Ruth Fox's Blog

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, for many reasons, most of them involving the inevitable occurrence that always gets in the way of being creative – life.
I’ve recently started a new job, amongst other things, and it means there is much less time to devote to writing and art. The most disappointing thing about this new job is that it has very little opportunity to be creative. It has struck me numerous times that even during breaks, when people are doing nothing else, no one whips out a book and reads. There are seats set up outside the main area where people can take their breaks, but, again, no one reads.
The vast majority of my co-workers are younger than I am, but I don’t think that’s the reason. I don’t think most people of my generation would read given the choice between that and jumping on Facebook or Instagram either. Reading is an unusual pastime, and I’ve only run into people who revere books with the same fervour I do a few times in my life.
What’s really interesting is that it makes me wary of taking out a book during my breaks as well. Am I ashamed to be seen reading? No, not really. It’s more that it’s inconvenient, and would require an explanation to those around me. It might also infer that I’m an anti-social person.
Is reading an anti-social activity? I know there are plenty of people who consider texting or checking social network sites on your phone while in the company of others to be rude, but I also know that most of my friends wouldn’t think twice about it. Why is reading different?

When I was ten years old, I fell in love with the idea of having a pen pal. Email didn’t really exist back then – the internet was something I’d heard of only in abstract conversation. We certainly didn’t own a computer at home and those we had at school were hulking white boxes with bulging screens and the processing power of a slice of bread. You weren’t allowed to type on them unless you’d written your work out first. The written word was key.
I had excellent handwriting. I prided myself on my small, neat lettering. And I loved to write – I loved to fill a page with words! I loved ruling up margins and tables. I was probably a very strange child. But when I read about the idea of having a pen pal in a wonderful book called The Haunted Trail, I thought it was the best idea ever. It sounded so romantic, somehow – talking to someone you’d never met, someone from the other side of the world. Plus there was the excitement of getting letters addressed to me in our letterbox. (As I said, I was a strange child.) Apart from my subscription to a kids science magazine, everything that came was for my mum and dad – and they were never happy to receive mail.
It took me until I moved out of home – and got an electricity and gas account, phone account and internet account in my name – to understand this aversion to mail.
But anyway. The science magazine that I had a subscription to ran a little column in the back for people looking for penpals, so I wrote in to them. And, miraculously, a letter arrived for me one day in a pink envelope. Her name was Emily and she lived in Queensland. I don’t remember what we wrote about. I can’t imagine my life was particularly interesting at that stage. But anyway, thinking about it now in this world, where everything has changed, it seems almost bizarre.
It wasn’t that long ago, but the world has changed. Communication is immediate, now. There’s no waiting. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I love it. I can’t imagine how I used to live in a world without home computers and mobile phones. I don’t know how I would do my work these days if I couldn’t email it through as soon as it’s done. Or if I couldn’t look up reference photos for paintings. Or type up my writing, as I am right now, on my laptop. But it’s something we often don’t think about. And I wonder how many kids these days have actual pen pals. I wonder if it’s as exciting to find a new message in your Inbox as it is to find a pink envelope in your letterbox, knowing it’s travelled physically across the country rather than being reduced to pixels and shot off through the ether. I wonder if maybe, in gaining this immediacy of communication, we’ve lost something else.

SPELLING

I’ve been asked a lot about what my advice to other writers would be.
I don’t feel like I’m qualified to be dispensing advice, given that I’ve only had one book published, but if people are going to ask, I have to come up with something to say. I’m usually pretty kind. I think all writers should read, because, as well as being enjoyable, it’s research - that way you can find out what your market is about, and what to aim for. So that’s what I tell them.
But there’s another really important thing that people should remember about writing. And it’s not just aspiring authors who need to bear this in mind.
Spelling!
I’m not saying I’m perfect, either – I make mistakes. Everyone does! And yes, English as a language is tricky. We have all kinds of stupid nonsensical rules, and then we have words for which we ignore these rules, and then we make up new words.
But what really gets to me is that people don’t care. And they should. Because the word ‘root’ doesn’t have the same meaning as the word ‘route’. But they sound the same, and the amount of times I’ve seen someone write something like ‘I was working out how to get to Melbourne by the quickest root’ is pretty appalling. It completely changes the meaning of the sentence. I mean, was this person managing to travel along underground, using tree roots to get to his destination? That sounds like a pretty cool way to get around ... but unfortunately, it’s not what the writer meant to say.
What’s even worse, though, is when people don’t know how to spell the word at all. They write ‘cabnit’ instead of ‘cabinet’.
Yes, I’m kind of a spelling Nazi. It drives my friends crazy. But I kind of find I care about language. It can be beautiful, and it can be used to express so many different things. It’s important. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing poetry or a job application. Surely you want your words to mean something. That’s what communication is all about.

Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog.
I’ve tried various blogs before now, and I gave up on each of them. Mainly, I suppose, because I lose interest. Writing about my own life holds little interest for me. I would much rather be thinking about what other people are thinking – my characters, and how they view the world, and the way events and circumstances affect them – than stuck inside my own head.
Yet, as a writer, my own thoughts will, of course, influence the way my characters act and react. In a sense, everything I write is about me.
So in the end, I can’t discount my own thoughts and reactions on things, and should probably devote more time to examining and exploring them.
That is my aim with this blog.
I love books. I’ve grown up loving books. I read every day. I read a lot every day. People think I’ve crazy because I read up to ten or twelve books at one time. I can see their point. But I have to do it, because there’s too many good books in the world to do it any other way.
I want to read all those good books.
I’m not saying I don’t read bad books, though. There are plenty out there, full of bad plots and bad use of language. Sometimes they make me cringe. Sometimes it’s unforgiveable. The written word is sacred to me, and I hate to see it misused. But still – what better way to inspire yourself than to read a really bad book and say ‘I can do better?’
I try to do better. Just like with reading, I write every day. It’s enjoyable for me. I love to do it. I want to do it for a living. And I want to do it for the rest of my life.
First of all, let me just say that my one true love is young adult fiction. I love fantasy and science fiction, and though I read across many other genres as well, these are my favourites. The majority of what I write falls into this category.
I’m not sure what it is that attracts me most. Perhaps it’s the freedom that comes with putting your characters into a make-believe world. Perhaps it’s a leftover longing from my childhood, during which I was obsessed with the idea of other worlds and grand adventures. My mother is mostly responsible for it was her reading stories to me and my younger brother that probably began my fascination with the world of literature. I loved Enid Blyton’s stories of ordinary children wrapped up in extraordinary events, like those of the Wishing Chair or the Faraway Tree. I loved magical tales such as Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I loved the strange and unusual tales from other cultures – Finland, South America, and Australian Aboriginal myths – that she would let us choose from the well-stocked bookshelves of our home.
As I grew up, I would read Margaret Mahy or Garth Nix and long to be those characters, sent on a quest or embroiled in an adventure. As an adult, I read anything and everything, from Stephen King to Sara Douglas, JK Rowling to Nora Roberts – but my love for fantasy remains strongest of all.
I am not just a writer, but an aspiring artist as well. I have done illustrations for many of my books, though I doubt most of them will ever see the light of day. Publishers, apparently, do not like authors to illustrate their own work.
Which I think is a pretty rubbish stance to take on the matter.
But anyway. As the children of two artists, my brother and I grew up with pens and pencils in our hands. Art is something I can’t help doing – I think in pictures, and very often my idea for a story will come from a specific scene that I see in my mind. I try to capture this in pictures as well as words – not always successfully, but as I say, I can’t seem to help it. Creativity has a way of bursting out, even if you try to hold it in.
Anyway, that’s enough for now. I will use this blog at least once a week to update my creative ventures and thoughts. Those of you who read it – thank you!