Category Archives: Whingeing

The writing-not-easy thing, part the millionth

Yes, again! What of it? I promise this will be the last whingeing-about-writing post. Truly.1

I think I’m still in shock that my job is not always a doddle. You see, I fully expected that it would be.

Let me explain:

A full-time novelist is all I’ve ever wanted to be. Obviously the main reason I wanted to do it is because I’ve always loved telling and writing stories and I’ve done it since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. But I also kind of figured that it would be easier than any other job. Writing stories was fun. Something I did when I wanted to take a break from the onerous crap that I had to do. Surely doing it most of the time would be even more fun?

I imagined my life as a full-time novelist would involve never having to get up before noon, writing only when I felt like it, never being stressed, six-figure advances for every book, mangosteens for every meal, and walking on rose petals while fairy dust fell from the sky.

None of this has happened! NONE of it.2

I’ll admit that my job is not as hard as some people’s. I’m not down a coal mine. I’m not in a war zone. I don’t run the risk of death or injury very often—though paper cuts can be nasty.3 Many people work way harder than I do. Like my sister, who does 3,000 hour a week in dark rooms, making everyone in Hollywood’s hair look real, and the monsters look super scary.4

What was I saying?

Oh, yes, I thought writing would be the easiest job on the planet and I’d never have to work hard. So every time I do have to work hard it’s a horrible shock. Thus my whingeing.

Though it probably is the easiest job on the planet, which leads me to the depressing thought that no job is without hard bits. How unfair is that?

  1. Though I am writing a novel about a compulsive liar so I could be practicing. Plus all I’m doing right now is writing. What the hell else do I have to blog about? [↩]
  2. Though I do occasionally get to eat mangosteens. [↩]
  3. Not to mention RSI and back pain. [↩]
  4. Or something. I’m never entirely clear on what exactly Niki does. [↩]

More on writing being not so easy

This is going to be a bit mutual linky-linky.1 Maureen Johnson linked to my quick little whinge about writing sometimes being hard before going into more detail about the sometime not fun-ness of it. And now I am linking to her. Quoting her even:

When writing goes well, it feels magical . . . but there is no magic to it. Writing goes well because you have done some work. You have spent MANY MANY MANY HOURS sitting at your desk, written pages and pages and pages of useless crap, read piles of books, done a lot more wrong than you have right, questioned your sanity and talent . . . and just kept going. No muse involved.

Maureen is against muses. In fact, I suspect that she would advocate killing them:2

I hate muses . . . I mean, with the obvious exception of Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu. This idea that all you have to do is sit around and a muse lands on your head, dances around your desk, and whispers in your ear and BANG! BOOK!

Forget that. Get yourself a can of anti-muse spray. The things are credit-stealing parasites.

Personally, I think Maureen’s just jealous because—like me—she doesn’t have a muse. In fact, I’ll be honest and admit that the reason I think this is that I, too, am jealous. Frankly I would love to have a muse inspire me to work. Better still I’d like a muse to do the damn work for me.3

Imagine it: I’d be in my bedroom, lazing around, catching up on all the manga I haven’t had a chance to read in ages, because I’ve had to do so much research for this stupid book while my muse would be in the study working its arse off. Sounds good to me.

Sadly, that has never happened. Maybe if I’m more gooder?

I think part of the reason people refer to their muse is because they have no idea where their ideas come from.4 They should’ve asked Maureen. Trouble is all the muse talk makes it sound like ideas and inspiration are the most important part of writing, which, sadly, is rubbish.

I wish it wasn’t. I get dozens of ideas for novels every single day; I do not write dozens of novels a day. Nor do I write 4,380 novels a year.5 Even when you realise that it takes several ideas to make one novel the percentage of my ideas turned into novels is very very small. I’ve never managed to write more than one novel a year . . .

This does not mean that I think ideas are unimportant—I read a novel recently that was entirely void of ideas, let alone original ones, and I gave up after a few chapters—it just means that you can have the best idea in the world but if you don’t put in the hard yakka to transform them into a novel, or a play, or whatever, then they’re just ideas.

Also no muse—even Olivia Newton John—is going to help you do that.

  1. “You’re fabulous!” “No, you’re fabulous!” While those watching gag. [↩]
  2. Possibly I was clued in to her sentiments by the title of her post: “Death to Muses” [↩]
  3. And while they’re at it the flat needs vacuuming and dusting. [↩]
  4. Or because they’re barking mad. [↩]
  5. Which is how many ideas I have in a year assuming an average of 12 a day. [↩]

The hard bits

The hardest part of writing a novel isn’t the beginning, or the middle, or the end. It’s not getting characters right, world building, keeping your sentences gorgeous, it’s none of those things. The hardest part is having to write when you don’t have the heart for it.

When you’re sad, or distracted, or in a bad mood, or bored. It’s writing when you can’t think straight, when the words are arranging themselves in dreadful “sentences” that hurt your brain. It’s writing when writing is the last thing you want to do, and every word, phrase, sentence is a struggle.

Writing through a crap day is the very hardest part of being a writer. Then getting up the next morning and doing it again. And the next. And repeat until the bloody book is finally finished.

(Blurbs are still harder, but.)

Stupid recalcitrant novel beasties

You know when you set out to write a novel and it’s supposed to be around 60-65 thousand words, like your last four novels, and knowing that you’ve calculated how much time you need, and how many words per day, and it’s all going along crackingly, and you’re meeting your targets, wrangling words—some of them are even pleasing words—when you realise that this novel is not, in fact, a 60k beastie, it’s more of a 75k beastie, possibly even a 80k or 90k MEGAbeastie? Well, um, that is somewhat sucktastic and hair-pullingly wrong.

Stupid recalcitrant novel beastie. I spit at you! Spit, I say.

Listen, mosquitoes!

I know that you mozzies have an ecological niche to fill. I’m sure that if you were wiped out some fabulous bird species would become extinct. I even get that my blood is your food. I’m not thrilled when you bite my hands and feet, my arms, legs, back and belly, none of that is exactly fun, but for the love of Elvis—could you stop biting my ears?

My EARS?!

Is that really too much to ask?

Sad, homesick and whingey

I think the title says it all. Rather than me bore you with a description of same how about you lot cheer me up? Links to amusing sites, comics, whatever. Suggest fun reading, viewing, listening. Share an amusing anecdote. Make me think about something other than my not being in Sydney.

Yours in whingerland,

Justine

No WisCon for me

Several peoples have writ me saying, “See you at WisCon!” Alas and alack they will not. Scott’s niece Renee is graduating and we will be there to cheer her on. Go, Renee!

This is the second year in a row we have not been. I does not like it. WisCon is my favourite con in the whole world filled with all my favourite peoples. I love it so much that for a while there I organised the academic track and then the readings. I feel like I am a WisCon hometown girl. And here I am missing it again. Wah. Bad enough that I haven’t been to my real home in a year.

Hope everyone has fun without me. Even though that’s a little bit rude. I think you should all try to suffer for at least ten minutes or so. But, of course, because you’re all already in Madison you won’t even read this. Sigh.

Bored now

This one’s for Robin.

You know what I’m sick of?

People generalising about YA in the exact same way they generalise about teenagers.

“YA is innovative and amazing. I love it!”
“YA always has a moral and is simplistic and full of easy-to-read words and fast moving plots.”
“YA is the future of America!”
“YA is full of smut and filth and pollutes the minds of our children.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Some YA books are shit. Some are brilliant. Some bore me. Some should never have been published. Some make me happy in a slightly guilty way. Some are the best thing I’ve ever read. Some really really aren’t. Some are simple. Some are complex. And some of them really piss me off.

Pretty much like adult books really.

Likewise teenagers are brilliant, stupid, smart, conformist, creative, challenged and challenging, bored, blissed out and any other adjective you care to think of. Sometimes all at the same time.

Much like adults really.

Why is that so hard to comprehend?

Rome = good; Internet = not so much

Food, wine, old stuff, spring blossoms. All of it fabulous. Rome is gorgeous. I’m even getting writing done. Yay!

Internet is for crap, however. Le sigh on hotels and their inability to join the 21st century. Sorry for the non-response to emails, comments etc. Normal service will resume at some point in the future.

In the meantime to all those who asked: Yes, I will be at Scott’s event at Harrod’s in London:

Tuesday, 25 March, 3PM
Waterstone’s Harrods
Children’s Book Department
Harrods, 87 Brompton Road
London SW1X 7XL
on the 4th floor
Further details: 0207 730 1234

Hope to see a few of you there.

Rome: Friday, 21 March 2008, 11AM.

I don’t think about it like that, honest . . .

Interviews hurt my brain. Being asked to talk about my work in the abstract feels weird. Especially when I’m asked about what message I wished to convey, what I want to teach people, how I want to change the world, and why did I have this bit of my book symbolise x, y, or z.

The truth is I don’t think about any of that stuff when I’m writing a first draft. Nothing in any of my books is meant to symbolise anything. As far as I’m concerned my zombies are just zombies. I don’t set out to teach anyone anything and I have no overt messages to convey.


(The secret message of my books is that mangosteens are the best food in the universe, quokkas the cutest animal, and anyone who lives somewhere cold should have their head examined.)

If other people see my zombies as representing the corruption of Western capitalism or the horrors of commodification or whatever. That’s cool. If they learn something that’s fabulous, too. One of my favourite things is hearing what readers take out of my work. Mostly it’s not anything I intended. My readers teach me stuff.1

But I didn’t do that on purpose. Truly. I don’t write like that.

I know writers who do, though. A friend of my carefully plans all sorts of symbols and always talks about the message of their book. Not me, though.

I just had to answer a set of questions from the members of the Teen Advisory Group of the Kingsbridge Branch Library in the Bronx via their Young Adult Librarian, Andrea Lipinski. Their questions were awesome. There was nothing about metaphors or meanings or messages. Bless you all! They wanted to know if I believe in magic, whether I like Sydney or NYC better, who I think is the better writer me or Scott, whether my trilogy’s going to have a fourth book, and which of my characters is most like me.

So much more fun answering those kinds of questions! Especially as the answer to all of them is “Maureen Johnson.”

  1. Except for the loony readers. You know who you are! [↩]

Grace

In the vociferous arguing about the ins and outs of who behaved worst over the second test etc etc there are people implying that criticising the Australian cricket team is unAustralian and whingey.1

Please! I love my country, I love cricket, but when the men’s team behave like dickheads they should be called on it.

People who play sport at a professional level are not exempt from the social contract. No one is. Writers (to pick a random example out of the air) shouldn’t behave like dickheads either. Recently I was at an award ceremony where the speeches of the winners were generous and moving. All but one. This one person got up to accept their award without a gram of graciousness. Their speech was about the importance of their book and the judges’ perspicacity in picking it as the winner. That speech left me not wanting to read anything by that writer. I don’t even want to meet that writer.

Very few people in this world achieve things without considerable help; acting like you did it all on your own is graceless and rude.

Ponting’s and the rest of the team’s arrogance and inability to admit that they ever do anything wrong makes me ambivalent when Australia wins test matches. Don’t get me wrong. I love for Australia to win, but, well, I love it a lot more when they’re gracious in victory.2

So, yeah, this debate isn’t just about cricket. It’s about how people should behave. How we should treat the people around us. There’s a reason that photo of Flintoff offering commiserations to Brett Lee has become so famous. It captures a moment of perfect grace:


Getty Images

  1. Though what’s more Australian than whingeing?! [↩]
  2. And aren’t ropeable when they lose. [↩]

Cranky

This vid exactly expresses my current feelings. Be warned that it involves intemperate language and violence:

Do not ask me how many times Microsoft Word has crashed on me today. Let’s just say I better not run into Bill Gates anytime soon.

The first person who tells me I can switch stupid Mr Clippy off gets punched. He is switched off. But when Word crashes it magically gets switched on again. Have I mentioned that I HATE Microsoft Word?

Oh and the first person who tells me to switch to Scrivener gets yelled at. I have switched, but I’m doing final rewrites, and have to keep my doc in smelly Word in order not to blow formatting etc. Going back to Word after Scrivener is breaking my brain. Waaaah!!!

Heh hem. Talk amongst yourselves. My deadline still needs vanquishing.

Web stuff

So I finally got Scott’s new look blog up and running. What a hassle that was! I always think it will be just an hour or two. Hah! Try several days of hassles. Especially as there was a migration of his site to a new server. Why is it always so hard?

Anyways . . . It’s up and I think it looks great. Go take a squiz and tell me what you think. Though if you have any complaints tell Scott, not me!

All praise to Sadish Balasubramanian who designed the very nifty and flexible SeaShore template.

I was planning a redesign here to go with the new book but the very thought of going through that again makes my head explode. Plus deadline is not yet met.

Right then, back to work.

Oh and have a new poll.

Deadlines, polls, a question answered etc

My deadline is still not met. Many obstacles keep piling up to keep me from it. I will not list them all since they are boring as well as annoying but one of them involves my webmistress duties.

Until the deadline is vanquished there will be only sketchy posting here. I will also continue to not answer email, the phone, courier pigeons, or smoke signals. Sorry! Though if you do hear from me and I haven’t achieved deadline vanquishment you should yell at me to get back to work.

I will try to put up an occasional poll so you don’t all die of boredom. Feel free to complain about them in the comments. Yes, I am referring to you, Mr Eric Luper. Which reminds me to mention that I can see when someone votes from multiple machines. Nice try, Eric. Your jerboas still lost despite half their votes coming from you!

The latest poll may reflect this Aussie girl’s state of mind on finding herself far from home not long after a momentous election in weather colder than anything she ever experienced at home in Sydney. I would sell my left knee to have a meal at Spice I Am right now . . .

Regarding the previous post some people wanted to know whether not having an oven is de rigeur in New York City. I have seen flats here that have no kitchen at all and yet I still believe most flats in New York City come equipped with ovens. However, some of those do not work. One such is the oven in this flat. The oven does not work, nor does the grill, but three of the burners on the cook top function. (Mostly.) I suspect this may be typical of New York City flats . . .

For those who are annoyed that my “How To Rewrite” post still hasn’t gone up. A quick tip: when thinking about structure some writers find Shakespeare’s five acts the way to go. Or you could try the standard Hollywood three-act model. Or you could just wing it.

For those annoyed that I haven’t written about manga lately. I endorse The Drifting Classroom.

Minus One!

I dies.

I think I’m going to have to learn Fahrenheit cause 31 sounds lovely to me while -1 makes me want to cry.

I have not been outside today. Partly due to the dread evil deadlines and partly because it’s -1 out there! Bits of me could freeze and fall off!

How am I going to make it to the end of January?

Aaargghh!!!

Not home

I so wish I was back home right now. I’d get to follow the cricket and the election. It would be warm. The sun wouldn’t be setting just a few hours after it rose. No one would be asking me about my accent. People would know that Errol Flynn is Australian. I’m sick of being a foreignor. Back home I don’t have to explain myself nearly so often. I can’t tell you how tiring it gets.

If I was in Sydney right now I would go for a long walk. I’d hear flying foxes in the trees. I’d smell all the night flowering plants. I’d watch the light sparkling on the harbour. I’d be HOME. And I’d go to Forbes & Burton for breakfast. I miss you, Adrian! I miss all my friends and family back home.

Where do you wish you were right now?

In which I commence the cleaning of my desk

It has come to this. I have the final round of edits on the Fairy book. They are in manuscript form. However, there is no room on my desk to put the manuscript. The towering piles of crap cannot stand any further weight, not even one small piece of paper, definitely not 264 manuscript pages. I know because I tried and there was much toppling of crap to the floor. It is now dumped back on the desk.

The desk must be cleaned in order for me to work.

I am afraid of it. It is now more like an archaeological dig than mere cleaning. I fear what I might find: I did clean away all uneaten food, didn’t I? I fear what I won’t find: All those things I’ve been looking for and not found could be buried somewhere in those many layers. But what if they’re not?

And what am I going to do with the stuff on the desk that must be kept? It’s not like there’s anywhere else to put it.

The cleaning of my desk fills my heart with despair.

Perhaps I could work on the floor in the front room? Or on the kitchen table? Or at someone else’s kitchen table?

No. I must be brave. I must delve into those hidden depths and make them go away.

Wish me luck. Pray that I do not get buried alive in an avalanche of old catalogues and magazines and receipts and envelopes and wine labels and dead electronic bits and letters and business cards and books and pens that don’t work and postcards and head phones and empty water bottles and note books and hair clips and lens cloths and post-its and lip balm and all the stuff I can’t actually see. Or eaten by the cockroaches, rats and scorpions that may emerge from the bottom layer.

If I do not post again remember me kindly.

Post no. 755

Why is it often such a nightmare trying to come up with the right title? Why can’t I just call my next article “Article no. 25,” my next short story “Short Story no. 3,” and my next novel “Fourth Novel,” and the one after that “Fifth Novel”?

Don’t you think that has a ring to it? Sixth Novel by Justine Larbalestier.

Or, better still: Two Hundredth and Twenty Seventh Novel by Justine Larbalestier.

Or, how about: Just read it, already! by Justine Larbalestier.

Or, It’s a Book, Stupid. What did you think it was? by Justine Larbalestier.

Stupid titles. I kick them all.

What won’t you blog about?

A friend of mine, who doesn’t blog or read blogs, asked me why I blog. “Don’t you feel weird sharing your personal life with total strangers?”

Their question surprised me because I don’t blog about my personal life. This isn’t that kind of a blog. I explained that to my friend. They didn’t believe me. “You talk about your writing, don’t you? That’s personal.”

Um, no. Writing is my job.

“But what about when your writing’s not going well? Aren’t the bad times personal?”

First of all, I don’t blog about when the writing’s going really badly.

Second, when I blog about the harder aspects of writing I do so to let people know that the writing life is not as glamorous as people think.1 And to demonstrate that, yes, even people who make a living writing have days that are not so productive. It would be the same if I was an accountant blogging about a bad accounting day.2

My friend continues to see blogging as a weird self-revelatory public display that only exhibitionists would engage in. I was bummed that I couldn’t persuade them about the goodness of blogging, but our conversation did leave me thinking about all the stuff I and my blogging friends don’t blog about.

I never blog about

    when I’m unwell or depressed (though I do occasionally talk about homesickness)

    the state of my relationships with family and friends

    my family and friends (unless it’s to boast about their achievements)

    politics (except indirectly)

    religion (though I will argue about it on other people’s blogs)

    personal or family crises of any kind

    books by living people that I hated

    publishing gossip

    uni***ns

So basically I don’t talk about stuff that is personal or that I think will start flame wars. I hate flame wars. I also avoid writing word counts (too boring), talking too much about works-in-progress (I’m superstitious), and whingeing when the writing’s going crappily (not only boring but irritating3). And bloggging about blogging is deeply lame. Ooops!

What about my fellow bloggers? What are your no-go areas?

  1. I cannot remember the last time I had a pina colada. And I’ve never had one served to me by a cabana boy or girl. [↩]
  2. Are there accounting blogs? And if not why not? [↩]
  3. Strangely, though, I really enjoy some other writers whingeing about their writing. Though they’re such fabulous writers they could write about accounting and make it riveting. Not that there’s anything wrong with accounting. Some of my best friends love accounting. Or they would if they did. [↩]

Sitting

Maureen Johnson ones again reveals the truth of what it is to be a writer:

Sitting plays a bigger role in writing than you would think. I mean, a lot of people say, “Oh yeah, I want to write a book one day.” And I smile and nod. Some of them will—but a lot of them can’t sit still for more than fifteen minutes if the TV isn’t on.

You have to sit like a champion when you write. Oh, you’re laughing. You think you can sit like a pro. But when it starts to all go rocky, when your characters don’t behave, when the wolf is at the door and the plot is starting to quake like a jello mold on a trampoline . . . . I defy you to keep sitting.

The sitting thing is why I rarely join my writer compadres in coffee shops. I’m only there if I absolutely have to get out of the house.1 My back is so destroyed by the whole sitting thing that I need an entirely ergonomic set up. I’ve got my ergie chair, my ergie desk, my ergie keyboard. All of it the right amount of heights and distances and blah blah blah. Even with all of that the end of every book I’ve ever written has seen me spending considerable time and money at the chiropractor’s. Oh joy.

Except this last book. I started going to the gym four times a week with a trainer—oh, yes, I’m now one of those wankers—and working mostly on my back and tummy muscles. Result: I finished a book without having to go into traction. I could achieve the same thing by swimming every day but there’s not a 50 metre pool within coo-ee. Buggered if I’ll swim in one of those annoying short course pools. Aargh. Yoga’s good too. But I’ve never found a yoga teacher as good as the one I had back in Sydney. Le sigh.

Anyways, writing = sitting. And sitting can get very bloody ouchy. I’ll never understand why people think being a writer is glamorous. Hah!

  1. So I don’t wind up climbing the walls and rending my hair with writerly frustration and madness. [↩]

DragonCon Blues + Urban legends

The worst thing about DragonCon—other than the way too many people thing—is that it’s on the exact same weekend as the WNBA conference finals. I missed seeing Phoenix sweep San Antonio (woo hoo! Amy—sorry, Rebecca) and will miss all the Indiana-Detroit games (please Indiana win tonight!)

Seeing all those insanely brilliant costumes is some compensation I suppose. Riding on the train with Holly, Theo, Cassandra, Maureen and Scott ditto. Sitting around in a hotel room with them telling ghost stories also not too foul.

Which reminds me what are your favourite urban legends? Feel free to leave a link in the comments if you don’t feel like telling the whole thing. So far we’ve done the finger nails one, the hook, the headless roommate, the evil clown statue, and the finger licker.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes right now are unspeakably good. I went to the Tompkins Square farmers’ market this morning and bought eight different kinds. Yum. They’re so sweet and flavouresome they don’t need dressing. Just salt and pepper and a squeeze of lime and you have the best tomato salad ever.

They also had the first cape goosberries (husk cherries) of the season. Heaven! And the fresh garlic keeps on. I think I’ll do a stir fry tonight of kale, lebanese cukes, garlic and onion. (All bought at the market.)

Even though I’m locked in working my arse off on the UFB and can’t remember the last time I talked to a real human being (other than Scott) I’m still eating well! Sometimes I think cooking is the only thing that keeps me sane.

An unanswerable question

Someone just wrote to ask me what to do when the writing is not going well. Fortunately, Diana Peterfreund has just written on this because I have no useful answer.

I suspect my own struggles with sentences that crumble as I type, with plot and character and meaning twisting out of my control, are at least partly because I’m very early on in my career. Old timers are much smarter about this stuff. Fer instance, my parents heard Thomas Kenneally interviewed the other day and he said that the writing got easier as he got older. After having written for more than forty years and having produced a bazillion gazillion novels (or, you know, thirty odd) he knows his own process and what to expect.

I don’t.

Not really. I’ve only written six novels and the writing of each one was different. I’ve been a freelancer writer for four years. I still have no idea how long it takes me to write a book. I can tell you how long the last one took, but not how long the next one will.

When you’re starting out you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know what you’re capable of. When the crappy writing days hit you—it’s a shock and you don’t know how to handle them.

Even super disciplined writers, like my old man, have days of words dissolving into puddles of putrescence, when they can’t focuss, and can barely squeeze out five words let alone a thousand.

What he does is keep writing. That’s where the discipline comes in. The act of getting yourself into the chair and typing—even if the words you’re producing make William McGonagall look like a genius—can be enough to get you past the crap and into the good.

Or not.

Sometimes people just need a break.

And only the writer can figure out which it is.

Personally, I’m pretty much always convinced that I need a break. Preferably in a place where there’s plentiful cricket coverage (alas, poor England), the food is fabulous, and the wine even better.

Sadly, my deadlines say otherwise . . .

Sunshine

Apparently there are lots of people out there who hated Sunshine and think it the worst movie ever. I beg to differ.

While I don’t think it was anywhere near best-movie-ever-made status, there was a lot I enjoyed about it compared to your average sf movie, which as a genre I mostly hate. Seriously the amount of sf films I think are okay (in a non-camp way) is very very small. Sunshine gave me a mission to save the world without big long speeches about saving humanity, uniformly good acting, no boredom, plus it was pretty.

What I didn’t like were the standard annoying Hollywoodisms, like, and here come the spoilers, …

SunshineRead More »

Email bankruptcy, or, attempting to cope

I am in crunch time. I am in crunchy crunch time. The busyness I have been complaining about has rebounded on itself and leapt to a whole new level of busy. In a word: Aaaarggghh!!!!

I’m going to keep blogging. I made a little bet with myself to see if I could blog every day of July and so far so good. I hate to lose bets with myself. Especially fun ones. Also blogging kind of clears my head. Dunno why but when I’m deep in writing, blogging really helps me to unwind—that and a glass of wine.

However, I’ll no longer be replying to comments as much as I have been (which I know has been down on what it used to be)—Sorry! The UFB has to be rewritten and that’s my top priority.

Then there’s the email problem. A while back John Green declared email bankruptcy. I think I may have to do the same. I have more than five hundred unanswered emails, which I know is nothing compared to Cory Doctorow who gets, like, two thousand a day, but, well, I ain’t coping. Important emails are getting lost in the shuffle. So I’m going to put them all in a folder to be dealt with after crunch time. I hope that if it was important folks will resend.

I’m very sorry for not replying. I suck.

So from now until I’ve finished the rewrites and made solid inroads into the new novel, I’ll be very bad about answering email and your comments here. And if I am responding to comments here in the next few months—that means I’m being an evil procrastinator and you have my full permission to hassle me about it.

Now I return to the UFB.

The Tour

Marrije asked over on insideadog if I’ll be following the Tour de France this year. Sadly, I will not.

This year has gotten out of control. I cannot afford to spend hours every day watching the Tour and following it online. I am incapable of following the Tour non-obsessively. So for the first time in years I’m not following it at all. (No spousal pressure was brought to bear in the making of this decision. Well, okay, just a little bit. I am not husband-beaten! I am not!)

Waaaahh!!!!!

The New York Liberty (10-8) will have to sustain my sport-following needs this northern summer.

And now I go back to the myriad tasks that confront me. At this point it’s so bad I’m resorting to triage. “Which of these tasks will most blow up in my face if I don’t do it?”

But, you know, Vive Le Tour!

Memory

I have a terrible memory. Especially for people. My memory for names is non-existent unless I’ve met that person many times. My face memory is a little better, but I struggle to place faces. If I see someone I’ve met several times at Young Adult Lit events in a totally different context I often cannot figure out who they are. But usuallly I don’t even recognise the face of the person beaming at me and saying, “Hi, Justine.”

Once the person I’m not remembering starts to recount how we met and describes the conversation I start to figure out who they are. But sometimes even that doesn’t help.

I know I am not alone in this. Almost every writer I know complains about it because we’re often in situations where we’re meeting someone who remembers us because we met at an event, which is a rarity for them, but common for us.

It’s not just a writer problem. Any profession where you’re likely to meet lots of people: retail, teaching, performing etc etc is going to run up against this problem.

I was horrible at remembering my students when I was an academic. To be honest I’ve always been bad at remembering stuff. I sucked at Memory games as a child. Still do.

How do politicians cope? I know Bill Clinton is famous for remembering every single person he’s ever met. But not all politicians are like that. How do they deal with so many different faces?

It could be worse. I know someone who has a condition which means they cannot remember faces. All faces look the same to them. Without name tags or someone prompting them they are lost. They are constantly giving offence.

So, I’m not that bad. And I’m better at faces than Scott is. Though sadly he’s about the same as me on names.

I have gotten better at simply asking the person to tell me how I know them. But often I’m too embarrassed. It feels rude.

Having a bad memory feels rude.

I really hate not remembering people. I know that I’m a wee bit miffed when people don’t remember me (which happens often) and yet here I am constantly doing it to everyone else. So much of the time I act like I know the person and keep the conversation going in the hopes that I can figure it out. Fortunately I usually can. Though there are the horrible moments when I decide they’re someone they’re not. Erk.

Seems to me that there’s only so much space in most (non-Bill Clinton) people’s heads for remembering. So the average person can at most remember, say, a thousand people. Once you meet more than that your brain starts deleting, or pushing them to a less easily accessed part of the hard drive. And creating trouble for you. Stupid brain.

I’m sure there are all these tricks for getting around the limited hard drive space. Hell, I know there are. Friends have taught them to me. But I keep forgetting to try them out.

How do you lot cope?

Third book blues

I have on several occasions mentioned how I hard I found writing the third book of the Magic or Madness trilogy and how it was way way way harder than writing the other two books. I’ve also seen others struggle with the third book of a trilogy so I don’t think it’s just me what finds them super tricky.

Recently Cedar Librarian asked what was so difficult about writing the third book:

Okay, now I’m curious to know why the third one is always the hardest to write. I’d always thought it would be the easiest, because haven’t books one and two been pointing to book three all this time?

I didn’t answer then, but I will now.

When I first wrote the proposal of the trilogy I had a very clear idea of how it would end. However as I wrote books one and two they got further and further away from the proposal. When I got close to the end of the third book my original ending no longer worked.

But I wrote it anyway.

This was just sheer cussedness on my part. I had always had that ending in mind and by Thor’s mighty hammer I was going to have that ending!

It made no sense. I rewrote the ending at least six times. Probably more. And each time I changed the ending I had to go back and rewrite the rest of the book to match. More than six times!

I can’t imagine all writers are as stupidly stubborn as I am. But even if I hadn’t insisted on writing that wrong ending it still would have been a struggle. Cedar Librarian is right, books one and two do point the way. But they don’t only point in one direction, they point to lots of different ways to wrap up the trilogy. For two books you’ve been throwing a tonne of balls up in the air. In book three you have to some how catch them all and then arrange them in a way that makes sense.

That is brain-breakingly hard.

Also if the books in your trilogy are getting published as you go then you can’t go back and change things in books one or two to fit the changing storylines. You’ve created your bed and you have to bloody well lie in it.

As I wrote the third book there were many many things I wanted to add or change in the second book. But I couldn’t. It was finished and on shelves. It drove me mad!

If I ever write another trilogy (and I have taken a vow that I won’t) I’d like to write all three books first and only then sell them. I wonder if anyone’s ever done that? Very tricky. Cause it means writing three whole books with no money coming in. You’d have to write very quickly, or be working on other books at the same time, or be independently wealthy.

I’d love to hear from other trilogy writers. As I’ve only written one I’m hardly an expert. And I clearly made a stack of beginner errors.

Do any of you find the third book of a trilogy the hardest?

Do you have any tricks to avoid such trouble?

Do you prefer writing trilogies or series to writing standalones? (Diana just wrote very thoughtfully about series writing on her agent’s blog. I recommend it.)

I’ll admit I’m tempted by the idea of a series. But only one in which every book stands alone. There are continuing characters and the same world, but each book tells a complete story. I think it was the three-book arcs that did my head in.

I hope I’ve answered your question, Cedar.

Quessies for New Yorkers

Anyone know where I can buy preserved lemons (Morrocan style)? (Yes, I know I can get them online, but I like to shop in real life with actual people. I also know I could make ’em but I ain’t in the mood for sterilising jars.)

I’m also looking for Thai herbs like pak chii farang and pandanus leaf. And, yes, I’ve tried Chinatown. Couldn’t see ’em anywhere and no one knew what I was talking about.

And how about plain old chervil? (The places round here haven’t even heard of chervil. Is there some strange USian word for chervil I don’t know about? I googled and came up with chervil being chervil. So how come no one knows what it is?)

I’m in the East Village and am hoping not to have to travel too far to get these essentials.

In Sydney these are readily available so I’m cranky with NYC right now. I am hoping that they’re easy to find here too and it’s just that I don’t know where to find them. Otherwise I will start kicking NYC. Also pouting. Lots of pouting.

isp woes

Yes, my site has been down on and off since Friday. Ditto my email. Yes, it has driven me insane.

My apologies to anyone who’s been sending me urgent emails. I now have close to a thousand unread emails waiting for me.

Brave new world of faster and better technology, eh?

Bah, humbug.

Multitasking

I hate that word. Multitasking. So very blerky. I prolly feel that way because I’m really crap at it. Really crap.

Like this weekend I’m trying to work on two different essays, the lodger novel, and also on a short story. Not to mention all the admin (correspondence, shopping, cooking, cleaning, organising, blah blah blah).

I’m trying to get as much stuff out of the way before I get The Ultimate Fairy ed letter, which will come in the next week or so. That way I’ll have oodles of time (due date’s the middle of September) for the rewrite. I want to make it shiny shiny shiny!

Most especially I want to have a solid chunk of the new novel so that coming back to it won’t break my brain. I don’t know about other writers but I much prefer to write one complete draft of a novel before beginning the next. I hate leaving things unfinished. Not to mention that it’s really hard to keep two big novel worlds in your head at the same time. It is for me anyways.

Right now I’m nowhere near a complete draft of the Lodger (hmmm, the working title needs work, doesn’t it?) so that when I return it’ll only to take a few days (if I’m lucky) to figure out what I was thinking way back then and who the hell all the characters are. If I’ve barely got a few thousand words then there’s not a lot for me to get back into.

I cannot write more than one novel at the same time.

I’m discovering that I can’t write a short story and a novel at the same time. I can barely work on a short story and figure out what to make for dinner. The best writing multi-tasking I can manage is one essay and one novel. On account of essays are not much like stories or novels thus they require different parts of the brain. (It’s like your dessert stomach being different from the rest of your stomach.) But two essays at once? Too hard.

My other multi-tasking impairments are laziness and being very easily distractable.

Thus this weekend I’ve managed to partly re-write a (very short) essay, write half of a new (and equally short) one, make dinner, re-organise my sock drawer (truly—it was a mess!), blog three times (this will be the third), take a stab at catching up on email (then stopped after a while depressed at the impossibility of ever doing so) and update my website (a tiny bit). I also opened the short story and Lodger documents and perused them. No new words were added to either.

But I’ve read many books, much manga, watched several episodes of The Wire and a fair few articles on and off line. (None of them related to either of the essays I’m writing.)

I feel discombobulated and disjointed and feel that I’ve lost my way.

I am now closing all documents other than the essay due Monday. I am even turning the intramanets off. When I have finished and sent off the essay—and only then—I will turn to the next pressing document. I will then work on nothing but it for a bit before turning to the next one. Otherwise nothing will get done.

So successful multitaskers do you have any tips for me? I have no children, no day job, no excuses for being this crap. I know people with children and day jobs and many other responsibilities who are vastly more productive (to the tune of two or more books a year) than I am. How do they do it? Help!

All in the mind

Someone just told me jetlag is all in the mind. This made me cranky because I have jetlag right now.

My head feels strange, almost hollow. The world is several metres away on the other side of some (slightly) warped plexiglass. Sound is taking several seconds too long to get to me. When people ask me questions I have to figure out first if they’re speaking English, then if they are, what they’re saying, by which time they’re staring at me as if I am a moron. Smiling or nodding does not dissipate the moron effect. When I have jetlag I suspect I am a moron.

What does “all in the mind” mean anyway?

A boss I once had told me that menstrual pain was all in the mind. She had never suffered from it and so doubted it existed. But if it did she was sure that only the mentally weak suffered from it. I didn’t punch her because that would have been wrong.

Nor did I tell her that just because she has never experienced cramps or jetlag or head aches or chronic fatigue syndrome does not mean they do not exist. I’ve heard some people say the same thing about sexism and racism. “I have not experienced these things therefore they do not exist and people who say they do exist are merely making excuses for themselves.”

I have never been to Russia but I’m pretty sure it’s real.

Isn’t all pain, indeed all sensation, experienced in the mind? So isn’t everything in the mind? Such as these people’s delusions that what they have not experienced does not exist.

Whatever “all in the mind” means the next person to tell me that jetlag doesn’t exist or to offer me crappy remedies that I’ve already bloody tried and don’t bloody work (and, no, I don’t care whether they work for you or your Great Aunt Tilda) will receive a long cranky rant.

You have all been warned.

Nervousness

It’s a huge comfort to know that lots of people get stage fright or suffer from glossophobia (fear of public speaking). Folks like Rebecca Gibney, Kirsty MacColl, Laurence Olivier, Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield, Barbra Streisand. I am not alone.

Not even slightly alone. It’s so common to feel vastly nervous at the prospect of standing up and speaking in front of peoples that I’m amazed by the people who don’t get freaked out. What is their secret? A complete absence of nervous system?

Tomorrow night I have to get up in front of the peoples and attempt wit, charm, and persuasiveness. Um, gulp. I’ll be debating whether girls’ books are better than boys’ books:

    Girls’ Books vs Boys’ Books

    Thursday 24 May, 6.30pm

    State Library of Victoria, Village Roadshow Theatrette

    A debate featuring the cream of Australian and international writers for young people [JL: does that mean we are creamy? Is that a good thing?]:

    Girls’ team: Jacqueline Wilson (UK), Justine Larbalestier (Aust), Simmone Howell1 (Aust)

    Boys’ team: David Levithan (USA), Jack Heath (Aust), Scot Gardner (Aust).

    Cost $10/$5 concession

Wish me luck! If I don’t fall off the stage, or break the microphone, or vomit, I’ll count the evening as a success.

PS Am still stuck using stupid crazy expensive hotel internet. So still behind with email etc. Especially as this current hotel is against having an smtp server that works. Grrr.

  1. Simmone replaces Meg Rosoff who was unable to do the debate. [↩]

Seven billion dollar post

Because that’s how much it’s costing me to be online.

I may need to do hotel-hatred management classes fairly soon.

In short:

Adelaide still gorgeous, still full of churches.

The wedding was awesome. I’m a sucker for weddings at the best of times. But this was more excellent than most. The bride’s speech rocked.

Despite the insane hotel gouging not allowing me to function in the 21st century, I’m more relaxed and happy than I’ve been in ages. Amazing how wonderful not working (and possibly not going online) and getting to hang out with my friends without feeling guilty is. More please!

Melbourne next. Where there will be much work and fun at Reading Matters. I’d link but that would lose me my second and third born children.

I leave you with a few questions:

Why is it not socially acceptable to say no to having your photo taken?

Have you ever bought books on account of reading blogs by their authors? Do you do it a lot?

Purple dress or red shoes? Can they be worn together?

PS Sorry for not responding to emails or comments. Blame the gouging hotels. Normal service will resume at the beginning of June.

Adelaide

Am in the pretty churchy city of Adelaide for a wedding. What larks. I love weddings! And these two crazy kids are great together. But internet access is not so much limited as BLOODY EXPENSIVE. Stupid gouging hotels! Colour me outraged.

So quickly: “gaol” is an another spelling of that place where people are locked up which is usually spelled “jail”. It ain’t slang. It used to be the only way the word was spelled but is on its way out. I cling to it out of love and perversity.

And thanks again for all the congrats on the Norton win. I can’t believe I’m still getting them! Yay! And an even bigger yay for the impact it’s had on my Amazon sales and my secret NYC bookseller friend who told me she has some people come in and ask for the Norton winner. Who knew?

Have any of you read any Jacqueline Wilson books? Some of you must have given that she’s sold gazillion billion trillion copies. I’ve been reading and really enjoying her Girls in Love books. Lovely.

And now I go before they demand my first born child.

Flying again

I get back on an airplane on Monday. It’ll be barely a week since I was last on one. Gah! No matter what airline I’m on, no matter whether I’ve been upgraded or not, whether it’s short-haul or long-haul, very little fun is had.

Today I had an epiphany: I must stop expecting air travel to go smoothly. I must lower my expectations. In the last few years of constant travel the vast majority of my flights have been awful. So it is reasonable to expect that will continue.

From now on I will expect the check-in person not to be able to find our reservations, and the flight to be delayed or cancelled, our luggage to not get on the same plane as us, and that our reserved seats next to each other will become middle seats far far far apart where I will be seated between two extremely large men who have no concept of armrest sharing, smell bad and listen to really loud music, and are deeply resentful when I ask them to move so I can get up. My seat will be broken.

Scott will not get his vegetarian meal and will be reduced to stale bread rolls or starvation. I will get my meal but it will be so foul I’ll be eating the stale bread rolls with him. I will have seen all the films before. Or they’ll be films I really want to see but every headset is broken and the DVD/video tape will conk out halfway through. The babies will constantly cry and/or projectile vomit. The turbulence will never end. (A little bit can be fun, but a fourteen-hour flight where it’s so constant you can’t get up to pee? Much less fun.)

If some of that is averted I’ll be laughing. We’re sitting together? Score! Seat actually reclines? Bonus! Flight leaves within an hour of stated departure time? I’m in heaven!

It would be so wonderful never to have to fly again. If only transmat beams were real. Stupid lying science fiction. Stupid airports and airplanes. I spit on them all!

Is there anyone out there who still enjoys flying?

It’s snowing

What is wrong with this benighted country? It’s snowing! It’s April. Spring in this poxy hemisphere. It’s warmer back home in Sydney where it’s Autumn. I hates it! Snow!!! Aaaargghh!!!!!!

In other news John Green is silly with his friends over here. I knew they didn’t get any actual writing done when they got together. Now there’s proof.

I’m interviewed by E. Lockhart and reveal that I cannot write song lyrics.

And, um, it’s still snowing. I’m going back to bed. Wake me when the snow’s gone.

Manga! Manga! Manga!

So, as mentioned I’ve been reading of the manga and the graphic novels and there has been much joy and bliss and wonder. As usual I don’t mention those what I’ve read and not enjoyed.

Buddha by Osamu Tezuka (Vol. 1)

Fabulous. I don’t have words for how much I loved it. Especially as I put off reading this one for almost a year. And I put it off for the lamest reason imaginable. See, back in the dark ages when I was in primary school one of my scripture teachers gave us all these Jesus comic books to read. They told the story of Jesus, and, well, there is no gentle way to put this: they sucked. The art was unspeakably bad. They were horribly written in a strange ESL English and they were indescribably boring. Seriously they were the worst comic books of all time.

When I was given Buddha, I had a flash back to those bad vile Jesus comic books, and even though the book in my hands had gorgeous artwork, it was still a comic book version of the life of a religious figure, and, I confess, that my heart was filled with dread.

Needlessly.

Buddha is funny, action-packed, moving, the art is gorgeous and Tatta is my new hero. Go forth and read this! I’m convinced that Tezuka can do no wrong.

Her Majesty’s Dragon Dog by Mick Takeuchi (Vols. 1-3)

I don’t want to tell you too much about this. I read it knowing nothing beforehand and it was full of delightful surprises. Kind of a sweet, wry version of Buffy only without vampires.

One of the things I really enjoyed about it and also Nana and Buddha too, now that I think about it, are all the cool, wry, witty authorial asides.

I suspect that I’ve just made a fool of myself in front of the hard-core manga lovers, haven’t I? That’s like a sign of it being manga, isn’t it? Are there any books about the history and development of manga I should be reading? Please to tell. I want to know more!

Monster by Naoki Urasawa (Vols. 1-7)

Wow. Seriously wow. This one seemed to this ignorant reader to owe a lot to Ode to Kirihito. Another doctor hero, lots of surgery scenes, also completely unputdownable. I can’t tell you what agonies I’m in waiting to get my hands on the next few volumes. It hits so many of my buttons, but I can’t say which without major spoilers.

I’d be really happy to discuss all of these in more detail in the comments thread. Just please please please don’t mention anything beyond the volumes I’ve read. And, um, I guess that constitutes a spoiler warning for the comments.

Here’s my big complaint about manga: it’s almost impossible to get hold of the volumes I want. I’ve tried every book shop in NYC trying to get hold of Her Majesty’s Dog vols 4, 5 & 6. And don’t get me started about Buddha. Is there a volume 2, 3, 4 or 5 available on the face of the earth? No, there is not. Lots of 9 and 10s though! Aaaarggghhh!!!!!!!! It drives me completely spare. I need them now. I do not wish to wait. Even stupid Amazon won’t give me more Her Majesty’s. I kick Amazon. I kick NYC book shops. I want more Buddha. And I want it NOW!!!

In short: Manga = good. Not being able to find the vols you want = bad.

Why?

Why do I keep writing novels that involve numbers? I am spending today going through the Great Australian Cricket Mangosteen Fairy Monkey Knife Fight Elvis YA novel and counting things, many different things, because sadly it is a vital part of my plot.

Why?

Why do I keep doing this to myself? I am borderline inumerate (and deeply ashamed of it). Hmmm . . . Maybe that’s why? My shame keeps prodding me towards numeracy. Stupid shame. Stupid numbers.

Let this be a warning to anyone still in school and inclined to slack off in maths class. It will bite you in the bum later. Study hard! Pay attention! This stuff is important.

In other news Maureen is handing out the best advice ever on dealing with a crappy Amazon review. It’s official: Maureen is my favourite comic writer of all time.

One of my favourite Amazon activities is to go to my fave books and order the reviews from lowest stars to highest. I then go through hitting the “no” button. “No, your stupid review is not remotely useful! No! I say, No!” It’s remarkably cathartic.

Speaking of comic, scary brilliance. You should all go see The Host. It’s so fabulous that even the New York Times noticed. Best monster movie ever.

Also Diana seems to agree that the relaxation poses in yoga are excellent for solving plot holes and other problems with your novel. Meditation? What’s that?

Okay, I have procrastinated enough. I must return to counting. (Stupid novel!)

Bad Writing Day

Here are some of the things that guarantee a bad writing day:

  • laptop making loud and disturbingly ominous noises
  • no fingernails left to bite
  • person writing nearby typing too loudly
  • person writing nearby sighing too loudly
  • too many interesting blogs to read
  • not enough interesting blogs to read
  • the availability of the internet
  • the non-availability of the internet
  • the moon not being in the seventh house
  • the moon being in the seventh house
  • the long google search to figure out what the moon being in the seventh house actually means
  • the siren call of other more interesting novels that want to be written
  • the siren call of other more interesting novels that want to be read
  • not to mention the graphic novels and manga and pile of New Yorkers
  • it being the wrong time of the month
  • it being the wrong time of the year
  • it being the wrong hemisphere
  • a recently developed allergy to typing and pencils and pens and any known means of conveying words in head onto paper
  • helper monkeys being lazy
  • non-availability of replacement helper monkeys
  • novel failing to rewrite itself

Care to add some? I know I’m not alone.

And now I begin this writing day. May the internet not tempt me, the moon be where it’s supposed to be, and the helper monkeys well behaved!

Cold

I have been whingeing more than somewhat about the cold since we landed in NYC. As I type this it’s -9 (15.7F) outside and the winds are howling. Both of which strikes me as just plain wrong.

But rather than focuss on the utter misery and horror of it, I’m trying to think of some positives. Like, um, er, ah, um, . . . Okay, I got nothing. I can think of nothing good about weather this cold.

Can any of you help me? Do any of you like the cold? See something positive about it? Do please share. Because I haven’t left the flat since Friday and I’m kind of not planning to until we get to June and warmth.

Give me a reason to go outside. A good reason.

RW5: aaargh, finishing stuff, and Jones and Mahy

Request Week is now over and the comments are closed, but I’ll continue working through the rest of the requests. Cause I’m honorable that way.

Marrije wants to know about

the pluses and minuses of living in several places (i.e. nyc and sydney) and how you do that logistically.

I hope you understand, Marrije, that a question like that is a license for me to whinge. You have been warned.

My answer in short: Aaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhh!!!!!!!

We’ve been saying for a while that we live half the year in Sydney and half in NYC. But it’s not true. It never has been.

We haven’t lived anywhere for six months straight since we lived in Sydney for almost two years way back in the olden days. The last time we were three months anywhere was San Miguel de Allende. In 2006 I spent time in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, San Francisco, Bologna, Madison, New York City, Kyoto, LA, Seattle, Lexington, London and Bangkok.

I have no idea how we do it logistically. Every time I think about it my head explodes. I long to live somewhere for a year without packing and unpacking my bags at least once a month. (I’d prefer that somewhere to be Sydney.)

Pluses: Lots of different friends in lots of different places. Seriously, the list of cities I could happily live in just grows and grows. Seeing more of the world is wonderful. (The whole airplane/airport thing I could live without.) There are still so many more cities I’d love to see: I’ve never been to Istanbul or Paris or Rio de Janeiro or Dublin or Capetown or Amsterdam or Tokyo or Moscow or Kinshasa.

Minuses: Too much jetlag and travel (seriously I think we lose at least two months every year to travel and dealing with jetlag. Not good.), getting sick A LOT, being desperately homesick for at least one month of the year (I know, I’m a big baby), never knowing where my favourite coat is, the book(s) I need are always in the other city, doing my taxes is a nightmare, feeling like I’m missing all the important moments in my family and friends’ lives, missing my family and friends (doesn’t matter where I am, I’m always missing someone), whingeing about it all way too much.

A lurker asks:

what if (hypothetically of course) one is an adolescent writer, who writes sporadically – poems, first pages, occasionally a whole short story! – but never finishes? should i (or one . . . or . . . never mind) push myself to finish a novel if i hope to be a writer someday, even if the process starts to feel stressful and rushed? and any tips to how to reach the end? or should i take my time and enjoy the ride? i’ve never been able to stick with a story more than a couple months MAX on my own. i’ve tried several times to write a nano-novel or similar timed bits but always give it up as more hopeless than usual. i love starting to write novels—just never finish them. thoughts?

Scott has written about this one in detail. Read him! There’s gold in that there advice.

Like he said the only way to learn how to finish a story is to, you know, finish a story. Circular but true. Personally, I don’t reckon writing’s much fun until I have a complete draft to mess around with. You’re denying yourself the best part!

That said I didn’t feel that way when I was a beginning writer. I wrote more fragments than finished stories and novels, and I almost never wrote more than one draft. Finishing and redrafting were skills I learned (to love) later.

My biggest advice to beginning writers is to have fun, enjoy yourself! I have more to say on the subject of beginning writers getting overly obsessed with the publishing rather than the writing part here. Which is not what a lurker was asking about, but is a tiny bit a propos.

Orangedragonfly asks:

if you could sit down and have lunch with any person who ever lived, who would you choose and why? (this is a standard question for me. i ask everyone. i love to hear the responses.)

Diana Wynne Jones and Margaret Mahy. Because they are the two geniuses of my field. I would love to sit down and talk writing with them. Or anything else really. They are goddesses.

What authors owe their readers

There’s been much debate about what authors owe their readers out there in bloggyland. I think the whole thing is really rather simple:

When I’ve got my writing hat on then it’s very clear that authors owe their readers absolutely nothing. Do you hear me readers? I owe you nothing!

I can write about what I want, when I want, and how I want. If I want to set fire to your favourite character’s hair, push them off a cliff, and then jump on them, I can and I will, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. So nyer!

When I’ve got my reading hat on, then it’s very very clear that authors owe me exactly the book I was expecting. And Mr Pullman in particular owes me big time for the rubbish third book in the Dark Materials trilogy.1 Do you hear me writers? You owe me everything!

You owe me more books in my favourite series even if you’re bored with them. You owe me unharmed favourite characters, or at least not in a fatal way. And if you do kill them then you have to bring them back as a zombie or a ghost and they have to be sexy zombie-ghosts. Also you have to make sure you visit wherever I happen to be, and sign my books, and read to me when I want you to. You are my slave. Get cracking! I want more books and I want them NOW!

There, I’m glad that one’s sorted.

  1. Mr Pullman, sir? I didn’t mean it. Honest. The first two books are so unbelievably good that I forgive you for the, um, less than brilliance of the third. Okay, not less than brilliant. It’s more like it’s differently brilliant. You are a genius and I am not worthy. I tug my forelock.

    Okay, shutting up now . . . [↩]

If this is Thursday . . .

. . . then I must be in London.

When I was little all I ever wanted to do was travel, but I didn’t have in mind hitting Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City (twice—very briefly), Indiana, Kentucky and London all in the space of two weeks. It’s too much.

Things I hate about travelling:

  • airports (where they confiscate your toothpaste for being a few grams over the weight limit)
  • airplanes (full of people hacking up their lungs)
  • getting sick
  • leaving my favourite toothpaste/book/jacket/friends behind
  • never being a hundred per cent sure where I am or what time it is or where the stuff I need is

Other than that I adore travelling. Anyone else got some travel whinge or love to share?

This was written on a hotel computer which is currently my only access to the intramebby thingamajiggy. I am still behind with all correspondence and will remain so for a least a couple more weeks. But I have read and enjoyed your emails and comments. Thank you! You’re all too fabulous for words. Now if only check-in time would roll around my life would be complete . . .

Dope, proofs, hoops, words

Today is going to be insanely off-the-charts busy so instead of the long and thoughtful post on the meaning of the “sublime” that I’ve been working on I’ll

  • recommend Sara Gran‘s Dope what I recently read and loved. Imagine a noir 1950s novel if it was written much more spare, set in New York, and narrated by an ex-(teetering on the edge of non-exness) junkie prostitute who now makes a living boosting jewellery. Not going to tell you another thing about it. Just that it’s short, there’s not a word out of place, and it made me cry. (Mind you Qantas ads make me cry.) Read it immediately!

    Any of you read any read-immediately books you’d like to recommend? Dope was recommended by Marrije. Thank you!

  • and exhalt in the page proofs of Magic’s Child what arrived. It looks like a real book! All typeset and stuff! So purty! So far the proofer has spotted a minor plot oopsie (someone not having something and then somehow out of nowhere having it) and reminded me once again that I’m the world’s worst punctuater. All she does is shift my commas around and remove and add semi-colons. Bless her! And sigh on my inability to ever understand the simple comma.

  • boast of my squeaky wheelness. I wrote to one of my favourite blogs, women’s hoops—twas a mournful letter whingeing that they hadn’t blogged the Aussies winning the World Championships and here’s how they responded. Bless ’em!

  • The ABC has this fabulous wordmap project where they’re trying to map the regionalisms of Australian English. It doesn’t take a second to add regionalism of your own. My problem is I’m not at all sure where I picked up the words I used. I had no idea “grouse” was more of a Victorian word. I’ve never lived in Victoria. Only New South Wales, the ACT and Northern Territory. I reckon tellie, books, and radio must muddy the waters of pinning down regionalisms more than somewhat.

And now I roll up sleeves and get to work.

Off to copyediting

Blessed release: Magic’s Child is now on its way into Polly Watson’s genius copyediting hands. Thank Elvis!

I confess I was worried. Especially when Penguin’s spring catalogue arrived with Magic’s Child listed as if it was an actual finished book. Gah! I thought. Booksellers will be ordering a non-existent book!

Well, it exists now—in finished form even! And, if you don’t object to a moment of skiting, it’s not too foul, not too foul at all. Phew!

Rather than thanking all the peoples what helped (their moment of glory is in the book’s acks) I’m gunna list the music what got me through the last few gruelling weeks:

  • Benny Goodman Sextet (with Charlie Christian prominently featured)
  • Billie Holiday
  • Blur (Think Tank—thanks Andrew)
  • Cat Power (Moon Pix—thanks Richard)
  • DJ Dangermouse (The Grey Album)
  • Fairuz (Zikrayat—thanks Tina)
  • Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 Sad and Sorrowful Songs (Gritton, Simonov)
  • In The Mood For Love soundtrack (Michael Galasso—thanks, Adrian)
  • Missy Elliott (The Cookbook)
  • Piazzolla (Yo-Yo Ma)
  • Ray Charles (Modern Sounds In Country and Western Music and The Very Best Of Ray Charles)
  • Sarband (Sepharad)
  • The Shangri Las (“Past Present Future” cracks me up every single time. Genius! Thanks Ray for telling me about the Myrmidons Of Melodrama compilation)
  • Shuggie Otis (Inspiration Information)
  • The Streets (Original Pirate Material—thanks Rob)
  • Sufjan Stevens (Come On Feel The Illinoise!—thanks Mike)

I wonder if the resulting book is at all influenced by any of that music? Looking at the list also makes me realise it’s time for some new music. Should at least get the new Cat Powers . . .

Reading things like this and all your encouraging comments here and in email also helped me get through my toughest novel writing experience thus far. Who knew that wrapping up a trilogy would be such a bugger?

I’m so happy it’s finished. Doesn’t the complete trilogy look fine? Imagine it sitting all together on the bookshelf!

And now I sleep for a week or more. (Scott, wake me up when the copyedits arrive.)

PS Today is the official pub date for the Australian Magic Lessons and is currently featured on the front page of Penguin Australia’s kids’ books. Spread the word!