Who’s your grandmother?

I’m from Sydney and I called my grandmother “nana”; Scott’s from Texas and he calls his “mee-maw”.

To be honest, when I first heard him say it I thought he was making it up. He has more than once tried to convince me something was USian or Texan that was merely Scottian. He likes to trick the dumb foreignor. But then I heard his nieces calling his mother “mee-maw”, so unless he briefed them ahead of time and they’re amazingly good actors, I’m ready to believe some Texans really call their grandmothers “mee-maw”.

Scott’s convinced that calling your grandmother “nana” is an Eastern European thing, but I know plenty of other Aussies with no Eastern European background who call their grandmothers “nana”.

So I’m driven to do some empirical research: Where are you from and what do (did) you call your grandmother? For extra credit: what do/did you call your grandfather? I called mine “papa”; Scott called his “grampa”.

Palm tree

On New Year’s Eve, thanks to regular reader, Marrije, I was surrounded by palm trees. Okay, just the one palm tree. A palm tree that required a certain amount of assemblage:

before it was fully grown:

How can it be cold when there’s a palm tree in the house?

Thanks, Marrije!

Much traffic

The last forty-eight hours have seen more traffic to this blog than ever before. More than 30 other blogs linked to the “How to Rewrite” post, bringing more than 2,000 visitors on both days. Wow. I usually get around 800 a day. Thanks, everyone. I wasn’t saying anything particularly new, but I’m glad if my take on the obvious is useful to some of you. Yay!

In case you were wondering, my most popular (by a country mile) posts are:

How to Rewrite
How to Write a Novel
First Novel Advances
Too Young to Publish
Being Dumped

So if I want to attract lots of hits I have to give writing tips or talk about heart break. Maybe I should do a post on How to Write about Your Heart Being Broken?1

Or I could keep doing what I always do which is to write about whatever I feel like. Such as the Australia-India series back home. Go, Tendulkar! Make it a competition!

  1. Listen to lots of Chris Isaak. What a whinger! [↩]

Why I don’t like writing groups

In my previous post I mentioned in passing that writing groups don’t work for me. Here’s why:

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in some wonderful groups with fabulous writers, who are brilliant and incisive critics, not to mention heaps of fun to hang out with. Frankly, I don’t think you could find better groups. Yet I did not enjoy them, and found they made me less, not more, confident about my writing. After a year I gave up on writers’ groups forever.

It turns out that sitting in a room with a bunch of people taking turns to tell me what they do and don’t like about what I’ve written is my idea of hell. I hated it for several reasons but mostly because I need time to digest criticism. That’s because my initial reaction is pretty much always:

“You are completely insane and wrong and if it wasn’t illegal I would set your hair on fire!”

It takes me awhile to get from there to,

“Huh? You know I think you may be right: my six hundred thousand-word novel could stand some trimming. I can see as how sixty-three sub-plots is perhaps too many.”

Sitting and listening to criticism is too immediate for me. It makes me feel vulnerable and like I’m back in primary school, getting in trouble yet again.1 I hate it when the critiquer would look up to see how I’m taking the criticism and I’d have to bite my inner cheek to keep from showing what I was feeling.

I’m also uncomfortable with the group-think I’ve seen develop whereby one person says, “This really isn’t a mystery. You should recast it as a mainstream novel.” And pretty much everyone else keeps making the same criticism, adding their own twist on it, even though you know in your gut that they are absolutely wrong. Yet the pile up continues and you start to doubt yourself.

Then afterwards when you ask one of them about it, the person will say, “Oh, well, I didn’t really think that. Not really. I mean it might help, but I doubt it. You probably just need to make it more of a psychological mystery, you know?”

“So why didn’t you say that in there?”

They shrug. “I don’t know.”

Grrr. The group-think thing is especially likely to happen if the rest of the group is in awe of one of the writers (they’re published; everyone else isn’t) and uncomfortable contradicting them. Or if one of the group is very definite and assertive. But I have seen it happen in very well-balanced groups as well. One person will deliver a very witty and eloquent critique and (inadvertently) sway the rest of the writers to their way of thinking. I’ve not only seen this done; I’ve done it myself.

I do not find it healthy or helpful.

Which is why I rely on a group of first readers. When I think my latest novel is ready for feedback I send it off to about a dozen people whose opinions I trust. When they have time they write back with comments and criticisms. I still go through the wanting-to-set-their-hair-on-fire stage but in the privacy of my own room I can yell and stomp and no one’s the wiser. I get to the point where I understand what they’re saying much quicker when the comments are written rather than verbal. It’s less intense and less confronting. Many of these first readers are people I was in those groups with.

This is just my view. I have friends who swear by their writers’ group. I have other friends who don’t let anyone but their editors read early drafts. Each to their own. But if you are one of those people who’s been told by just about everyone that you should really join a writers group2 and then you tried it and didn’t like it. Well, you’re not alone.

  1. Okay, maybe it happened in high school also. [↩]
  2. hey, I just suggested it in my last post [↩]

How to Rewrite

I get a lot of beginning writers asking me how to rewrite. This post is aimed squarely at them: the ones who are unsure how to fix a story they have written from beginning to end. Which is my way of saying that any experienced writer is going to find what I am about to say obvious, boring, and un-useful. You folks should go read Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing or, you know, get back to work.

“How can I learn to rewrite?” is an incredibly hard question to answer. It’s sort of like asking a pro tennis player (or coach): “How do I improve my tennis?” …

How to RewriteRead More »

Back in Sydney town

My dad continues to send me photos from home. These two are taken from Bicentennial Park which is just round the corner from my parents’ house:


Yes, that’s the Harbour Bridge in the background there—that teeny arch.


I loves me some Rozelle and Blackwattle Bay . . .

Homesick, me? Don’t be ridiculous.

Last Day of 2007

The year two thousand and seven was another good year for me personally. My third novel, Magic’s Child, was published in March which completed the Magic or Madness trilogy. The trilogy also finally earned out! That’s right. When the royalty statements come now there’s money attached. Woo hoo! The trilogy also sold in Japan.1 Surely the manga version can’t be too far off?!

I went from never having won a literary award to winning three. The Norton Award for Magic or Madness and the Atheling and Susan Koppelman for Daughters of Earth. So I’m legitimately an award-winning author! Now I just need the best-selling to go with it. 🙂

I sold my fifth and sixth books—the fairy novel and an as yet untitled (and largely unwritten) book—to a brand new publisher, Bloomsbury USA.

I love my new house. Everyone I’ve met there—the editors, publishers, sales & marketing, publicity, just everyone—is fabulous. Their excitement about my fairy book makes me very very happy. I am very proud to be a Bloomsbury girl. And hopefully early next year—just a few weeks away—I’ll be able to share all sorts of cool news about the fairy book. Its new title! Cover! Exact date of publication! It’ll be all fairy news all the time!

And to speak of someone else’s success for a second: I’m thrilled to see how well Libba Bray’s The Sweet Far Thing is doing. I saw exactly how much work she put it to that book. Seriously, for a while there I thought she might not survive the experience. But she did and now the book (by far the best of the trilogy) is selling out of control. Yay! Congrats, Libba, you totally deserve it.

Non-professionally, I reckon the best thing that happened all year was the change of government back home. Did that happen only last month? I’ll be coasting on the joy of that for some time to come. Right now it seems that every time I read an article about home something new and fabulous has happened. To which I can only say, “YAY!”

This time last year I said my goal was to finish two novels, which was my goal the year before also. So, um, how’d that go?

Not so much. Time to pick a new goal, methinks.

I rewrote the fairy book many times—so many times that it felt like writing more than one book—but I did not finish any other novel. Le sigh.

I did, however, write two short stories both of which come out in 2008. The first, “Pashin’, Or the Worst Kiss Ever” is in First Kiss (Then Tell) edited by Cylin Busby for Bloomsbury and due for publication in January: i.e. tomorrow. It’s very gross and (I think) funny. The other stories in the anthology are awesome but what would you expect with the likes of Cecil Castellucci, Shannon Hale, David Levithan, Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle, Robin Wasserman and Scott Westerfeld contributing?

The second story is considerably longer and much more romantic. It’s called “Lammas Day” and will be in Love is Hell edited by Farrin Jacobs for Harper Collins and due out around September. The other stories are by Melissa Marr, Laurie Faria Stolarz, Scott Westerfeld and Gabrielle Zevin.2

I also wrote an article for an Australian pearl magazine3, the beginning of several novels, a proposal, an appreciation of John Scalzi, many many emails, comments and blog posts. If I added them all up I reckon it would be as long as a whole other novel . . .

For 2008 I have a novel due in August. I honestly can’t see myself writing another one after that but maybe if I don’t make it a goal to write two novels next year I’ll do it accidentally?

In addition to the August novel—which may or may not be any of these—I have three sekrit projects on the go. All collaborations with sekrit writers. One of these already has a proposal written so I’m very confident it will happen. The other two consist of enthusiasm and late night conversations. I am full of optimism but I wouldn’t lay odds on their completion just yet.

My 2008 publications:

    January: the short story I mentioned above, “Pashin’, Or the Worst Kiss Ever”.

    February: the paperback version of Magic’s Child hits the shelves! Which means the entire trilogy will be available for cheap! Plus there’s a mini-essay on writing the book at the back. Bonus! I am VERY excited about this!

    September (or thereabouts): the fairy novel for Bloomsbury! My first new novel in 18 months! Woo hoo! Dance and sing and party!

    And also the other short story mentioned above, “Lammas Day”.

You should also get hold of Cassandra Clare’s City of Ashes when it comes out. It’s the sequel to City of Bones and is even better. I loved it! Seriously, I read it in one sitting. When can I read the third one, Cassie? I need closure!

Maureen Johnson’s Suite Scarlett will be out in May. One of her best. In fact, if it had vampires or demons or zombies in it, I would say it was her very best. But for now I love it second only to Devilish.

E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is total genius. Remember how much I raved about Dramarama? This one’s even better. The only way she could surpass herself would be to throw in some zombies or demons or vampires. I’m just saying, E.

You’ll all be stunned to hear that my favourite book of 2007 was Kathleen Duey’s Skin Hunger. If you haven’t read it already, why not? Run to your nearest library or bookshop and get it NOW!

And make sure you all go see the Spiderwick movie. I can’t wait! Yay, Holly Black!

I think 2008 is going to be fabulous. But then even when I have really crap years I’m always full of optimism for the next one.

Happy new year, everyone!

  1. Bringing the number of countries the trilogy’s been published in up to nine. [↩]
  2. I’ve only read Scott’s—on account of I don’t think there are ARCs yet—but it’s brilliant and worth the price of the anthology alone. [↩]
  3. don’t ask [↩]

My fave books this year

As you’ll see I’ve added a new poll for fave books. I’m pretty sure that the last option will win, given that there are so many books published every year, getting consensus is harder and harder. It’s tricky enough finding people who’ve read the books you’ve read, let alone finding someone who feels the same way about them you do.

So, the poll to the right is made up of books I loved written by people I don’t know.1 This was so I could reduce my candidates and also because sometimes I feel like all I do is recommend the works of my friends. Now, it’s true, I happen to have some extraordinarily talented writer friends but it does get a bit tired.

I also have picked books that are a little bit under the radar. The Night Watch books are international bestsellers, but everyone I mention them to has not heard of them, or has only heard of the movies based on them. I still haven’t found anyone who’s read all three. Not good enough! And Walter Mosley is not exactly an unknown, but, well, what can I say? I adore his books.

As usual in my descriptions I’ve tried to be as unspoilery as possible.

  • I’ve talked about Skin Hunger here. My opinion has not changed: it’s one of the best novels I’ve read in years.

  • Touching Snow is an astonishing novel. It’s a problem novel about an abused kid in NYC and yet it’s funny and wry and keeps going completely unexpected places. I hate realism and I hate problem novels but I adored this book. I cannot wait for Felin’s next book. I believe I am not alone in this assessment.

  • Shannon Hale’s fairy tale re-imaginings are stunningly beautiful. They’re joyous and gorgeously written and end just how you want them to without you even realising that’s what you want. At the same time they manage to be about class and power and the battle of the sexes, which I think some readers of hers manage to miss. I’m trying to figure out if that’s a good or a bad thing. Book of a Thousand Days may be my favourite of hers.

  • The final volume of the Night Watch series, Twilight Watch, was every bit as good as the first two (Night Watch and Day Watch). I love dense political fantasy. This may be my favourite trilogy of the past decade or so. It has magic, bureaucracies, not to mention tragic love and death. I can’t wait to re-read all three back to back. (Adult novel.)

  • I love Walter Mosley. As far as I’m concerned he can do no wrong. Blonde Ambition is the most recent Easy Rawlins’ mystery and might well be his last, which would be a shame, and yet so many of his other books are genius that I really don’t care just as long as he keeps writing. I’m not much of a reader of crime novels. I have a few favourites like Patricia Highsmith and Raymond Chandler and Walter Mosley is up there with them. If you’re going to read the Rawlins books go back to the first one, Devil in a Blue Dress and read them in sequence. Each book gets better and better. If you’re not up for a series then read The Man in the Basement. It’s genius. (Adult novel.)

  • The Secret History of Moscow reminded me a teeny bit of the Night Watch books, not surprising given that they’re both set (largely) in Moscow. Secret History has more of a fairy tale feel to it but the same darkly comic view of the world suffuses everything. This is another book I couldn’t put down. (Adult novel.)

So what were your favourites published this year? And why? I’m especially interested in hearing about books I may have overlooked.

Don’t worry, Mely, I will also post about my fave manga/manhwa/graphic novels of the year.

  1. I met Kathleen Duey and M. Sindy Felin Book Awards after I’d read their books and I’m not sure a brief meeting at a formal event counts as “knowing” them. [↩]

Scrivener (updated)

Many of my writer friends have recently switched from WordToolOfSatan to Scrivener. Since the always trustworthy Holly Black and Lili Wilkinson recommend it so strongly I decided that I would give it a go.

I’m here to tell you that I am in love. Scrivener is the first writing tool for computers that I have ever fallen for.1

Before you race off to get a copy here are two key points about Scrivener:

  1. It’s only available for Macs. It’s now available for PCs too.
  2. It is not a word-processing program; it’s a program designed specifically for drafting long documents (such as novels).

…

Scrivener (updated)Read More »

  1. I’ve had some really beautiful pens. [↩]

Silence

Sorry about the silence of the last week. I did something very bizarre: I went on holiday. A real holiday with no laptop and no internet access. Totally off the grid! Let me report that five days of no internet is bliss! I plan to do it more often.

In other news Diana Peterfreund got me addicted to free rice. Improve your vocab while being virtuous!

Also Maureen Johnson is stirring revolution on Amazon. Go, Maureen!

Hope your holidays are going as well as mine. Normal blogging will resume soon. Honest.

A queue for . . . what?!

I cannot tell you how bizarre and funny I find this:

ugg.jpg

The picture does not capture how insanely long the queue was. As I walked past I was wondering what rare and amazing thing they were lining up for. Concert tickets? The best chocolate in the world? Gold statues of quokkas?

Nope. They was in line for ugg boots. Ugg boots! Who in their right mind would queue up to buy Ugg boots?

I shake my head in disbelief.

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.

New Poll (updated)

Because Eric Luper had the temerity to suggest that quokkas are not the cutest animals on the planet I have devised a new poll. It goes up exactly a day after the last one which I successfully managed not to break—so you were all wrong. Yay, me!

I like having polls but I definitely need less buggy WordPress compatible software.

The “How To Rewrite” post will go up as soon as I, um, finish, the book what I have to rewrite . . . And the manga/manhwa/graphic novels one not long after that. Promise!

Update: Eric Luper jinxed me into breaking the poll! Oh noes. Oh well, at least the quokkas were ahead. But I had planned to leave it up for a few days. And I am too deadline addled to come up with a new one. Stupid crappy poll software! Stupid deadlines!

And now it turns out the poll is not broken. That’s it! I’m backing away from the intramanets, leaving the polls alone, and becoming a rabbit farmer.

Gah! We cannot wins!

All my life I have stayed out of the sun, diligently following the instructions of the anti-skin cancer campaigns. I have slipped on a long-sleeved shirt, slopped on sunscreen, and slapped on a hat.1 As a result (unlike quite a few people back home) I’ve never had any skin cancer scares. But it turns out that I’ve been putting myself at risk of rickets:

MILLIONS of Australians are exposing themselves to bone disease, fractures, diabetes and cancers by failing to get enough vitamin D, a crucial nutrient produced when skin is exposed to sunlight.

Experts have warned the highly acclaimed “Slip Slop Slap” campaign may have been taken too far by a nation terrified of skin cancer.

So I’ve avoided skin cancer but now my bones are going to spontaneously fracture? Fabulous. What to do? Apparently there’s a very “fine line between getting enough sun exposure for adequate vitamin D levels but not too much to cause DNA damage that leads to skin cancer.” My cause of action is clear then: I should go out in the sun more but not too much more. Um, where exactly is that thin line?

I shouldn’t be surprised. This is how the world works, innit? Everything is more complicated and tricky than it seems at first. Everything is a balance. Nothing is black and white. Still, I quite liked having one certainty: that minimising my exposure to the sun was good for me.

Le sigh. And of course here I am stuck in a place with absolutely no sunlight. Pass me those Vitamin D tablets, please? Thank you.

  1. That campaign turned me into a life-long hat addict. [↩]

Polls (Updated a lot)

So that I can better get to know what you, the reader, thinks, I have added a poll thingie to the sidebar.1

The first poll is about winter because I need to know if the total darkness before 5PM and constant cold and the only decent fruit & veg being apples and pumpkin is bumming out anyone other than me.2 Tell me I am not alone!

That it’s December and I’m still stuck in the Northern hemisphere fills my soul with despair.

Here have some more quokkas:


Lucky quokkas living far away in sunshine and warmth. Oh, how I envy them!


More sunshine & quokkas. Look what the peoples wear! Lucky, lucky bastards.

Okay, that didn’t make it warmer or lighter or less depressing here . . .

Update: I have just learned that creating a new poll instantly replaces the old one. I’d planned to leave the winter poll up for awhile but I done killed it. Thus there is a new poll, which I will not tinker with until next Sunday. This is my punishment for futzing about with the blog3 when I should be nosegrinding towards my deadline. I am bad.

Update 2: I don’t even know how I broke the poll this time. I am turning the internets off and stapling myself to the grindstone.

Update 3: Stupid poll software. I kick it.

  1. This was in no way a work avoidance measure. It is serious research! [↩]
  2. I should be clear: it’s only Northern hemisphere winters I hate. Sydney winters are lovely. [↩]
  3. I also added blog stats (Look! I done writed almost 250,000 words of posts! Fortunately that is still less than my published words. Phew!) and a tag cloud [↩]

Podcast Seriousness

Not!

While we were in Chicago for the Great Lakes Booksellers Association conference in October, me, John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld recorded a podcast in which he purportedly interviews us about our books. Zombies do come up—cause really when writers get together what else are they gonna talk about?

Apparently this is part 1 of the convo. Will keep you posted when the rest of it goes up.

Enjoy!

P.S. Scalzi’s pronunciation of my surname is prefectly accurate. I was just teasing him.

I hates paper

Especially when it’s a manuscript intent on giving me paper cuts or in the form of a card.

There. I’ve said it: I hate Christmas Cards. Do not send me any.

To be honest I’m pretty much against anything that shows up in my mail box that isn’t a cheque or a contract or a magazine I subscribe to.1 And really why can’t all of these be done electronically? Why do banks charge wire transfer fees? Transferring money from account to account is now one of the simplest processes in the world. Why can’t I sign my contracts electronically? Why can’t I subscribe to all the magazines I love in non-dead tree form? Why do people keep sending me postcards? I hate ’em and they go straight into recycling.2 I’d much prefer to see jpgs of your holiday—you know photos you actually took yourself.

I hate the endless catalogues that I never signed up for, the entreaties from political parties, and furniture companies, and car dealers and all the rest of them. Junk mail is a blot on the landscape, chewing up whole forests of trees.

I love trees! Keep them in their non-paper form!

I hate junk mail even more than I hate the spam that attacks my inbox. At least there are filters I can employ to keep the number manageable. I have contacted certain catalogue senders multiple times asking to be taken off their list. It makes not a lick of difference. If I manage to get rid of one several more are there to take its place.

I no longer give my address to anyone if I can avoid it. I will no longer join any organisation that insists on having my snail mail address. If they can’t communicate with me solely by email then I am not interested in being a part of their antiquated tree-killing organisation.

I travel a lot and no postbox in the world is big enough to be left to its own devices while I’m away. Thus complicated arrangements have to be made to ensure the postbox does not overfill and explode. If people didn’t send me mountains upon mountains of paper I didn’t want those arrangements would not be necessary.

The only truly acceptable use for paper is the making of books. Those I love. But as soon as there’s an integrated iphone-like device that works as a really good ebook reader I’ll be using that to read while I’m on the road. At home I’ll be snuggling up with a good ole dead-tree product book like I have since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. No ebook reader will ever smell as good as a book.

Stupid paper. I kick it.

  1. I’m okay with parcels though. Especially in their Krug champagne form. [↩]
  2. Though obviously not the ones my mum sends. Those are all precious and wonderful. [↩]

comment deletion

Okay, I’m not quite sure how I did this but I just accidentally deleted some of your comments. So, if you notice a comment you made has gone AWOL that would be me. Sorry! Feel free to re-comment. The technologies they mess with my mind!

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!!!

Political blogging

When I started this blog I was very definite that I wasn’t going to blog about politics or religion. I’d seen too many flame wars, too many blogs overrun by indignant trolls. My blog, I decided, was going to be sweetness and light and avoid incendiary topics.

But then the John Howard regime finally fell and I couldn’t contain myself. And, you know, what? I’ve gotten not a single troll. The discussions generated by my political musings have been thought-provoking, fun, and, most unexpectedly, my traffic is up. Who’d’ve thunk it? I love youse all!

I now feel free to blog about whatever the hell I want to blog about. If any trolls show up I’ll just nuke ’em.

That said, I’m facing a whole series of dread evil deadlines over the next month. So my promised posts on how to rewrite1, curing insomnia, my favourite manga, manhwa and graphic novels will prolly all have to wait.

In the meantime I’ll try to keep posting but may not be as substantive as I’d like.

So here, have another quokka:

rottnest_island_quokka2.jpg

  1. which has just gotten yet another request [↩]

Quokka

If I could have any pet at all I’d have a quokka.

I once heard Tim Flannery say in a radio interview that they make excellent pets and that we would be doing them a favour by bringing them into our homes. Flannery reckons that a sure fire ticket to species survival is domestication. You don’t hear much about cows, horses, cats, dogs or pigs being on the verge of extinction, do you?

So there you have it. I wants a quokka.

quokka2.jpg

Landslide?

Not really.

For all the papers are touting the enormity vastness hugeness snufflufflagusness of Labor’s win back home I think it’s important to remember that the gap between Labor1 and the Coalition is not that big: 41.59% of voters gave the Coalition their first preference and 43.9% gave it to Labor. Then there’s the 7.57% who voted for the Greens and the 1.97% who gave Family First the nod. In fact the only places where there was a genuine landslide for Labor was at certain polling booths in the Northern Territory. Indigenous voters gave Labour more than 90% of the vote. Hmmm. I wonder why?

But in most of Australia, there are people around you who did not vote the way you did. Who do not agree with you and are not happy right now. I kind of think it’s important to remember that. They’re feeling now what we were feeling over the last eleven-and-a-half years.

That said, here’s what I hope the new government does over the next three years:

  • Make the banking system not the most expensive in the whole entire universe
  • Not go ahead with Gunn’s pulp mill in Tasmania or any new pulp mill ever
  • Do more than just say sorry to the Stolen Generation
  • Get rid of all refugee detention centres
  • Do everything that can be done to combat global warming
  • Devote way much resources to working on the Australia-has-no-water problem
  • Fix broadband. I’m in the US of A right now which has—compared to Europe—a very crappy broadband service and it pees all over what’s on offer back home
  • Start funding the arts again. Especially the Australian film and television industry which has almost disappeared entirely. And could you spend some of that money on script development?
  • Not sell uranium to anyone. Don’t mine it either.

And lots of other stuff I can’t think of right now. Like can I have a Vivienne Westwood ballgown?

Do I think it will really happen? All of it? Prolly not. But some of it’d be good. I reckon, anyways.

  1. For those who are wondering, no, I’m not spelling it wrong. It really is the Labor-without-a-U party. It is confusing and annoying. [↩]

Compulsory voting

In Australia voting is compulsory. Everyone is expected to do it. Basically that’s because everything back home is geared towards making voting as easy as possible. Over here in the US of A it often seems to me like everything is organised to make voting as difficult as possible. What’s up with that?

In Australia if you don’t vote you pay a fine. Some people routinely pay the fine. Others who don’t want to vote register their dissatisfaction by filling out their ballot wrong or donkey voting. Often by scrawling a message across the ballot. Usually their message is a bit on the rude side. That’s fine. They’ve done their democratic duty. They showed up. The percentage of people who donkey vote is pretty small.

Some people object that many people are too stupid or ill-informed to vote.

Sure, I respond. But who’s going to make that determination? I kind of think what you just said is stupid and ill-informed. Should you be banned from voting? I think liking certain books by certain unnamed writers is stupid and ill-informed. Should they be banned as well?

Others say that voting should only be for the people who care passionately about the issues. When voting isn’t compulsory then only those who really care vote.

The problem with that is many of the people who really care are kind of crazy. Fanatics even. Who wants to live in a country where it’s mainly the fanatics voting?

Non-compulsory voting also leads to campaigns to stop the people you think will vote against you from voting. See: Florida and Ohio. It also leads to doing everything you can to get people you might be able to persuade to vote for you to the polls. Sometimes this is done in less than honest ways.

So you USians can give us limited terms and we’ll give you compulsory voting. You might also want a spot of preferential voting1 and weekend voting. Or at least have a national holiday. Also you could probably lose the Diebold voting machines. Other than that you’re good.

  1. that way protest votes—a la Ralph Nader in 2000—are not such a big deal. [↩]

Australia’s timid heart

It wasn’t until I’d lived outside Australia for awhile that I realised just how anti-intellectual my homeland is. One of the worst things you can be back home is a “wanker” which more times than not is used to refer to someone who thinks too much. Oh, the horror!

At most of the schools I attended it was far better to be good at sports than at schoolwork and no one ever admitted to studying hard. “Oh this? I only started it ten minutes before it was due. Don’t know what the teacher was thinking giving me such a good mark.” Roll of eyes.

I’m still not sure what we were afraid of. Well, yes, the scorn of the other students—no one wanted to be seen as a swot. But why? Why was a love of ideas and learning scorned? What’s wrong with being smart?

At the time, I never questioned it. I barely even noticed it. It was just the air I breathed. Hiding that you were smart, underplaying your intellectual achievements, that was just what you did. Or tried to do. Some of us were crap at it. We were the wankers.

During John Howard’s eleven-and-a-half-year reign the anti-intellectualism grew. When I went through school we were taught about the dispossession of the original inhabitants of Australia by the English invaders; I keep meeting people much younger than me who were not. I keep meeting Australians who cannot comprehend that admitting Australia was invaded does not wipe out the achievements of those invaders, those early settlers. You can be an invader and you can be a brave settler. At the same time.

In The Guardian Richard Flanagan, a Tasmanian novelist, reflects on the Howard legacy:

In the wake of his defeat the attacks on Howard’s legacy will turn ferocious, but at their heart will be an unease, a ritual exorcism of something deeper that Australians would perhaps rather not admit. For a decade Howard’s power had resided in his ability to speak directly and powerfully to the great negativity at the core of the Australian soul—its timidity, its conformity, its fear of other people and new ideas, its colonial desire to ape rather than lead, its shame that sometimes seems close to a terror of the uniqueness of its land and people.

Its conviction that real life is going on somewhere else.

What Flanagan says is true. And it’s also not true. The tension between the two is a lot of what it means to be Australian. I think of how proud I was when Paul Keating gave the Redfern speech so many years ago. My pride, too, in John Howard’s immediate introduction of gun control laws following the Port Arthur massacre back in 1996. The horror I felt as the babies-overboard scandal was unfolding. Not to mention Tampa. And, of course, Howard’s continuing promotion of racism and intolerance: in the last days before the election he declared that the two things he was most proud of were the undoing of political correctness in Australia and renewing Australia’s pride in its Anglo-Celtic heritage. What of those Australians who do not have an Anglo-Irish background? What of the indigenous peoples of Australia? The immigrants from all over the world? What of their extraordinary contributions to Australia?

I don’t believe that each nation has a particular character. Or that all Australians are the same. Yet I cannot deny what Flanagan says about the Australian soul (whatever that is). We are a nation deeply suspicious of education and learning, who have produced an astounding number of prominent intellectuals, scholars, scientists and writers. Who, more often than not, go elsewhere to pursue their careers and contributions to learning and knowledge.

I am extraordinarily relieved and happy that John Howard is gone. I can’t imagine that Kevin Rudd will continue Howard’s legacy of anti-intellectualism, racism and intolerance. I could be wrong though. Those things existed before Howard took up the Prime Ministership and they’ll continue to exist long after him. It remains to be seen whether the new government will be as dedicated to improving the intellectual and moral climate of Australia as Howard’s government was to destroying it. The promise to say sorry is a good start.

But governments have come in before promising much and then delivering little. We’ll see, won’t we?

No more than two terms

There’s a lot I don’t like about the US political system, but there’s one thing they have absoluately right: No head of state should be in power for more than eight years.

I think John Howard has demonstrated this truth as did Robert Menzies before him and Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in the UK.

I agree with George Washington that any one person staying in power for too long starts to stink of monarchy.1 It leads to corruption and to the one person believing that they are more important than party or country. This is not a good thing.

I would love Australia to adopt four-year terms and also a provision that says no one can be elected to the office of Prime Minister for more than two terms.2

  1. I am with Winston Churchill who said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. And monarchy is amongst the worst. [↩]
  2. And while we’re at could we get rid of the Queen? I want her off our money and no longer our head of state. No more Queens and Kings, no more governors-general of the country or governors of each state. And we do not need to replace them with a naff president or whatever. Isn’t the Senate a good enough check on Prime Ministerial power? [↩]

Giving thanks

So today is a big ole USian holiday where at some point you’re all supposed to give thanks for all the stuff that’s making you thankful. It’s called—wait for it—Thanksgiving. We have no equivalent in Australia. Though we do have, Australia Day, where we commemorate the successful invasion of Australia by white people. As you can imagine the indigenous population consider it to be a day of mourning.1 The USian Thanksgiving has an equally complicated history.

But all that aside, I love the idea of a day given over to thankfulness. Here’s what I’m thankful for:2

  • That paper cuts heal quickly.
  • My iphone. I kisses it!
  • That the cold of this evil Northern hemisphere winter won’t actually kill me if I stick to my cunning plan of staying indoors.
  • That cricket exists and is being played right now even if I don’t get to see it.
  • The fingerless mittens with hoods that Cassie gave me. Another tiny defense in the face of this rampaging malign Winter. Yay!
  • The talking Elvis pen that Libba gave me because, hey, it’s ELVIS! and also because it’s so much cooler than Maureen’s lame High School Musical toothbrush. I win!
  • That there are two Australians in the house (yay, Lili and Sarah!) to lessen my homesickness and so we can all follow the election back home together.

What silly little things are you all grateful for?

  1. I’m one of those weird people who thinks there are things to mourn and celebrate about that day. As in, yes, Australia was invaded and taken over from the people who were already living there. And, yes, the early settlers of Australia were also brave and resilient making new lives for themselves a billion miles from home in a very inhospitable place. And, yes, the indigenous population were astoundingly brave resisting them against such overwhelming odds. My country bares the scars to this day. [↩]
  2. Settle!—I’m not going to get too wet about this. [↩]

Writing = hard

Fellow writers, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re looking at your manuscript covered with line edits by your editor and you come across something like this:

I could feel felt . . .

And you stare it. Really? Really? I wrote “I could feel” when I could simply have written “I felt”? What was I thinking? Why is my editor a better writer than I am? Gah!

And then there’s this:

I could still feel the warmth of where his thumb had been1

I wrote “the warmth of”? I’m, like, the WORST writer ever. I totally deserve all the paper cuts this stupid manuscript is giving me. Every single one. Even the one across my nose. Maybe especially the one across my nose.

  1. On her forehead, okay? Don’t go thinking rude thoughts. My fairy book is very chaste. [↩]

Another reason writing YA is so much fun

is because all the other writers are cool and supportive and wonderful to hang out with.

New-to-the-genre writer Sherman Alexie has been finding that out. He told galleycat that at every bookshop he went to on his YA tour, “two or three big-name YA authors have come to the reading. That never happened on my adult book tours.”

I certainly felt that way last night at the ALAN drinks hanging out with my peeps. Way too many to name. As well as the usual suspects were people like Lauren Myracle, Pete Hautmann, Sara Zarr and Kathleen Duey (who wrote the brilliant Skin Hunger that I raved about earlier—yes I fan girled all over her). All of them fabulous people and wonderful writers. Like so many of my friends. Sometimes I have to pinch myself.

I don’t think it’s just a YA thing, though. It’s a genre thing. Romance writers are very supportive of each other, science fiction and fantasy scribes also, not to mention the crime writers. We genre writers stick together.

I wonder what’s up with the adult writers of Literature?

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?

Not that anyone asked . . .

. . . but I am hundred per cent in favour of the WGA strike. Doris Egan, who’s a writer on House,1 eloquently explains why. And, yes, a lot of it is about dosh. Why the hell shouldn’t writers be adequately compensated for their work? Here’s my favourite bit:

By the way, I’m not at all sure this understanding [about money] goes up to the CEO’s office; how can it, when that CEO can be handed sixty million dollars just for quitting? Someday I must tell you the story of the famous exec who said, “Why not make this character middle-class? Let’s say he makes $300,000 a year—” and the writers all stared at him.

That’s right the folks who are keeping the writers from having a fair cut of the work they create think $300 grand a year for one person is a middle class wage. Words completely fail me. It’s like those people who crap on about the outrageous amount male basketball players earn but don’t say a word about the insane earnings of the people who own and run the teams and leagues. An athlete’s career is short and physically dangerous.2 Execs get to keep on raking it in when they’re old and grey.

You really have to wonder at a world where it’s the executives around the creative folks who make the obscene amounts of money while most of the creatives are grateful to be paid at all.

Now, to be clear I am not referring to the producers or any of the other staff who are currently out of work because of this strike. That’s right, this strike means lots of people, not just writers, are going to be without pay for the duration. And most of those people—unlike the writers—don’t have a strike fund to keep them going. Not that the big bosses up top give a damn about any of them.

I believe I’ve ranted enough.

  1. and also wrote some of my fave fantasy novels of the early 1990s [↩]
  2. The majority of those who become pros rarely have more than ten solid earning years. [↩]

Best post of all time

Scalzi finally went to the Creation Museum. His report is now my favourite thing in the whole world.1 Read it and weep. Or just look at the pictures.

  1. Other than daylight saving, mangosteens, sleeping in, peanut butter gelato, lentils, Jasper Hill wines, the books of Dorothy Dunnett and Angela Carter and Raymond Chandler and Margaret Mahey and a million other geniuses, and, really if I keep this up this will be the longest footnote of all time. In short: I have many favourite things. [↩]

Do-rags (updated)

I’ve been thinking about do-rags of late. Until I came to the US of A I’d never even heard the term before. I’m not even sure what I used to call them anymore.

Anyways what I’ve been thinking is how come when some people put on a do-rag they look like a gangsta, or a pirate, or a gangsta pirate, or just cool? Yes, I’m looking at you, Holly Black! And when other people put them on they look like a peasant or a cleaning lady?

I fall into the latter category, which I’ve decided is fitting as I’m definitely from peasant stock on both sides of the family, and I once worked as a cleaning lady. Twas one of my many jobs while I was an undergraduate. To be honest I liked it heaps better than being a receptionist or a waitress. It paid better too.

I comfort myself by thinking that with my do-rag on I look like a kind of cool cleaning lady, but I suspect I’m deluding myself.

Update: Thanks to Scalzi, I have just learned that Noah and the other builders of the ark all wore do-rags. I’m trying to decide if they look like gangstas, pirates, or cleaning ladies.

Pumpkin

I’ve been cooking with pumpkin a lot of late.1 Mostly butternut because I loves it. But also spaghetti cause, well, weird! And I’m starting to experiment with pumpkins I’d never seen before. The US is the land of gourds. But I’m running out of ideas.

Here’s the thing though: I do not have a working oven or grill. All I have is gas burners on top of the stove. I can boil, I can steam, I can fry. I cannot bake or grill.

Thus far I’ve made pumpkin stir fry, pumpkin curry, lots of different pumpkin salads,2 steamed pumpkin with herb3 garlic butter, pumpkin mash, pumpkin soup, and pumpkin fritters. I’ve discovered that pumpkin and maple syrup are a match made in heaven.4

Anyone got any other ideas? But PLEASE no recipes requiring an oven or a grill. Pumpkin pie and scones are not a possibility in this particular New York kitchen.

Thank you!

  1. Note for USian readers, Australians do not use the word “squash” to refer to anything pumpkin-like. Squash is a soft vegetable that bears no relationship to any gourd. [↩]
  2. Thai, Moroccan, and out-of-Justine’s brain [↩]
  3. marjoram, chives, parsley [↩]
  4. I’m sure you North Americans already knew that. Australia is not really the land of either pumpkin or maple syrup. [↩]