Tag Archives: Zena Shapter

Paying for Our Passion – Zena Shapter

In this series of guest posts, I have asked a number of writers and editors to share the price they pay for pursuing their creative passion or what they sacrifice–whether that is money, time or lost opportunities. It might be how they pay the bills that writing doesn’t, or how they juggle working for a living or raising a family with the time it takes to write or edit. The people who have contributed have shared their personal stories in the hope it might help those new to the scene manage their expectations, or help others dealing with similar things realise they aren’t alone. You can read about the inspiration for this series here, and if you want to be part of it please let me know. Our next guest is the indefatigable Zena Shapter.

Every writer sacrifices for their art—whether that’s with time, money, health or relationships. We just do it in different ways, at different points in our life.

In the beginning, I used to pursue my passion by fitting writing in around full-time employment. I wrote at lunchtimes on park benches, whether it was cold and windy or sunny and sweaty. I’d write when commuting each day, on the train from London to Reading, then on the ferry from Manly to Sydney. I’d write in the evenings, on weekends, and on holidays. With my trusty palm pilot in hand, I’d balance its flimsy keyboard on my lap, then disappear into my world until I had to be back in the office. I used to love my palm pilot because laptops were bulky and heavy back then, whereas my palm pilot fitted inside a handbag. Nice.

The only problem was when I had to transfer my day’s writing gems onto my iMac at home and the transfer didn’t complete—losing whatever I’d written that day. Eek! I’d scramble for my keyboard and jam everything I could still remember into it, leaving my fiancé to cook the dinner or clean up. He’d understand, and having an understanding partner is key to making this writing gig work. Still, I could never get enough time.

So when the kids came along and I had even less time, he helped again. With two kids under two, I had three goals each day—to eat something, go to the toilet, and have a shower. Most days I’d manage only two of those three things. It was a magical and wonderful time, growing two humans from nothing. It was also hard work, lonely, day-in day-out drudgery. For a time there, I lost myself to the stress of it all…

I had to get out and write!

So once a week, every Saturday, my now-hubbie would look after the kids so I could write in my local library. That day was like heaven to me. Peaceful. Just my fingers tapping on a keyboard…

As the kids got older, I’d write when they were having their day-naps too, if I could get their naps to overlap! Other mums would read magazines when their kids slept, or watch television, just kick back and relax. Whereas I was frantic, trying to get as many words down before the kids woke up—and they always woke up too soon.

When they started school it was like a fresh start for all of us—well, once my youngest started at school anyway… I would finally have more time. I would, wouldn’t I? There was no point going back to full-time paid employment because of the costs of childcare, which for a couple with no family to help out go a little like this:

Before school care: $15 per child per day, $30 for two, every day for 40 weeks = $6,000

After school carer to taxi children to after-school activities, help with homework & make dinner: $100 for four hours, every day for 40 weeks = $20,000

Vacation care: $70 per child per day, $140 for two, for 60 days a year = $8,400

Total = $34,400

A basic full-time Sydney copywriter salary (including super) = $60,000

Net income after tax = $44,521.49

Net profit after childcare = $10,121.49

Although a set-up like this suits a lot of people, for us and what we wanted for our family, the $10,000pa wasn’t worth it. Instead, we decided I’d earn as much as I could between school hours, then be there for the kids as their mum, personal fan club and confidant. It works! When the kids are sick, I’m here. If they need Mummy up at school for some reason, I go. I’m there to help them with their homework, cook meals from scratch every day, and get them ready for bed. I go to their concerts, sports carnivals, teacher-parent meetings, Futsal games and swimming lessons. While I’m working during the day, I can also do laundry and admin.

I can also write.

No, I can’t write everyday, however much I’d like, because money must come first. Kids are expensive! Once the kids were at school I looked at what skills I could offer and started a writing, editing and social media consultancy. I edit, copywrite, ghostwrite, proofread, mentor, consult, format and layout print books, create EPUBs, design websites, set up social media profiles, tweet, post and blog for clients, and heaps more. I don’t advertise, but people find me through word-of-mouth and online. I offer solid advice and always work harder and longer than I should because I’m a perfectionist. Luckily that’s what keeps my clients coming back. Value for money!

I also teach, which means I work a lot of weekends. Last weekend I worked all day Saturday and a bit of Sunday, this weekend I’m doing the same.

Yet for some reason, and even though this setup works for us, it bothers other people because I work from home and get to choose my own hours.

You don’t work.

It’s not work.

Oh, you’re working? Doing what? I thought you worked from home…

I thought perhaps you could do [insert errand/task] (because you don’t work)?

What are you doing today?

I get it all the time. Even yesterday at the bus stop when I was playing handball with my kids while waiting for the school bus, and I mentioned how hard the ball actually was on my soft little hand (how do kids do that all day?!), one of the other parents said: it’s because you don’t work.

Ouch.

Should I perhaps work in a field and harden up my hands?

It might actually be worth it if it would ease others’ judgements. Judgement is perhaps the biggest cost I pay for pursuing my passion and I have lost friendships over it.

Before I was a copywriter and editor, I was a solicitor, and every six minutes I had to look at what I was doing and ensure it was billable somehow. I made a great lawyer because I was efficient, and anyone who has ever worked with me knows I still work the same way, irrespective of my location, because of the type of person I am. The fact that I work at home shouldn’t matter, yet it does—to the point that parents take issue if I perchance whinge about my day from time to time.

At first I found their reactions isolating, and I didn’t feel as if I were a complete person anymore. As far as my family was concerned, I was always working. My kids have a rule now that during school holidays I’m not allowed to work after they go to sleep, because they know I otherwise would, and my health would suffer in the form of strange skipped heartbeats or night-grinding my teeth. Did I say kids were expensive?!

Yet my work still doesn’t seem to be valued by others because it’s not full-time or outside of the house.

Now-a-days, I try to surround myself with mothers who do as I do, earning what we can between school hours, at night and at weekends. They understand the challenges of this lifestyle—it isn’t for everyone. You have to be focussed, self-disciplined, and able to go for days on end without really speaking to anyone outside your immediate family.

Sometimes I regret not working in full-time employment, not because it would bring in more money (because now that I have regular clients and teaching gigs it most definitely wouldn’t), but because my work as a mother is so undervalued by society. I wish we could put a monetary value on a mother’s care—and just say that every mother who works from home automatically earns the equivalent of $50,000pa—just to get other people off my back and stop them judging.

But I’ve also learnt that it doesn’t really matter what other people think. I have the lifestyle I do because it’s cost effective for my family and the benefits are priceless. Plus, I’m happy, and that’s the best kind of gift you can give your children. Miserable is the worse kind of parent you can be. So I write when I can around my ‘work’, and if that bothers anyone else – so be it. It’s the price I’ll pay.

Zena Shapter is a Ditmar award-winning author who loves putting characters inside the most perfect storm of their lives, then watching how they get out. She likes close-to-reality books of the unexplained and travels in search of story inspiration, visiting almost 50 countries to date. She’s won ten national fiction competitions and has been published in anthologies such as Award-Winning Australian Writing and magazines such as Midnight Echo. Read her through the links on her website at www.zenashapter.com and follow her on social media as ‘@ZenaShapter’. She also blogs, and is the founder and leader of the award-winning Northern Beaches Writers’ Group, based in Sydney.

My writing space

2012 Aussie Snapshot: Zena Shapter

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Zena Shapter is an emerging fiction writer based in Sydney. She has won multiple awards for her short stories and was published last year in both Winds of Change (CSFG, 2011) and A Visit from the Duchess (Stringybark Publishing, 2011). She has two further short stories being published later this year; leads and is the founder of the widely attended Northern Beaches Writers’ Group; blogs about contemporary book culture at http://www.zenashapter.com/blog/; enjoys a successful online presence through her website at http://www.zenashapter.com/ as well as social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Goodreads; and is currently editing her debut novel. With a BA (Hons) in English Literature from the University of Birmingham, England, she also edits.

An adventurer at heart, Zena enjoys travelling in search of unusual stories and uncommon sights, and relaxing on the beach with a good book, a glass of champagne and a bar of chocolate.

Read more about Zena on her website at http://www.zenashapter.com/ or follow her writing journey by subscribing to her blog at http://www.zenashapter.com/blog/. Find her on Twitter as @ZenaShapter, at http://www.facebook.com/ZenaShapter, or on a host of other social media also as Zena Shapter.

You seem to be very proficient in the use of a number of forms of social media. How important do you think it is to writers to have a social media presence? Are there any strategies that you use that you think might be useful to others?

Well, it depends on what you want to get from social media. Social media is important to me because I get something from pressing my finger into the pulse of the communal psyche that is social networking – I guess it nullifies the existential loneliness that I would otherwise have to bear sitting alone at my computer all day! I also like to be social with both colleagues and fans. Plus, it helps me to stay up-to-date with the latest news and events – while the past and the future both fascinate me, I do enjoy being in the ‘now’ of living, and I love popular culture. So, if such things are important to other writers then, yes, they too should establish a social media presence.

However, I don’t think that any degree of social media presence can win you a publishing contract, an agent or fans – in that, your writing has to stand for itself. There are plenty of writers whom I admire with only the simplest website where you can read more about them, no interacting, and I still buy their books.

There are also plenty of writers whom I only heard about through social media, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t have eventually heard of them through some other route, and it’s also not to say that I enjoyed their writing enough to buy again. Story is more important to me than social media presence, and I’m guessing the same is true for most readers.

Strategies? Just be yourself, keep your manners, but have fun. Connect with readers and other writers, have LOLs with them, and you’ll soon build yourself a huddle of unmitigated support.

You‘ve won a number of short story competitions. Do you approach writing a story for a competition any differently than one for an anthology or other market? How has being involved in these competitions helped you develop your writing?

I started writing short stories as a way to improve my craft. Luckily for me, they did more than that – they helped me find my ‘voice’. I used to write in the third person, often with multiple points of view. But when I started winning competitions, it was with stories written in the first person and I realised that suited me much better. My confidence escalated as I switched styles and that’s when I knew it was time to get published.

I don’t approach writing stories for competitions or anthologies any differently. Ideas come to me all the time, I make notes on those ideas, then save them for the idea-drought that I fear may come yet still hasn’t. When an anthology or competition comes along that inspires me, I sometimes look through my ideas, but sometimes conceive a new idea altogether. The key, I think, is patience. You can exhaust yourself entering competitions and submitting to anthologies here, there and everywhere. But it’s better to save your energy for your writing, and just wait for the right one, or two, opportunities to come along.

Is your main focus on short stories for now, or do you have any other upcoming projects you’d like to talk about?

David, David, David – you see, this is why I shouldn’t go drinking champagne in Surry Hills with a bunch of writers and editors: it always leads to sharing too much! You know very well what upcoming projects I have, and where they’re at! But, true to your word, you’re being a vault. Yes, I have written a novel and, yes, it’s currently ‘out there’ seeking its best home. I can’t share too much more than that… I don’t want to jinx anything. But let’s just say… watch out world!

What Australian works have you loved recently?

I have tons of Australian works sitting in my to-read pile right now, and I can’t wait to get to them! I loved Richard Harland’s “Worldshaker” (in fact, that and Veronica Roth’s “Divergent” got me into reading YA literature). I’ve just started reading Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief” and I already know I’m going to love that one too. But I must admit, I do read a lot of books from overseas! My bad.

Two years on from Aussiecon 4, what do you think are some of the biggest changes to the Australian Spec Fic scene?

I have to preface my reply to this question by stating that it could be much better answered by others more industry-experienced than I. But from my personal perspective, I’d say that there have been two big changes to the Australian speculative fiction scene in the last few years.

Firstly, there are more of us online – self-publishing and being published online, blogging, tweeting and just plain interacting via the web. It might be because Australia is such a vast country that’s a great distance from anywhere, making it both difficult and expensive to engage with fans and fellow writers, especially when compared to Europe and the US. Getting online is a way of overcoming that tyranny of distance and being more social (which I love, see question 1!).

Secondly, I’d say that there’s a greater acceptance these days of speculative fiction as a genre in its own right. More and more writers, myself included, have a desire not to waste good writing time thinking about where our writing sits on the spectrum between fantasy, science fiction, horror and everything else in between. I just want to write a good story that entertains, massages the grey matter a little maybe, but mostly enables readers to connect with my characters, each other… and me. Having the umbrella of speculative fiction enables me to do that.

This interview was conducted as part of the 2012 Aussie Spec Fic Snapshot. In the lead up to Continuum 8 in Melbourne, we will be blogging interviews for Snapshot 2012 conducted by Alisa Krasnostein, Kathryn Linge, David McDonald, Helen Merrick, Ian Mond, Jason Nahrung, Alex Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Tehani Wessely and Sean Wright. To read the interviews hot off the press, check these blogs daily from June 1 to June 7, 2012.

You can find the past three Snapshots at the following links: 2005, 2007 and 2010

Wednesday Writers: Zena Shapter

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It always amazes me, and makes me green with envy, to see how much some people manage to pack into their time! However, it’s very inspiring as well. Zena is an great example of someone who has not only acheived a great deal in a short amount of time when it comes to their writing, but has also managed to do a lot of living on the way. Well travelled and well rounded, Zena is definitely qualified to talk about enjoying the journey, not just the destination!

Live deep and suck out all the marrow of life

Thanks for inviting me over here, David! Wednesday Writers is turning into a great place to read about other writers’ journeys. And we all have such different writing journeys! It’s been fascinating reading what everyone has to share about theirs. Me? It feels premature to write about mine, since it feels as though I’ve only just started. But then that’s because I’m always looking forward, planning where I’m going next, working out how to get there and what I’ll need to take with me.

That there is my bad.

I’m a big traveller – I’ve managed to visit almost fifty countries to date – and if there’s one thing I’ve finally realised after all my years of travelling, it’s how important it is to enjoy where you are. I remember sitting on a beach in Koh Samui, Thailand, in 2001, flicking through a Lonely Planet guide trying to decide whether West Thailand or Malaysia should be my next stop. Three months later, after I’d finished with South East Asia, which do you think was my favourite place in the region? Koh Samui. How long did I stay there before getting itchy feet and letting my curiosity tempt me away – three days! It was the same in Costa Rica in 2004. Should I go to Guatemala or Honduras next? Silly me, I shouldn’t have been so keen to leave where I was – I loved Costa Rica! I should have enjoyed it more.

But how does one temper a drive that’s so good at getting you where you want to go?

So far, mine has enabled me to experience a fantastic array of lives in just one. And, as far as writing goes, while I may consider myself at the beginning of my journey – others consider me well on my way! When I think about it, I have achieved a lot over the past few years. I just don’t spend the time I should appreciating that fact – who does! But I’ve:

found my voice
won lots of writing competitions
been published in short story anthologies, with two more coming out later this year (maybe more)
created a critique group for writers (the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group)
written a novel and outlined two more
established a fully integrated online presence
published a legal volume on trade mark law (not terribly exciting for someone who loves writing fiction, still it does make me a published author)
AND decided on my dream destination – on the shelves of Big W and Target, Berkelouw, Shearer’s and Amazon, selling to the masses! Ahhh… that would be a dream come true!

But what’s my primary thought about all of the above? How to reach my dream destination of course! I want to:

Find a publisher for my novel and finish writing my other two novels – isn’t that obvious!
Sell so many copies of my debut novel that my publishers will be as excited as I will be to publish the other two – definitely!
Enjoy my present – What the?

It’s against all my instincts, and yet I know I must. Otherwise I might find myself in Hawaii wishing I’d stayed longer in Costa Rica!

Okay, so that’s never really going to happen, Hawaii is awesome – and it will be even more awesome to have my novel published and being read by, you know, readers! Still, I think you know what I mean.

Pushing yourself forward can help you achieve, but it’s also important to stop and smell the odd rose. One of my father’s favourite mottos is ‘don’t worry, be happy’. Now, I don’t exactly worry about my writing journey, although I do often feel anxious about meeting my self-imposed deadlines and targets. But I do need to rejoice a little more. Believe it or not, but Facebook and Twitter are helping me with that – when I sell a short story or win a competition, I squee about it (yes, Alan Baxter, I am the type to squee!). And when I receive congratulations for such things, it slows time down for me a little – makes me appreciate my present. So I thank you, friends and followers, for helping me control time (and yes, I believe that man’s measure of time doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of how our time actually passes)! I don’t want to temper my drive, but I do want to enjoy my journey a little more as I travel it.

What about you? I bet you could enjoy the achievements you’ve made along your own writing journey a little more often – if you were to give them the appreciation they deserve. So I say to you, so I say to myself: live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, lest you come to die and discover that, though you lived, you missed the whole and genuine sublimity of it.

Thank you, David. I’ve enjoyed my visit.

Zena Shapter is an emerging fiction writer based in Sydney. She has won multiple awards for her short stories and was published last year in both Winds of Change (CSFG, 2011) and A Visit from the Duchess (Stringybark Publishing, 2011). She has two further short stories being published later this year; leads and is the founder of the widely attended Northern Beaches Writers’ Group; blogs about contemporary book culture at http://www.zenashapter.com/blog/; enjoys a successful online presence through her website at http://www.zenashapter.com/ as well as social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Goodreads; and is currently editing her debut novel. With a BA (Hons) in English Literature from the University of Birmingham, England, she also edits.

An adventurer at heart, Zena enjoys travelling in search of unusual stories and uncommon sights, and relaxing on the beach with a good book, a glass of champagne and a bar of chocolate.