The Dolly Parton Epiphany

How classy is this? I had one of those ‘it’s bleeding obvious’ moments of profound realisation in the middle of the Dolly Parton concert in London on 6 July. It was an amazing concert. She’s a remarkable performer with a great voice who can play at least 6 instruments with considerable skill. There were no light shows, no massive sets or rows of backing dancers, just her and her band in the vast O2 arena. Dolly was completely engaging. Even songs that on the albums can sound a bit cheesy (OK more than a bit) she made totally believable. At one point she sat down and told a story that she’s told a thousand times before. It was classic C&W, ‘we was paw but happy’ schtick, but it was her story. It lead inevitably to the song ‘Coat of Many Colours’ about going to school in a coat made of rags and being teased. I knew the story, had heard the song many times and yet it was absorbing and moving. Then it suddenly occurred to me, ‘just tell your stories’. Dolly didn’t need the bangs and whistles, just a story people related to and her raw talent in singing it. It was a lesson about exposing your true self and trusting in your talent.

Dolly’s ability to hook her audience is all the more remarkable in that as well as removing big lighting effects, costumes and dancers from her repertoire of engagement she also removed facial expressions. Other than her mouth opening and closing, her face did not move whatsoever. Set solid and yet she still gripped everyone. 

The only worrying moment in the concert was the fact is was on a Sunday and she tossed in a couple of Jesus songs. I found myself in a middle of thousands of people clapping and chanting along to “He Lifted Me Up”. It must be what a Hillsong meeting is like. I’m pleased to report I was not swept away by the crowd’s emotion. I remained seated and po-faced throughout the song.

Dramatic wording

In my comedy writing workshop I discuss how choosing dramatic wording can have a brilliantly comic effect. In a pub in Bamburgh, Northumberland I got a great new example to use with the sign below.

 

You can just imagine the Gates of Hell opening at 9 o clock every night as the daemons trek into the beer garden. Come to think of it, ‘the fall of darkness’ might not be about night at all but the point where drunk behaviour turns nasty and the daemons come out - which would be a very sensible time to close a beer garden.

‘The Fall of Darkness’ would also make a great title for a book, but imagine your disappointment when you got it home and discovered it wasn’t about the end of the world but about getting to the pub before it shut.

Escaping the mill

I’ve escaped the daily word mill for a research and relaxation trip but it was a close run thing. The mill owners (copywriting clients) had my nose pressed into the loom, churning out bales of words until the last moment. Surely there’s some world UN labour ruling that a writer can’t be forced to churn out 4 superannuation brochure in one day. My fingers almost bled with the repeated typing of ‘save fees by rolling all your super into ...[insert name of fund]'. Just as I was heading out through the mill gates, cloth cap in hand I got summoned back to write an article on the one thing that makes superannuation look interesting - debentures, and not just debentures but an ‘exciting’ new tax ruling on debentures. I won’t bore you with an explanation of what debenture are, just that their are a very dull indeed. Given the number of pensioners that have them, it’s no coincidence that their name is just two letters more than dentures.

Still, I made it through the gates and to the airport for the escape.

In between word weaving I also managed to finish the next draft of Crash Tactic and send it off to the editor for comment. Of course my mind fantasises about her throwing her hands in the air in horror at not having spotted the genius first time and thanking the skies for this second chance to secure it. I shall feed on that fantasy when I wake at four in the morning. It’s  a fake comfort but if it gets me back to sleep it's not entirely useless.

Prohibited Traffic Only

Returning to the UK, the place of my childhood is always fascinating. Something new that you never noticed before always crops up. This time, as we drove up from London to Newcastle on the M1 was just how enigmatic some of the road signs are. The one that really struck me was a blue permanent notice by the side of the motorway with a road going off: ‘Prohibited Traffic only’

I wondered, I am I driving a prohibited vehicle? If so why could only I go up there? It could have been a trap. Would a posse of police officers await around the corner to arrest me for being prohibited traffic? Then I thought if I wasn’t prohibited and I followed the sign, those very police would also get me for going up a  ‘prohibited traffic’ way without being prohibited. Could anyone actually follow that sign and not get into trouble?

It reminded me of an old photo of my sister and an aunt showing bizarre street sign are nothing new. This was back in the 70’s and evidence of Britain’s readiness for alien invasion.

Contact has been made

The agent called!

You wait for ages and then two come at once...I finally got an email back from the ABC about the manuscript of my next children’s book, the Lab Rats  sequel, Lab Rat Liberation (submitted early March) and I was reading through that when the phone rang and it was the agent! She called but seemed to have no idea why she was calling.

I explained the situation and she sounded suitably pessimistic, but thought we should have a talk after I’d had the feedback from the editor in July to see where we could take thing from there. Obviously she was confident enough to let me have her phone number. The conversation was very much focussed on placing this book rather than representing me as a writer, but it was only a preliminary chat, I can hardly expect the full representing philosophy in five minutes. She thought she might have met me a few years ago at some lavish Hachette ‘Harlequin’ theme party. She didn’t, I never got invited to that one. I did get taken to see the State of Origin one year. The seats were great but it was generally agreed to have been the dullest match in Origin history. She wasn’t at that.

Lab Rat Termination?

The ABC feedback was more challenging. The editor there while loving Lab Rats 1, really doesn’t like Lab Rats 2. While he would be happy to work on it with me, he thinks the better option would be to work on something else. As much as I was surprised about his feedback (other views I got had been v positive) there have been so many delays and set back on this, it feels a bit terminal. My poor little Lab Rats, I do love them.  The day after this email I got another message from a mother in UK saying her children were now ‘playing lab rats’. What a joy!

I guess I’ll just add this onto the pile of things to think about while I’m away. Actually I won’t be thinking about them at all, I’ll be absorbed in other things and hoping clarity will simply emerge without trying.

A new name for Crash Tactic

Ploughing the manuscript of Crash Tactic and everyday is a different story. Yesterday it was all utter drivel. Today it wasn’t too bad. At the weekend someone read out a few lines over my shoulder and it sounded like such hackneyed rubbish I completely rewrote those lines. It’s always like that and the more you go over it, the crapper it sounds.

In this edit a possible new title is emerging, It could also be called Die for the Deal. Without knowing anything about the contents which is better?  Die for the Deal or Crash Tactic 

Let me know by posting a comment.

In the meantime: The Orphanage

Saw the new film from the producer of Pan’s Labyrinth which was brilliant. Creepy and suspenseful you get totally drawn into the nightmare of the mother who moves back to the orphanage where she grew up only to have her son disappear. In my ignorance I had assumed it was from the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, not the producer, because despite being different films they both had a very similar way of playing with reality. In both films the heroine descends into a nightmarish alternative world. You never know for certain when it’s real or in her head.

On one level the film could be dismissed as a standard ghost story: the cruelty inflicted on young children in the past returning to haunt, the creepy old lady that turns up out of nowhere, the imaginary friend that could be real, even the charlatan medium who could be a genuine psychic. Yet in this film it all works brilliantly, because it’s so much more than the suspense. You care deeply about the characters, worry about the marriage between the husband and wife, feel for the little boy. The pace is gentle without being slow, drawing out the themes and building up inexorably to its climax without any fabricated tension like a desperate race against time. 

Ultimately with suspense, once you’re engaged with the characters you don’t need massive shocks or overbearing music to make you peep through your fingers, a squeaky door knob will do.

Iguanagate - the 'stone top defence'

Just when you thought every possible angle of Belinda Neal and John Della Bosca's infamous night had been covered, comes the truth of what really caused the events - you read it here first.

While writing some copy for a design company on website they had created I happened by Stone Italiana site and their listing of recently completed jobs providing stone tiling and bench tops. This caught my beady eye:

Iguana Joe Restaurant, Sailing Club, Gosford:

Brasil and Cangrande tiles, Bistro top Mais, Bar top Tuttifrutti and Brillante Nero, Vanity and Reception tops Brillante Blu.

I think confronted with a "Tuttifrutti and Brilliante Nero" bar top I'd be pretty irate too.

And OBVIOUSLY on exiting the venue, they took the 'reception tops' as a subliminal cue - causing the most brilliant blue we've seen in a long time!

Emerging from the Slough of Despond

In Bunyon’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the hero Christian get trapped in a deep bog of misery, guilt and sin from which he must emerge. If you can strip the religion out it’s so accurate - despondency is a bog that you have to wade through. Clearly I have been in that slough but I’m emerging now and all it took was one coffee with a good friend. Isn’t it glorious that a Christian novel from the 17th century can capture an atheist writer’s feelings in the 21st?

It makes me feel egotistical and somewhat insecure that all it required to help me emerge was someone  saying: ‘you are a really good writer, but your best work is ahead of you and I’m convinced when you really let go you’ll blow the world apart.’ He described it as a straining dam: ‘your true creative strength is pent up, the dam’s springing leaks and cracks, your work shows flashes of it where it’s got out here and there, but when the dam finally bursts - look out world.’

The tricky part is that it’s my tendency to overthink that’s holding it all back. What did I naturally do when he told me this? Start thinking furiously about ways in which to stop thinking so much in my writing.

He also told me that one of the editors at his publishing house (he’s a state sales manager) had agreed to look at the text of my novel, Crash Tactic in July to give me some feedback. This is a generous commitment of time and has fired me with the excitement of a deadline. I thrive on deadlines. As I’m overseas in July I’ve got to get through Crash Tactic and do another round of changes by the end of the month. 

Panic, glorious motivating panic!

Crash Tactic revisited

Having not looked at it for over six months I printed off Crash Tactic and went over it at the weekend marking things that needed changing. There was so much! On one level it was embarrassing to think I’d let people read it in the state it was, but what was great was that I could see how much better it could be. Structurally it’s sound and from about page 60 where the hero gets kidnapped during a terrorist attack on the World Financial Planners conference it goes like the clappers. The opening fifty pages are a bit ‘treacly’. There isn’t the lightness (I’m talking language, sentences rather than ideas and plot) so the mark up pencil has worked overtime. It’s an action comedy adventure but reading through it struck me that in parts I’ve been sidetracked by the comedy. I’m so used to making it front and centre - the whole purpose of the novel. Maybe it’s too forced. It can flow from the situations and characters without explicit ‘quipping’ all the time.

The comedy safety net

Maybe I’m too in love with comedy. Perhaps that’s my dam - not so much being funny but feeling the need to entertain, being terrified that what I write isn’t entertaining - perhaps I need to trust that what I write is interesting and entertaining without having to force it. Am I using comedy as a safety net? I'm scared of writing something that’s not busily entertaining. It’s been said that a writing novel is like standing naked in a room and asking people to comment on your body. If that’s true, it could be that comedy is my underpants.

Mmm I’d say there was plenty for me to think about there, but I’m trying not to think.

Meanwhile still no call from the agent but I’m not worried, I’m back where I love being, right in the middle of my text.

Still by the phone, debating hope v expectations

OK strictly speaking, ‘about a week’ has passed since I was told the agent would call in ‘about a week’. Were this the finance industry or any other industry it would be time to get annoyed but this is publishing so an ‘about a week’ notice issued at the start of June can reasonably last until the end of June. Still I’m having to do the ‘zero expectations’ mantra in the mirror. 

I do have a problem with the whole ‘having no expectations’ thing. Where do hopes fit it that? I can have no expectations. Expecting nothing is no problem. but how can you not ‘hope’ something will happen. It means you would never think about it happening and in doing that you would never seek it in the first place. Are people confusing ‘expectation’ with ‘hope’ when they say ‘no expectations’. It’s not expectations that get dashed, it’s hopes. So by saying ‘you should have no expectations and so you won’t be disappointed’ are people really saying don’t have any hopes? That’s impossible. What sort of a grim life would we live without hopes? I’d rather live with frustration and disappointment than without hope.

The whole waiting for the phone to ring is way too much like dating and wondering whether you’ve met the ‘right’ one to, the next potential boyfriend/girlfriend . When it happens it all happens quickly and easily as if it were the most natural thing in the world and you can believe how simple and straightforward, you’re never waiting for them to call you. When it doesn’t you wonder at the number of complete bastards in the world that never return calls.

Life in the harem

Given the relationship publishers have with their authors, perhaps boyfriend/girlfirend isn’t the right analogy. Publishers are more like sultans with harems. Some publishers have lavish harems with many writer wives, supported in luxury. Others are less wealthy and can only afford small harems with a limited number of wives.

Inside the harem some wives deliver strong and healthy sons and so are loved, some deliver children of great beauty, others amuse and entertain. All compete with each other for the sultan’s attention and affections. When it is your turn with the sultan, when your book is about to published you are lavished with attention, you feel the stars shine for you alone. However when your ‘night of passion’ is over, the month you book is released is gone, then he is onto the next wife showering her with the attention that was yours. The better the result of your ‘night of passion’ with the sultan, then the more times the sultan wants you back. The sultan demands to see you every year if possible. If the night of passion fails to deliver a strong and health profit then the sultan doesn’t want to see you so often. You have to lure him with promises of great stories and wonderful results. A night of passion without the desired result and then your position in the harem is unsafe. The sultan’s tastes change, he seeks fresh companions with new charms. Sadly sultans in Australia are reducing their harems, no longer voraciously seeking new wives, they are happy to settle down with their existing ones, the ones they know and trust. It’s not a good time to be concubine. Inside the harem you constantly fear being thrown out. Outside the harem you fear you may never be allowed in one again as you look longingly at the walls. You may have been powerless, you may have complained bitterly about being used but when the sultan loved you, it was magical, intoxicating. You didn’t care if he was loving a dozen other wives at the same time with a dozen more to follow next month, it became what you lived for. Living without it is cold and lonely. The stars are shining for someone else now.

SITTING BY THE PHONE

An agent has been alerted - will she call?

After the terrifying ordeal of simply visiting literary agent websites, I asked Belinda, the lovely children’s publisher at the ABC if she could recommend an agent. I knew generally she was no fan so if there was one she liked, it might be OK. She came up with one she had really enjoyed working with, “she’s so supportive of her authors and I find her a dream to work with”. Her name was Selwa Anthony.

Refreshing Change

I took a look at her website and really liked what I saw. It was immediately all about her authors and their books. The home page was all their latest releases. Then there was information about the acheivement awards for her authors. Right at the bottom was a line saying unfortunately she couldn’t receive unsolicited manuscripts and couldn’t give out contact details. That’s all you need, not pages of rules about strict submissions and what not to do.

Have a look for yourself.

Belinda said she’d call her and make an introduction. Surely, I thought it would help being introduced by a publishers who is actually publishing my work. Got an email after a couple of days saying Selwa would contact me in ‘about a week’s time’. Such agony in such a short phrase. How much can I read into that???

Possible ways  Selwa  responded to Belinda that we can eliminate right now:

• ‘OMG Bruno Bouchet, he’s one of my favourite authors, I’d LOVE to represent him!’
  
• ‘Piss off Belinda, you’ve already fobbed off enough losers onto me, I’m not taking on any more.
  
• ‘I’ll get onto when I get back from the Bahamas in July.’
  
• ‘Give me a week to stitch up some film deals for his existing books so I can really impress him.’
  

Responses that might have actually happened:

• ‘Look I can’t take anyone else on now, but I’m happy to have a chat with him.’
  
• ‘Mmm, sounds interesting, I can’t see him this week, but next week’s a possibility.’
  
• ‘If I call him will you finally send me the contract for [insert Selwa author name here]. Fine I’ll do it’
  

I’m hoping for option 2 and so sitting by the phone. However I am holding no hope out. I’m into zero expectations mode on this one and anything other than getting a call in three weeks saying ‘I’m really too busy is a bonus’.

Nervous Nelly

In the emails with Belinda I totally betrayed my ridiculous nervous nelly current condition. The manuscript for Lab Rats 2 is with her (submitted on time in March). It’s about 3000 words more than verbally agreed, but I was hoping she might say not to hack back further. The contract was also supposed to be somewhere in the ABC system.  In emails above, Belinda mentioned she was handing it over to an editor, Mark McLeod ‘so you’ll get an answer soon’.

I slammed on the panic button and screamed. ‘An answer’ what does she mean by that? I emailed back and she said she meant in terms of ‘how’ we go ahead, meaning the length, the title.

Good grief I know words are important to me, but I need to learn not to throw myself out of the nearest window on just two words, ‘an answer’.

Bill Henson - that writer's perspective

I know everything has been said and everyone has had an opinion on the whole Bill Henson and photo of the young girl thing. I think the response on both sides have been absolutely knee jerk and typical. One aspect which to me has been overlooked (if it's actually possible that anything has) is how it brings into focus the artistic/commercial interplay. As a writer the relationship's pretty clear because the actually physical manifestation of my work comes out of  a factory:  a book is clearly a product sold in shops.I think visual artists can get get away without realising that their output becomes a product too. Ultimately Henson took a photo of a naked 12 year old girl and tried to sell it for $20,000. The arguments about quality of art for me become sullied when people are trying to make money out of exploiting a girl. To me this is what Henson and Roslyn Oxley Gallery are doing, and frankly that's a despicable way to make money. How different is it to using a stunning but controversial photo to sell make up or clothes?

I can't get away from the fact that regardless of how good a photo it is a little girl has been exploited, and is now going through school being pointed at as 'that nude girl', knowing she's the subject of intense national discussion. Given Henson's previous subjects, chances are she is not a well-adjusted, bright, secure and happy girl well able to deal with this. If she wasn't vulnerable he wouldn't photograph her. There is no way given what's gone on over his work and in society in general that he and the gallery didn't know exactly what they were doing. He’s always exploited vulnerable teenagers,  but has now taken it further.

Part of me thinks this is exactly where his work was leading, it's the culmination of his journey. In my mind the more important picture  isn't the photo itself but the taking of it. That for me is the ultimately confronting work, a picture  of a man with a camera and a naked girl. The second he clicked the button he changed both their lives for ever. That he did it to himself is his prerogative, whether he was making a point, giving in to a long repressed urge, determined to pursue his art despite the repercussions - all that is fascinating and a rich part of the creative process, but the fact that he knowingly wreaked that change on a young girl is what is really disturbing and I think wrong.

Filling time: film review

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This is a film that demands some significant suspension of disbelief: that a man could survive a nuclear blast in a lead lined fridge, that there’s even such a thing as a leadlined fridge and that someone called Shia LaBeouf is an actor not a receptionist in a beauty parlour.

Once you get over those, you can sit back, enjoy the fun and count the number of theme park rides that could be based on the film. I got to about four. 

It is quaintly old fashioned. When the first lot of IJ films appeared they were a throwback to the old adventure series and movies. At the time there were very few action adventure movies so there was something fresh and different in their nostalgia. Now we’re awash with high octane adventure and action that, ridiculous as it is, seems more realistic than this Indy. This time round there is nothing new.

However nostalgia has never been so much fun. Harrison Ford still has it - it’s wonderful that there’s no pretending he’s young and even better that his love interest is his age (the most radical innovation of the film). Cate Blanchette is hilarious as the communist villain. Her accent sounds completely fake, but even real Russians sound fake when they speak English. She manages to inject a moment of real depth right at the end of film that suddenly gives her character a slight twist. It’s knowledge not power - and it’s her work rather than the script that delivers it.

The crystal skull of the title has a conveniently selective magnetic force, strong when the plot requires it, gone when it’s inconvenient - bit like the whole film - highly magnetic in parts.