The darndest things..

I promised myself when I began primary school visits that I wouldn’t start doing ‘kids say the darndest things’ pieces, but I can resist posting this photo from Newtown Public. It’s part of a display on China. It reminds me of the type of stuff I used to do at school, coming, a cropper on the final hurdle. 

The school was great. I read out the first page of the next book and we discussed what things we should change, including the name of the bully. They quickly spotted that the name I had in there, ‘Harry’ didn’t sound like a bully and besides it was already taken by Mr Potter. They came up with Barry, Bruce, Boris and the splendid Igor. They thought I should change the name of the hero from Jonty Townsend to Jonah Townsend because there was a boy of that name in the school. I actually really like that because I wanted him to be an Islander or Maori. 

I got some fun title suggestions like:

• The Perfect Principal
  
• Perfect Tomatoes
  
• Perfect Behaviour
  
• The Tomato Principal
  
• Attention in Class
  

I quite like the last two. Do we have a winner there?

Stimulating new terminology

With the Government’s one off payments to low income earners hitting bank accounts this week, spending up big is the new black (and hopefully not the new red). The global financial crisis has given rise to a whole new bank of terminology we can incorporate into our every day lives to make everything we do sound better.

I’m no longer going shopping:

I’m implementing an economic stimulus package;

I’m investing in the retail sector;

I’m preventing an economic downturn.

Other new terms include:

As a result of declining interest rates I will be reallocating funds to the mining sector.

I’m redrawing on my mortgage to buy some diamond earrings.

In view of environmental concerns I’m implementing a fundamental shift in transport spending to focus on low emission alternatives.

The BMW’s been repossessed so I’m buying a bike.

In these tough times I think it’s important to still do something for those in need overseas.

I’m spending my bonus on designer clothes made in China.

The advice I’m receiving from the finance sector is that now is the time to reinvest in the market.

I’ve got a tip for a surefire winner at Rosehill. 

I’m delivering a much needed boost to the hospitality industry.

I’m going out for coffee.

I’m packaging my hospitality stimulus program with some assistance for the farming sector.

I’ll have a slice of cake with that coffee, thank you.

My hospitality stimulus package didn’t work, further measures are required.

I’m going out for a beer.

It’s a tough climate and if a temporary deficit is required, then so be it.

I’m opening a tab on the bar with my credit card.

These stimulus measures are having the desired impact.

The vodka shots have kicked it now.

Any job’s a good job in this economic climate.

I’ve just been sick, can someone clear it up?

It’s a definite goer, but what’s it called?

I finally have it in my hot hands. Three months after the verbal yes I have a signed contract for the next kid’s book. So in the fairground that is authoring a book, I can get off the “Will it be published” rollercoaster and run with shaky legs to the “Does my text look fat in this” Hall of Mirrors. There is where I start taking distorted looks at my text and think ‘It’s all blobby in the middle’. In the next mirror I decide my head looks enormous and start worrying whether I look like that in real life. Then it’s horribly thin and finally plain ugly without being funny.

Belinda and Mark, the editors at the ABC are standing by the Hook a Duck Book Title stall, spruiking hard for me to hook the duck with No Tomato Sauce on its bottom. They really don’t want me to pick the Attack of the Zombie Students duck. I think they have secretly removed it from the name ducks bobbing on the water. No Tomato Sauce, is relevant in that my evil school principal does hide the drugs in the tomato sauce but I’m not sure. Still I am an utterly crap title chooser, maybe I should leave it to the experts.

From there I’ll be forced onto the Book Cover Wurlitzer, where I get so many options and so many ideas that I end up spinning round and round and back where I started with a strong feeling of nausea.

Still for all my whingeing it is a fairground, it’s full of delights, bright lights and thrills and at some stage in the not too distant future I’ll actually get some money for it. Cancel the Christmas austerity measures and fatten the goose!

Talking grown up to an agent

After a month of shilly-shallying I finally phoned Selwa Anthony, the literary agent I first spoke to back in July. Part of me thought I should just put aside Crash Tactic, as the new book (the one in my head) is where I really want to be at. Another part thought, why waste an almost finished novel? So I sat down on a bench in Hyde Park and called expecting to leave a message. Selwa threw me by answering. Naturally I had to explain who I was again and what the situation was with Crash Tactic. She said it wasn’t worth sending that to her, she didn’t think she could place it, but she was interested in the new book when I told her about it. She told me to send her a few chapters when I written some. ‘I don’t need much’.

I have to say I was impressed and motivated. Clearly she’s not from the ‘I loved it, but I didn’t love it enough’ school of feedback. Big Tick. Absolutely straightforward and practical about what she could and couldn’t place. She won’t definitely take on the next book, but I left the phone call thinking ‘Great, all I have to do is impress her with a few chapters’. It seems so manageable. I’m not going to dash off any old tat, I’m going to write my best stuff yet (by a long way). It’s just down to me now to produce something really impressive and that’s exactly what I want.