Find out about my writing and publishing process for Gunfire Lullabies? Click here to hear my interview with Gavin Miller and The Empty Page podcast. Lots of fun.
Learn more about the origin of Gunfire Lullabies on this podcast interview I did with Claudine Tinellis on Taking Aussie Books. Great in depth questions.
Booktopia asked me Ten Terrifying Questions revealing more about the person behind the novel. Check it out here.
Read a different angle on Gunfire Lullabies and my writing process here.
I wrote a piece for the Fin Review charting my journey from diplomat to novelist. Read it here.
Just click here 🙂
I was interviewed by Andrea Barton of Brightside Story Studio about my recently released novel, Gunfire Lullabies.
Andrea is an editor I hired during the latter stages of my novel’s development, and I can highly recommend her work.
The article begins like this, but you can read the full interview here…
“With her background as an Australian diplomat based in Indonesia and East Timor, Nore is ideally placed to write about East Timor’s independence struggle. Her debut novel places two female characters against the background of this political maelstrom. Join us as we discuss the evolution of Gunfire Lullabies.”
I am beside my self with excitement at the release of my novel. It’s taken me years.
You can purchase it here on my website in the Buy My Book tab.
Want to know more? Here’s a bit about it…
Jakarta, 1998. Junior Australian diplomat Ava Vuyk is on her first overseas posting when she’s assigned the conflict-ridden issue of East Timor with its twenty-three year independence struggle. The new Indonesian regime announces a vote in which the East Timorese will choose their future, but the military and local militia oppose it, launching a brutal campaign of terror and destruction. Amid the turmoil, Ava must decide whether she’ll gloss over the spiralling violence as her domineering ambassador demands, or report the truth in the hope the Australian government will intervene.
In East Timor, teenage farmer Isabel is kidnapped by militia leader Gabriel as his sex slave after her brother escapes into the jungle rather than join his group. Alone but hopeful, she waits to be rescued. When a human rights group asks her to spy on Gabriel, she’s seduced by the promise she’ll be reunited her with her family.
Gunfire Lullabies—written by former diplomat, political advisor and press secretary Nore Hoogstad—is a gut-wrenching fictionalised account inspired by real life events that won’t fail to fascinate and enthral.
“Highly recommended. Nore guides us through the conflict in East Timor, and a clash between official duties in service of the state, versus human convictions and emotions. Each of us has a choice to make, whether to fulfil our contractual duty or our higher moral one; the dictates of the state versus those of the soul.”
—J. Ramos-Horta, President of Timor-Leste, 2007-2012
This is my husband. He is a former soldier and returned serviceman who served in the army for 35 years like his father. He is not attending a formal Anzac Day ceremony today. Like many of his former colleagues, he no longer feels comfortable doing so. Instead, we are alone at the old cenotaph in Randwick where ceremonies used to be held, paying our private respects to the memory of those who served and fell defending Australia amid the light rail building work.
Why are we not at a ceremony when increasing numbers of Australians revere the day? We could be at Coogee watching the sunrise over the sea.
First and foremost, my husband resents the hijacking of Anzac Day by religion, and specifically by Christianity. For several years now at Coogee we have endured some dithering priest’s hymns, prayers and long rambling speeches that have had little to do with soldiers or war. He, and I, both found this disrespectful, particularly given the Church’s chequered past as finally revealed during the recent Royal Commission. (While I am no returned soldier, I have served my country in places of violence and risked my life.) Anzac Day should not be regarded as an opportunity to proselytise.
Second, there is the hijacking by those who see Anzac Day as an opportunity to gamble and drink. My husband, like many of his soldier mates, questions what gambling has to do with Anzac Day, and in many ways alcohol too. Sure, some former and present soldiers like to gamble, sure some who saw action drink to forget on a day of remembrance, but these close associations feel to him like another detraction from the real purpose of the day.
Third, there’s this jingoistic glorification of soldiers, which makes him squirm. Perhaps this is a sign of how desperate Australians are to latch onto something meaningful in a world that is, on the surface at least, preoccupied with the superficial, materialistic and ultimately dissatisfying?
Similarly, he deplores the politicisation of the day, which began with John Howard and was supported by a largely irrelevant and unrepresentative RSL eagerly jumping on the band wagon to regain some credibility. And then there’s the commercialisation by organisations such as the AFL who last night bizarrely confused footballers for soldiers in machismo exploitation.
Fourth, the specific day we have chosen to remember the fallen is one he questions. As Paul Keating pointed out, there are better options. I feel great empathy for those men who lost their lives on Anzac Day and their families. They were victims of negligent planning and leadership, to say the least. But why can we Australians not recognise our wins too?
Perhaps if we had fully come to terms with our past by creating a treaty that acknowledged our bloody history with the Aboriginal people, and if we had created a Magna Carta type charter to define our values and citizens’ rights we would no longer be floundering for an identity. It’s not too late.
On this day, I am always reminded of the two ceremonies I attended in East Timor in 2000 and 2003. Like our simple ceremony today, as the sun rose there was largely silence and reflection among the soldiers and civilians, along with respect and remembering, not postulating or evangelising by largely self-interested organisers.
I started writing a novel in 1993 after finally getting my Arts degree (and having two kids). I didn’t believe in it or myself enough and gave up.
I went and lived: Got a job, worked overseas, witnessed revolution and war, got divorced and had a relationship with an abusive guy.
I wrote another book inspired by some of these events, this time fully supported by my new partner. I received publisher interest, but was rejected many times.
Each time I picked myself up off the floor and went back to the drawing board. I wrote three different versions of my story over 13 years. That’s around 4 years per book! (It doesn’t feel that long.)
Late last year a publisher finally said, ‘I love it. Let’s do it!’
My debut novel, Gunfire Lullabies, will be published in August 2019.
My message to my fellow writers and anyone doing something challenging is:
Now for the next novel…(eek!)
I began writing Gunfire Lullabies, or rather a version of it, in 2005, and it’s being published later this year. I sold my old home in Canberra and used the proceeds to fund a year off work to write it. This writing year felt wickedly indulgent yet very right, and I absolutely loved it. It’s often said that the first book has a radical creative freedom about it that no future one does because you’re truly writing for you, unhindered by publisher, editor or market constraints that come later on during the process of being, or trying to get published.
But how can one novel take so long to write? Am I just really, really slow?
First, I didn’t write it full-time after the initial year. I either had to work, my book was being vetted by publishers while I waited, or I needed a break from the damn thing. A couple of times, when a publisher was interested, they would request rewrites before committing, which would take another six months to complete. These never came through for me, but they took a lot of time.
Second, Gunfire Lullabies is a bit of an epic at over 120,000 words long. Long novels take more time.
Third, I was learning to write, which meant I needed to do a lot of rewriting as I learned my craft. It’s unusual for writers to get their first novel published. Often it’s their third of fourth story that succeeds.
Fourth, I wrote three different versions of Gunfire Lullabies. In other words, I wrote three novels in that time equating to each one taking around four years. That’s a normal amount of time for plenty of literary fiction writers.
Fifth and finally, my manuscript was rejected many times, meaning I had no choice but to go back, perfect my craft and try again. The only other options were to self publish, which I felt was too early to consider, or give up.
What does my prolonged writing process really point to? For me, the learning was that persistence and determination pay. Overnight success is a rare thing, no matter what people might claim or how the situation appears. Usually people spend years learning and perfecting their craft. So many times writing teachers talk about talent meaning little if there’s no bum on the seat. I doggedly kept on writing an East Timor story until I got it right. I say simple, but honestly, it was really hard.
But, there was another key element in the process for me: the spiritual one. There were plenty of times when my bruised ego and I would have a discussion. Quit, you’re a rubbish writer, you’re a slow learner, you’re not a natural.
At these times, I would need to get really still with myself, delve deep and answer some questions with bare honesty. Is writing really it part of my purpose? Do I believe in my story? Do I want to do this story justice by writing it well?
Sometimes I would recall that when applying for my first posting, I had in mind to write a novel. It had been a long-term dream. So I wished for a posting where something momentous would happen that I could write about, and that’s exactly what happened. First I witnessed the downfall of dictator President Soeharto, which then paved the way East Timor’s journey towards independence. But wishing for something and experiencing it are different things. The cost was horrendous in terms of human life and suffering, and the impact on others and me was profound.
So the answer to my questions about whether I should finish the story was always, and inevitably, yes. With this realisation, the need to pander to my bruised ego after repeated rejections would drop away, my fears of rejection and failure would fall back, and I would realise again that I was writing the story for what felt the right reasons for me: because it was my purpose, because I believed in it with all my heart and soul, because I felt it needed to be told, and because I couldn’t not write it.
This is part of a blog series in which I give a personal account of writing and publishing my debut novel, Gunfire Lullabies, being released in August 2019 on the twentieth anniversary of Timor Leste’s 1999 autonomy ballot
I knew I wanted to write a novel from when I was young. As a kid, I wrote prize-winning children’s books. Then nothing much for years apart from poetry and short stories, largely because finding a topic sufficiently compelling to carry me through the difficult process of writing an entire novel eluded me, or so I believed. I got a degree and landed a job that involved formal writing and living overseas in the hope of gaining more life experience and a suitable topic.
It certainly did give me life experience. I became a diplomat and was posted to Jakarta during a momentous period in Indonesian history. I experienced first hand on the streets and in the political backrooms, two revolutions; first, the downfall of dictator president Soeharto and, second, the liberation of East Timor. In my job as a political officer I covered both issues, which were of enormous importance to my Australia, Indonesia being my government’s closest neighbour and East Timor being less than two hours away by plane.
Either event would have made a great story. But East Timor’s struggle was long-term, full of heroic and appalling characters (often a mix of both), pride and dogma, violence and drama, Machiavellian political conflict, dogged determination, good and evil. It was a true David and Goliath story.
I had my topic, and having witnessed the bloody struggle myself and understanding both sides’ points of views – and in a way having played my own part through my government reporting – I knew it was one I could write about confidently with depth and subtlety.
Yet this story could not be mine. It had to be much greater. It had to be driven by a theme. It had to present a terrible dilemma to be solved. It had to be dramatic. In other words, it had to be a fictional account of actual events, much of which had been already written in the history books and numerous PhDs.
When I tell people about my book, I’m frequently asked whether it’s based on my own experiences. Yes and no. I would say my personal experiences in Jakarta and East Timor were inspirational. I was there, a witness. It was my work focus and I met the people involved.
On the other hand, East Timor was been written about extensively, and I’ve read a lot of these analyses in the press and in books. When I needed to create a dramatic event or a character, there was plenty of material to turn to.
In short, no. As any writer will tell you, characters are fictional, created to serve whatever the story requires to move it forward, create tension and heighten drama. Characters are metaphors or archetypes of what is going on, or of an organisation, or a prevalent mood.
In other words, characters are what ever the story demands; a medley of every person a writer has ever met mixed with their personal observations and understanding of human beings. While they come from within – a strange mix of parts of the author and their imagination – they also come from someone they might have overheard talking in a café or their great aunt or another historical figure. Somehow, they come together on the page.
It would also be true to say that having been a diplomat on the ground at that particular time, my novel has a sense of authenticity. There’s a writing maxim that says, write what you know, for just this reason.
Yet this downplays imagination and what a writer gleans from other sources. Many writers write about completely different times in history or about events they never witnessed or create a fictionalised version of long-dead historical figures. Every writer who has ever tried to written around historical events knows you cannot translate things literally. It is characters who drive story, not places and events.
Much has been postulated about what really went on in East Timor. It was a vexatious and complex issue that called into question Australia’s definition of national interests, its morals and integrity. I found ample open source material representing a plenitude of views and interpretations, which was great fodder. Even the Australian foreign minister of the day felt compelled to write an account, and today other Australian institutions are drilling down into the matter with greater scrutiny for a revised official record.
It’s been nearly twenty years since the historical vote took place in East Timor that led to the birth of a new country. What Gunfire Lullabies does is cobble together a fictionalised picture of what went on from the point of view of history’s often forgotten players: women, one being a part of the political elite facing moral choices in her presentation of events to her government, the other being a young local woman suffering the consequences of the lofty decisions and political games being played far away.
writing nore 