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Tim Winton Tim
Winton's latest book, Dirt Music, is available now through Picador (RRP
$46 - hardcover)
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Digging for gems Winton has always successfully avoided what others might regard as 'gainful' employment; preferring instead to pursue a career in writing. He wrote his first book of short stories at age 18; followed a year later by his first novel. His career has since blossomed, producing some of this country's most read and appreciated literary works. His writing has often had an emphasis on young people. He wrote numerous stories for children, including the Lockie Leonard series which included the novel Human Torpedo. But it's for his elegant novels that he's best known - works that include what many regard as the seminal Australian novel, Cloudstreet. At the launch of his new novel Dirt Music, Winton said that it had taken over seven years to write the novel. He had not become stale during the lengthy process of completing the novel however, because he was working on it continually. The story is set in a small seaside town called Whitepoint and its three main characters have one thing in common - shattered pasts. The novel's title refers to the music played by one of the characters (the book is accompanied by a CD featuring that music); but also draws on the landscape that inspired the characters. Discussing the writing process, Winton recalled his childhood in New Zealand. He said that, when he wrote, he wrote from memory and from what was going on around him at the time. That same approach infuses Dirt Music. Winton explained that he had been brought up in a town similar to the town in his novel. He made the interesting observation that he was "all of the characters" in the novel in certain ways. As he had grown up, fascinating people had surrounded him. Winton said that, when he first started writing Dirt Music, he completed a few drafts without showing the book to anyone. Before finalising the book, he asked someone to have a read one of the drafts. He said that, with previous novels, he had been very particular and took great pride in ensuring that he met the publishing deadline. But when the deadline for this novel came, Winton wasn't ready for the novel to be published. "I had never been so close to finishing and yet so far away," he said. Consequently, he started re-writing the novel from scratch and over the first few days, he spent 20 hours a day on the task. The process was like "trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle". It was a course which saw the writer trying to find the parts of the story that didn't fit, the parts that weren't working - and "chopping them off". >>> |
After all that, he said, he now had a book he was "happy with". Although many authors would be satisfied with having done that, Winton isn't one of them. He is also concerned about the other party in the relationship - the reader. When he was writing, he said, he tried to imagine what it would be like to be the character he was writing about. While he brought the experiences of his own life to his writing, he realised that readers brought their own experiences to a novel based on their own life experiences and mood at the time of reading. The reader therefore had an impact on the novel and the novel was there for the reader to deal with. Winton described the reader's experience of reading the novel as a "collaborative experience with the author". As
for his own personal experiences on the "other side" of the book - as
a reader - he said he reads out of habit and he reads everything he can
get his hands on. "I was a reader before I was a writer," he said; but
"writing is what keeps me going". Set in Western Australia where Winton was born and now lives, Dirt Music features the kind of easy, lyrical prose that marked Cloudstreet. Life may be too short to read things you don't like; but those familiar with Winton's work (and those discovering it for the first time) will undoubtedly find that isn't a problem with this book. Melissa Timmins Send us your feedback on this article or anything else in The Blurb |
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Despite
his formidable reputation as one of Australia's most renowned fiction
writers, Tim Winton remains something of an enigmatic figure, suspicious
of fame and extremely private. 
Winton
said that he reads novels, short stories, poetry, biographies, magazines,
and just about anything else. He said that he is curious but he did not
finish everything that he started reading. He claimed that life was too
short to read things you don't like, just as life too short to talk to
people you don't like.