A motley coat

Writin' Rations™ Almond Torte

2012-01-21T22:31:00.006+11:00

Okay, so, like, you need to make a cake or something, and you need to do it in a hurry, and it needs to be very, very simple, because you have a deadline for that story or novel draft or Ph.D. proposal. Writin' Rations™ to the rescue! The main time commitment is the baking and cooling, but you can go do other things while they're happening.

Emergency Almond Torte
1. Melt a lump of butter approximately the size of a pack of playing cards, and set aside to cool a little. While this is happening, preheat the oven to about 140 degrees C (280 degrees or so F, maybe 300).

2. Whisk together four eggs, one extravagantly heaped cup of sugar, a half teaspoon of salt, and a generous splash each of vanilla extract/essence, almond extract, and whatever nut-flavored liqueur you have on hand (if any). Keep whisking until it's all pale yellow and frothy and you are bored. This should take about 10 minutes, maybe a little longer if your attention span is better than mine.

3. Once the butter is cool enough to neither cook the eggs on contact nor burn your hand, use a little bit of it to grease a round cake pan, and whisk the rest of it into the egg mixture. If you don't mind a little gluten, flour the cake pan as well.

4. Dump between 1.5 and 2 cups almond meal into the bowl of batter (2 is better than 1.5, but sometimes you're getting toward the bottom of the bag and so you make do), and mix until there are no lumps. This should not take very much effort.

5. Pour into the cake pan (of COURSE), and bake until it's very, very golden brown and firm. This may take as long as 45 minutes, but you can use this time to finish your story or clean up the kitchen or something equally arduous yet necessary.

6. Let cool for at least a half hour, then slice and eat. Om nom nom.

Albatross, Improv, and more Cafe Poet

2012-01-19T15:54:00.004+11:00

Work is proceeding apace on the Wollongong season of The Death of Albatross, and all this time spent in theatres has gotten me thinking a lot about the "offer". My actor friends and family (and I'm surrounded by them, which is a wild way to live, let me tell you) have explained to me that good improvisation depends crucially on one maxim: Never refuse an offer. For those of you without actor family and friends, I will demonstrate:

Person X: Got a match?

Person Y has two choices here.

Person Y: No.

Person Y: Actually, what I have is my pet dragon, which I bring out whenever I need a bit of portable combustion. However, you have to be careful because what she eats to produce flame is —

Person X: AAAARGH! HUMAN FLESH!!!! GET IT OFF ME, GET IT OFF ME!

See how it works? The story only keeps going when each person keeps accepting the offer.

That's a really interesting approach to a lot of things. My own writing, for example. If I think in terms of accepting the offer that is set up by what the characters have just done or said, I start being a lot more open to unusual, fun, bizarre, touching, and quite suddenly meaningful happenings. Since we're still at the start of the year, I'm going to risk loading myself up with yet another good intention: I'm going to be spending time as I write accepting my characters' offers instead of shutting them down with what's "supposed" to happen.

The slightly improved Poet-Tree — now the tree doesn't wobble, and it looks more foresty.

In other news, my tenure as Cafe Poet at Yours and Owls is starting off swimmingly. Writer buddies have started stopping by, the Poet-Tree continues to be a success, and I'm even making progress on the project I'm working on (the text for a sort of oratorio that I'm hoping will get performed in 2013; it counts as poetry because it's, like, poetic.) If you're in Wollongong, keep an eye on my Facebook writer page for the times I'll be there, and come along! (Heck, keep an eye on my writer page even if you're not in Wollongong — it's where I post my writerly doings, if you're interested in knowing when I've got a piece being published or performed somewhere.)

Meanwhile — got a match?

Cafe Poet Day One!

2012-01-10T15:07:00.006+11:00

I'm sitting in the almost-too-cool-to-be-borne Yours and Owls here in Wollongong, in my first stint as Cafe Poet. I have my free pot of tea, I have opened the file to a new writing project, and people have already begun raiding the Poet-Tree (see below) — clearly, things have begun well.

The Poet-Tree (idea courtesy of poet Bronwyn Lovell, bronwynlovell.com)

The Poet-Tree, brainchild of fellow Cafe Poet Bronwyn Lovell, is a tree with leaves that are snatches of poetry. I've grabbed the words of some of my favorite poets, and sprinkled in a leaf or two of my own, because if you want to run with the big dogs, you have to hang with the big dogs. It didn't take long before pretty much everyone in the cafe descended on the tree to take a leaf for themselves (which I quickly replenished from my stock, which I had brought along out of a gratifyingly useful sense of optimism).

If you'd like to build a Poet-Tree for yourself, here's how I did it.

Materials
- A round disk of masonite or wood, about 10" (25cm) across
- A dowel about 1/2" (1cm) diameter, about 18" (45cm) long
- 15 to 18 battery clips/alligator clips (or so)
- The same number of zip ties, of a width that comes close to fitting into the ends of the battery clips
- Some wire; green looks nice
- Some electrical tape (I used green, because it was the least jarring color I had, but brown would probably be a lot better)
- Some green paper (I used green sparkly paper)
- A skein of thick brown yarn (you won't use anywhere near the whole thing, but it's hard to buy just a few meters/yards of yarn); I found some chenille yarn that was absolutely perfect on sale in a craft store for $1 a skein
- Glue
- Paper
- Two small nails with wide, flat heads on them

Tools
- Hammer
- Pliers
- Wire cutters

Hammer the disk onto the end of the dowel. Mine is still a little wobbly, so I'm probably going to have to find some way to steady it (maybe glue stones to the base next to the dowel, which will have the added advantage of making it look more foresty and everything).

Slide the ends of the ties into the sockets on the clips and crimp very firmly (you may need to flatten the sockets just a little bit to fit the ends of the zip ties in; I did).

Use the tape to fasten the other end of the zip ties to the dowel.

Make some leaves out of the paper and glue them to pieces of the wire that are about the same length as the zip ties; I used leaf "sandwiches" from which protruded the wires. Attach them to the dowel after the same manner.

Hammer the other nail partway into the top of the dowel.

Drape yarn strings down along the dowel from their center, looping them around the nail in the top. As you drape each one, glue it in place so it looks like bark. You'll have to work around the zip ties and leaf wires, but that makes them look like they're growing out of the "tree", so that's all right.

Write up a bunch of poetry snippets on pieces of paper; I printed mine out because (a) my handwriting is abysmal and (b) you can fit more computer-printed poetry on a leaf-sized slip than you can if you're writing by hand.

Clip the snippets onto the clips, and make sure you have some to replenish the tree with!

As I mentioned, I'll probably be tweaking the tree to make it look more foresty and sylvan, and to steady the wobbly dowel. But overall I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and how people gathered round to take a piece of poetry. More poetry in people's lives! My mission has begun well indeed!

Performing

2011-12-25T10:00:00.003+11:00

Early this year, I wrote of some plans for beefing up my ability to effectively read/perform my writing:

I have a three-pronged attack strategy for this: read my stuff out loud to an audience at least four times this year, after having deliberately prepared and rehearsed; memorize a particular prose poem of mine that I (and others, I'm told) like, and prepare it for performance at a slam or slam-like event; and get some acting training.

Here's how it went.

I did read my stuff out loud to an audience. I'm trying to remember exactly how many times. At least two for certain, as there were two performances of Passione Apassionata, a piece conceived by Bernard Leon consisting of staged Handel arias interspersed with some of my poems. It was a really fun piece, and my poems were well received, which was both a tremendous relief and very gratifying. I may have read on other occasions, but I honestly don't remember right now, as I'm still full of last night's Christmas dinner and feeling a distinct lack of motivation to do things like work hard to remember.

I did not memorize the prose poem. Perhaps I will this year. If it lasts for two minutes or so, I may use it to compete in a slam. (I'll be running a slam later this year, as far as I can plan things now, but you shouldn't compete in your own slam. Maybe I'll volunteer to be the sacrificial poet.)

I didn't get formal acting training, but I've now sat through hour after hour after hour of rehearsals for The Death of Albatross, and there are hours more to come. I learned a lot by watching the wholly impressive Chris Becky direct the show, which is almost like getting training.

Not bad, overall. More yet to do.

Adventures In Poetry!

2011-12-17T19:20:00.008+11:00

I'm very happy and honored to tell you I've been selected as one of Australian Poetry's Cafe Poets for the first half of 2012! The object of the game is to get poetry out of the garret and into the marketplace. Specifically, in this case, a bold band of poets disperses to the cafes of their choice (and which have agreed to be part of the program). The poets sit and drink tea (or coffee, I suppose) and work on their poetry projects, and the cafe people bring them the tea (or coffee) gratis, in return for the Good Artistic Vibes and the fact that the poet will be working with the cafe to run poetry-related events during their tenure (thus, presumably, increasing the cafe's custom). Moreover, the poet seeks publicity for the endeavor, further promoting the cafe, the poet, Australian Poetry, and poetry in general. Win-win-win-win-win!

My venue will be Yours and Owls, at 95a Crown Street in Wollongong (across from the Town Hall). I have yet to work out the specifics of when I'll be at my post, and of what poetry events I'll be coordinating (and when they'll be). But stay tuned! If you're in Wollongong, or even Sydney, come and write with me! Or read at one of the readings I'll be setting up! Or compete in one of the slams! Or just keep reading this blog as I periodically share my experiences! Or just use more exclamation points — the world needs more enthusiasm!

The Albatross lives again!

2011-12-08T09:20:00.003+11:00

Last night was the first rehearsal for the Wollongong season of The Death of Albatross. A couple of new actors have joined the cast, so there's new energy, new ideas, and new insights. There are the usual stress-monsters that plague all playwrights (Do the actors still like the script, or is it getting boring for them? Will they get my ideas across to the audience? Should I change that line?) and producers (Do we have rehearsal space? How will we advertise? What happens if someone drops out?), and the fact that I'm filling both those roles means the stress is squared — but so is the glory! The glory, my friends!

I'm really excited about the Wollongong season. For one thing, we'll be in the Phoenix Theatre, which is a terrific space with great karma (as it's been pulled back from dereliction by the amazingly dedicated and resourceful Steen as a center of artistic energy for the Wollongong area). For another, it's such a kick that the director and actors all want to revisit the show, and think it's worth doing again. And third, because we're in our hometown, we'll hopefully be able to fill the house for three weekends with friends, relatives, co-workers, and hapless bystanders. If you'd like to keep up with all the Albatross news, you can "like" the show's Facebook page. Hope to see you on the page and at the show!

The short operas and poetry performances the other weekend went very well, by the way. We're always looking for opportunities to get them performed again, so if you hear of any short-opera festivals or venues for a quirky and fabulous hour of Baroque melodrama and modern poetry, please don't hesitate to let me know!

What a weekend!

2011-11-26T22:20:00.005+11:00

I'm in the midst of a really demanding weekend, involving four performances of my husband Houston's and my two short operas, along with two performances of a poem cycle of mine that intersperses (or is interspersed with) Händel arias. We're halfway through (in other words, it's late Saturday night), and so far, so terrific: we're getting lots of really positive feedback on all three projects. (The poems-and-Händel thing, as well as the idea of a festival of short chamber operas, are the brainchild — brainchildren? — of Bernie Leon, the artistic director of Opera Prometheus, who is the producer of all the shows on the weekend, and an all-around good guy.)

I'm performing the poems myself, which I'm loving, but which is taking a lot out of me. But — and this surprises me — watching the operas being performed is very nearly as exhausting. However, the singers are doing a tremendous job, so at least it's not stressful in a negative way.

Writing for performance is immense fun and a huge challenge. When it goes right, you become, for the duration of the project, part of a magical tribe of magical people with superpowers and a drive to save the world through art, and you have amazing adventures together and become boon companions in the noble quest you share. When it goes badly, well, maybe not so fun. But it's good training to learn the nonattachment you need when you're surrendering your writing to others to play with. Nonattachment to a good result — it's the work that matters, not making everyone feel impressed with you because you wrote it. Nonattachment to a bad result — you can't control how people see and interpret your art, and sometimes it doesn't work out particularly nicely. (However, sometimes you get a wonderful surprise when they find rich, intense meaning somewhere in your words where you never exptected it.)

It's late. I'm tired. And it's all to do again tomorrow. Yay! Come and see us if you're in Sydney!

Poetry!

2011-11-02T16:17:00.002+11:00

Last night I finally managed to find a night when there was a slam I could get to. It was one of the heats to the New South Wales state slam, which happens this Friday. I was thrilled to be there: all those people, eager and electric and shouting about poems — the writing of them, the hearing of them, the sharing of them! Yeah, sure, the quality may have been a little uneven, but so what? How could you not love how everyone was loving poetry?

In between the two halves of the evening, a champion UK poet named Hollie McNish recited a few of her poems. I'm pasting a link here to the one I loved the best last night (even though this version lacks a bit of zip, as it's not a live performance, but a studio-type recording).

WOW! by Hollie McNish

Now, you: go and write some poetry, or read one of your poems (or one of someone else's) out loud to the dog, really dramatically, or find out if there's a slam in your town you can go to. Have fun with the sounds and pulses of the words. Exaggerate them. Spend them, squander them, toss them with wild abandon to the crowds gathered beneath your window! Hear those words sizzle and rumble and roar!

For your Halloween enjoyment

2011-10-31T17:27:00.002+11:00

Howl! Howl, wolves! Ow-woooooooo!

Connections

2011-10-30T14:16:00.005+11:00

If you are of a certain age, you may remember a British television series called Connections, hosted by James Burke. It was all about the odd chains of events and improbable linkages that have led us — technologically, socially, geographically — to where we are. And it was absolutely fantastic. (If, perhaps, a bit unfashionably leisurely in its narrative pacing.)

O joy, O rapture! A friend has alerted me to the fact that you can now watch them ALL, ALL the episodes, on YouTube: here's the link. What a wonderful thing for the writer of speculative fiction! You want to learn how to write gripping plots that no-one could ever have predicted? Look at our intensely improbable world to find out how! (Just in time for NaNoWriMo, too.)

The next project OPERA, my friends, OPERA!

2011-10-19T19:40:00.005+11:00

I mentioned here in passing, while I was still recovering from the breathlessly marvellous adventure of getting The Death of Albatross produced in Sydney, that the next thing coming up was the premiere of two short operas on which my husband Houston and I have collaborated: "The Box" and "The Second Chance". They are tales of whimsy, regret, redemption, bittersweet humor, and magic (yes, actual magic, not just the "Oh, it was a magical afternoon of music and drama" — although we're hoping you'll think it's that, too). Observant friends will notice that there is another piece scheduled as part of the day's offerings, "Passione Appassionata", which will include poems by me! Moreover, there will be a meet-the-artists thing before each performance in which Houston and I (among others) will discuss the pieces and how they came to be. All for very small amounts of money!

Here's the information (click to biggify):

And here's Opera Prometheus's Facebook page. And here's their web site. If you're in or near Sydney that weekend, please attend!

Brain food? Or something even better?

2011-10-16T19:23:00.004+11:00

Today my geeky husband, my geeky child, and I went to the entirely fabulous Art Gallery of New South Wales to see an exhibition about German art from the beginning of WWI to the rise of Nazism. It was intense: art that reflected profound distress and dislocation as entire centuries' habits of thought broke down — to be replaced by...what? Absurdity? Rigidity? Wild gushes of emotion? Moral and social license? It was a terrifying time, but also exhilarating: you were artistically free, for all intents and purposes. (Any wonder the Nazis came down on these people with such brutality?)

One of my favorite images in the exhibit was a photo by T. Lux Feininger, who (I was stunned to find out) only died this year, at age 101. He took the photo below; I'm not sure who has the copyright, so I'm risking posting it, hoping that Feininger's estate won't mind.

An untitled photograph by T. Lux Feininger

I love how the utterly sterile environment is transformed by the theatricality and energy of the people, and, of course, it's got a sword. Everything is better when someone is leaping around waving a sword. To me, this photograph is about joyous defiance against dehumanization. I absolutely love it.

The whole experience of going to this exhibit raises a question in my mind: why? Why go to museums? Is it to feed my brain with new images and ideas? Is it to provide me with background material for some future piece of writing? Is it to force-feed culture to my child? (Not that she needs it: she was as keen as Houston and I were to see the exhibit.) Or is it simply because it feels amazing to be in the presence of passion and skill and courage? Not to get anything out of it, not to achieve anything by it. Just to breathe it in. Just to honor it and cherish it. Just to cheer until you're hoarse for the people who were brave enough to stare horror and bewilderment and pain in the face, and make it mean something.

What will become of bookstores?

2011-10-10T11:37:00.000+11:00

I love bookstores. I have always loved bookstores. I love them as much as I love libraries, and that's saying something. But I can foresee a day when they will

all

be

gone.

I live in Australia, where books are, for a complex series of reasons that I've had explained to me many times but still stubbornly refuse to accept, jaw-droppingly expensive. So, yes, I confess it: when the Aussie dollar is strong and I get a windfall (both have to happen at once), I buy up big online. I, personally, am killing what I love. If even I can kill bookstores, how much easier for the completely matter-of-fact and pragmatic amongst us?

It might be worth a moment to look at what, specifically, makes me love bookstores.

I love the endless rows of shiny new books — all those possibilities, all those adventures awaiting! And they're shiny and new, and they could be mine!

I love being able to look through a book, check out the author's style, see if the index and bibliography bolster its credentials, see if the pictures are pretty.

I love the physical act of taking a book home to be my very own, reading it on the train (oh, yes, friends, because of the appalling paucity of bookstores in Wollongong, I must take a train to Sydney to find bookstores that offer books that intrigue me).

I love the community of people who love books. I love launches, readings, author talks, all that stuff.

Numbers 1 and (now) 2 can be replicated by Amazon, with the additional fun of keywords, "you might also likes", and customer reviews. Number 3 can be not just replaced, but actually eclipsed by the joy of getting a box of books in the mail. (Sorry, ebook-weenie friends, a download will NEVER equal it.) So far, bookstores are not faring so well in a competitive market.

But look at Number 4. What distinguishes it? Actual, real-time, real-space human interaction.

I've been a member of online communities for nearly 30 years. I'm extraordinarily comfortable talking with, becoming friends with, and even (in one memorable instance) falling in love with someone I have not seen in person. (The falling-in-love thing did eventually result in a wedding and a child, I state for clarity's sake.) But it's just not as immediate, as warm, as unpredictable, as vital, as a real-life face-to-face encounter. That's where bookstores rule.*

My question is: how feasible is it for bookstores to ditch the things that people don't need them for (that is, buying books) and focus on providing the things that people do need them for (that is, conversation, coffee and coffee analogues, a sense of occasion, and the spark of innovation and excitement that comes when people share ideas)? Maybe bookstores should all become readers' cafes — or, better yet, readers', writers', and artists' cafes. Havens where people who treasure ideas and creativity can relax, eat and drink nice things, and feel loved and welcomed.

*Note: my husband and I did not get married in a bookstore, nor am I recommending bookstores necessarily as places to, um, begin a pregnancy, as this might disturb the other patrons, who are trying to read — ugh! Honestly! Rude much?

Greetings from Conflux!

2011-10-01T18:15:00.000+10:00

It's another busy and fun con weekend: this time at Conflux. So far I've run a writing workshop, helped design the ideal getaway vehicle for the well-equipped evil overlord, participated in a spirited discussion as part of Ian Nichols's presentation about the nature of literary versus genre fiction, stumbled into the paths of a lot of friends, and come back to my hotel to get ready for tonight's banquet. (There may be a photo or two in due course; I'm not sure.) More to come over the next two days — and then home!

In other news, the redoubtable Lee Battersby is publishing a series of posts from guest bloggers on the nature of art — which sounds weighty, but you must trust him, for this series has yielded a number of fascinating perspectives and ideas. I am humbled that he has asked me, too, to contribute: here's my guest post.

And, finally, if you're the sort to be interested in music neither you nor anybody you know has heard before, please check out the Australian premiere of Houston Dunleavy's "Flying in Paradise", a piece for four euphoniums (euphonia?) and two tubas.

Lo! Conflux approacheth!

2011-09-23T18:57:00.000+10:00

This time next week I'll be gadding about at Conflux, a traditionally very fun and very nice speculative-fiction convention in Canberra. I'm slated to do a bunch of fun things: specifically, teach a workshop in how to start writing science fiction and fantasy (suitable for anyone age 11 and over, and anyone under 18 gets in free!), and be on a few panels (one on food in science fiction, one on studying creative writing at uni, and one on the quintessential getaway vehicle for the well-equipped Evil Overlord).

I'm also eager to catch up with friends, meet some new people, and maybe encourage a newbie or two, even as I, myself, have been encouraged at Confluxes — Conflices? — past. If you're going to be there, look me up and say hi; I'll be very happy to know you've been reading (and, presumably, enjoying) my blog. If you came to see my play, The Death of Albatross, especially come see me and tell me what you thought!

Overall, Albatross was a success. Yes, I think so.

2011-09-21T12:33:00.001+10:00

The Death of Albatross was, if I do say it myself, a success. The four performances went off without a hitch, the in-house staff at the Seymour Centre couldn't have been more helpful, the audiences were very complimentary, and the actors were happy (moreover, I think that once the numbers are in, we will have covered our costs with a little bit left over to pay them) — no complaints! (If you missed it and are a little sad about that, go to the Albatross "like" page on Facebook and click "like" to be kept abreast of possible — dare I say, even probable — future productions.)

So, what have I gotten out of the experience? Experience, for one thing, which is something never to be scorned. I know a whole lot more than I did about how plays go from, as they say, page to stage. That makes me not only a better producer (in case I decide to produce any more of my own work, or anyone else's, for that matter), but a better playwright. The director and actors — in other words, the people who make a script into a live play — count on the playwright not to ask anything outrageously selfish or stupid (overly costly, for example, or relying on intensely fiddly lighting changes or blocking not possible within the bounds of physics as we know it). A good, respectful script goes a long way toward setting up the deep bonds of trust that are really what make the theatre magic happen, after all.

I also got a chance to work with some excellent actors and an excellent director. This was fun in itself, and it also added to the learning factor. And, judging from some of the feedback I got from audience members, I got the chance to tell a great story and get people involved and thinking. I also (and here's where I get a bit selfish) got the chance to feel all smug, like a real insider. I have always loved being on the backstage side of things. One of the things I enjoyed about my time as a reporter was the chance to get around behind the scenery and find out how things were actually being made to happen. And when you're producing a show, well, that's pretty much as backstage as it gets. I've also been enjoying feeling like a Real Arteest when I'm hanging around in the really cool club that the Fringe people have set up for the duration of the festivities (I'll take some photos to post next time I'm there, as I don't seem to find any on line that convey its awesomeness).

"So, Laura, what's next?" I hear you ask. "How will you prolong the buzz?" Funny you should ask. On November 26 and 27, Houston and I will be having two short operas being performed at Promfest, an event from those great folks at Opera Prometheus! I will also be reading some of my own poetry as part of another of the Promfest performances (if I get my literal act together, I may even be able to perform it from memory). After that, who knows?

Poetry break!

2011-09-13T14:50:00.002+10:00

In lieu of a post of my own writing, I provide for you the infintely more entertaining work of Ogden Nash (one of my two favorite poets, the other being the far less jolly Gerard Manley Hopkins).

The Wendigo
by Ogden Nash

The Wendigo,
The Wendigo!
Its eyes are ice and indigo!
Its blood is rank and yellowish!
Its voice is hoarse and bellowish!
Its tentacles are slithery,
And scummy,
Slimy,
Leathery!
Its lips are hungry blubbery,
And smacky,
Sucky,
Rubbery!

The Wendigo,
The Wendigo!
I saw it just a friend ago!
Last night it lurked in Canada;
Tonight, on your veranada!
As you are lolling hammockwise
It contemplates you stomachwise.
You loll,
It contemplates,
It lollops.
The rest is merely gulps and gollops.

Note: the Wendigo is real — at least, it was at one point (and perhaps still is) considered to be real.

Second note: I was reminded of the Wendigo by its mention in a story by the jaw-droppingly fabulous Rob Shearman.

Playwriting: good for what ails ya.

2011-09-02T16:02:00.001+10:00

I've been doing a fair bit of writing, revising, producing, and rehearsing a bunch of plays and libretti over the past couple of years. It's been quite full-on recently, what with The Death of Albatross just a few nanoseconds away from opening night, and with the imminent performance of the two short operas Houston and I have collaborated on (they'll be on in November in Sydney; watch this space for details!). This has prompted me to reflect on the salutary effects for the writer of writing, quite specifically, plays.

First, there is not one thing in the entire world that will improve your dialogue writing anywhere near as much as writing entirely in dialogue (with maybe the very occasional and very sparse stage direction). Gone are the adverbs, gone are the dreary explanations and infodumps, gone are the pitiable imitations of the prose style you really liked in that book you read last week! Instead, you write characters who (as all good characters should) reveal their inner lives through how they interact with other people: how they stand in amazement, how they glance, startled, at another character or shatter a dinner plate in rage — and, most importantly, how they speak to one another. If you take your playwriting seriously, you leave lots of space for the director and the actors to do their art. You constantly seek to trim every extraneous syllable, every conversational triviality. This can only be a good thing for everything you write.

Second, playwriting makes you acutely aware of how long things take, and how long they should take. The ear of the audience member (not to mention the reader) becomes bored far more quickly than the pen of the writer. Of course we writers love our own stuff and could listen to it, enraptured, all day! Of course! But as soon as you start writing for the stage, the passage of time becomes real, and crucial. It takes time to speak words out loud! You must master and control the audience's perception of time through the use of poetic language, dramatic tension, setup and setting, empathetic characters — all crucial tools for anyone writing stories of any kind. Even more, you have to be an excellent steward of your audience's time. They're trusting you with two hours of their lives: can you really live with yourself if you waste that gift?

Third, when theatre is done right, it's win-win. In fact, it's win-win-win-win-win-win. The playwright, the actors, the director, the audience, the producer, the venue, and the audience all come away full of joy. And everyone needs more joy.

Ohhhhh.......

2011-08-25T16:38:00.006+10:00

I haven't posted any drool-worthy library pics for a while. This one will make up for that, and cause yearning to a degree that almost seems cruel. See here for more libraries of the rich and famous. (I am surprised, I confess, at how many of them have utterly pristine, perfectly matched sets of what I can only assume are decoration-only books — clearly untouched by the hand of an actual reader.)

EDIT! Make sure you actually do click on the link to the other Hearst library, too. (Thanks for the prompt, Andrew.)

Thanks to Eneit Culcairn for the original link.

Latest video from your friends in Albatross!

2011-08-11T14:53:00.002+10:00

Listen to why the actors are all having such a great time with the show, and why you will, too.

Book tickets at The Sydney Fringe (search on "albatross").

Why horses make you a better person

2011-08-06T22:00:00.006+10:00

My horse, Jarrah

Horses toughen you up. You learn to tolerate being stepped on, kneed, head-butted, bitten, kicked, drooled on, sneezed on, pooped on, peed on, thrown into the mud, scraped against trees, and treated with soul-destroying indifference. You learn you can cope. That there's a difference between feeling pain and actually being damaged. That you are strong enough to stay calm in the face of danger.

Horses teach you patience. The first, most important rule of horsemanship (and I forget where I heard this) is: Always have more time than your horse. If you're trying to catch your horse, or teach your horse something new, or persuade your horse to behave politely, it is going to take a long time. More time than you thought. And if you have a deadline, the horse will sense this, and will jerk you around until you are hopelessly late for your next thing and give up. The horse wants this, because it gets him or her out of doing what you were asking. The only way to avoid this is to not have a deadline. To have all the time in the world. The horse senses this, too, and realizes that resistance is futile.

Horses impose calmness on you. If you're freaking out, your horse will freak out. If you're fretful, irritable, or angry, your horse will be terrified. Yes, terrified. They hate it when the person they rely on is unreliable. And scared horses are dangerous horses. It's very rare to find a horse with genuine malice in them, but that doesn't mean they're safe to be around when they're scared. If you love your horse, you want them to be calm and happy. If you love your own safety, you want your horse to be calm and happy. So you learn to control yourself, find your center, put the bad stuff aside for the time you're with your horse. (Usually, by the time you're done for the day, the bad stuff has lost a lot of its power during its stint in quarantine.)

Horses connect you. With themselves, with other people, with yourself. I can't explain it, but I know it's pretty much impossible to be surly and isolated around a horse.

Horses teach you lots of stuff. History (what was it like to use a horse for your transportation, and to have to take care of one?). Geography (what kinds of terrain can or can't you ride on, and what ramifications does that have for non-motorized societies?). Phys. ed. (riding is a sport, and it develops coordination and core strength, not to mention how much exercise you get grooming, carrying saddles around, etc.). Biology (horses are very earthy about their bodily functions and their interactions with the environment). Physics (how much will it hurt when a 70kg person hits the ground from a height of 2m?). Economics (can I afford the feed, shoeing, board, vet fees, tack purchases?) Risk management and emergency planning (have I let anyone know I'm about to go out alone on trail and when I expect to be back?). And on and on.

Horses accept you. They don't care what you look like or sound like. They care what you are like. Whether you are kind. Patient. Loving. Curious. Confident. Encouraging. When you mess up, they always give you another chance to show you know better now.

They always give you another chance.

Tonight's adventure, and some links

2011-08-04T22:34:00.006+10:00

Tonight I schlepped up to Marrickville for the media launch of this year's Sydney Fringe Festival, in which my play, The Death of Albatross, is being premiered. (Buy tickets here, and find out more about the show here and here.) I was expecting something stodgy: either a plain ol' media conference or something like a book launch, which sometimes can be intensely entertaining and interesting, and sometimes...not.

I was pleasantly — very pleasantly — surprised: there was very nice food to snack on, free grog (including a very unnerving-looking thick green punch, which turned out to have absinthe in it and was extraordinarily nice; good thing absinthe is kind of hard to get and a little on the impossibly-expensive side, or we'd all be slaves to the green fairy). There was also some very, very fine music by, amongst others, my new fave band, Doc Jones's Lechery Orchestra. (I will DEFINITELY be going to their gig at the Fringe; hope to see you there!) And there was a fire-twirling act, which is always fun, but this one had the added attraction of a guy who soaked a bullwhip in kerosene, lit it, and cracked the flaming whip in a dragon's roar of fire and fury. Fabulous!

The Fringe Director, Richard Hull, gave a tactfully brief speech, a few of the Fringe artists did teasers of their acts, and I can confidently say that a good time was had by all. If the Fringe is even partially as much fun as its launch, we are all in for a pretty rocking month, is all I can say. Don't forget to kick it off by going to see The Death of Albatross — it's in a convenient location (the Seymour Centre) at a convenient time (6:30), and it opens the night BEFORE the official Fringe opening (in other words, we open on Thursday, September 8), so you can feel all smug that you got the jump on everybody else in your Fringe festivities.

In other news, I draw your attention to the artwork of Mike Burleigh, who is studying to be a natural-history illustrator. I urge you to go to his site and have a look; here are some enticements for you. I have importuned him to turn his hand to fantasy/science fiction illustration as well — I reckon he'd be bloody good at it.

Pebbles

2011-07-31T10:42:00.002+10:00

Paths are made of pebbles. This pebble here may be far tinier than that massive one, or maybe the one back a ways had such pretty colors, while the one at your feet is dull and unimpressive. But say that ahead of you there is no path — you have to build it yourself out of pebbles as you go. In that case, you need every single pebble, or you're just going to stay put (or, best case, move ahead far more slowly than you want). Not only that, but the only way you can reach more pebbles, maybe even better pebbles, is to keep building the path to get to them.

That's what it's like to make a career in the arts. You have to look around you, search for pebbles (skills, experiences, accidents, what have you), grasp them, and place them before you, to support you for the next step. Writers are very fortunate in that nothing that we do or that happens to us is wasted — it's all pebbles. Some of them seem at the time to be only annoying distractions or regrettable deviations from the path we'd rather be making. But looking back along the path reveals that every pebble belonged there all the time.

Here are some of the pebbles I've picked up over the years (and it's only a very small sample of the actual list).

Learning to ride horses
The coaching of a really good high-school English teacher
Camping
Juggling (good for the brain!)
Clarion South
Writing one-minute plays
Learning media and event management
Cooking
Living in a foreign country
Going to science-fiction conventions (yes, it's useful for writers to do this)
Sitting through rehearsals of other people's plays
Being able to read music
Learning a bit of elementary computer programming
That job packing books in a warehouse
Volunteering with the State Emergency Service
Traveling to Siberia
This one time when I was 15 and my mom took me to a production of Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac

Like I said, that's only a partial list. Every thing on that list has come in handy, and more than handy: providing plot twists or details that I can write about, or bringing me into contact with people who have helped me immensely (God bless them), or giving me skills that make my writing better, or just plain making my imagination stronger and more outrageous.

So don't despair if you look around you and you're not where you want to be. You're building a path, with the pebbles you can reach right now. And while you're at it, why not stretch just a little further, to get a few more pebbles?

Every playwright's dream

2011-07-15T11:46:00.003+10:00

It's excruciating, really: you've slaved over this script, spent endless hours pacing and pondering and trying this or that with varying degrees of desperation, and now that it's done, you place all its fragile and complicated beauty into the hands of people you really know very little about. Will they get it? Will they understand what you meant? Will they see your characters' nobility, or only their flaws, and make caricatures of them? Will they turn your play into something horrid?

Or will they dig, and explore, and do their courageous best to understand? Will they trust you, as you have trusted them, and find wonder and joy in your script?

There was another rehearsal for The Death of Albatross last night. The director and actors added more depth and nobility and complexity to the characters than I could have ever hoped for. They took what I'd put on the page and, through their own skill and open-heartedness, made real people out of what had been just characters. They came up with insights about them, created memories for them, found their quirks and mannerisms — in fact, they came up with a lot of stuff I wish I'd been good enough to put in the script in the first place. But then that would have left no room for their own genius, and part of the fun of theatre is leaving room for everyone else's genius, and seeing what happens.

I hope you can come to the show and see what these amazing people are doing. (Click on the link above to go to the show's Facebook page; if you "like" the page, you'll get updates, trailers, the lot.)

Starting August 1, tickets will be on sale at The Sydney Fringe website.

It's been an Albatross weekend!

2011-07-10T16:01:00.004+10:00

I've spent most of the last few days and nights moving the production of The Death of Albatross further along its path. Filling in forms, writing and designing publicity material, editing promo clips, preparing for another rehearsal, managing logistical and administration interactions with not only The Sydney Fringe, but the Seymour Centre (our fabulous venue) as well, doing various calculations for all the fees that get added into and taken out of ticket prices — good thing I've got a terrific director, fantastic actors, a great crew, and lots of encouraging friends. I don't think I could manage this on my own. In fact, I know I couldn't. (One of the things I love about theatre is that it demands — and rewards — teamwork.)

Just a reminder: tickets go on sale on August 1 at the Fringe office. I'm really excited about the show, and I'd love to see you there!

In case you haven't been over to our Facebook page yet, you might be interested to know what some of Australia's leading theatre professionals have said about the play:

"...well-written and entertaining." -- Dr. Janys Hayes, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong

"Funny, with great characters and a cracking narrative, the play cleverly addresses the very real impact of dying towns on their inhabitants." -- Anne-Louise Rentell, Artistic Associate, Merrigong Theatre Company

"I consider [Laura E. Goodin] to be an emerging playwright of genuine promise." -- Timothy Daly, internationally awarded Australian playwright

Oh! You might also be interested in a site I stumbled across that must have been put up by the Albatross Tourism Board, back before, well, before things happened. Here's the link.

I urge you to visit and "Like" the Facebook page to receive updates and interesting tidbits about the show (and about the town!).

Now: off to do some more Albatross work, while there's still some weekend left in which to do it....

The start of the Death of Albatross

2011-07-02T22:57:00.007+10:00

One of the more fun experiences I've had in my life was writing and producing a 10-minute play as part of Wollongong Workshop Theatre's 24-hour Theatre event a few years back. Yes, 24 hours from "Here are your guidelines" to house lights down, curtain up. While the cast members and director slept, I wrote and wrote. (Houston composed a terrific song in three-part harmony from words I gave him at about 10 p.m.; he finished it before he went to bed, what a legend!) One of the best moments was when I printed out the scripts and arranged them on the coffee table for the cast to find in the morning — like Christmas! It was so exciting to see them there, knowing that in the morning, actors I admired and trusted would make the words come alive. (The performance was, in fact, fantastic, in case you're wondering.)

Tonight I'm getting ready for tomorrow's rehearsal — the first rehearsal — of The Death of Albatross*, the play I've written and am now producing as part of this year's Sydney Fringe Festival. This script took a lot longer than one all-nighter, and its creation included an intensive development process (thanks to the generous folk at Merrigong Theatre Company) and a whole lot of work to prepare the submission to the people at the Fringe, and at its venue, the Seymour Centre. The scripts are printed, and I've just put the big black binder clips on a copy for each actor. The food is prepared, ready to feed hungry and diligent actors for an all-day, all-evening mammoth rehearsal. It feels like the night before Christmas.

Tomorrow the magic starts.

Tomorrow, my play starts to come alive.

*Please go to the play's page on Facebook and "Like" us. It will help us get the word out when your friends, who know you have excellent taste, rush to find out about this new thing you've found. And you will get notifications about things like when tickets go on sale, where you can read/hear interviews and clips, how to arrange your next vacation in the charming town of Albatross — important stuff like that.

Because everybody needs some Bugs Bunny

2011-06-30T11:02:00.001+10:00

One of my all-time favorites.

geeky giggle

2011-06-29T16:12:00.003+10:00

My friend Alan Baxter enlightened me about using QR codes, which I had been hitherto ignoring because I did not have a smart phone. But now I have one, and suddenly QR codes SO MATTER TO ME.

Use the camera on your phone, along with a QR-code-reading app (I'm using i-nigma, which was free), to find out what this says!

(If you don't have a smart phone or some sort of desktop app to read the code, the solution is in the first comment.)

Writin' Rations™ Chili coconut mushrooms

2011-06-24T12:18:00.006+10:00

This meets the Writin' Rations™ criteria: quick, easy, (relatively) cheap, good for you, VERY tasty, and not too cleanup-intensive! (It has the added benefit of being suitable for nearly everyone's diet, being wheat-, dairy-, and meat-free.)

About a pound of mushrooms, wiped and sliced

2 tablespoons peanut oil

one good handful shredded coconut (preferably the kind without sugar; Americans, do your best)

1 teaspoon chili sauce of your choice, but use one that's kind of chunky, not like Tabasco (ours is pretty nuclear; if yours is wimpy, use a little more)

Fresh coriander LEAF (not seed), aka cilantro (I go light on this, because I only like it in small doses, but you do what you think best)

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup coconut CREAM (not milk)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1. Heat the oil in a big pan and fry the coconut until it's just starting to turn brown.

2. Add the mushrooms and cook until they're quite, quite done. (Don't make the heat TOO hot, or the coconut will burn.)

3. Add the chili sauce, coriander leaf, coconut cream, soy sauce, and brown sugar.

4. Stir and heat, heat and stir, until it all makes a lovely sauce.

5. Serve over rice.

Total time: about 20 minutes. Start the rice right when you start wiping and slicing the mushrooms, and it will all be done pretty much at the same time.

The Facebook page for The Death of Albatross

2011-06-23T10:30:00.003+10:00

I foolishly forgot to mention on my previous blog post that there is a Facebook page for The Death of Albatross. Please go and "Like" it! This not only helps spread the word about the show, but also lets you hear when there's show-related news (for example, when tickets go on sale and how to get them).

Get out your date books/diaries!

2011-06-21T21:58:00.007+10:00

It's official: my play, The Death of Albatross, is definitely going ahead as part of this year's Sydney Fringe!

The tiny town of Albatross is as good as dead, its factory silent, its homes empty. Two couples are all that's left — and they're not speaking. A young bureaucrat with one last chance to get them to sell up is having second thoughts. Will their secrets keep them enemies, or can they work together at last to save Albatross?

Performance details:

Thursday, September 8		6:30 p.m.
Friday, September 9		6:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 10		2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

Venue: The Reginald Theatre at the Seymour Centre.

Presented by The Sydney Fringe and Moonburn Productions.

Rough and ready writers (only slightly a gender rant)

2011-06-08T12:00:00.007+10:00

My attention has been drawn by the Twitterverse to an article the thesis of which is that men don't read because authors are too — well, the writer doesn't use the word "effeminate," but that's clearly what's implied. The writers whom the author yearns for are those hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-shooting, hard-loving men — men — of literary legend: Hemingway, Byron, Thomas (as in Dylan), Vonnegut, even Christopher Marlowe (killed in a bar fight and maybe was a spy). There's no denying that these writers have their appeal as writers, and perhaps even as role models (God help us).

There's also no denying that men as a rule are very, very, very unlikely to read women authors if they can tell from the cover that the authors are, in fact, women (or even remind them of women). And there's no denying that this is a gender-based issue that comes from the systemic and systematic devaluing of women's voices and perspectives, no matter what they are saying or how they are saying it. And I deeply and emotionally agree with all those who say that all people should be at least given a truly fair hearing, and that currently that's impossible, but we need to take whatever steps we can to make it so.

But there's another point that can be drawn here (perhaps less important, but still interesting): is it that we writers have lost the knack of exuberant, robust, extravagant living? Do we travel with not quite enough money in our pockets? Do we march through the streets shouting protest slogans? Have we ever hit something as hard as we could? Slid along a rope down a 50-meter cliff? Gone camping in freezing weather? Clung desperately to a runaway horse? Pulled an airplane out of an incipient, and possibly lethal, spin? Engaged with the world in all our — and its — physicality and boldness?

I know a number of writers who do (and I will admit to having done all the things in that list). But I also know a lot of writers who don't. I'm not saying it makes their writing any less gorgeous and skillful. But can any writer afford to spurn out of hand any experience that might make their writing braver and more immediate? Would Jack London, say, have been as good a writer if he hadn't lived the intense life that he did? Can getting out there and letting yourself be more than a little bit physically uncomfortable deepen your writing — no matter what gender you are?

No, really. Start planning that camping trip right now. Just one night. Not too far from home. Go, rain or shine. Bring a notebook. See what happens.

The Doctor is correct.

2011-06-06T09:31:00.003+10:00

You know how it's always really kind of implausible that the Doctor (as in the guy in the TARDIS in Doctor Who) keeps saving humanity and gushing about how jaw-droppingly marvelous we earthlings are, how glorious and magnificent? Even though he's got all the power and nobility of purpose and morality and all that? And you know how you've just been watching the news right before Doctor Who comes on and it's all full of things that tell you just how miserable and spiteful and vicious and banal humanity is, and so you sit there listening to the Doctor go on and on and you think, "Yeah, right"?

The Doctor is, in fact, correct.

Yesterday I went to a choral concert called "Illawarra Sings" ("Illawarra" is the name of the region in which Wollongong sits), part of the Illawarra Music Festival. It gathered a sampling of area choral groups, of which there are stunningly many in the Wollongong area (is it that Aussies love to sing in groups, or is it something about Wollongong?). One of Margaret's school vocal groups (she's in several, of course) was one of the ensembles.

One of my "always makes me start to cry" things is seeing kids do brave, skilled, and spectacular things. This particular choir singing yesterday is the anyone-who-wants-to choir at the school (in other words, no auditions). So you'd think, wouldn't you, that they'd be a bit ragged? No, indeed! Right on the money. Complex harmonies. Counterpoint, too. They even did a bit of choreography for one of the songs. The sound was bold, even thrilling, and profoundly touching.

There was also a group of Cook Islanders (of whom there are a significant number in Wollongong). Beautiful, bright Polynesian harmonies, sung with verve, sparkle, humor, and tremendous, elemental energy. They were also clearly having the time of their lives up there.

The second half of the concert was a performance by the Spooky Men's Chorale (about whom I have blogged before). Deeply funny, very smart, self-deprecating stuff, very skillfully sung.

And after an afternoon like that, I am convinced: any species that has the power, vision, and optimism to produce such amazing music is jaw-droppingly marvelous, glorious, and magnificent.

By popular demand: peanut-soup recipe

2011-05-26T00:27:00.012+10:00

My sweet-potato-and-peanut soup recipe became a topic of conversation at Swancon, and several people expressed a desire for it. I can't honestly remember whether I've posted it on this blog before, but it is tasty enough to bear repeating. Here, then, for all who take an interest in such things, it is:

SWEET POTATO AND PEANUT SOUP
(all disclaimers apply and your mileage may vary)

Two large or three medium sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons cooking or olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon chopped or grated ginger
1/2 onion, chopped fairly finely but don't get too obsessive
1 teaspoon cumin (crucial!!!)
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander SEED (optional, but it must be seed, not leaf)
1/4 teaspoon chilli powder or one chopped fresh chilli (more, less, or none as you prefer)
1 cup (aka a few really generous and slapdash big spoonsful) crunchy peanut butter
1 can (big or small, as you prefer, but big is better) coconut CREAM (not milk!)
1/2 cup brown sugar or honey (although if I'M making it, I double this amount)
some water or stock to thin the soup as needed
salt and black pepper to taste

Roast or microwave the sweet potatoes until they're soft right through (indulge your taste for horror and impale them with a skewer or knife to check). When they're done, leave them aside to cool (you'll thank me during the next step).

When the sweet potatoes are cool, or at least not dangerously hot, cut them open and scoop out the guts (more culinary horror here) into a bowl. Then mash them roughly, as you would for mashed potatoes. Me, I like to leave some lumps in. If you make it really pureed like baby food, it's, well, kind of disgusting. Like baby food.

Heat a large saucepan, with the heat set to "energetic and enthusiastic" (but not "enraged"). Add the oil. When that's hot as well, chuck in the onion, garlic, ginger, chilli, and spices, and cook them up for a few minutes (until the onion bits are soft, but stop before the garlic starts to get brown). Turn the heat down to "calm and reposed" (but not "limp and exhausted").

Chuck in the mashed sweet potatoes, the coconut cream, the peanut butter, and the brown sugar (or honey). Stir everything around for a while until it looks like one thing, not ten things. If it's too thick for your liking, add some water or stock.

Check whether it needs salt (it probably will; start with a quarter teaspoon and work from there) and/or pepper.

When it's steaming hot (but not necessarily boiling), you can eat.

In its slightly thicker form, this soup makes a wonderful sauce over couscous or rice and steamed veggies. I've also made variations where I chuck in a ton of macadamia nuts. Mmm, macadamias....

Eat well! And don't take these ingredients or proportions as gospel. I certainly don't. I just chuck stuff in a pot and hope for the best.

Source for this recipe: my own odd brain.

Why all writers should make bread

2011-05-25T16:11:00.002+10:00

Today's bread-making will eventually result (I am optimistic) in apricot-hazelnut naan and apple-cinnamon naan. It occurred to me while I was getting the preparations underway that bread-making is one of the very best things for writers to do.

It can be done as breaks in the writing day. Invest 15 minutes at the start, then go away and write for a couple of hours. Then shape the loaves and go away again, then bake them and go away while they're baking, then let them rest and cool (and they don't need you there for that, either). At each step there's a nice break for more writing, and the only time you have to actually pay attention is when the bread is the oven. And even then you only have to be half-aware, because the smell of bread when it's nearly done would rouse the dead, and even bring you out of your current opus in time to rescue it. (Of course, this assumes you're fortunate enough to occasionally be able to devote large blocks of time to writing. I sincerely wish such Good Things for you.)

It's a whole lot simpler than it appears. The only things you need to really be careful about are (1) making sure the water is neither too hot nor too cold; (2) making sure the yeast was purchased sometime in the last year or so (I keep mine in the freezer so it stays oomphy for longer — don't judge me, man!); (3) if you're using whole-wheat or other not-quite-as-glutenous-as-they-could-be flours, making sure you mix them with white flour (unless you're actually wanting to bake a weapon); and (4) giving the dough plenty of time for rising.

It's all old-timey and historical. It connects you with all those humans who have been making bread since the dawn of civilization. Writers need to be connected with the rest of humanity; it's good for sales.

It feeds you properly. Your own bread is going to be fresh and simple and tasty, with nothing in it that you don't know about.

It's cheaper than store-bought. I don't need to tell you how attractive that feature is to writers.

It's the coolest science and the weirdest magic you can imagine. Think up something as amazing as bread, and you'll win that Hugo you've been fancying.

Now go! Go, and make bread!

Towel Day AND Geek Pride Day

2011-05-25T09:04:00.003+10:00

I'm not a particularly rabid fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I'm fan enough to enjoy the fact that it's Towel Day. Nothing wrong with being prepared and festive at the same time, I always say. (Not to mention that it's a gesture of appreciation for a fabulously imaginative and apparently very-nice-guy author who has brought joy to millions all over the known universe.)

I'm also intrigued to find out that there's such a thing as Geek Pride Day, and that it's also today. Someone (Wikipedia is less than clear on exactly who, surprise surprise) has come up with a Geek Manifesto, which I quote here as it is found on the Wikipedia page:

Rights:
The right to be even geekier.

The right to not leave your house.

The right to not like football or any other sport.

The right to associate with other nerds.

The right to have few friends (or none at all).

The right to have as many geeky friends as you want.

The right to be out of style.

The right to be overweight and near-sighted.

The right to show off your geekiness.

The right to take over the world.
Responsibilities:
Be a geek, no matter what.

Try to be nerdier than anyone else.

If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.

To save and protect all geeky material.

Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a "museum of geekiness."

Don't be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.

Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.

Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.

Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.

Try to take over the world!

Not sure I'm in complete solidarity with all of these: while trying to take over the world is a self-evident provision, trying to be nerdier than anyone else is a bit anti-geek, in my opinion. If you have to try to be a geek, you don't get it. However, as a whole, I think the document can stand as a beacon for us all.

Get your geek on, hoopy froods all! And don't forget your towel.

A little story by Kipling you might like

2011-05-20T11:08:00.009+10:00

In the course of my research, I stumbled across a little story by the fabulous Rudyard Kipling. It's called "The Ship that Found Herself", and I found it intriguing for several reasons.

1. It's a genre-buster, which, as you probably know, makes it of particular interest to me: it's sort of a sea adventure, sort of a humor piece, sort of a fantasy, and DEFINITELY strongly within the steampunk realm.

2. The plot is very, very subtly done — so subtly, you find you are riveted to it (that's actually self-referential, which you will see when you read the story) without quite knowing why. Then you get to the end, which reveals itself to be a very satisfying ending indeed. A highly useful case study in plotting.

3. Kipling was a wickedly funny writer when he was in the mood. There are grins aplenty here. (At least, I found it funny.)

4. It's by no means one of Kipling's most famous stories — even so, I find I enjoy it at least as much as several of the (much more famous) ones in the Jungle Books (first and second). I feel compelled by loyalty and honesty to add, however, that the Jungle Books as a whole are amongst my very favorite things I've ever read in my whole entire life, I love them completely, and I will not hear a word against them.

It's a cause simultaneously for rejoicing and despair that there are so many, many little gems like this out there — joy because of the discoveries that await; despair because we only have so long to get to them, and there are more every minute, and we'll never, ever be able to read them all, no, never! *sob*

Choices

2011-05-15T22:46:00.004+10:00

I am acquainted with a particular mantra: "Happiness is a choice." Frankly, I think it's crap. Happiness is a complex and elusive thing, and (dare I say it) worrying about being happy is just about the biggest waste of time I can think of. Happiness is not a choice; it's a side-effect of doing what's right and brave and good and loving. Chase after happiness, instead of focusing on honor and courage and goodness and love, and all you get is out of breath. And even more miserable than you were before.

However, many things legitimately are choices, in my opinion. One of them is how you look at the things that happen to you. Within rational limits, you do have a choice of whether you look at the ups and downs of your life as good or bad things. This is in no way to be construed as saying you should chirp fatuously about genuine pain and crisis, and how they are lovely opportunities for personal growth, gosh, you bet! Some things just plain hurt, and hurt bad, and that pain needs to be respected, not belittled or waved away. But for a lot of the daily things, you can choose. And it is important what choice you make.

Here's an example. Today I almost, a-l-m-o-s-t got a story accepted by a market I've wanted for years to crack. They really liked the story; they even asked me to send them another. Upon reading the email, I had a few choices for what I could think:

Damn. Rejected AGAIN. Damn, damn, damn. I'm humiliated and I suck.
Oh, well. At least they gave me some positive feedback. *sigh*
Woo-hoo! That was really close! Progress! Now I know more about what this market wants! Woo-hoo! And I definitely don't suck!

Guess which one is going to not only help me cope, but keep me writing — and writing better and better. Just guess. Uh-huh.

Not a con report

2011-05-02T12:00:00.007+10:00

This is not a con report. It's a thank-you to everyone who contributed to making my time in Perth so incredibly cool.

First, my family in Bunbury: you completely rock, every last one of you. Shout-out to the Fabulous Tornado Child: stay strong, little buddy, and be true to yourself! Rock and roll! Yeah, baby!

My family at home, who managed to be okay with my trotting off and having fun without them for a couple of weeks.

My fantastic Perth hosts and longtime friends Luca, Bernadette, Sam, and their sedate little dog Jacqui.

My legendary supervisor/advisor, Van Ikin, who is entirely generous and more than happy to spend his days helping other people (like me) achieve their dreams.

Ben and the cheerful, welcoming folks at the University of Western Australia fencing club. Any week with fencing in it is a good week. Thanks for helping me get my fix.

The people on the Swancon committee: you created a time-and-space bubble in which a lot of people could be happy and enthusiastic and just as geeky as they wanted to be (including a couple of furries who stalked around the hotel lobby on all fours). That's a good work. An important work.

My friend David, who went to church with me for the Easter Vigil, bought me beer (not at the same time, though), and just generally was an all-around good person to hang out with. Look forward to seeing you again soon! (And thanks to the Archdiocese of Perth, whose parishes and pastors made Holy Week a sacred time for me and thousands of others.)

The larger-than-life Dirk Flinthart, whom I thank effusively for his company, his perspectives, his princely gift of a pennywhistle in my hour of need, and his eagerness to discuss everything from obscure food items to metaphysics to the Icelandic cow that licked the world into shape (arguably something that could fit into both the preceding categories). I keep both the pennywhistle and a small Scary Snack Tub as mementoes.

My Illawarra peeps Cat, Rob, Al, and Richard. Yes, as Cat pointed out, it's just a little lame that we have to fly 3,000 miles to meet up. I am definitely scheduling a Writers' Barbecue (where we eat barbecue, not barbecue writers) Real Soon Now!

OF COURSE, all my well-beloved Clarion buddies who were there (and the ones who were there in spirit); particularly (in no order) Simon, Helen, Peter, Lyn, Lee, and Rob (again). I include in this group not only my fellow Clarion students (Clarion South 2007, WOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOO!), but our tutors and convenors, and all the other Clarion buddies from other years (students, tutors, Clarions here, Clarions there).

My Scrabble buddies — you are even more fun and fabulous in person!

Grant, my panel comrade — great to share ideas with you and the audience! Keep me posted on how your plays are going, yeah?

All the other writer and reader buddies I met at Swancon: glad to know you! Hope to see you again!

The very nice people at the quick-e-mart and several Indian restaurants in the vicinity of the con hotel.

And finally, the almost entirely taciturn folks at Transperth. I got to know you as the days and miles went by, but not to know you well.

I suppose if I were required to go around scraping up sputum for DNA analysis, I'd be taciturn too.

If I missed anyone who should be thanked, please let me know in the comments and I will rectify the oversight with apologies.

Why I love my advisor/supervisor, reason #372

2011-04-23T00:08:00.002+10:00

Okay, so, we're at Swancon, yeah? And I'm talking with my advisor/supervisor, Van Ikin, and we see someone across the lobby carrying a conspicuously large scepter, topped by a green glass orb. Very eye-catching. She begins to dance. "She's...she's dancing with it," I gasp (somewhat unnecessarily).

"Well, what else would you do with a scepter?" says Van. "If you just stand around with it looking regal, that's stupid." He pauses. "Scepter is as scepter does."

Perth

2011-04-21T13:16:00.012+10:00

Yesterday was my Big Tourist Day before the start of Swancon. I started off looking at a swag of museums. The Art Gallery of Western Australia has some really fantastic stuff in it. (One of the pieces that appealed to me most — who can explain these things? — was Tony Clark's Sections from Myriorama; I do not reproduce it here out of respect for intellectual-property rights.) Next was the Western Australia Museum, where I spurned the AC/DC exhibit to focus on the history and natural history. (Note, by the way, the somewhat melodramatic acrylic drool swinging from the dinosaur's jaws.)

Finally, I went through the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, which I enjoyed very much.

Entry to ALL THREE of these museums was by suggested donation — almost as good as the free museums in DC!

I also walked around the Northbridge neighborhood, which is supposed to be all funky and Newtown/Greenwich-y, but it kind of isn't. Oh well.

Next came a massive perambulation around downtown Perth, during which time I stumbled upon London Court. My photos are below; I note with dismay that they are pretty much identical to the photos on the Wiki page. Why do any of us bother taking photos for ourselves anymore? Anyway, my favorite was the clocktower with jousting knights. I love that sort of thing.

And just to demonstrate once again that Shakespeare follows me everywhere, his coat of arms:

Oh! I almost forgot: there was an emergency-services museum — tiny, but very earnest — in a disused turn-of-the-century firehouse; when they heard I'd been an SES volunteer, they couldn't do enough for me. I found this display particularly gratifying:

Partly out of curiosity, and partly as recon for Easter weekend, I found and explored St. Mary's Cathedral, which, architecturally speaking, is a surreal yet intriguing combination of old and new. I look forward to seeing what they do liturgically.

Finally, an object lesson in how the arts-and-culture community can be at least as invested in bad decisions as the rest of the world. First, here's the Kennedy Center.

Ugly, yeah? Yeah.

And here's the National Library in Canberra.

Uh-huh. Also ugly.

And now, in its own "I want to run with the big dogs" kinda way, the Perth Concert Hall:

Ugly, without the benefit of titanic bulk. (Note to the Universe: this in NO WAY WHATSOEVER is to be taken as indication that I will be churlish or precious should a work of mine ever have the chance to be performed there. No no no no — I will be most humbly grateful. I will. I promise.)

I love teh internetz.

2011-04-18T11:37:00.002+10:00

Some of my Brisbane writer buddies get together regularly for a harsh but salutary custom they call Write Club: everyone sits down to write and eat Bad Food, and if someone's keystrokes sound too infrequent, or (worse yet) degenerate into the ceaseless mouse clicks that suggest a furtive game of Solitaire, the other participants shriek "WRITE!" until the errant party gets back to business. I always feel quite wistful that I am not able to crash their party: I'm sure I'd get a lot more writing done if I could.

However, through the miracles of science, today I was able to have a write-in with one of my bestest writing buddies ever, even from halfway around the world. We found a time that we could both cope with in our respective time zones, set up a Skype session, and away we went! Yes, there was a fair bit of chatting, but there was also very productive writing.

I almost always write in solitude, but changing one's writing pattern — not to mention feeling a sense of commitment and team spirit from writing alongside someone you value — can jolt the writing juju loose to flow again. And so it happened. We'll definitely be doing this again.

I love teh internetz.

Getting better

2011-04-05T07:57:00.003+10:00

Getting better is a really painful thing — for me, at least. I don't know about you. But getting better requires, as its precondition, that one admit a deficiency or inadequacy. I must get better means I am not good enough.

This poses a bit of a problem. I have a lot — a lot — of hopes, dreams, and opportunity costs tied up in the conviction that I am a good enough writer. But if there's still room for improvement, then obviously I'm not good enough. Since I must be, have to be good enough, there is therefore no need to improve. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Meanwhile, in another neighborhood in my brain, the thoughts are gathering to stage an intervention. "Laura," they say, "Better is not the opposite of bad. It's not 'be bad, then improve, then be better.' It can just as easily go this way: 'be fantastic, improve, be better.' See?" They nod encouragingly.

One thought steps forward from the crowd: this one, though kindly, is iron-stern: "Don't you owe your readers, your stories, yourself, the very best you can become? Yes, the best you can be right now, but even more, the best you can become? Do you think you, among all the people in the world, are off the hook for this one?"

Um, I think, glancing nervously from side to side. Um....

The stern thought reaches out, smacks me upside the head, and turns to go. It looks over its shoulder: "Now go. Write. Get better."

A night at the opera

2011-03-30T07:59:00.007+11:00

Last night I had the privilege of attending a dress rehearsal for Opera Prometheus's* production of Glück and Calzabigi's Orfeo ed Euridice (I mention the librettist because I are one myself). What a fun evening!

First, I must stress that the singing was superb. In particular, this production's Orfeo, alto Silvia Colloca (and yes, I checked, in the current-day near-total absence of castrati in the opera world, the role is now sung by an alto or a countertenor), has a room-filling voice of terrific versatility, gorgeous tone, and jaw-droppingly accurate pitch. I was also captivated by the solid sound of the chorus — just a handful of people who somehow managed to sound in turns like a mourning crowd and the voices of Baroque insanity in Orfeo's head.

The score itself is a banquet of Baroque, actually, but a relatively spare version of it: the program notes mention that Glück wrote in reaction to the overly florid, showy, perhaps even overwrought aesthetic that had been gathering speed at the time. His efforts in this case resulted in some very rich, yet clear, writing that sits in an exciting place between the Baroque and the emerging Classical style.

The staging, too, was quite spare — in fact, downright abstract. Costumes were all-white for the leads, all-black for the chorus; the set was one sofa. The blocking relied a bit too heavily on the Measured Tread With Vacant Stare approach for my taste, but on the whole it did the job of suggesting Orfeo's inner state as the story progressed. (As they sang in Italian, which I don't speak, I found this a boon to my efforts to follow the specifics of the plot. I'm told there will be surtitles during the performances.)

The band was, alas, the weak link in this production, with some all-too-evident intonation problems in the strings, and a certain lack of responsiveness to the conductor's requests. According to the program, we were missing the violist and the bassist; perhaps their presence will add the energy and depth that will help the violinists stay more on track.

In all, a really fun evening with some kick-ass singing by a new company that deserves your support!

*Their web site is really worth checking out, if only to read their COOL, COOL manifesto!

A good couple of days

2011-03-24T18:54:00.005+11:00

I love to teach. I can't explain it; I just do. Sometimes you never, ever find out whether you did a damned bit of good. Sometimes you find out years, even decades, later that something you don't even remember saying changed someone's life. And sometimes you can see miracles right before your eyes.

I'm doing three lots of teaching at the moment: tutoring in writing academic English, with non-native-speaker doctoral candidates; a workshop for adult beginning writers of science fiction and fantasy; and after-school tutoring for kids in refugee families who are in the process of resettling here in Wollongong. So, obviously, I don't expect one day to be just like the last (not that it ever has been, in my case). Even so, I was surprised twice this week by fabulous, widely different, and yet eerily similar Cool Teaching Moments.

In the first, one of my adult beginners got inspired during some down time at work by a handout I'd given the class about how to format a manuscript. He emailed me a story he'd just tossed off, and it was hilarious and brilliant and just plain fun and just plain good. I don't claim any credit for it: I hadn't set it as an assignment, I hadn't given any specific guidelines for that type of story — he could very easily have written it during that downtime even had we never met. But what I can (and will) claim credit for is being able to let him know that I thought both he and his writing are important, which perhaps gave him the space to try new (and bloody brilliant) things in his writing, and to show them to me. That's a lot for any writer, inexperienced or multi-Hugo-winning, in my opinion.

Today was the second. A high-school girl had been assigned the writing of a myth-type story to "explain" the particular geological formation she was researching (in her case, the Twelve Apostles). She speaks four languages fluently, but none of them is English. Her English is pretty good, don't get me wrong, but she's not particularly comfortable in it. The thought of writing a full-page story was daunting her to the point of immobility. I didn't really know what to do: I could easily have written it for her, of course, but just as of course, I didn't want to. In desperation, I started off with the idea I start pretty much all my writing courses with: "What problem does this character have? How is he going to solve it?" For each plot point she had originally jotted down, I pressed: "Why are they doing this? How does it help them solve their problem?"

"I don't know, Miss*."

"What are some of the reasons they could be going down the hill?"

"I don't know, Miss."

I gave her a couple of examples. "Maybe they could be looking for food. Or running away from something that's trying to eat them. Or running away from a wizard. You can pick one of those."

Soon, I would add, "What else could they be doing? Uh-huh, that would work. What else? What else?"

Suddenly, instead of "I don't know, Miss," or something that was a tiny variation on the thing I'd just said, out of nowhere I got a really major and truly excellent plot twist: "Or they could have taken the wizard's magic stick."

You know how sometimes it feels like someone's scooped you up and flung you up into the clouds for a brief, shining moment? That's what that felt like.

Teaching is cool.

*For my American readers: Aussie schoolkids address their teachers as "Sir" and "Miss" (regardless of marital status). This is a custom I find entirely attractive, and I yearn (alas, most likely in vain) for its adoption in American schools.

This writer's neck of the (very damp) woods

2011-03-21T08:54:00.003+11:00

It's been a while since my last blog post, but (as you could probably surmise) that's been because tons has been going on. Lots of editing, lots of friends' shows and gigs to see, lots of writing, lots of teaching, a bit of camping, and not enough fencing.

The camping, in particular, was supposed to be relaxing — a writer's retreat for me — but it ended up being a bit more intense than I thought. I arrived at the absolutely deserted campsite late on Friday afternoon and cheerily set up my tent (I am a cautious — nay, timid — camper and chose my spot carefully, avoiding both several large anthills and many overhanging branches) and boiled the billy*. The flies were numerous and enormous, but seemed to be leaving me more or less alone. Dinner was a stew I had cooked and dehydrated some weeks before, and I had high hopes for its tastiness. Alas, the rehydration process, while more or less effective, left the stew a tad bland (where did all the flavor go???), and the meat still leathery. Serves me right for eating meat on a Friday in Lent. Minor stressor (number 1).

As the sun started to go down, it occurred to me that the mosquitoes probably wouldn't do me the same courtesy as the flies in leaving me alone, and I retreated into the tent to listen to the radio and do some writing. The story I was working on began to be a bit of a tear-jerker (stressor number 2). Then the rain started — minor stressor (number 3), because I'd done a modification on the tent a while back to correct a design flaw that allowed rain to get in, and I hadn't used the tent in the rain since. Luckily, it seems I'm a frickin' genius at tent modification, and all was well. As the evening wore on, a few more campers materialized, but everyone was considerately quite and kept distances.

The next day I awoke in a leisurely fashion and made myself the traditional camping-morning Milo by setting up the stove and billy just outside the tent door without bothering to leave my sleeping bag. After a similarly leisurely morning lounging in the tent and reading a book, I got ready to sit outside to write. But oh! Remember how I was so benevolent toward the flies for leaving me alone? They had had an unaccountable change of heart. Holy hell, they hurt when they bit. And left blood seeping down one's leg. For some reason they absolutely loved my knees. Stressor number 4, and not a minor one, either. Into the tent for most of the day. (I did emerge for a short bushwalk later, which I enjoyed hugely — the flies did not follow me along the hiking trail for some reason.)

The words came slowly, but one by one my electronic distractions ran out of battery and I was driven to listening to the sluggish murmurs in my own skull. More words came, and a few more. Additional campers arrived, and kept on arriving, and I realized to my horror that this was a long weekend in the ACT (where the campsite was). Some of them were not so quiet. Some of them did not keep their distance.

The next morning I woke at 6 — I was a woman on a mission. No time for the billy or a leisurely wakeup: I had to pack up the campsite and head into Tuggeranong for a fencing tournament. (Yes, it was all very Xena Warrior Princess.) Everyone at the tournament should be grateful that there was a locker room/change room with a shower. Once I'd cleaned up, I watched the morning competition for a while, then got ready for my own event (novice women's foil). The gym was bloody hot. Oh, it was hot. I forgot to drink enough water. My focus flagged in the end, and I did not do as well as I had hoped. (Stressor 5, and a lesson learned.) Despite this, I find it very fun to fence people I've never met, and I talked to some very interesting people and made a friend or two, which was part of the point. Fencing draws an extraordinarily wide variety of people: geeks (here is where I raise my own hand), highly competitive athletes (here's where I put my hand down), hobby fencers, social fencers, fencers looking for spiritual and mental development — pretty much everyone is there for a different reason. Fascinating.

Home that evening, after treating myself to a heavy and comforting meal at the Paragon in Goulburn (locals despise it, apparently, but I love it, and it is always, always exactly the same, yesterday, today, and forever).

Since then it's been a dizzying whirl of editing, writing, teaching, and going to performances. It's been raining torrentially and steadily for four days here, and I'm starting to wither from overwatering and lack of sunlight. Not to mention the increasing mold aroma, clammy clothing and sheets, and deep reluctance to open a packet of anything, because of the certainty that it will instantly turn revoltingly soft.

Houston and I have been working on yet another 10-minute opera (our second), so I'll keep you posted as to whether and when this and the first get produced.

It sure is raining out there. Yup, it sure is.

*For those who don't know, a billy is a lightweight can-shaped cooking pot. For those who know what a billy is but think it's only in songs, nope. It's a camping essential in these parts.

This is both sad and alarming.

2011-03-04T16:44:00.003+11:00

It is no exaggeration to say that Clarion South turns people from wannabes into writers. I, and dozens more from the four Clarion South workshops that have run to date, have been the beneficiaries of an astoundingly successful — and yes, life-changing — magic formula for making people the most fabulous writers they can be.

Today, however, the Clarion South team (and they are heroes, one and all) has announced that Clarion South is on hold indefinitely, as they have run out of options for a workshop venue cheap enough that most writers have at least a chance of affording it. The cheapest option, they posted on their site, would still require a doubling of the tuition fee.

Yes, it is possible to be a good writer without going to a Clarion. But being a Clarionite is something special. First, it fast-tracks you through what would probably be the equivalent of a good undergraduate creative-writing degree, or even master's-level.

Second, it gives you an undeniably intense experience of what it is to be a writer, all day, every day, with every moment consumed by writing, talking about writing, critiquing others' writing, learning how to market your writing, writing, writing, writing. By the end of that, you know whether you can hack the writing life (and whether you should).

Third, it puts you in touch with some of the giants in the field. There's no guarantee they'll read your story, gasp, and phone their own agent right away about you. But it could happen. And even if it doesn't, they're the sages at whose feet we all sit, and they got to be sages by being both really really good at what they do and really really generous with their time and skill.

And finally, it gives you sixteen people who are in your life forever. More than friends. People you can lean on like a wall. People who will find you when you are wandering in the Great Writing Desert and share their water with you. Maybe even their chocolate. We writers like to tell ourselves and our non-writing friends that we are solitary people, and maybe we are. But there are moments in the lives of even the most solitary people when being alone is just wrong. And the Clarionite always has buddies who understand.

I have no answers for the heroes who run Clarion South. I don't have much money. I don't know Brisbane and can't suggest venues. I have no gift for wheedling generous sponsorships and grants out of corporations and foundations. Maybe if I, and others, tell people how important Clarion South is — and that it's the only workshop of its kind in the entire southern hemisphere — the word will spread and a solution will emerge.

The return of the village

2011-03-01T09:33:00.002+11:00

It occurs to me that back in the old days, when we all lived in villages, everybody knew everybody's business. All their business. The bad thing about this was that there was an undercurrent of shame — or at least the fear of shame — to everybody's daily lives. You did what was expected, because there was nowhere to hide. (I grew up in a very small town, and while it wasn't exactly like living in a village of olde, it was still pretty claustrophobic that way.)

The good thing, though, was that people had a sense of responsibility. They knew their actions had consequences. They knew that the rules and the shame were there to put the brakes on rampant selfishness and sociopathic behavior. You felt bad, you bloody got over it. You didn't run away from your responsibilities, or act out in hurtful and destructive ways, just because things got tough.

I just noticed some photos up on Facebook from a particular party I'd been to. I was in a couple of them. Nobody asked if they could post a photo of me. Just...there they were. If I had been doing anything stupid, there it would be, irrevocably, passed from screen to screen to screen with a few careless clicks, searchable to anyone who knew my name. Bad news? Invasion of privacy, culture of shame reborn? People living in persistent pain because they find the thought of getting help humiliating? Or good news — the rebirth of responsibility with the fall of anomymity?

AHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, wait.

2011-02-24T15:59:00.004+11:00

In a strange coincidence, within nanoseconds of reading a friend's post lamenting how judgmental people can be (and, of course, they can), I came across Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich. Here are some examples:

That ostrich, alas, is me, and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, like me. We must all be on our guards, lest the Inner Ostrich win! Defeat the Inner Ostrich! Rejoice when others rejoice! Allow them their own delights, even if these are not yours! Cherish difference — cherish it!

Acting

2011-02-14T15:34:00.005+11:00

I never did get around to formalizing my writing plan for 2011, but one of the things I have mentally put on it has been to sharpen my skills in reading my stuff out loud. I'm not bad at it, mind you, but I'm no Rob Shearman or Richard Harland. After hearing them both read (each a master in his own way of the art of reading your own stuff), I resolved to beef up my technique. Professional development, don'tcha know.

I have a three-pronged attack strategy for this: read my stuff out loud to an audience at least four times this year, after having deliberately prepared and rehearsed; memorize a particular prose poem of mine that I (and others, I'm told) like, and prepare it for performance at a slam or slam-like event; and get some acting training. The first does not trouble me: reading my stuff out loud per se is not scary. The second and third, though....

Theoretically, I know it's possible to memorize enormous numbers of words for performance. Some of the people I love best in the world do it routinely. But I remain profoundly unconvinced that my brain is equipped to do it. The idea is that if I manage to do it once, I can do it at any time, and I don't have to be afraid anymore. How will this help me get better at reading my stuff? Watch the video I linked to Rob's name, above. Watch how he does a fair bit of that story from memory. See how powerful a connection he can make with the audience that way. That's what I want.

And acting — ah, acting. A source of great discouragement and shame for me from my youth, when the blank face and perfunctory nods that the high-school drama teacher gave me contrasted so painfully with the enthusiasm he showed for the "naturals." Ever since, I've known to the core of my soul that I was just embarrassing myself every time I attempted my clumsy, stilted, ineffectual "acting." But so much of reading your stuff out loud is acting. There are techniques that can be learned, unhelpful habits that can be broken, helpful habits that can be instilled. You can learn to observe language and vocal quality and reproduce them for your purposes. If I've learned nothing else from 25 years of karate (although I have, in fact, learned plenty), it's that for most crafts, care, diligence, and intense focus on detail can get you a lot farther than talent can. They may not entirely compensate for lack of natural talent, but they can get you a pretty long way along the road.

So, yeah, yesterday I went to an acting workshop run by Circus WOW. It was sort of a general physical-theatre workshop: some vocal awareness, some interaction and improv games, even a little clowning. It was a real challenge for me on a lot of levels. But I've stepped across the barrier: I've acted with people watching. I can keep going. I can learn.

Why Peter M. Ball is right, again and as usual

2011-02-09T13:35:00.003+11:00

A while back, Peter M. Ball opined somewhere (perhaps Facebook, perhaps his own blog), that Edgar Rice Burroughs's opus A Princess of Mars was unspeakable, unreadable tripe.

"Huh," I thought. "I've been meaning to read that. I'll go see for myself."

It is unspeakable, unreadable tripe.

Why? Because it is the worst Mary Sue I have ever read, and that includes the ones I've written. Here's just a taste:

She had sunk into one of the golden thrones, and as I turned to her she greeted me with a wan smile.

"Was there ever such a man!" she exclaimed. "I know that Barsoom [Mars] has never before seen your like. Can it be that all Earth men are as you? Alone, a stranger, hunted, threatened, persecuted, you have done in a few short months what in all the past ages of Barsoom no man has ever done: joined together the wild hordes of the sea bottoms and brought them to fight as allies of a red Martian people."

"The answer is easy, Dejah Thoris," I replied smiling. "It was not I who did it, it was love, love for Dejah Thoris, a power that would work greater miracles than this you have seen."

A pretty flush overspread her face....

Yeah. This guy John Carter is beloved of the only hot babe in the book, idolized by dogs and horses, the object of admiration from all he encounters. He's unspeakably strong (because of Mars's lower gravity, you see), utterly sterling of character, and full of Useful Skills from his years in the Confederate Army (which only seems to make him more aristocratic and noble, rather than the mindless prop of a corrupt and dehumanizing system). Yes, ladeez! You all want him! Yes, gents! You all want to be him!

It's worth reading — not because it has any value whatsoever as literature (it doesn't), not because it's at all entertaining (it isn't), and not because it will make you think, "My God, why don't people write like that anymore?" (it won't). Read it because once you do, you will never have to worry again about whether your main character is a Mary Sue (or a Gary Stu). Is the character in any way whatsoever like John Carter? No? Then you're all good.

Download the book from here.

Test your character for Mary Sueness. Update: I just did this test for John Carter. Off — the — scale, man, off the friggin' scale.

How frustrating! There are things I want to SAY.

2011-02-06T09:57:00.004+11:00

Facebook is playing silly buggers with me, and a blog post is the only way for me to send my thoughts to the outside world at the moment. "Whew," I hear you all say. "At least there's that."

I just wanted to let everyone know that my family and I are all in a very odd place today, because last night was the final night of Much Ado About Nothing, in which Margaret and Houston both acted. It was Margaret's first professional show, and she did fabulously! It was far from Houston's first paid acting gig, because (as he's fond of reflecting) he put himself through music school as an actor. He did fabulously, too! And the cast party (to which I was very generously invited by the director) was a ton of fun, because everyone in the cast and crew is a quality person, right along the line.

And now there is a kitchen full of pots and dishes (not clean ones), a fridge that's nearly empty, writing and editing and research (and composing and homework) that needs doing — re-entry shock, thump.

And yet our lives are not entirely returning to the mundane. Margaret has a rehearsal tonight with her band, Rocking Horse (I'd link to their Facebook page, but, well, the silly-buggers thing), and a voice lesson tomorrow after school. And Tuesday Houston and I have an opera-related meeting, and he's got a rehearsal that evening with the Sydney Male Choir (that I can link to), and I do my first afternoon helping refugee kids with their homework. Fencing has started back for the year, and that's on Thursday. And on and on.

Not a bad life, really.

Perfect martial arts.

2011-01-30T09:42:00.003+11:00

Just watch. Perfect martial arts. Only two minutes.
Perfect.

(Found on boingboing.)

Juggling and miscellany

2011-01-26T21:33:00.007+11:00

First, a musing about juggling, brought to my attention by my justly esteemed colleague and friend, Peter M. Ball (who knows I love juggling). It's from Seth Godin, whose name is NOT the same as mine. He writes:

Two truths about juggling

1. Throwing is more important than catching. If you're good at throwing, the catching takes care of itself. Emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance.

2. Juggling is about dropping. The entire magic of witnessing a juggler has to do with the risk of something being dropped. If there is no risk of dropping, juggling is actually sort of boring. Perfection is overrated, particularly if it keeps you from trying things that are interesting.

Hence the tricky part--you want to ship in a way that (as much as you can) avoids failure, but when failure comes, moving forward is more effective than panic or blame.

This post gives me plenty to think about. First, yes, these are golden words: Emergency response is overrated compared to emergency avoidance. We who are or have been involved in emergency management or self-defense (or both, like me) know this as a cosmic truth, a foundation truth, the very core of our beings. It is, in every way, indisputably better to avoid an emergency than to have it at your throat, snarling and slavering and going for your very artery. Have a clear idea about what you want to accomplish, do your research about what could go wrong (and use your imagination to figure out a few new ones), minimize both the likelihood of things going wrong and the severity of the effects should they do so, and keep an eye on how it's all going. This is risk management, and it's useful for juggling, writing, and driving to the supermarket.

The second point is sort of the opposite of the first one, isn't it? And yet they're inseparable, like yin and yang. Because no matter how well you prepare, no matter how much you lower the risk, you can never eliminate it. The trick — for the writer, the musician, the SES volunteer, the lion-tamer — is to maintain a certain strength of purpose and an optimism that lets you adapt and overcome when things go wrong. When you drop the balls. When you receive your thousandth rejection. When things outside your control change the choices you thought you had.

I don't actually agree that perfection is overrated. There's a beauty in something perfect, or nearly perfect, that is good for the soul. However, there is also beauty in the courage of a flawed attempt, in persistence, in recovery, in the slow journey toward perfection.

Juggling is a terrific metaphor for all this, and it's a fantastic way to keep your brain going, or to unstick it, when the writing isn't maybe going so well. Trust me. Juggle. And think about risk management and the glory of the imperfect journey.

In other news, boingboing posted a piece on a beer theme park that is (a) causing me to add the spot to my Must See Before I Die list, and (b) better than the theme park's own actual site. Go look. Marvels, wonders, beer! (I could even be persuaded to drink a wheat beer while there, and that is by no means my favorite sort.)

Shakespeare in the park

2011-01-14T23:03:00.002+11:00

It was still quite light when my friends and I spread our picnic blanket and started sharing out our food and wine. The play began: lighthearted, full of wordplay and banter and over-the-top characters. The stage was an herb garden, and now and then the scent of mint or basil from a leaf bruised by an actor's foot or hand would drift to us.

As evening came on and the clouds turned pink, the cockatoos cried harshly; the play darkened with the sky. Deceit, betrayal, injustice, false honor, false shame, false pride — then, at last, the slow, sick realization of error and the frantic need to put things right. And the incomprehensible, unlooked-for, miraculous second chance. This was no frivolous evening's entertainment.

Seeing Much Ado About Nothing like this — performed outdoors, simply and skillfully, watched with friends and good food and good wine — is the way it ought to be.

A couple of writing-technique links

2011-01-09T17:28:00.002+11:00

Some people reckon you shouldn't stress too much about technique; that following someone else's rules about how you should write stifles your unique voice and all that. I do not agree. I am of the opinion that not all writing is equal, and that this is not due to crystal fairy magic or mystical inborn superpowers. (Although these may be factors in a gosh-wow piece of writing, I doubt that they're the primary factors.) It's due to technique.

I could try and find these techniques out through trial and error, gushing about how I neeeeeeed to find out what works for meeeeeeeee — and yes, there's value in being true to your own voice and ideas. But why should I thrash around chaotically, hoping I stumble on something that makes my writing work, when other writers have been thrashing around for thousands of years and found out a lot already? It would be like attempting to perform sophisticated scientific research without ever bothering to take so much as an introductory science course in high school.

So here are some links to a couple of technique posts I've recently found, and found useful:

Key Conditions for Reader Suspense by John D. Brown

Writing Emotion by Carol Ryles

Do you know of any really useful technique-related links? Share them in the comments!

Hello, 2011!

2011-01-01T10:25:00.002+11:00

Long-time readers of this blog may recall my mentioning the idea of pareidolia as an example of the human compulsion to ascribe order or meaning to what are essentially random phenomena. In other words, we are all driven to think things matter. I am no different: I see patterns and plans in the events of my life that meet at this point: the beginning of 2011, Wollongong, Australia, Earth.

Even the most skeptical cannot deny the existence of chains of events and causality. The difference comes in with an added layer of meaning: that there is a purpose behind these chains of events. Maybe not a guiding force outside of human agency per se (although I do have opinions on that matter), but certainly a chance to bring meaning to them. To make them mean something.

If I work on the assumption that my intention shapes the choices I make, and therefore the chains of events in my life, I start to have more of a say in what happens to me. I'm not a fan of the Law of Attraction viewpoint; I'm sure there are a lot of starving people in Ethiopia who would just love to know that they brought their sufferings onto themselves, and that if they wish hard enough, full bellies and peace will come to them. But I do know that choices are made based on intentions and core values — often unexamined, even subconscious. One's life becomes a fairly consistent expression of those values and intentions.

I'm pretty sure pretty much everyone reckons their own values and intentions are entirely praiseworthy (otherwise they wouldn't hold them). However, it's worth a thought or two, at the beginning of the year: what do I value? What do I intend to do, be, accomplish? How do I intend to approach adversity, triumph, other people? If everything in my life has led to this point, where do I want to go from here?

2010: The Year of Transformations

2010-12-26T17:28:00.002+11:00

Transformations, yes. But not so many sendouts, therefore not so many publication credits. Still, transformations are worthwhile. Here are some of the ones I've gone through this year:

I was transformed into a writer of opera librettos (libretti?), doing one adaptation of one of my stories, and one from-scratch libretto.

I was transformed into a writing teacher, giving several speculative-fiction-writing workshops for various target groups, and running an ongoing weekly workshop for academic writers. I think this counts as turning me into a teacher as well as a writer (as opposed to a writer who occasionally teaches). I'm happy about this: I love teaching. Helps me keep my own writing sharper, too.

I was transformed into a grad student (again). This time for a Ph.D., which (I'm finding) is quite a bit more severe a transformation than the one I underwent for my master's degree.

I was transformed into a fencer! Yes, I actually started fencing in 2009, but this was the year I competed in a tournament and actually won a medal (bronze, long-time followers of this blog will remember). That was another profound transformation for me!

This year also saw the completion of my transformation from fan to writer: I actually gave a reading and moderated a panel at WorldCon (as opposed to just attending them). I'm happy about this, too: I can give back to the community on which I depend to keep me in touch with readers, colleagues, and friends.

At the very eleventh hour of the year (well, not literally the eleventh hour, that's on New Year's Eve, but close enough), I was transformed into a trumpet player when my husband gave me a trumpet for Christmas! Now I just have to learn how to play it....

Enough transformations for one year? Perhaps so. What will 2011 bring?

Attention, Wollongong and Sydney peeps!

2010-12-22T22:24:00.002+11:00

On stage together again at last: Margaret Dunleavy and Houston Dunleavy, in an all-new production of Much Ado about Nothing, by William Shakespeare! (The so-called "lead roles" are played by other worthy actors, but you and I both know that Margaret and Houston are the real reason to come and see the show.)

It's in the Wollongong Botanic Garden, which is really cool, because you can bring a picnic and see some terrific theatre!

Some of the fondest memories of my life have been culture picnics: concerts at Wolf Trap, Memorial Day and Labor Day concerts on the National Mall, folk festivals, the now-long-gone Sisterfire music festivals — and, yes, the occasional Shakespeare play. It's a chance to get some really nice food together (no need to spend a lot of money — a simple, chilled, pasta-and-pesto salad can be profoundly good in such a setting), get some really nice friends together, slather on the bug repellent, and head off for an evening enjoying food for body, mind, and soul.

Sound good? Book on 4229 1088 or http://www.trybooking.com/KDU!

Christmas wistfulness

2010-12-22T16:39:00.003+11:00

Once upon a time, everybody's beliefs were everybody's business. This was not maybe so good, as it led to a lot of conflict, shaming, disrespect, disempowerent, despair, and death.

For a relatively brief period of time (say, the Enlightenment to about 10 years ago), most of the time most people considered beliefs to be the business of the person who held them (or didn't, but still, no business of anybody else's).

These days, everyone's beliefs are everyone's business again, and it's still maybe not so good. Atheists, in particular, seem to be joining the bigotry party with a glee that is no less than deeply alarming. You'd think they'd be above such things, given that their argument seems to be that belief in God causes human failings. That people are greedy, selfish, devoid of compassion, spiteful, arrogant, whatever, because they believe in God. I have to say, I see people who are these things everywhere, professing and denying all sorts of beliefs. The argument does not have evidence to back it up. If it were demonstrably true, I'd be able to agree that they had a point, that belief in God is harmful to humanity, and that perhaps it ought to be minimized. But as it is, I can only go so far as to see that others' belief in God is distasteful to those who say it is distasteful. (And frankly, I wish they'd keep their distaste to themselves, because I don't think it's any of my business.)

Some people like to think that "Enlightenment" meant that people became enlightened that there was no God. Me, I think that one of the most enlightened things about the Enlightenment was respect for individual differences. Including differences of belief and opinion.

Last fencing for the year

2010-12-16T22:23:00.002+11:00

Tonight was the last night of fencing at my club for the year. Alas! But at least I got to hear what has become one of my most favoritest holiday traditions: hearing Ted play jazzy Christmas numbers on the piano in the corner while the swords clang and the cries of "Touché" ring out!

This new tradition brings me to the realization that this is my second Christmas as a fencer — I've been fencing for over a year now! And I still absolutely love it. Never tire of it. Never resent it. I'm never, ever bored at fencing. (In contrast, I am often, perhaps even usually, bored by the concept of team sports. Even though I don't mind having the cricket on in the background while I'm doing other things.)

I wish all of you a fantastic holiday season full of love, joy, adventure, and swords. (Maybe not so literal a representation of the Christmas message, but as a metaphor, swords work. No, really. Think about it.)

More holiday mayhem

2010-12-15T22:43:00.004+11:00

Hey, y'all — it's a Christmas season more than usually hectic for me. The Ph.D. is picking up pace, I've been doing a fair bit of editing, the summer job has been quite time-consuming, and — yes! — I've actually been doing some writing!

There is still some polishing to do on the libretto for the Dancing Mice opera, but Houston is cranking out the music for it at a rate of knots. Moreover, we've written yet another opera: only ten minutes long, but we have great hopes for it. (I should clarify: the libretto is done, and Houston is currently working on the music.) From the notes I'm hearing from the next room, it's going to be a little ripper of a piece.

It's more than a little challenging, handing a script to a composer. Who knows what they'll do with it? Will they think the funny bits are funny? Will they recognize the sad bits or the thoughtful bits, and will their music reflect that? Or will it plow through all your beautifully crafted words, obscuring their meaning with florid and overwrought Wagnerian chords? You just have to take a deep breath and let the composer have a go. And hope your script is (a) good, (b) clear, and (c) inspiring. And that the composer is truly collaborative. None of these is necessarily a sure thing.

Having provided you with a momentary glimpse into the apprehension that for me is a steady state these days, I will leave you (there are more cookies that need to be baked, so that I may bring them to the last night of fencing for the year tomorrow). Even though I cannot post the cookies here on the blog for you to have some, I can at least give you something: this link about how to write fantasy that will absolutely slay the editors (from Hannah Paduch via Bryan Cutler).

Pell-mell

2010-12-05T20:40:00.002+11:00

Yowie. Today alone, I edited a paper for a client, made the season's first batch of Christmas cookies, did a ton of catch-up cleaning in the kitchen, attended a fine concert by the Sutherland Shire Choral Society (at which they performed, among other works, Houston's and my Four Christmas Carols), and did a chunk of work on my Ph.D. If I get time later tonight (and it's already nearly 9 p.m.), I also need to work on a short-script project. Trying to fit in the sound edits to a story for Outlandish Voices (one of mine, this time, believe it or not) and — oh, yeah — the cookbook project are probably going to have to wait. As will some refinement of one of the scenes in the Dancing Mice opera.

Tomorrow there is no respite. I have a full-time summer job for which I must commute to Sydney's western suburbs (and back) each day, and that includes tomorrow. Then more edits, more Ph.D. work, more writing. Maybe the sound editing. I confess that weeknight cooking has become less of a priority since the summer job started (good thing Houston and Margaret are both quite self-sufficient in the kitchen).

The Ph.D. is intensely frustrating. I'm doing a lot of reading, and it's a hydra: each article I read points to five or six others that I absolutely must follow up. And each of them, another five or six. But I'm actually not unhappy per se about that: it's the kind of work that is intensely satisfying, even while it's frustrating. Yes, I realize these two things seem contradictory. That's the way it goes around here at the moment.

Sorry for the delay!

2010-11-26T20:39:00.008+11:00

To all my blog-buddies: I'm sorry to have ignored you for so long. As an apology present, the least I can do is give you a few interesting links to look at.

First, a few words from Winston Churchill, who, amongst all his other gigs, was also a writer:

You can find more here; the main site is interesting in general, actually.

Next, something that both made me grin and made me feel like weeping: a superhero grandma. Make sure you read the story!

Third, an interesting case study in the human compulsion to attach meaning to what are essentially random (and therefore most likely meaningless) events: The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator (keep refreshing/reloading the screen for an endless supply of euphemisms). Fans of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum will already have gleefully explored this compulsion; so, too, will devotees of pareidolia. For others, I invite you to consider just how much of what we are certain we know is actually due to our need to make sense of things, whether or not they actually do. Make sense, that is. Because maybe they just...plain...don't. (EDIT! Thanks to Jason Fischer for the link!)

And finally, not another link, but a reflection: as the year starts to lurch and careen to a close (it never does seem to move smoothly to the curb, where a skilled and subtle chauffeur/chauffeuse opens the door and courteously invites one to alight, does it?), I am drawn to consider my 2010 goals. I have achieved a few; I haven't achieved a significant number more (although the year is not yet entirely over). For 2011, I am going to experiment with a different approach: not goals as such, but plans. I will devise month-by-month, step-by-step plans for the areas in my life that are really important to me. Each area will have an overall objective, toward which I will need to convince myself that each step leads if I am to include it in my plan. Ideally, this will help me focus on activities that contribute to larger, more lasting accomplishments, rather than just coming up with a bunch of random "nice things I'd like to maybe do" (aka the merit-badge approach). If it works, I'll certainly let y'all know in about a year from now.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have a terrific summer/winter and holiday season whatever the weather where you are. If you write, keep writing! If you study, keep studying! If you cook or make things or program computers or take care of families or play music or heal people or help people find information or keep governments working well or pursue justice and fairness — keep doing these things! For the world needs you all!

Wish me luck....

2010-11-12T11:54:00.007+11:00

(Image courtesy of Piled Higher and Deeper)

I'm officially enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Western Australia, studying creative writing.

As my husband's mentor, the late Dr. Donald Erb, used to say, "Bite off more than you can chew. And then chew like hell."

The one-stop Mary Sue litmus test

2010-11-04T11:12:00.006+11:00

It occurred to me that there exists one foolproof question for testing your character's attributes and determining whether you've got a dreaded Mary Sue (or Gary Stu): Why does my character have this attribute? If the answer is "Because it's cool!", your character is a Mary Sue.

Why does my character have red hair? Because I think red hair is so cool! MARY SUE.

Why does my character have a cool nickname like "Wizard" or "Ace"? Because it's cool! MARY SUE.

Why is my character strong and self-assured, entirely free of self-doubt or error? Because it's cool (and I sure wish I were like that)! MARY SUE.

BONUS CLINCHER QUESTION: Would it change the story at all if I did not specify that my character has these attributes? No. MARY SUE.

Don't thank me. Just don't write Mary Sues and Gary Stus. That will be thanks enough.

Halloween

2010-11-02T22:01:00.008+11:00

Say what you will, you Aussie wowsers, Halloween is fun. I did a very modest setup by American standards, but the Aussie kids were bowled over. "Is that a real pumpkin?" many of them asked. (And, indeed, it was, but only because the price at the supermarket had come down from $25 to $10 the day before.) The flame pot was particularly fun to make, as I'd figured out how by seeing a similar thing at, of all things, a State Emergency Service dinner. (No irony is involved: the SES does not fight fires. It's just that it's a whimsical sort of thing, and the SES is not really known for whimsy.)

We gave out a fairly large amount of candy; I told each kid to take two "fun-size" candy bars, as they weren't likely to get the kind of massive haul an American kid can expect. Sadly, what the kids could expect was verbal abuse from a few jingoistic Australians and (allegedly) the threat of hosing from one neighbor, out on her lawn with the hose going (ostensibly, and, I must say, plausibly, for watering her lawn). Every year as more kids have fun with Halloween, more grownups get grumpy and bigoted about it. Yeah, pal, so give up your Japanese electronics and your Indian food and your Christmas trees -- in fact, all you Anglo-Australians, who are the ones complaining the loudest, go back to Great Britain.

But I'm getting myself all riled up again, when what I should be doing is showing you the Halloween setup at our place this year. (What you can't tell from the photos is that I was also playing Halloween oldies and spooky sound effects from my computer.)

And here's the flame pot:

In honor of the season

2010-10-29T18:39:00.002+11:00

Enjoy. Howl along, if you feel so inclined. I always do.

Rejections

2010-10-21T08:35:00.002+11:00

Writer Beware just posted on Facebook a blog post from io9 (keeping up?) about classic science-fiction and fantasy novels that have been massively, crushingly rejected multiple times. I shouldn't indulge myself in lists like this, because even though these great works were rejected, it doesn't necessarily follow that MY work, which has also been rejected, is also great.

Still, there is comfort in musing that rejection per se does not necessarily mean my work sucks. It may suck, of course, but then it may not.

The inner life of a writer is a minefield. A veritable minefield. And people wonder why so many writers take to drink.

I'm versatile! It's official!

2010-10-18T12:50:00.004+11:00

My friend, colleague, and Scrabble buddy Satima Flavell has bestowed on me the coveted Versatile Blogger Award.

See?

Thanks, Satima!

Apparently, part of the deal is that I am to list seven things you maybe didn't know about me. I know how to make quilts. I have a niece who looks almost exactly like me. My grandfather was a pioneer in robotics in the 1940s (specifically, automated underwater arc welding, which sped battleship construction by an enormous factor and demonstrably shortened WWII). I was born two months premature. I once interviewed Ray Charles and Chubby Checker. I have a pilot's license. On my 30th birthday I was mugged by the number 30. There.

Hmmm.

2010-10-15T17:13:00.002+11:00

Stephen Fry's fabulously articulate rant below (of course it's fabulously articulate, it's Stephen Fry) puts forth a number of strongly held opinions about the need for and uses of rules of grammar. I agree fervently with some of them; I disagree just as fervently with others. But the fundamental point — that it's not a question of "correct" grammar, syntax, and diction so much as a question of appropriate language styles for particular situations — is one that bears repeating. If you listen to the clip below, you will hear it repeated, only by Stephen Fry, not me. And that's worth something in itself.

Thanks to my friend Theresa for pointing me to this clip!

Specificity of medium and all that

2010-10-13T13:01:00.002+11:00

Certain artistic endeavors present a cautionary tale when translated into other forms or media. I present a case study below.

Useful advice from your Hobart correspondent

2010-10-08T14:00:00.002+11:00

Walk more. Walk lots. Walk to accomplish things (like the groceries for dinner, or getting to a place where there's Internet access). Walk when the weather is crappy. Walk when the weather is stunningly gorgeous. See something in the distance and walk to it to find out what it is. Walking Makes Life Better. We have no car here, and if you're in a position to make that work, it really is better than jumping into the car at every provocation.

The very best way to understand your own work/artistic practice/etc. is to try to explain it to others. Today Houston and I did a joint presentation on collaborating artistically (we work together often, and of course the major project of the opera requires a lot of collaboration). Explaining how we work together forced me to look at the process with mindfulness — which, again, Makes Life Better.

Wherever you go, make sure you connect with others who are interested in the same things you are. Not only have I been spending significant time at the Tassie Writers Centre, but I sought out a writer colleague whom I know lives in the Hobart area (we had a lovely chat over baked goods), and I'm planning to go to the launch of a new YA fantasy on Sunday — meeting and supporting colleagues also Makes Life Better.

Eat marzipan. Enough said.

A week of low-tech

2010-10-06T11:51:00.003+11:00

The media diet continues. Not exactly a media fast, mind you: obviously I'm still occasionally finding my way to the Internet. But it's an effort. And, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are not watching TV, not even listening to radio. We don't know a whole lot of people here. We are On Retreat.

Humans in general are torn between craving interaction and longing for quiet and solitude. The Internet lets you do both at the same time, which is, I suspect, why it is so dangerously time-consuming: until this point in history, you had to have one or the other, never both. The psyche (if one is inclined toward technology) rejoices, and says More, more!

The quiet of this week of retreat is compelling me to notice that I only have a very, very small handful of pieces out at the moment. This is no good at all! (Although it is a function of my having been working on a few larger projects as well as getting in a fair bit of paid editing work, which is good, but even so.) I have a few days left of our fabulous Hobart retreat (surely the best capital city in all of Australia, and I have seen almost all of them by now).

Incidentally, I need to put in a plug for the phenomenally kind, helpful, and friendly people at the Tasmanian Writers Centre. I'll be teaching a one-day workshop for them on the weekend, and they have bent over backwards to make sure I feel welcomed and that I have the support I need as a writer far from home. They fully rock. Thanks, Chris and all!

Hobart. We likes.

2010-10-05T11:00:00.007+11:00

Okay. Here's the house we're staying in here in Hobart:

And here's a very puzzling banner we saw:

When we went inside, we saw the Buddha of Hobart (which surely needs no commentary from me):

Here's Battery Point, including the ~~Jackson~~ Jackman & McRoss bakery and place to eat and drink nice things (I wish they had their own web site I could link to):

In the park at Battery Point, we saw what may very well be the best-written interpretive sign ever (and I'm somewhat of a connoisseuse of historical interpretive signs). It read, in part:

The British troops garrisoned in Tasmania were all infantry. Despite official enthusiasm for batteries there were never any artillerymen to fire them. Occasionally a few soldiers, and even the police, were given sufficient instruction by retired artillerymen to fire a salute.

The Crimean War in 1845 once again alerted the authorities to Hobart's defencelessness. With its customary speed the Government acted. It passed legislation in 1858, under which the Hobart Town Volunteer Artillery Company was formed in 1859.

They used the Albert Battery for shot and shell practice. Before firing, a non-commissioned officer would visit all the houses behind the battery and warn the occupants to open all their windows. Those who did not had their windows broken, which was the only damage the Volunteers and the batteries ever inflicted.

After an initial rush of enthusiasm for the dashing uniforms, marching, and the opportunity to fire the guns, members dwindled from 126 in 1860 to 53 in 1864.* A Select Committee in 1865 concluded that while some of the men were clearly capable of becoming good soldiers, 'as a means of Defence against foreign aggressors [the Volunteers] would be next to useless'. In addition, the money spent on uniforms, pay and prizes was far more than was ever spent on maintenance of the batteries. The last parade was held in 1870.

The other thing I'm finding interesting is that we're on a media diet: our house has no Internet, no television reception, and no radio (and for once I neglected to pack my own radio when travelling). We also have no car here. It takes effort to connect to the outside world. And I'm finding that quite nice.

*I've seen this phenonemon in the SES; luckily, volunteers who can handle the thought of slow, steady, careful work rather than adrenaline-fuelled death-or-glory charges are always the best ones anyway.

I'm in Hobart!

2010-10-04T14:52:00.003+11:00

The whole family has pretty much instantly become rabid fans of Hobart. Is there a better town for the geek-inclined? So far I haven't seen one.

Photos and commentary to follow in due course.

2010-09-22T15:12:00.003+10:00

see more Engrish

There's something about this tiny piece of English that I find entirely beautiful.

I'm exhausted, and it's not over yet.

2010-09-19T18:25:00.004+10:00

What a weekend! On Saturday Houston, a friend, and I went to see "Hi, How Can I Help You" (there are two performances left), then had a nice dinner in Petersham, then Houston and I went on to go see "The Governess in Lessons Learned" (there is ONE performance left). The former, as you may recall, contains my short play "Hold" and a number of other very entertaining short pieces. The latter is an unnerving and extremely funny one-woman show devised and performed by the multitalented Anne-Louise Rentell, and if you're in or near Sydney, PLEASE try to catch that last performance! It MAY be coming to Wollongong, but there are no guarantees, and you'd regret it all your life if you missed it.

Today I spent all day in a gymnasium. Those of you who know me from of old know that unless the gymnasium held a book sale, an arts festival, or a karate tournament, there wouldn't be much chance of my sticking around anywhere near that long. But this was almost like a karate tournament: a fencing tournament. To my deep and lasting shock, I ended up equal-third in the novice women's foil state championship — I have a medal and everything! Considering that in ALL the years I did karate, in ALL the tournaments I entered, I won exactly, precisely ONE sparring match, to have achieved medallist status is really quite a profound thing for me. And in my first tournament, too — I'm more than a little bemused. Moreover, it was on Talk Like a Pirate Day: could there be a better day to win a fencing medal? I think not. Arr. (Thanks to my fencing buddies, family, and friends who were so supportive!)

Tomorrow it's back in arts mode as I attend a day-long series of short readings from long plays: the Kicking Down the Doors event. I'm attending because one of my plays is on the menu. Wish me good fortune.

Then Tuesday, at what will doubtless feel like the crack of dawn, I begin another high-school spec-fic writing workshop.

Meanwhile, I have a searing, nuclear-hot-and-scary deadline for two stories. So any spare moments are spent trying to meet it (the deadline, that is).

It's going to be another wild and crazy week around here. Just like pretty much all the other ones.

Frustration, dismay, and determination

2010-09-16T14:12:00.005+10:00

The story I'm currently working on is giving me no end of trouble. I'm in the middle of its second — second! — gutting, this one more complete than the last. I have faith that there's a solution in there somewhere, that I need not abandon it totally: an idea is just an idea, and there are ways to make just about any idea work if you can keep your brain open to unusual possibilities. But so far that solution is eluding me.

There's a story about one of the early Chinese martial-artist monks (I'm only remembering it, perhaps imprecisely, but it's an interesting story for all that): apparently he spent years and years just staring at a stone wall. All the other monks were doing whatever they needed to do to train hard in martial arts and gain enlightenment and all that, and they were contemptuous of what they considered to be his laziness. Eventually, however, he stirred and stood. The other monks gathered around to see what he would finally do, what his "training" had accomplished for him. With one mighty shout alone, he knocked the wall completely down, so fully had he come to understand it, and his own power, through those years of staring.

I feel like I'm staring at this story as he stared at that wall. I don't feel like I'm gaining in understanding, I'm just hoping and having faith that at some instant something will change and I will know exactly what needs to be done with it.

I hope it doesn't take years, though. I have a deadline on this sucker.

News update

2010-09-15T15:09:00.003+10:00

I am very pleased to announce that an extract of my full-length play The Death of Albatross will be given an airing at Playwriting Australia's event Kicking Down the Doors, an initiative that gets new playwrights a bit of attention. My extract will be read sometime between noon and two (details of the location are on the event web site); if you can be there, that will be great!

Moreover, there are still a number of nights left to see Hi, How Can I Help You, in which my short play "Hold" is the penultimate item.

I'll be teaching a day-long workshop in writing fantasy and science-fiction short stories at the Tasmanian Writers Centre on October 9; see "Programs" on their web site for info.

On Sunday I made my debut playing in a concert at the Sydney Town Hall, as the percussionist on two numbers performed by the spectacular Sydney Male Choir, directed by Houston Dunleavy (who is my husband, for those who don't know). There were over a thousand people in the audience, which is a lot, and it was very alarming when a rogue gust of air conditioning blew my music off the stage (a kind person in the front row rescued it for me — thank you, nameless but kind person).

Hm, what else? At the rate things are cookin' around here, I'm sure there will be more news soon.

Moderating Con Panels an Introduction

2010-09-09T10:27:00.004+10:00

One of the things I did at Worldcon/Aussiecon on the weekend was moderate a panel. For those unfamiliar with such things, a con panel (usually) consists of from two to four people with something to say on a topic, and a moderator. Formats vary, but usually each panelist talks for a few minutes on the topic, and then questions ensue. Often the panelists start bouncing thoughts and ideas off each other, which is my favorite bit. Sometimes you hear something quite profound that stays with you for months and years.

Most panels have a moderator, whose job is to make sure the conversation keeps flowing smoothly. This may sound like you just sit there and call on members of the audience when they raise their hands. But no! There's a lot that goes into making a panel run invisibly well. I'd like to set forth for you the things I did for mine (and I got a lot of good feedback from panelists and audience members alike, so I'm pretty sure I got it pretty much right). I was rather surprised, actually, that it seemed to come so readily, but it occurred to me but a moment ago that it's really very, very like running a press conference (which is something I've done a lot of). So if you've done that sort of work yourself, this will seem very familiar, perhaps even simplistic. But if you haven't, I hope this is helpful for the next time you are asked to moderate a panel (or run a press conference).

Preparation

Make friends with your coordinator: the person who acts as a liaison between you and the conference venue and organizing committee. That person is noble, brave, selfless, and true, and you are privileged to know them. Ask them your questions; don't guess. They want things to go well, and they will find you answers that work. Make sure you keep them in the loop of any communications with your panelists (see below).

Know your panelists' work, at least a little. If you can't afford to buy their stuff, borrow it and read something of theirs. Read their web sites, their Wikipedia bios (with a grain of salt), reviews of their work. If they're famous enough to be on a panel, they're famous enough for there to be something online about them.

Have a very clear idea of what your panel will be about. If the coordinator is a little vague, that means you have some latitude. But it does NOT mean YOU can be vague. Your panelists are counting on you to help them succeed. Part of that is giving them a structure they can use to guide their own decisions about what they're going to say. That's not to say you can be a dictator about it. But panelists are very busy people, and mostly they're going to really appreciate your narrowing the focus a little. For example, my panel was on poetic and lyric language as part of YA fantasy. Uh-huh. But I started out by developing four or five questions ("What is it that distinguishes poetic language from prosaic?" "What are the reasons you might choose to add poetic language at a particular point in your story?" — that sort of thing) that gave a way to define and talk about the topic. Moreover, it gives you something to throw into the mix if the audience is small or shy and there aren't enough questions from them to keep the energy going.

Get your coordinator to put you in touch with your panelists BEFORE, WELL BEFORE, you get to the con. Like, weeks. Not hours. Introduce yourself (cc your coordinator, too). Mention your questions: "I was thinking that during the panel it might be interesting to focus on a few things like these...." Also, it's helpful for you to suggest a format for the panel. "Is everyone all right for talking for between five and 10 minutes, and then we'll open it up for questions?" Ask them three very important things:

How do they want their bio to read?

What technology might they need? (One of my panelists had a book trailer she wanted to play, so I needed to make sure there was a computer/projector setup and either Internet or a port for a USB.)

Most important of all, what books or other works do they want you to mention/promote as part of their introduction? That's one of the main reasons they're there. Help them out. Ask them before they have to ask you. This shows you are working for their success.

The day approaches
Because you've done so much good, hard work in the previous stage, this is nowhere near as hectic as it could have been. You just need to do a few things:

Check that you have (or have written) everyone's bios. Two paragraphs is plenty, and one is usually enough. If you've written it yourself, or even just cobbled it together from several sources, MAKE SURE YOU RUN IT BY THE RELEVANT PANELIST.

Check with your coordinator that all the technology your panelists wanted is available and ready to go. (If not, you may need to break it to the panelist that they have to go a little more austere.)

Print out the bios and your list of questions. I am not even joking: even if you have the most reliable computer in the world, it will fail during the con. Will it kill you to print out a couple of sheets of paper? Recycle them later.

Reaffirm for yourself the timings you are aiming for: maybe three minutes for intros, 20 minutes to a half hour for panelists' shpiels, questions for the remaining time. Your coordinator will have told you when you need to wrap things up and be out of the room; stick to that slavishly. It's only professional.

See if you can get a friend to commit themselves to attending the panel: both for moral support and because they can be very helpful indeed (see below).

At the con venue
NOT at the last minute, make sure you get a thorough briefing on the technology. And that means you, yourself, with your own hands, doing a test run with whatever your panelists asked you to play/show/run.

At the session

Be there the instant the previous session starts to file out. Smile and be nice to anyone still on the dais, but you have work to do. Get the technology set up and test it (including microphones). Choose a seat for yourself (the one nearest the technology is best), and put your printouts there (did you remember to bring them?)

Introduce yourself to your panelists in person as they get settled, and ask them if they need anything or have any questions. YOU ARE HERE TO SERVE THEM. THEY ARE THE CENTER OF YOUR UNIVERSE, AND MAKING THEM LOOK FABULOUS, WITTY, PREPARED, AND COMPETENT IS YOUR HIGHEST JOY.

Right smack bang on time, speak gently and cheerfully into the microphone: "Hi, everyone. Let's get started. I'm [insert your name here], and this is the panel on [insert panel topic here]. I'd like to start out by introducing our panelists." Do NOT feel you have to introduce yourself to any other extent than giving your name, unless you, too, are a honking great expert on this topic. I wasn't, particularly, on mine, so I didn't. The audience wasn't there to hear me, after all.

As each panelist speaks, look at them, preferably with an expression of genial interest and approval. The audience may not think they're paying attention to you, but believe me, they are. If you are shuffling papers, staring dully into space, or looking annoyed or irritable, that will erode your panelists' credibility, and that's just not nice. However, if you model enthusiasm and interest, the audience will follow you, and the speakers will warm to them and speak more vibrantly. Which will increase audience enthusiasm and interest, and up and up. This is a good thing.

Your friend in the audience can tell you by their wonderfully expressive frowns and squints whether the microphones are close enough to each panelist's face; if not, unobtrusively adjust them or murmur to the panelist in question to move the mic closer.

When each panelist is done, say thanks and move on to the next one. This is very simple: "Thanks, X. Y?"

Ah, question time. I strongly recommend you lead off with the first question (one of your prepared ones is perfect, because the panelists have all seen these questions from you before and have thought about them, so they'll have at least a basic idea of what they want to say. This makes them look good). Don't be shy about it: you're the moderator. You are the bringer of order and peace. "Thanks, [last panelist]. I'd like to open it up for questions, and I'd like to ask the first one. [Insert question here.]" See? Easy. After that, it's your job to make sure people get called on in approximately the order they raised their hands. It's a nice gesture to make eye contact with the ones you haven't picked yet and subtly let them know (with a nod or a "wait a minute" raised finger) that you have seen them, you will give them a go, and you think they're terrific for being here and asking a question. Nobody likes to be ignored, and just a small thing like this can make a big difference to their memories of the panel. If there is an awkward silence in the proceedings, fill it with one of your questions, or, even better, have your plant in the audience ask one (one of yours, or one that occurs to them on the spot, either is fine).

A note about the non-question question. I swear, every con badge should come with a device that detects when there is absolutely no question mark anywhere inside someone's head when they raise their hand, and it should zap them instantly into unconsciousness. There will, I repeat, will, be at least one person there who has no intention of asking anything, but is just dying to add, correct, amplify, do whatever they need to do to feel like they're part of the show. These people must be treated with courtesy and respect. But so must everyone else in the room, and after a few seconds of rambling (NOTE! NOT a few minutes! Be bold and resolute!), you are obligated to interrupt them (that's why you have a microphone and they don't). "Tell you what," you can say brightly, "I want to make sure everyone gets a chance to ask questions; would you mind saving that until after?" Usually they will acquiesce, but repeat as necessary.

When time's up, time's up. Cut things off, thank the audience for being there, thank each panelist individually, lead the applause. As the audience leaves, thank each panelist again yourself, making sure you let them know you really enjoyed their participation. Gather your papers, return any technology to its original state, and you're done. Mostly (see below).

Afterward
As soon as you get home, email the panelists and your coordinator and thank them all again.

Moderating con panels is fun, and important, work. Doing it well is not just a matter of professional pride (although it's that, too). It's also a way to show your colleagues and your potential readers that you care about THEM. And that can only be a good thing. A world in which we work for each other's success is a good world.

Back from AussieCon 4/WorldCon

2010-09-07T10:17:00.002+10:00

We got back from WorldCon at 2 a.m. Tuesday, after one of those appallingly monotonous drives along the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney that we have grown to know so, so well. This time I didn't mind so much, though: I relished the empty time to start sorting out in my mind what had been a gloriously chaotic and intense few days.

For me, cons are more about hallways than panels. Panels are fun, mind you, and often informative. But what really exhilarated me at WorldCon this week were the constant interactions: with friends and colleagues, with chance acquaintances — even with people who wanted to tell me they liked my writing! In fact, that's how I'm going to lead off my list of my personal WorldCon highlights:

Interactions: (a) with friends. I know, I know, these days I can Facebook and Skype and email my friends. It's not like I'm totally unconnected with their lives, or they with mine. But nothing compares with the joy of catching sight of a faraway friend, suddenly magically right here, and rushing up with a squeal of happiness to give them a boisterous hug. WorldCon was full of faraway friends. It made me really, really wistful that life and physics just don't let us be with the people we love all the time. But it made the time at WorldCon doubly, triply, infinitely more precious.

Interactions: (b) with colleagues. It's a stereotype, but it's true: writers work alone. Shut up in rooms, or off in corners of libraries, or wherever. So it's a rare privilege to be able to see the faces, hear the voices, shake the hands of people whose thoughts and dreams you've come to love through their writing. It's even nicer to know that there's a particular bond between you because you're in the same business: the job of showing people the deepest, scariest truths you know, by telling them stories. It's a funny kind of job, a solitary one, and it's nice to be reminded that many, many wonderful people have chosen to give their time and love to it.

Interactions: (c) with people who like my writing. There were an almost alarming number of these. I don't reckon I've been at this game very long, and I'm never very certain I'm doing it right. But there were enough people telling me they liked this or that story of mine that I'm starting to think maybe I am.

Rob Shearman's reading. Well, anytime you run into Rob Shearman is time well spent, we all know this. But I was able to catch his reading of one of the stories from his latest collection, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical. It pretty much literally gave me chills: very deft, very subtle, very poignant. Perfect. A lot of writers don't spend too much time working on their skills for readings, but Rob has, and the results — well, that reading made me realize just how much more work I, myself, have to do on my reading skills. Plus, the story was terrific.

Richard Harland and Jack Dann's reading. These two, both great performers on their own, became the best show at the con when they worked together. They took roles in each other's stories, and swapped back and forth whose stuff was being read during the half hour. Audience participation, cheers, thunderous applause, raucous characterizations (if you ever, ever get a chance to hear Richard read his own character Mr. Gibber, do not pass it up), and, of course, riveting storytelling. I was very, very happy I'd caught this one; it made me smile at odd moments for the whole rest of the con, and is still doing so.

The Baggage launch. I love launches. I particularly love launches when the book in question was, at least in part, written by me. (I have yet to find out how fun it is when the whole book is written by me, but I'm very much looking forward to that!) Here's where you can get your copy, if you couldn't get to the launch. It was packed with well-wishers, packed I tell you. Jack Dann (yes, the same one) gave a really good launch speech. The other authors who could be there were some of the coolest people you could ever want to be TOC* buddies with. The cover (by the wonderful Andrew McKiernan) was gorgeous beyond my wildest dreams. The editor and publisher were (and are in general) extraordinarily selfless and dedicated, very happy to let the day be about the writers and the book itself, not them. And there were mountains of food (see "selfless and dedicated" above). Thanks, Sharyn and Gillian and all the people at Borders and everyone else who made the launch so great! It was the very best start to WorldCon I could imagine.

Moderating a panel. Huh. Turns out I'm legendarily good at moderating con panels. Wasn't rocket science, really: do your homework, help everyone play nice, make the panelists the most important people in your universe during that hour. It's all about them. (Sometime in the next day or so, I'll do a blog post about moderating panels and how I did mine — it worked really well, so my strategies and tactics may help you as well.) Anyway, the panel was about lyrical and poetic language in young-adult fantasy. A rather obscure topic, and the panel was lightly attended. But the people who were there got a lot out of it, and I feel proud that I was part of making WorldCon better.

Spending time with my family. Margaret and Houston (and a family friend) were all with me during WorldCon. That was way cool. We split up a lot to do our individual things, but we also spent a fair bit of time together. Yay!

If you would like to have wonderful adventures like this, become a writer and go to cons!

*Table of Contents.

At last! Someone finally understands my fashion sense!

2010-08-26T13:32:00.003+10:00

Your result for The Steampunk Style Test...

The Explorer

11% Elegant, 17% Technological, 27% Historical, 92% Adventurous and 46% Playful!

You are the Explorer, the embodiment of steampunk’s adventuring spirit. For you, clothing should be rugged and reliable, and just as functional as it is attractive. You probably prefer khaki or leather, and your accessories are as likely to include weapons as technological gizmos. You probably wear boots and gloves, and maybe a pith helmet. Most of what you wear is functional, and if you happen to wear goggles people had better believe that you use them. In addition to Victorian exploration gear, your outfit probably includes little knickknacks from your various travels. Above all, you are a charming blend of rugged Victorian daring and exotic curiosity.
Take The Steampunk Style Test at HelloQuizzy

It's me down to the last syllable. Uncanny, by Jove!

First rehearsal of "Hold"

2010-08-22T21:52:00.002+10:00

Today was the first rehearsal of my (really quite short) play "Hold." If you're a regular reader, you may recall that this is the play that's getting performed as part of the Sydney Fringe; details on the actual performance dates and times can be found here.

I'd gotten to Sydney early (mainly to ensure I had time to get a special lunch: steamed pork buns, best I've ever had, from a little bakery in Chinatown — at only $1.20 each, they taste even better than they otherwise would), so I spent a couple hours walking around in the bright, relatively warm sun and peering into a couple of bookshops and getting progressively more apprehensive.

I needn't have, however. The actors are really excellent, the director is really excellent, my script is funny — and, what's more, even after they'd read through it a half-dozen times, everyone agreed that it was still funny! Apparently all of the eight short plays that will be performed as part of "Hi, How Can I Help You?" are funny, so you're in for quite an entertaining night, should you decide to go. And you should! You so should! Experts agree!

Juggling fix

2010-08-20T14:37:00.005+10:00

Regular readers will know I'm an enthusiastic advocate of juggling for writers (and anybody else). IT IS GOOD FOR YOUR BRAIN. I don't think watching it is as good for you as doing it, but it can't hurt. Here's some contact juggling to enjoy (don't worry: the first minute or so is a little slow, but then it gets a lot more interesting):

Found via Failblog (listed as a WIN).

Writin' Rations™ Bruschetta

2010-08-20T13:07:00.004+10:00

"Ah," you murmur. "If only I had that three-book deal. I could sit at a waterside café, nibbling pensively and artistically at bruschetta and writing gripping tales in my Moleskine with a fountain pen. Jazz would play softly in the background, and soon it would seem good to me to order a glass of pinot noir, and so I would do. Ah, for the three-book deal."

Alas, I cannot give you the recipe for a three-book deal. But I can help your writing dreams come true to this extent: for the cost of a few cheap ingredients, a trip to the store, and no more than 15 minutes of your time for preparation, YOU CAN HAVE THE BRUSCHETTA!

Bruschetta (and it's pronounced "broo-sketta," I'm not kidding, if you say "brush-etta" I will hunt you down)

Six tomatoes
Half an onion
Three (or maybe four, if you're like me) cloves of garlic
A handful of fresh basil leaves
A half cup of olive oil
A teaspoon of freshly ground pepper (you do have a pepper grinder, don't you? Don't you?)
A teaspoon of salt*
A stick of French or Italian bread

Chop the tomatoes and onion relatively finely (about quarter- to half-inch/6mm to 8mm cubes). Chop the garlic extremely finely, as tiny as you can make it. Shred the basil leaves into tiny strips or pieces. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. Cover and put in the fridge. The hard part is done.

When you're ready to sit and nibble pensively and artistically, slice some bread, toast it**, slather it with bruschetta, sit by a sunny window, and nibble away. (Don't forget your notebook and pen. And put some jazz on the stereo. And if you happen to have some pinot noir, is there a law against opening it right now? No, you're quite right, there's not.)

*Invest in some good salt, like pink Murray River salt, or flaky sea salt, or something like that. I can't guarantee it will taste better than the cheapie supermarket stuff, but it will make you feel very special to use it. And you should feel special. You're awesome.

**Some advocate rubbing the toast with a cut garlic clove or whatever, and that that's the origin of the term "bruschetta" (that is, brushed with garlic). While that may be etymologically so, I consider the practice to be nonsense, and against the principles of Writin' Rations™. There's plenty of garlic in the bruschetta mixture already, so why add a step that increases the time, fussiness, and stress levels required to prepare the dish? There is no reason, that's why. So we need not do it.

Hi, How Can I Help You?

2010-08-19T08:32:00.004+10:00

I'd like you all to rush to Sydney on at least one of the following dates: September 14, 18, 22, and/or 25. While you are there I would like you to make your way to the Greek Theatre in Marrickville and buy yourselves and all your friends and family tickets to the evening (or afternoon, in some cases) of hilarity and enlightenment that is Hi, How Can I Help You. It's a night of short plays about — of all things — customer service. Because, after all, in a post-industrial, service-economy society, who among us doesn't have nightmare tales of either being a customer or trying to help a customer (or both)?

My request has a particular urgency because my own short play "Hold" is in the lineup. I'd love to be noble and say "Don't let that sway you, go for the love of art and independent theatre." But whom are we kidding? I want you to see my show.

Here's the info. It's part of the Sydney Fringe, so you know it has to be good.

More Giants of Flanders background info!

2010-08-16T19:15:00.002+10:00

If you love the Giants of Flanders as much as I do (and how could you not?), you'll be riveted by this UNESCO video that Houston found. The narration is a bit stodgy and ponderous, but that's offset by the indisputable, superheroic awesomeness that is the Giants.

The next incarnation of "The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders"

2010-08-12T13:12:00.006+10:00

My story "The Dancing Mice and the Giants of Flanders", which was (quite thrillingly) included in the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild's anthology Masques, is having another adventure. My husband, the stunningly talented composer Houston Dunleavy, and I are adapting it as an opera. Yes!

Everything is just at the very beginning stages. This involves translating the story, scene by scene, into something that can work on the stage, making the dialogue singable, finding ways to incorporate information and mood that had been in narrative in the original story into dialogue or monologue or the music itself. Houston is composing some gorgeous stuff, very evocative. I look forward to hearing how he approaches each scene. We're also at the very beginning of assembling the creative team (no speculation: when everything is confirmed, I will definitely post details here, but I can't really do that before that point).

It's an incredibly complex process, involving plans for workshopping, grant writing, international collaboration, regional cultures, managing languge issues, research, promotion — and that's all before we've written anything more than one scene! And I'm entirely, completely new to it all. I've helped produce concerts, and I've helped produce plays (and written them, of course; even directed a very short play, once). But this is both like and completely unlike all of these. It looks like I'm in for another learning experience.... <ulp>

I'll post updates as things go; I may even have to finally start using the tag/label feature, tagging the opera-related posts for easy aggregation and reading later, should any other budding opera-writers be interested in our experiences. (I wish we had a cool logo I could put in each opera post — I'm sure that will happen down the road.) Meanwhile, if you have any encouraging thoughts to think our way, please feel free to think them!

My Sydney debut

2010-08-04T10:53:00.002+10:00

I have just received word that my short play "Hold" (first performed as a radio play broadcast nationally by the ABC) has been selected for a staged performance as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. I am ecstatic. Here's the info, in case you're in Sydney next month and wish to catch a performance; there are five from which to choose. ("Hold" will be part of an evening of short plays.)

Baggage launch details! And more!

2010-07-24T09:40:00.005+10:00

Sharyn Lilley, of Eneit Press, has posted the details to the Baggage launch in Melbourne on September 2:

The most incredible and exciting news about the launch is that Borders South Wharf are hosting it!

The other piece of good fortune is that, though we had to set a date and time quite awhile ago, and we did ask for an early time hoping to avoid any real programming conflicts with Aussiecon 4, we got an email today confirming that our launch starts an hour before the opening ceremony. Phew. So people can come to Borders, at 20 Convention Centre Place (there will be cake - and authors, and lots of copies of Baggage, and cake, and Gillian the proud editor, and did I mention there will be cake? Then stroll back over to the Convention Center for the opening ceremony.

So don't forget: Borders South Wharf, 20 Convention Center Place; Thursday 2nd September; 1 - 3 pm. I'd love to see you there, even if it's just to pop in and say hi.

I'd love to see you there, too!

In other news, you may have noticed in the comments to a recent post that Aidan Doyle offered a link of fabulous libraries. However, in case you missed it, it's just too good to risk your not seeing it, so I'm posting the link here as well: http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78. Here's one now:

And finally, if you're writing adventure (and why wouldn't you be?), and it involves pirates (and why wouldn't it?), you might find it extremely instructive to find out strategies and tactics for dealing with real-life pirates (like, the kind who will actually kill you for real, right now, in the Gulf of Aden). I am in no way whatsoever trying to trivialize the tragedy, distress, and loss these real pirates cause (any more than the writers of detective fiction are trying to trivialize real crime, or military-fiction writers war). But if you want to make your writing rich with practical, workable detail (and, as you know, adventure fiction REQUIRES it), you could do worse than read this booklet, put out by the Maritime Security Center (Horn of Africa). (Originally found on boingboing.) Of course, you'd have to adapt the advice for whatever technologies are available in your world, but every problem this booklet is trying to answer is a problem you will have to think about for your hapless crew. Or for your pirates. Arrr.

Fame stalks me....

2010-07-23T13:45:00.002+10:00

I'm interviewed over at Angela Slatter's place. Once you're done reading about me, me, me, you can read the rest of her blog entries, and I am confident you will not be disappointed.

I feel intimidated.

2010-07-23T07:34:00.002+10:00

My friend, Clarion buddy, and fabulously talented writer Peter M. Ball has posted — for all to see, mind you — his writing goals for the year ahead. Before you go read them, bear in mind that Peter seems to honestly believe he is not producing in accordance with his potential. However, I must point out (to my shame) that because his list of goals includes progress so far on various projects, I can see that even the stuff he's worried about being so slack about, even just the words so far on these projects, just for one year, completely outstrip my entire life's output.

I could come up with dozens of excuses for why this is so, and murmur comforting words to myself about how every writer's life path is different and it's rash and self-defeating to compare myself to others. I could repeat the message the amazing Richard Harland gave in a talk the other night: calm down, quit accusing yourself of laziness, spending the energy doing that only slows you down more, trust yourself and your writing process. I could do all that.

And then I could look once more at Peter's writing goals for the year. Will it motivate me? Or will it shame me into immobility?

In other news, it seems libraries are hip, happening, new, now, the next big thing. (Where has everyone else been? Some of us have known this forever.)

Libraries

2010-07-18T17:59:00.003+10:00

I grew up in libraries. My first jobs were in libraries. I know, understand, and love libraries. My mom is a seriously cool and intimidatingly competent librarian, and she knows, understands, and loves them even more than I do.

Many are trying to claim that there is no place for libraries in the Age of the Internet. Fie, I cry. Those who truly know, understand, and love libraries have always known that books are not libraries' raison d'être. Have never been their raison d'être. The decline of the wood-pulp book in no way affects libraries' raison d'être.

LIBRARIES EXIST TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND.

Period.

And that's never going to be obsolete.

Even the Old Spice guy*, to the degree he can, agrees that libraries are important. (Although he does commit the sadly-too-frequent error of focusing on the books. What can you expect? He can't even find his shirt.)

*I truly hope this guy gets tons of lucrative gigs out of the Old Spice campaign. He's brilliant.

MY KID IS SUCH A GENIUS!!!!!!!!!

2010-07-16T21:36:00.007+10:00

Margaret has begun a series of some of the most poignant, fantastic cartoons I've seen in a long, long time. Here's one:

Here's another:

Here are more.

I think she should post more and more, and maybe produce a line of t-shirts and stationery items. Don't you think?

Writin' Rations™ quick dessert!

2010-07-16T21:16:00.005+10:00

This is so easy and so fabulous, you will have no idea how you possibly lived without this recipe at your fingertips.

Strawberry Sauce

Two boxes of strawberries (the boxes that hold a generous double-handful of strawberries)
A half cup of sugar
A pinch of salt
A teaspoon (or so) of vanilla extract/essence

Slice the strawberries (removing the leafy bits from the top, of course) and put them in a bowl.

Put everything else in the bowl as well and give it a good stir.

About every 15 minutes to a half hour (or whenever you think of it), give it another good stir. Before too long it will develop a miraculous strawberry syrup, ALL BY ITSELF!!!!

After about two hours of this, or maybe even only one hour (if it looks syrupy enough), stick it in the fridge for use in that evening's dessert, or leave it out to use right now.

IT IS THAT SIMPLE!

Angle-food cake is absolutely the best thing in the known universe as a vehicle for this sauce, but as that's a royal pain to make, I don't include it as Writin' Rations™. You can buy an unfrosted cake for not much money at the supermarket, and it will be quite passable enough.

You can also use plain American-style biscuits* (made with a touch more sugar than usual) as the base; this is known amongst my people as strawberry shortcake, and I won't hear a word said against it.

Needless to say, this sauce is also stunning on ice cream.

Regardless of the base you choose, feel free to invite whipped cream to the party. And accompany the dessert with a nice cup of tea (the writer's beverage from of old), or even a lovely wine (also the writer's beverage from of old, particularly when the writer is feeling more than usually in need of fortification).

*Recipe will be included in my forthcoming e-book, Writin' Rations. Watch this blog for publication details. Although I need to tell you that I'm juggling tons of projects right now (not that that's a bad thing, mind you), and I'm not sure exactly when I'll be editing, laying out, producing, and offering for sale said e-book. Don't worry, though: you'll know as soon as I do!

Another Baggage blog-tour stop!

2010-07-12T09:13:00.003+10:00

Gillian Polack interviews me at her blog. Read as I talk about foreignness, pitching in, and fitting in.

The blog tour is to promote the forthcoming anthology Baggage, which will be launched at Worldcon from Eneit Press. Details as they emerge; watch this space!

Another Outlandish Voices podcast is up!

2010-07-11T16:02:00.002+10:00

If Korf can’t manage his own powers, someone will just have to do it for him….

Outlandish Voices is proud to present another in its occasional series of stories by young Wollongong-area writers. Today’s author, Smith’s Hill High School student Jayne Hoschke, gives us an ominous tale about power: who can control it, who should control it — and what might happen if it’s out of control entirely. Listen at the Outlandish Voices podcast page (apparently you can subscribe from here, too).

By the way, this post marks one year of Outlandish Voices bringing you science fiction, fantasy, and horror from the writers of the Illawarra! In celebration, why not go and join the Outlandish Voices Facebook page?

Something for the struggling writer to ponder

2010-07-08T09:09:00.002+10:00

And aren't all writers struggling on some level? Anyway: if you spend five or six hours staring at the computer screen feeling frustrated, demoralized, and humiliated, you are spending a lot of time teaching yourself — mind, body, and soul — how to be very good at doing SFA* while feeling frustrated, demoralized, and humiliated.

Turn
the
computer
off
and
go
do
something
else.

Ask me how I know this.

*SFA=sweet f**k-all, in case you're not familiar with the abbreviation.

My story "Turcotte's Battle" is out now.

2010-07-06T11:18:00.002+10:00

My homage to Iron Chef, which I have titled "Turcotte's Battle," is available now in issue #19 of Wet Ink. It's an Aussie literary mag (so if you're in Oz, check your local newsagent or independent bookstore); I'm told it's also available from some US and UK newsstands and bookstores. If you can't find it and would like to read not only my story but a bunch more worthwhile stuff, you can always go to their web site (as per link in the first sentence here) and order it online.

I am very, very happy to have a story in this magazine: first, they get about 600 submissions a month, so it's very affirming to have made the cut. Second, it's a literary magazine, most of which don't bother with genre* fiction at all, and it's heartening that at least one has the sense of adventure to assert that genre can also mean quality. Third, it's always nice to offer a story you love (and I do love this one, I must say) to a new audience.

*genre=fantasy, science fiction, horror, westerns, romance, techno-thriller, adventure, etc. etc.