I’ll be in Melbourne next week for the MWF – talking with SJ Watson and Felix J Palma (and perhaps putting an extra J in the middle of my name in the hope of becoming an international publishing phenomenon) about writing thriller-ish things, at the distinctly unfrightening time of 11:30 on Friday morning. Both their books are great reads, and Watson’s also covers some related neurological ground, so it should be an interesting discussion. Although I do think the MWF missed the opportunity for an MJ pun in the panel title.
And then there’s this. It’s Exciting. It’s Free:
It’s in Adelaide. Be Afraid!
I’m not actually working today (insert hollow laughter) but I just wanted to put a post up about the article ‘How to Write About Aboriginal Australia’ which is on the ABC and Overland this week. Yes, it is definitely based on this fantastic essay from Granta 92 by Binyavanga Wainaina, and the idea came out of a conversation with OL eds about it on Twitter.
Both sites should have acknowledged that cultural reference point; OL is correcting the omission. So thanks to everyone who pointed it out, you can stop now.
There is also a related Sherman Alexie poem here which is awesome.
Now I am going back to chainsawing my way through some dead wood*.
Also, Melbourne people who wanted to see the wonderful show by my namesake for which I wrote a catalogue essay, it’s on at West Space right now. Do go.
*not a metaphor
I have been watching, not the London riots as such, but the commentary on the riots, with many exasperated sighs. It does not take a genius to work out what is going on in these communities which have been cut adrift from society. Yet so many commentators seem at a loss. Yes, someone broke the social contract; yes, it was a handful of criminals. But they were safe in their boardrooms and million dollar mansions while the streets were burning. I admit I can’t help enjoying the chaos a little, if only because I am far away from it. If it was my city, my inability to buy the life that i am taunted with would certainly incline me towards some opportunistic looting. I am not a bad person, but I could really do with some shoes without goddamn holes in them.
But London is not my battle, and honestly, I would probably find myself wielding a broom, the same way that as a young anarchist, I found myself trying to nut out positive ways of organising our communities, and trying to make peace, and finally took to writing as a way of expressing my dissatisfaction with the narratives we are offered, instead of burning shit down.
But i still believe there is a time and a place for burning shit down.
Perhaps it’s cowardice, but the quiet life in the country is all the more enticing. Back in chilly old SA, enjoying the changing of the season as spring extricates itself excruciatingly slowly from the frozen earth. Excruciating slowness seems to be the order of the day; I am battling a cold, and trying to write feels like winching a submarine out of a sand dune. Still, I managed to finish a short story yesterday and send it off to somewhere. It is another pebble thrown pathetically at reality’s front window.
Perhaps the slowness is a kind of punishment for my constitutional impatience, or my spirit baulking at the competitiveness of the writing world, which sometimes seems overwhelming. I am not doing so well at the racehorse model of being an author today. At times persistence in the craft is just a matter of holding steady, holding the huge weight of a thing while the sand slips off its sides, hoping it eventually becomes visible. Wanting some other life to be seen, to be broken open, whether or not you know it has a meaning. The meaning of things is sometimes an oppression.
There is a pall of rather apocalyptic-smelling smoke over the house today. The school across the street is burning off and little packets of ash keep landing on my shoulders like dandruff. Like many things from my childhood which have been banned everywhere else, the burning of rubbish still happens in country SA. I was worried about leaving the lawlessness of the Territory behind, so am pleased to find that rural libertarianism is alive and well and I don’t have to be too nostalgic for it.
The smoke is finding its way into the book I’m writing. Today I am somehow psychologically capable of admitting I’m writing it. I work on the porch when it is sunny and when I can find the time between things that pay, which are very few at present. I can’t seem to work when I am Working, or Work when I am working. Anyway worrying about money is deadening, so I am stopping. Yesterday I added up some pages and found I was about halfway through the very rough, handwritten draft of this new book-like thing. Despite steady labours this has come upon me suddenly and now I am seized by the unhealthy delusion that I am Making Progress. Given the subject matter, I should know better. I am going to be coy about this one and not tell you anything else yet. It is too unusual.
What I can tell you is that I will be at Byron Bay Writer’s Festival next week talking about Gone! I seem to be in lots of events so check out the program if you are lucky enough to be going.
I am also on television this week. How twentieth-century! But internet television, so very contemporary. It was recorded early one morning at the Sydney Writers Festival, and even though radio is far more flattering, it is a good interview, as far as I remember.
Anyway I must get back to the delusion before I turn against it and start feeding it page by page into the flames.
