. At that point I return to the fairway and finish the hole ingloriously. But I’ve got something to work with. I have several unconnected threads and some interesting characters and I can start plaiting it all together to develop a story.
The next few holes are difficult because I’mtentative, embarrassed and tense. Although the fairways are wide and straight, my ball keepsshearing off to the left or to the right, and I spendmore time tramping through the rough. I am fleshing out my characters, and trying to keep all my ideastogether to fit logically into the narrative that I’m creating. Each excursion into the rough has me shifting the story about as I search for a way to keep the butterfly in the picture, and the action flowing. But I’m plodding. I’m not comfortable, and I amself- conscious about my awful golf, and my strangulated sentences. They aren’t flowing rhythmically and nor is my swing. I watch with envymy fellow golfers who are all hitting the ball cleanly straight down the middle of the fairway and then chipping or pitching neatly onto the green and holing their putts. I struggle on wondering why I bother, but the only course is to stick to the task and hope for improvement in both my golf and my writing. At this point Azita’s mother turns out to have been a Human rights lawyer in Tehran, but I’m not quite sure why, and Holly becomes the daughter of two gay women who married after the single sex marriage bill was passed in Australia. All very interesting and quite topical but not actually helping my butterfly on to centre stage, and don’t know where the story is heading, although I can see my golf score escalating in the wrong direction.
And then quite suddenly the ambience of the surroundings hits me. It is a glorious day, the course is magnificent, and my golfing companions are kind and encouraging without being condescending. I realise the pressure I am under is entirely of my own making. I look back and I can just see the clubhouseon the ridge. The vegetation is growing up around itto soften its rather square solid lines. I’ve already fallen in love with its glamorous and comfortable interior. It occurs to me that I have met a number of really nice people since joining the club, and that almost everyone I’ve crossed paths with has smiled a welcome and given me the sense that this is a very inclusive, non-judgemental environment. Which is exactly the opposite to the ambience I am developing in my story where Melissa presides over a community of mean spirited girls who ignore thosewho don’t conform to their own narrow definitions of acceptability. The pleasure of being a member of this club invades me, and the world suddenly seemsfull of possibilities. And my characters are all in place waiting for something to happen.
It is in that moment that I relax. You will guess that my golf improves. At last I’m hitting straight down the fairway, and I’ve picked up a good rhythm. And I let go as I’m writing. I stop trying to control the narrative, and let Holly and Azita and the others get on with it. Everything suddenly becomes amazingly easy, and I’m enjoying both the golf and the writing. I’ve heard writers say they find that after a while their characters just write their own story, and I now know that to be true.
After a few better holes, and a couple of smoothly flowing chapters, a small black cloud beginshovering on the horizon. What does it mean? Will it wreck my golf just as I’ve started to improve? have I got an umbrella? I try to ignore the gathering clouds,but deep down I know something awful is going to happen. I’m not quite sure what but it’s definitely going to be bad. We arrive on the 5th tee of the South. There’s a wide watercourse about 5 metres in front of the tee. I can easily hit over this hazard. It’s not going to be a problem, and beyond it is a super smooth wide fairway all the way up to the green. I forget about the black cloud, and hit my drive.
OH NO! it’s gone plop into the water course where there’s no hope of retrieving it. I knew there was going to be a tragedy in the story, and it’s turned out to be a death. I struggle a bit with the concept, but ultimately give in. It’s definitely a major moment in the narrative and I realise it has to happen. I hit another ball and it sails over the water and lands in the middle of the fairway. But I can’t undo that first shot. I’ve got to proceed with the story as it unfolds even though I’m in tears. It works for the narrative, and it’ll be my job to make this death work for those who are left grieving.
Strangely enough it’s smooth playing and smooth writing as I pull together all the emotions that have risen to the surface. And I’m cruising towards the end, when I realise that I’ve actually left out a significant aspect of the novel. I’ve not shown the developing friendship between Holly and Azita, and it’s a serious omission. Sure, I’ve followed them as they discover the world of insects and fall in love with my bulloak jewel butterfly, the difficulties they encounter as they work on their coding project together, and how they respond to the systemic bullying in the classroom, but I’ve not explored their emotional lives as they grow in friendship, and that’s the backbone of the story. I have to find a way to highlight this aspect, and make it work from the beginning to the end of the novel, as though it had always been there. At that moment I see a discarded TIN CAN on the course, and I suddenly remember a conversation I had with my grandson in Queensland about his small recycling business. And yes, I believe it will work as the vehicle to introduce, in a very roundabout way the quality of this friendship, which rests on Azita’s great secret that will inspire Holly to finally understand how to believe in herself. Just as we tee up on the 10th hole on the south course, I see where I can slip this new thread in and how I can develop it so that it becomes an organic part of the story.
I haven’t talked about BUNKERS yet or EDITING. They both come into play here as we look up towards the nearly invisible green on the 10th hole. I would have preferred to play up the left side of this fairway to give myself an easy entry into the green. But with the problem of slipping this new strand of the plot into the whole, I find myself in the rough on the right side of the fairway, with about 5 linked bunkers staring at me before I can even begin to see the green. What follows is a fine example of aggressive editing and ugly golf. I should add that I really need a good lesson on how to get out of a bunker. Well it’s too late now. I’m in the first one and I take three shots to clear it out only to find myself in the next bunker. And so on and so on, frog-hopping from bunker to bunker all the way to the green. I arrive exhausted but finally triumphant. I’ve chopped and cut and shaped my new strand of narrative to fit, andI dare anyone to be able to pinpoint how and where I’ve patched it in.
And so to the 18th tee of the north course. A Lovely wide fairway up the slope with a dogleg to the left. My drive goes out to the right, half way up the hillgiving me a long second shot that lands a good pitch distance from the green with no impediments between me and the hole if I hit it straight. I’m nearly at the conclusion of the novel, there’s a few ends to tie up, and I’m feeling good. With great good luck, and some flowing sentences that indicate the winding up of the story, I pitch high on to the green and the ball slithers to within 10 meters of the hole. It’s not my preferred length putt, but, inspired by the knowledge that the end is just a paragraph away I bend over the putt and gently ease it across the green expanse and into the hole. I’ve done it. I’ve finished the novel. And to cap it all off I see that my beautiful bulloak jewel butterfly, that was the initial inspiration for the story, has landed in a good place, too.
Find out about Azita and Me here.