More than a game

So last year I read this book which made me determined to learn to like football*.

I had, I realised, been going about it completely the wrong way. I saw it like this:

Football = Louts + violence + beer + pies = boring.

I should have been looking at it like this:

Football = fascinating socio-historical practice + hot men in little shorts touching each other + beer + pies = not-boring.

Why fascinating? I'm glad you asked.

In 1830-something, a kid called Tom Wills was playing a kicking-balls-around game with some local Aboriginal kids, near Ararat in regional Victoria. Part of this game involved seeing who could jump the highest to catch the ball.

When he was 14, Tom was sent to Rugby in England. His ex-convict father didn't want him to grow up with the 'stain'. When Tom came back, age 21, he became one of Victoria's top cricketers.

The problem with cricket though, is it's a summer game. And all the cricketers were getting fat over winter. In 1858, Tom wrote a letter to a local sports rag asking if anyone would be interested in playing a game of football. That game was played in Richmond, and the following week, Tom umpired the first Australian rules match between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar, on the land that is now the MCG.

Tom became one of Australia's top footballers, until he had to move to Queensland to help his dad look after their enormous property.

One day, after droving cattle around the place, Tom returned to the homestead to discover his family and all the other workers slaughtered by local Aboriginals (thought to be revenge for something nasty that happened).

Tom returned to Melbourne and married. But he couldn't reconcile his fond memories of playing with Aboriginal kids as a child, and the brutal violence that he had witnessed to his family. He became an alcoholic. One morning, when he was only 44, his wife came in with his breakfast. He asked her to pass him the scissors, and as she did so, she knew exactly what would happen. Tom Wills stabbed himself in the heart with the scissors, and died.

That's why I think football is interesting. Also, that it is such a democratic game. Audiences have always been 50/50 men/women, from day one. It's also attracted people from all socio-economic backgrounds. Ooh, and (slightly ironically) it's done amazing things for relations between the Aboriginal community and the rest of us land-stealers. Michael Long, anyone?


The point of this rather long story is this: I went to the footy last night**.

It was not a great game. St Kilda beat Melbourne by an embarrassing number of points, and frankly neither side were particularly impressive. However, the meat pies were still hot, the men were still wearing little shorts and touching each other, and the night air was crisp.

I will return. I may even buy a scarf.

___________________________________
*That's Aussie Rules football, or AFL, in case any non-Victorians are wondering.
**When I mentioned this to my manager yesterday afternoon, he did the kind of double-take I haven't seen since the D-Generation. 'You?' he said. 'Going to the football?' Then he laughed.

Lili vs Shop Assistant

(the following takes place in a bustling clothes shop in Melbourne Central)

Lili: (hands over item of clothing and credit card)

Shop Assistant: How's your day been?

Lili: Fine, thanks.

SA: Got any plans for this afternoon?

Lili: Going back to work.

SA: You work around here?

Lili: At the State Library.

SA: The what?

Lili: The Library. The big one over the road.

SA: ???

Lili: It's that really big old building that takes up a whole city block. Pillars. Lawn. Statues.

SA: Sorry...?

Lili: You really can't miss it. It's been there for 155 years. Just up those stairs? You can pretty much SEE it from here.

SA: No... Sorry.

Lili: Give me back my credit card.

Bongo Schmongo

I'm trying to figure out if there is anything more irritating than bongo drums.

Specifically, bongo drums played by some kind of dirty, rhythmless hippy at a party. A hippy who is under the awesomely misguided impression that s/he (although it's usually a he) is providing some kind of jovial, convivial atmosphere.

IT ISN'T, HIPPY.

NOT AT ALL.

IT IS, IN FACT, INCREDIBLY ANNOYING.

THE RANDOM BANGING OF ANIMAL SKINS IS NOT MUSIC. IT IS A VERY LONG WAY AWAY FROM BEING MUSIC.

PLEASE TAKE YOUR INSTRUMENT OF TORTURE, AND YOUR WHITE-BOY DREADLOCKS AND GO AND HAVE A BATH.

(but remember to save the water for your garden)

Seriously, is there anything more irritating?

Verbing Jane: a rant.

(if you can have spoilers for a biopic, then there are probably some below)

So last night I went to see the new film about Jane Austen. It's either called Being Jane or Becoming Jane or possibly Boring Jane, I can't remember which (let's just call it VERBing Jane).

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen was a genius. One of the many things that made her a genius, was her ability to weave every single aspect of a story together so closely, that every thread affects every other one (this is why Austen films often fall a little short of the mark - because it's harder to cut stuff out to get it down to 2 hours). VERBing Jane was more a loose tangle of threads. What purpose did the deaf brother play? (yeah, I know she HAD a deaf brother, but she also had three other brothers that weren't in the movie.)

(whoever wrote this film was not a genius. not by a long shot.)

Did I fall asleep and not notice, but what made Lefroy turn from being a boxing, drinking, whoring lout into a Sensitive New Age Guy? I was truly shocked when Mr Insulting and Falling Asleep When Jane Reads Her Work suddenly pushed poor Jane into a bush and declared "I am yours". (and don't tell me it was 'love', because i didn't see him fall in love with her. Sometimes, baby, love just ain't enough.)

And was it just me, or did the film seem to be saying she only wrote P&P? Where were the rest of 'em? I know P&P is the most famous, but all the little nudge-nudge-wink-wink references to it in the film were really grating. Particularly since I couldn't see any similarities between Lefroy and Darcy (apart from the fact that Jane didn't like him very much at first). If he's like any Austen character, it would be Mr Crawford from Mansfield Park. Or even Mr Wickham (the flirting and then the sudden engagement to someone else and then leaving that person to elope?). He showed none of the nobility and responsibility that Darcy had.

Jane Austen had a boring life. She had one marriage proposal which she accepted then refused the next day (I wonder why they changed his name from to Bigg-Wither to Wisley?). She also had a brief 'mutual flirtation' with a young man called Lefroy, which didn't go anywhere.

The thing that makes Jane Austen astonishing and wonderful is her writing. To make a film about her rather uneventful life just feels like a mockery. To frame her life as somehow tragic because she didn't get her man is even more so.

If you want Austen, read Austen. Or watch any of the wonderful screen adaptations.

123

E Lockhart (author of some fabulous books that I have to make people send me because they aren't yet available here), mentions the 123 book meme, where writers post the first paragraph (or so) from page 123 of their works-in-progress.

Here is mine:

...

She was just drifting off to sleep, when the bunk next to her creaked. It was Long Meg.
Her hair had all been cut off, and her head shaved. Two great red welts streaked diagonally across each of her cheeks, oozing blood. One of Meg’s eyes was blackened and swollen shut, and her lip was split.
‘Meg!’ said Hannah. ‘What did he do to you?’
Long Meg said nothing, just lay down on her bed and turned away from Hannah.

Spotted on a placard outside a church

Would you worship Jesus if he scored 10 000 test runs?


Okay. I am a heathen. I need a little help with this one.

Is it a trick question?

Thanks to Google Analytics, I’ve decided to give you people what you want.*

It all happened at Text Appeal, the Literary Dating thing at the State Library of Victoria. I got shanghai’d again to participate (there is curiously enough a bit of a dearth of single women here at the Library).

So there I was, sitting at a very long table, talking to lots of Strange Men.

The first guy I dated was called Magnus. He’d brought along a copy of Where’s Wally, and was looking at me very strangely and… sniffing. I felt a bit like I was being stalked by a Black Rider from Lord of the Rings (albeit a Black Rider wearing a stripy red and white vest and a little red hat).

‘Is everything alright?’ I asked.

He sniffed again. ‘Are you wearing Olene, the perfume by Diptych?’ he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Yeah, I am.’

‘That’s Nicole Kidman’s perfume,’ he said with a nod.

‘O-kay.’ This guy was either a) a stalker, b) a superhero/genetic mutant with advanced olfactory powers or c) gay. But a gay man would have brought a better book.

Boy number 2 was Horatio. He had a copy of Robin Klein’s People Might Hear You, and looked as if he were in Year 9.

‘That’s a great book,’ I said.

He squirmed a little. ‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice breaking a little. ‘I really like that bit with the wedge tail eagles fighting each other.’

‘Uh-huh.’ I said. Surely if you hadn’t read the book, you’d make up a more convincing lie? Like I really liked the thing she said to him when they were at that place doing that thing.

I looked down at my fingernails and wondered if I’d been sucked into some sort of time vortex where three minutes lasted for a whole year. Horatio squeezed a pimple, and grinned at me.

‘Wanna pash?’ he said, wiping the white gunk on the tablecloth.

‘No.’

Man number 3 looked strangely familiar.

‘Have we met before?’ I asked.

He shook his head and smiled enigmatically. His book was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and he had a theory that the chapter headings were actually a secret code that spelled out the location of the Holy Grail. His voice sounded like gravel in a blender. There was something strangely appealing about his craggy, brownish-red face and his excess of black hair and his prominent brows. I still had a nagging feeling I’d seen him somewhere before.

He’d just told me that his favourite movie was Sesame Street’s Chariots of Fur, when suddenly there was a deafening high pitched squeal.

‘U-G-L-Y, You aint got no alibi…’

About fifty of the well-known crazed Melbourne Zombie Cheerleaders burst into Experimedia and started attacking the daters.

I got to my feet, knocking over my chair. Could we still count the 80 people there in our KPIs if they were brutally slaughtered at our event?

My date also stood up, and pulled an electric guitar and microphone out of his terribly well designed Mary-Poppins-style carpet bag.

Of course! I realised. It was Mr Lordi, the lead singer of Eurovision-winning Orc Band Lordi!

Then he began to sing the lyrics to Hard Rock Hallelujiah.

The cheerleaders couldn’t handle it. They fell to the ground, clutching their ears and writhing in pain. The other daters rushed over to the zombie cheerleaders and started beating them up with their books, wrapping the decorative fairy lights around their necks and scratching them with the thorns from the roses.

And so books and love and Mr Lordi overcame evil. Hurrah!

________________________________________________________________

*This blog post is entirely fictional, and should not in any way represent the quality of participants at Text Appeal. You were all really nice.

WA Kids Dig Dead French Chick

I just heard that Joan of Arc is on the West Australian Young Readers Book Award Shortlist (WAYRBA).

The list is about 30 books (local and international), voted for by Young People.

I'm on a shortlist with Lemony Snicket! Go me!

This frightens me

What's on my mind right now...

1. Religion. I have finished The God Delusion. I'm going to post about it in more detail later. But I am horrified and angry and scared (by the book, not at the book, if that makes sense. I'm not angry with Richard Dawkins.). The world is a scary place, containing some very scary people.

2. Copyright and plagarism. I wonder when we got to a point where for something to be good, it had to be new. Today, Shakespeare never would have been published because his work is too derivative. Campbell's Soup would have sued Andy Warhol. What's wrong with me taking something you made, and making it better? (as long as it doesn't affect you in a negative way). Thomas Jefferson said this: He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

3. My novel. And how I should be working on it RIGHT NOW, and how I will regret writing this blog post and eating lunch and watching Grey's Anatomy (and this clip of TR Knight on Sesame Street) and sleeping, when I get terrible reviews about how underpolished my book is.

4. I think that a large part of my love for Barak Obama comes from his resemblance to Jimmy Smits's character on The West Wing. Is that wrong?

5. Scrotums.

6. How I am such an ubernerd that the Web 2.0 video that everyone is talking about made me cry.

6. The fact that Spiderman's radioactive sperm killed Mary Jane. Do you reckon they were having safe sex, and it just burnt through the condom? "Oh God, I'm sorry! The doctors didn't understand how it happened! How you had been poisoned by radioactivity! How your body slowly became riddled with cancer! I did. I was... I am filled with radioactive blood. And not just blood. Every fluid. Touching me... loving me... Loving me killed you!"

Bay leaves

Jane Espenson recently mentioned something on her blog that is resonating with me, in a somewhat painful way.

It's a less violent variant on the 'kill your children' writing advice.

Jane likens some ideas to bay leaves. You really need them to get the sauce started. They help develop the flavour. But when it's time to take the sauce out of the saucepan, you gotta get rid of the bay leaves.

There are a number of scenes in my novel that are bay leaf scenes. A couple I have changed radically, most I have simply deleted. It's sad to see them go, but I know the book will be better for it.

This post is brought to you by the letter L

Penni has, like a literary fairy godmother, bestowed the letter L upon me. I shall use it to talk about things I like that start with L.

L is for

Lemonade. I rediscovered lemonade on New Years Day, when my body obviously needed to replace some things that hadn't come with me into 2007 (like sobriety).

Small l liberalism. Hurrah for Mr Obama! I'd vote for you.

Canting words that start with L, like Lickspittle (a traitor) and light-heeled wench (one who is likely to end up on her back) and line of the old author (a dram of brandy).

Link Hogthrob, one of my favourite Muppets. Apparently when Jim Henson was doing Manly Things like carving the Sunday roast, he'd put on a manly Link Hogthrob voice.


The Library where I work. There is something very satisfying about walking up those grand steps and under the pillars every morning.

...and because Penni mentioned this clip when she bestowed L upon me, L is finally for La la la LINOLEUM.

An Apology

Dear Meg Cabot,

I am so sorry. So. So. Sorry.

Last night, The Princess Diaries 2 was on TV. Being an enormous Meg Cabot fan, I cooked paella, opened a bottle of wine and invited my friends over. Hurrah! Two whole hours of Cabotty goodness!

I should have known, really.

The first clue was in the opening titles when it said 'based on characters created by Meg Cabot'. Uh oh.

Then... what's this? Mia is graduating? She's 21? Her coronation is in a month?

How come she's forgotten about Michael?
What happened to the other SIX books all set before now?
Why isn't Fat Louie fat anymore?
Where the hell is Mia's mother?
Does Raven actually serve any narrative-related purpose?

and worst of all

Why why why why why is Lilly suddenly a glorified PA?
What happened to her IQ of 170? Where did her strident feministy liberal views go? (and no, wearing a World Wildlife Foundation tshirt isn't enough) What happened to her cable access tv show?

Oh Meg. You must be so sad. I mean, it was a while ago and I'm sure you're over it particularly since you just signed a book deal with Scholastic that includes the words 'world domination', but still. I can imagine that you went to the premiere and you wore a new dress and you were all smiley and lovely. And you sat down in the cinema, politely declined popcorn in case it made the dress greasy, and the lights went down, and you were so excited.

And halfway through you probably had to get up and pretend you needed to pee or something, because you just couldn't bear it anymore.

So I am sorry.

Lots of Love,

Lili.

p.s. Shonda Rhimes, you should be ashamed of yourself. Seriously.

Summer Holidays #3

At Sandy Beach...

Munkey: Would you rather bob for apples in pus, or hit a pinata full of diarrhea?

Snaz: (tremendously excited) Pus! Pus!

(everyone stare at the crazy girl)

Snaz: What? I'm really good at bobbing for apples!

A Question about Harry Potter

Author Gail Gauthier recently pointed something out on her blog which gave me pause for thought.

-In this news article, JK says that she finished writing HP7 on Jan 11, 2007.

-On her website, she mentioned in December 2006 that she was writing scenes which had been planned for twelve years.

-The publication date of HP 7 is 21 July 2007.

It can be deduced, then, that JK was writing original material last December, implying that the draft she finished two weeks ago was the first draft.

Leaving five-and-a-bit months to edit, redraft, re-edit, redraft again, pageset, copyedit and proofread an 800-plus page novel.

Now, I know I am a new author, and my books probably need more polishing than average. But I am currently working on draft THREE of my novel, which won't be published until August!

Hmm. Answers a few questions I had about the quality of the last two HP books.

Summer Holidays #2

Things I learnt in South Australia:

-wine is awesome. Also port.

-South Australians are only allowed to listen to Dido. All other musical artists are banned.

-the speed limit in SA is 60k/h. Everywhere. This is because SA citizens are all born with loosely attached heads, and the authorities are afraid that if they drive too fast their heads will fall right off.

-when you go swimming at the beach, hairy men with tattoos leave laminated cards in your beach bag that say "Pete's Mobile, call or txt anytime", and a number which, out of respect for Pete, I won't include. This is the generally accepted method of courtship in SA.

-cockatoos are fucking evil.

-SA contains some lovely young people ("Pete" notwithstanding), but all the women I encountered over 50 were surly and sour. Apart from my grandma, of course.

-there is no God (imho. and Richard Dawkins').

In Your Pants

YA writer Maureen Johnson has suggested on her (hilarious but often pants-on-fire) blog that all book titles are made much better with the addition of "In Your Pants". This idea was taken up by John and Hank Green in their Brotherhood 2.0 project (check it out if you haven't already).

Here are some favourites from my bookshelves:

Robert Cormier's I Am The Cheese In Your Pants

Robin Klein's People Might Hear You In Your Pants

Robert Holdstock's Unknown Regions In Your Pants

Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh In Your Pants

Isobelle Carmody's The Gathering In Your Pants

Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did In Your Pants

Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy In Your Pants

Inga Clendinnen's Dancing With Strangers In Your Pants

Georgette Heyer's Bath Tangle In Your Pants

A A Milne's Now We Are Six In Your Pants

5 Reasons I am Proud to be an Australian

1. Tim Flannery is the Australian of the Year.

2. Not a member of the Irwin family.

3. Crowded House is reforming.

4. Despite living in a country where we are banned from taking our national flag to rock concerts because idiots might use them as an excuse to beat people up, we must be proud that we live somewhere it is entirely possible to sell your life on eBay.

5. We may have a nasty water crisis going on, but things aren't so bad that we have to breed giant rabbits in order to survive, like North Korea:

Summer Holidays #1

Your valiant heroine (me) is snorkelling around the pier at Portsea. Under the water, there are:
-weedy sea dragons (awesome)
-puffer-fish
-stargazer fish
-cuttlefish
-etc

Above the water (on the pier) there are:
-entirely obnoxious, tanned, bleached-blonde, overly muscularly developed, (did I say obnoxious?) teenagers who clearly think they are living in the OC.

One of said obnoxious teenagers (a boy) suddenly yells out to me:

Kid: Lady! Lady! Get out of the water! Now!

Lili: ??

Kid: There's a stingray! There's a stingray! Right under you! Get out of the water!

Lili: (looks down into water through snorkel) Actually, there's two stingrays.

Kid: (nearly wetting himself which would sadly ruin his expensively distressed board-shorts) !!! Get out!!!! It will kill you!!!

Lili: It will not kill me.

Kid: It will! It will! Get out!

Lili: It. Will. Not. Kill. Me.

Kid: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lili: Kid, how old are you?

Kid: 14.

Lili: (takes a moment to marvel at the kind of parent that would let their 14 year old son have his own speedboat) Right. Do you know how many people have been killed by stingrays in your ENTIRE LIFETIME???

Kid: No.

Lili: ONE. ONE MAN WHO WAS PROBABLY TRYING TO PASH THE STINGRAY*. Now bugger off.

Kid's Girlfriend: If I get in the water, can I look at it through your snorkel?

Lili: Sure.

Kid's Girlfriend peels off her sundress to reveal the kind of body that I know I didn't have when I was 14. And still don't have. Bitch.

She gets in the water, looks at the stingray. Her boyfriend? Won't move off the jetty. Is that his knees knocking together I see? Is that a puddle of terrified urine I see gathering at his feet? Or is it just the last trickle of his overblown pre-pubescent masculinity running down his inner thigh?

__________

*I am not without blame when it comes to pashing sea-creatures. At one point earlier in the day the man showing us the marine life of the Mornington Peninsula fished out an abalone and explained that it was a gastropod (stomach and leg), and then stuck it on my snorkel mask and made an entirely lame joke about it now being an eye-pod. Except the abalone was obviously feeling frisky and schlooped its way down off my mask and gave me a bigsloppy one right on the kisser. It wasn't bad. Beggars can't be choosers.

Icehouse, qu'est que c'est?

i have Moved House. and i finally have civilised things like internet. and a phone. and a glass splashback.

and a Fabulous Magic Machine with elves inside. it is the Best Thing Ever. you put dirty dishes inside, give the elves some Elvish Crack and then they MAKE THE DISHES CLEAN FOR YOU!!

it's amazing. seriously. revolutionary.

Speaking of cool houses, who remembers the 80s band Icehouse? (how's that for a segue? huh? huh?)

Fronted by Iva Davies, with such hits as Electric Blue, We Can Get Together and Great Southern Land.

Well, my dad's best friend was the lead guitarist in Icehouse. If we were the sort of family that had godparents, he would be my godfather.

After the band broke up, he moved to LA, where he lived on a boat and made wigs for Hollywood films. He left us most of his crap in boxes, including a framed platinum album for Man of Colours. We did what any close, loving friends would do, and hung it in the toilet.

And there it stayed, for several years, until I asked my mum one day if it would play on a turntable. We pried open the frame, and stuck it on our record player. it was green pool felt on one side, shiny silver record on the other.

It did play.

But not an Icehouse song.

It played Psycho Killer by Talking Heads.

Go figure.

I'm dreaming of a...

...White Christmas...
No, wait. Not dreaming. It actually IS white. Last week it was the hottest night on record ever for Melbourne. Today our backyard is white with hail. It's freezing!

Merry Christmas, one and all!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Colour me underwhelmed.

What is a Hallow, anyway?

Christmas Comes Early

So. Excited.

(and it's on my birthday, too!)

Christmas Fun for All the Family

I stole this idea from someone else's blog, but I cannot for the life of me remember which or whose. So apologies, whoever you are, and thanks.

I had some very dear friends over for a pre-Christmas Christmas dinner on the weekend: pudding, turkey, ham, singing - the lot. And with each Christmas cracker, each friend got a little parcel full of crafty items like googly eyes, ribbon, bells and pipe-cleaners. And they had to use all these things, PLUS whatever they got in their cracker, to make their Christmas Hats. Here are the results, with apologies for some really terrible photography:

Byron, "Suspended Babies":

Canoe, "Watching Bingo":

Jelly, "Jungle Dominos":

The Munkey "Googly Altar":

Snazzalicious "Cannibal Baby Throne":

and yours truly, "House of Eliot, Kindergarten Style"
Merry Christmas!

Shh!

It's not every day you meet a real live action figure. But today, we State Library staff were lucky enough for this lady to come and speak to us:

Her name is Nancy Pearl, and she is much better looking in real life. Her action figure outsells Beethoven's, Mozart's and Jesus'. Nancy is probably the most famous librarian in the world.

She talks about reading. More specifically, how to recommend books to people. The right books. This is what I learnt:

Don’t recommend books you love, just because you love them. Everyone has different taste.

So how do you know what to suggest?

Ask them this question: “tell me about a book you liked”. Don’t ask what the book is about, that’s a different question. The way that they answer will tell you a lot about what sort of thing they're looking for. Did they say "I couldn't put it down" or "I felt like I had always known the main character" or "It was like I was really there" or "it was just so beautifully written"?

Nancy says that there are 4 doors into reading: Story, Character, Setting and Language. People generally tend to enter books through one of those doors. If you enter through Story, then chances are you’ll enjoy other books that are primarily Story. Like The Da Vinci Code. Or Harry Potter. Or Stephen King.

Character readers will like Georgette Heyer, biographies, Bridget Jones.

Setting readers might like Bernard Cornwell. Or Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Or William Gibson. Much fantasy falls into this category.

Language books have the smallest readership, but win the most awards. Here you’ll find A S Byatt, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth and Margaret Atwood. I’d also argue that you’d find Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde and PG Wodehouse here, too.

Some people might read, say, Master and Commander because they are a Character reader, and love the relationship between Aubrey and whatsisname (you know. Paul Bettany). But a Setting reader loves it because of the boats and the water and the history.

There are of course authors like Jane Austen and Tim Winton who have four equally sized doors. This is because they are awfully clever.

Try it. Write down five books you love, and figure out what door(s) you generally enter through. Here are mine.

1. The Last Samurai (Language, Character)
2. Alice in Wonderland (Setting)
3. Fire and Hemlock (Character, Story)
4. Love that Dog (Language)
5. Skellig (Language)

(This surprises me. I would have said I was more of a Story person.)

Tis the Season

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Neither. Don’t like dairy beverages.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Is there somewhere in the world where Santa doesn’t wrap presents? I mean, I know, the trees… but really...

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
White.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I don’t think we have mistletoe in Australia (goes off to google). It’s a parasite! Spread around by the Mistle Thrush (I shit you not). We do have it in Australia: more than 240 species of birds that nest in foliage in Australia have been recorded nesting in mistletoe, representing more than 75% of the resident avifauna. (from wikipedia). The Norse God Baldur was killed with a weapon made from mistletoe. It is also known as the “vampire plant”.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
Some time in the first week of December, and leave them up until Twelfth Night.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Everything. Turkey. Stuffing. Bread sauce. Gravy. Biodynamic organic ham. pudding on fire with rum custard. mince pies. trifle.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
Putting up the Christmas tree listening to A Disney Family Christmas on CD. I still do this every year.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I barged in on my mother in the shower, aged 7, and demanded that she had to tell me the truth. She said she couldn’t lie to me.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Fairy lights, gold and red baubles, and lots of little bits and pieces collected over the years. Most recent additions: a Tweedledee and Tweedledum from the Sheep Shop in Oxford, and a glittery little HMS Victory from St Paul’s.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it. Unfortunately not much of it around in Australia in December. But I did have one beautiful white Christmas in the Japanese mountains at a hot springs resort one year… but really, I like the complete incongruity of eating pudding and roast beast when it’s 36 degrees outside…

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes, but not very well. I don’t really see much point in going round and round in circles until some fat kid barrels into you and knocks you down.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
My grandpa hand-made me an amazing dollshouse one year. Later on, my parents made me give it to my younger cousins, and they trashed it and left it out on their porch in the rain. I rescued it, and spent a large part of my last year of high school lovingly restoring it*. It now has fancy tiny wallpaper and tiny plaster ceiling roses and a fireplace that really lights up.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
Food. Also family, but only if there’s food.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
Pudding. We make ours in November, and I regularly open them up and pour in more rum. They are deadly.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
Making a full traditional Christmas dinner for my friends the week before Christmas, where we sing carols, drink far too much and watch The Muppet Christmas Carol.

17. What tops your tree?
A red and gold angel called Poppet Fancypants. Last year a spider crawled up her skirt and made a nest.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving. I know that sounds very selfless of me, but it’s really all about me. I love the praise when I pick the perfect present. I also like wrapping things fancily.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
Favourite Carol is O Holy Night. Favourite songs are Sleigh Ride, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and One More Sleep Til Christmas.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
I like them in theory. But they give me a tummy ache.

(I stole this meme from a number of people. You know who you are.)

____________________________________________________
*That makes me sound like I was very boring in Year 12. For the record: I also had a boyfriend, went out nearly every weekend and drank a reasonable amount of beer. See? You can be cool and interested in Craft at the same time. True story.

Smoke and Sesame

There's something very unnerving about the smell of bushfire smoke. It's 37 degrees celsius today, and 170 000 hectares of Victoria are on fire. It's not a cloudy day, but you can't see the sky for smoke. It's setting off people's smoke alarms even in the inner city.

I'm trying to put the finishing touches on this last draft of my novel, but it's hard when it's so hot, and the smoke is making my eyes water.

So I thought I'd take a minute to say a few words about a documentary I watched recently, called The World According to Sesame Street.

It's about all the different versions of Sesame Street all over the world - there are 120 - and how Sesame Street tries to provide education to all kids - not just ones in privileged countries.

It was a seriously revolutionary idea, back in 1968, that TV could actually teach kids stuff. Joan Ganz Cooney had the wacky thought that you could use advertising techniques to help kids learn, "instead of selling them soda or candy, we're selling them the alphabet". She approached Jim Henson to come on board with his Muppets, and an international sensation was born. 4134 episodes (and 109 Emmys) of American Sesame Street later, it's one of the most successful, popular, critically acclaimed and long-running TV shows of all time.

It seems an incredibly un-American thing, the way that Sesame Workshop works with other countries to form a new, unique Sesame Street, tailor-made to appeal to the kids of that country. Whether it's incorporating traditional hand-puppets in the Bangladeshi Sisimpur, or introducing Kami, an HIV positive muppet in South Africa's Takalani Sesame, or exploring race relations and promoting tolerance in Kosovo's Rruga Sesam (Albanian) and Ulica Sezam (Serbian). This isn't about imposing American popular culture on the rest of the world, it's about taking a good idea and adapting it to suit each country's requirements.

"The only kids who can identify along racial lines with the Muppets have to be either green or orange."
--Jim Henson

The documentary itself wasn't fantastic. There was far too much footage of grownups in meetings, and not nearly enough of kids, and how watching Sesame Street has influenced them.

I read a great story about an Israeli/Palestinian Sesame pilot, in Jim Henson's time. They asked some Israeli children what they would do if they saw a Palestinian child in their street. The kids replied "I would throw stones at him". They showed the kids this Sesame pilot, and asked the same question. The kids replied "I would go and play with him".

It's these sorts of stories that give you hope for the future. And brilliant documentary or no, I spent most of The World According to Sesame Street with tears running down my face.

You rock, Sesame Workshop people. You are doing more for our children and their future than any politician is.

Text Appeal

We held our first literary speed dating event last night, and it rocked.

50 people of all ages, temperaments, genders and sexual orientation came in and met new people, drank some wine and talked about books.

The vibe was amazing. Really amazing. It felt like we were doing a really good thing - bringing people together over their love of literature. Isn't that what it's all about, folks?

Anyway, we're tallying the responses today and hopefully we'll have some bona fide romances!

For the interested, here is the list of what books everyone brought:

BOYS
Housekeeping by M Robinson
Everyday Zen by C Joko Beck
Archy's Life of Mehitabel by Don Marquis
Third Reich by R J Evans
Magician by R Feist
Story of O by P Reage (yeah, someone really brought it)
Michael Palin: Diaries
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by J S Foer
Norwegian Wood by H Murakami
Give the Anarchist a Cigarette by M Farren
On the Ceiling by E Chevillard
The Family of Man by E Steichen
The Rattle Bag by T Hughes
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
A Merry Dance Around the Work by Eric Newby
The Time Traveller's Wife by A Niffenegger
Daywalks around Melbourne
Metamorphosis by F Kafka
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelley
On Beauty by Z Smith
Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen

GIRLS
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
The Kinky Friedman Crime Club by K Friedman
The Accidental by A Smith
Slaughterhouse 5 by K Vonnegut
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
The Plague by Albert Camus
Venetian Stories by J T Rylands
The Alchemist by Paulo Cohelo
Bravemouth by P Stevenson
The Broken Shore by P Temple
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Every Day a New Beginning by S Dowrick
My Brother Jack by G Johnston
THUD by T Pratchett
The Little Prince by A Saint-Exupery
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
The Hero and the Crown by R McKinley
The Passion by J Winterson
The Inheritance of Loss by K Desai
The Telling by U LeGuin
Momo by Michael Ende

Stella Gibbons's novel Cold Comfort Farm is a masterpiece

That's the opening line of this article in the Guardian.

And it is so very, very true.

Cold Comfort Farm is one of my very most favouritest books. I have no idea why it isn't on my books interests thing for this blog. I must rectify that.

If you have seen the film, but not read the book: forget about the film. The film is a light, insubstantial piece of cinematic fluff. The book is a hilarious, biting satire that really, really is a masterpiece.

I was first introduced to CCF via a radio play which my Mum bought me on cassette. It was very funny, so I bought the book.

The thing that neither radio play nor film mention, is that CCF is set in the future. Except it was written in 1932, but set maybe in the 40s. Stella predicted video-phones (but only in public phone boxes, and mostly people still send telegrams), air-taxis (but most people still travel by horse-and-buggy or car), and World War Two (but only in a brief mention). It's quite confusing, because everything else about the novel is very vintagely 30s. It's also fascinating and hilarous.

So go read it. Please. And if possible, read it out loud to a friend. With funny voices.

(some favourite moments)

'It is quite unneccesary for a young woman to resemble St Francis of Assisi. And in your case it would be downright suicidal.'

Aunt Ada Doom: I saw something nasty in the woodshed!
Mr Neck: Did it see you?

Flora: I think if I find that I have any cousins called Seth or Rueben, I shall decide not to go.
Mary: Why?
Flora: Because highly sexed young men living on farms are nearly always called Seth or Rueben. And it would be such a nuisance!

How to Edit Your Novel

8am: get out of bed, eat breakfast, shower, read some book (not mine).

9am: sit down in front of computer.

9:01: check email

9:05: bid on camper boots on ebay

9:08: check bloglines

9:30 check work email

9:31 open word document containing novel

9:32 get on research tangent involving wikipedia

10:00 morning tea. read book (not mine).

10:30 discuss colour of skirting boards with father

10:35 play with puppy

10:45 sit down in front of computer

10:46 check email, bloglines, work email and ebay items again

11:05 check christmas music in iTunes - create playlist

11:15 look at novel. feel sick.

11:17 do word count. feel better.

11:19 talk to mother about how many mince pies will need to be made this year

11:30 clean bedroom

12:30 lunch. read book (not mine).

1:00 think about decorating new flat. pull out things to be framed.

1:30 go to framing shop to discuss framing

2:30 go and look in bookshop. don't have my book. scowl at innocent shop assistant.

3:00 inspect skirting boards at new flat. approve of new colour.

3:15 back home, afternoon tea (cake). read book (not mine).

3:30 check email, bloglines, work email. have won ebay item. do paypal thing.

3:45 get christmas tree down from shed annexe.

4:00 put up christmas tree. listen to frank sinatra and disney christmas mix.

5:00 sit down at computer. open novel. check that all chapter headings are formatted the same.

5:30 decide to make timeline. look around for biro.

5:45 find biro.

6:00 write "timeline" at top of blank sheet of paper.

6:03 chew biro

6:04 fill mouth with ink.

6:20 emerge from bathroom, tasting listerine.

6:21 mother announces dinner is ready.

7:00 watch abc news.

7:30 play with puppy.

8:00 write stupid blog post.

8:15 ??? we shall see...

Of rattlesnakes and ruby slippers

I ran down some stairs today, and one of my shoes slipped off and stayed behind. Just like Cinderella. Except they were red shoes, so maybe it's more like Dorothy, or that poppet from the Andersen story. Which means that a) I'll live happily ever after (like Cinderella), and b) I will be cruelly punished for looking beyond my narrow sphere of existence (like Dorothy and the poppet). Nice.

In other news, my mother has won the Kalbacher Klapperschlange . Yeah, I think it sounds rude too. But it's the German Children's Choice Award. (A Klapperschlange is a rattlesnake). The Germans are clearly nuts about dragons, because Christopher Paolini and Cornelia Funke have won it in the past... So, go Mum!

(can I have my dinner now?)

democracy is coming

After discharging my democratic duty on Saturday, I came home and picked up Wide Awake, by David Levithan.

What an apt choice, for an election day.

The book is set in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future, the day after the first gay Jewish president of the USA has been voted in. In this future world, the war and the terror and the fear got very very bad. It got so bad that finally people said 'stop'. And then came the Jesus Revolution, where the answer to the ultimate question (What Would Jesus Do?) was answered. The answer was, Jesus would wave around the love, the compassion, the understanding. Regardless of who you are. There's no 'unless' that comes after 'love thy neighbour'.

So it was the Christians who saved the day, in the end. And other people joined them in their
message of love and peace and tolerance. And so the gay Jewish president was elected.

Except some official people in Kansas didn't like that (because no matter how good things get, there's always going to be some redneck fuckers out there), and they demanded a recount. So Stein (gayjewishpresidentelect) asks everyone who voted for him to come to Kansas and prove it. So they did. Millions and millions of them.

And I thought about that, sitting in the sun reading. And I thought about how excited I get when I watch the West Wing, and how it makes me so goddamn proud to be an American, even though a) I'm not an American and b) I spend most of my time spitting vitriol at the current American government. And I thought about how I felt when I voted.

And I felt sad. I wish there was a politician or political party in this country that I could get that excited about. I wish there was someone I believed in so utterly that I'd drop everything and go to Kansas just to show the world that I care.

Anyway, this wasn't meant to turn into a rant. So stop reading this and go read books by David Levithan. He has an awesome ability to tell you about how crap our world is, not by whinging about it, but by showing you how great the world would be if things were different. It's a positive and beautiful way of trying to change the world.

What kind of reader are you?

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

(i stole this from emma)

Text Appeal

I found love in a book and now I'm looking for someone to share it with.


Looking for love this summer? Bring a favourite or recently read book to literary speed dating at the State Library of Victoria. As the wine and conversation flow you may begin your own chapter with that someone special.

Dec 6 2006, Jan 17 and Feb 14 2007
7 – 8.30pm
$20 per session (drinks included)
THREE people for the price of TWO
E XPE R IME D I A
State Library of Victoria
328 Swanston Street
Melbourne

Bookings and registrations 8664 7555 or learning@slv.vic.gov.au
Registation forms can be downloaded slv.vic.gov.au/programs/events

Where do you get your ideas from?

Ahh, that timeless chestnut. Well I have an answer, along with an explanatory photostory.

The secret is this: I get my ideas from my puppy.

What follows is a small extract from a draft of Scatterheart, with photos of how I got the idea.

Frothing at the mouth, the dogs made straight for the bear, slashing at its side with their teeth in a manic frenzy.


The crowd cried out with joy as red blood was splashed onto the ice. The bear whipped around, quicker than Hannah would have believed possible, swatting at the dogs with a great clawed paw.


One of them was tossed across the ring, yelping in pain, but it sprang back to its feet again and resumed its attack.


Fur was torn from flesh, and blood flowed freely.


See? It's that simple. All you need is a puppy, and some interesting props.

I want Bradley Whitford to read to my children

And Sean Astin. And Elijah Wood. And Al Gore.

But mostly Bradley Whitford.

Ding dong, the witch resigned

Let's get nostalgic about Rumsfeld:

"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think... and I assume it's what I said."

"We do know of certain knowledge that he (Osama Bin Laden) is either in Afghanistan, or in some other country, or dead."

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past - I think the past was not predictable when it started."

and of course...

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

An Inconvenient Truth: free

I have just learnt from Emma that Intrepid Travel want you to see Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. They really want you to see it. So much so, that if you send them your ticket stub (and your family's, friends' and colleagues'), they'll reimburse you.

That's awesome.

(oh, and if you haven't - totally go see it. it'll change the way you see the world)

48 things you could care less about

1. First Name? Lili. Friends call me Lil. I have never had a successful nickname, much to the consternation of Jellyfish.

2. Were you named after anyone? Mum saw an ad advertising a Lily Tomlin performance, that had spelled it Lili Tomlin. She thought it was cool. I think it's cool that I'm technically named after someone who was in both Big Business and The West Wing.

3. When did you last cry? West Wing again. Watching the very last episode in Venice and realising there would never be any more. This is what turns people to fanfic...

4. Do you like your handwriting? Sometimes. It is either creatively messy, or ugly and illegible.

5. What is your favourite lunchmeat? Casalinga salami.

6. If you were another person would you be friends with you? I'd like to think so, but I reckon I'd get regularly pissed with me.

7. Do you have a journal? Does this count?

8. Do you still have your tonsils? Yes.

9. Would you bungee jump? No. But I'd paraglide. I much prefer the idea of 'flying' to 'falling'.

10. What is your favourite cereal? Good muesli with lots of strange crunchy seeds and things, with plain yoghurt.

11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? No. Not enough hours in the day.

12. Do you think you are strong? On the inside.

13. What is your favourite ice-cream flavour? Baci.

14. Shoe size? 7 1/2

15. Red or pink? Tough call. Pink for casual, red for work/formal.

16. What is the least favourite thing about yourself? Right now, it's the number that just came up on the scales when I weighed myself. So I'm shallow, deal.

17. Who do you miss most? Right now? The Munkey who is sunning his fur up north. DVD nights aint the same without him.

18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you? If other people feel it would aid them in procrastination, then they should do it.

19. What colour pants, shirt and shoes are you wearing? Brown pants. Blue tshirt. Ugg boots.

20. Last thing you ate? A ridiculously expensive banana. I figure I don't buy coffee or cigarettes, so bananas can be my Habit.

21. What are you listening to right now? James Taylor's Fire and Rain.

22. If you were a crayon what colour would you be? A rosy pink.

23. Favourite smell? Rain on a hot day. Jasmine.

24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Someone trying to sell me something. I was rude.

25. The first thing you notice about people you are attracted to? Height.

26. Do you like who you stole this off? Yes. Looking forward to her next book.

27. Favourite drink? Buddha's Tears tea. Red wine. Hot toddies. Melbourne tap water.

28. Favourite sport? I like watching the cricket. I have a theory about cricket and lobsters, that I may explain during summer.

29. Eye colour? Blue.

30. Hat size? Is that a question that anyone really knows the answer to?

31. Do you wear contacts? No. Glasses for reading and computering.

32. Favourite food? Cheese. Souvlaki. Bananas. My mum's pumpkin soup. Mashed potato. Shitake mushrooms.

33. Scary movies or happy endings? Depends. Scary movies if they're really scary. Happy endings if they're not too cloying.

34. If you could live anywhere in the world where would that be? In the flat in North Fitzroy where I will be living by the end of the year. Venice.

35. Summer or winter? Summer. But I like that it's balanced out with winter.

36. Hugs or kisses? Both. But hugs, if I had to choose.

37. Favourite dessert? Dark chocolate and fresh fruit.

38. Who is most likely to respond? Probably no one is procrastinating as hard as me right now.

39. Least likely to respond? How long is a piece of string?

40. What books are you currently reading? The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes (again). We Are the Weathermakers by Tim Flannery.

41. What's on your mouse pad? Seriously, who has mouse pads anymore? When was this meme created?

42. What did you watch on TV last night? The ABC News, the 7:30 Report (both depressing) and season 1 finale of Grey's Anatomy. I knew that handsome doctor was too good to be true...

43. Favourite sounds? The tapping of my keyboard. Magpies. Cello.

44. Rolling Stones or Beatles? Beatles.

45. The furthest you have been from home? The Isle of Skye, Scotland.

46. What's your special talent? I can tie a cherry stalk in a knot with my tongue.

47. Where were you born? About 7 metres from where I'm currently sitting, in my parents' house.

48. Who sent this to you? I nicked it from Penni.

help: why men suck

(this post is not meant to be offensive to men. there are lots of nice men. but some of them suck.)

I need to give the reader more clues that the bad guy is bad.

So. What are the little things that a man could do that tells us He Is Not A Gentleman?

Like...

-buying himself an icecream and not asking if she wants one.
-laying his jacket over a wet park bench, but sitting on it himself, leaving her to get wet.
-when she complains about the above two points, he tells her she's just being over emotional.

More? Please?

NAFADOYBIMSCOM

The inestimable John Green has declared November to be NAFADOYBIMSCOM.

It's sort of a spin-off of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, where entrants attempt to write an entire novel or novella during the month of November.

NAFADOYBIMSCOM is also known as National Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month.

So I'm gonna go do that now, as an international participant.

Things you overhear in the office...

Do you have to tell someone you're a nun?

So exactly how pink are we talking?

We need a rapper-dude. Stop laughing. Yes, I'm old.

My body needs to expel something. Time to have a baby.

Shivers down my spine...

...to read these words from Little Willow's blog:


The first Baby Sitter's Club book came out twenty years ago. For the majority of the fifteen years the books came out, the characters stayed the same age. In real life, Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, Stacey, and Dawn would now be in their thirties.

How weird is that???

What were you doing at 6:43pm this evening?

I was driving round and round Albert Park lake, waving my fancy evening-wear skirt in front of the car's air vents, desperately trying to dry the dog-vomit off before I disembarked to attend the Children's Charity Network Annual Dinner-y Thing. Mental note: dog gets carsick.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Good things about being home:
-toast
-short-life milk
-friends & family
-the puppy's trembling, ecstatic welcome
-finding signed copies of The Last Days and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist on my desk
-reading The Last Days and Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist.

Bad things about being home:
-jetlag
-bad news from people I love.

pointing over there

I'm going to be the Writer in Residence on insideadog.com.au for the next few weeks. So you can find me blogging there. With pictures.

Singing and dancing and making people happy

Over the past two nights, I've been lucky enough to see two West End musicals. The two best musicals I've ever seen, in fact.

#1 was Wicked, the story of how the Wicked Witch of the West became Wicked. It's a truly heartbreaking story, made all the more so by Idina Menzel's amazing performance as Elpheba, which she made her own when the show first started on Broadway. The name Elpheba, by the way, was coined by Gregory Maguire (who wrote the book on which the musical is based) in honour of The Wizard of Oz's first author - L Frank Baum. L F B. Elpheba.
The audience was wild. When Idina first walked on stage, the whole production had to stop for a minute while the crowd whistled and stamped and cheered. I can't imagine an Australian audience responding so vocally to a musical.

#2 musical was Avenue Q. For those of you who aren't familiar with it... well, it kind of defies explanation. It's a musical. About a bunch of misfits living all the way out in Avenue Q in New York. They fall in love, get their hearts broken, struggle with sexuality, wonder about what their purpose is, get drunk and have sex. They sing songs with names like "What Do You Do With A BA In English?" and "The Internet is for Porn" and "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist". The superintendant of the building is child-star Gary Coleman. Oh, and half the gang are muppets.
Again, one of the best things about seeing the show was feeling the buzz from the audience. You could feel the uncertainty at the beginning, it was clear that pretty much nobody was familar with the show. When the lead guy walked on stage for the first time with a muppet on his arm, the audience squirmed and looked doubtful. Then he started singing. The audience started laughing. They kept laughing for much of the first act. They cheered wildly when one of the characters came out of the closet. They threw coins into hats in the Money Song. They loved it. I loved it.

(This post is dedicated to Jellyfish, who introduced me to both musicals, and is probably now as green as Elpheba with envy.)

London: Like/Don't Like

I like... the way that the train conductor tells you exactly why you aren't moving.
I don't like... the way he tells you it's because there is someone underneath the train.

I like... the way barmen kick very drunk men out of pubs.
I don't like... the way the very drunk man "accidentally" groped me. (casing him to get thrown out of said pub)

I like... that it's not raining.
I don't like... the fact that it's 30 degrees and I only brought three tshirts. Who knows where to buy cool tshirts in London?

I like... the view from the top of St Paul's.
I don't like... the way my legs no longer work after climbing to the top.

I like... having a semi-spiritual moment in front of Randolph Caldecott's memorial in a crypt.
I don't like... being looked at funny for crying over some dead children's literature illustrator.

I like... the St Paul's audio tour. Highly recommended.
I don't like... the Globe guided tour. Ripoff.

So if you care to find me, look to the western sky

I've packed my bag. I've bid farewell to my loved ones. I've checked in (love online checkin. also love seatguru).

See you in London...

Reviews

Some Joan reviews:

A remarkable story... What are we to make of this Maid of Orleans? Fascinating!
(New Life Christian Newspaper - which is so enthusiastic in its book reviews that there are at least four exclamation marks per four-paragraph review)

A must read... a very accessible medieval history...
(I don't know what this is from, I just have a photocopy. But I think it's a Queensland Christian publication of some sort)

The author takes the reader on a journey through Joan's life... very appealing... a bit emotional at times.
(Gabrielle, aged 14)

Wilkinson's book is very exciting: I had to put the book down a number of times when the tension she created became too much... I thorougly recommend this book.
(Insights Magazine)

The reader is always eager for more... The effect is to immediately engage the reader... tension and excitement... This book is a rejuvenation of the legend of Joan, which is a part of our common civilisation and of the canon of young people's literature. It will make young people want to read about it.
(Viewpoint Literary Journal)

right, back to packing...

5 Reasons Why I am Lucky

1. I lost my mobile phone at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards on Monday night, but Optus is giving me a new phone and sim because they love me.

2. I got wet today in the rain, on the way to pick out some funky marmoleum for my new bathroom floor.

3. I got a tummy-ache last night from eating too much free popcorn at the Macbeth premiere.

4. I missed two days of work last week to do stuff at the Melbourne Writer's Festival and Ivanhoe Grammar. For the first time in my life, teenagers think I'm cool.

5. My bedroom is an absolute disaster area, because I'm packing to go to London on sunday.

In 20 Years

I wrote this in August 1991, 15 years ago. I was 10.

In 20 years..... I am a famous author and I travel around the world to get ideas for my stories.
When I am in Australia I live in a farm house in the country. When I am not writing
I act in films musicals and operas.
My books will be very long and very interesting. My daughter goes to a lovely school taught by Nikki Michell, who was my best friend in primary school. My daughter is called Hazel and is very talented. The ozone layer was fixed last year so thats one less worry to worry about. My new book 'Luckbearer' is very popular.

Hazel??? Where on earth did that come from?

Anagrammage

After reading John Green's fabulous An Abundance of Katherines, I started thinking about anagrams.

Wordsmith's anagram generator states: All the life's wisdom can be found in anagrams. Anagrams never lie.

So what do you get when you anagram my name? I thought about it. Maybe something involving ink or skill or owls. Or will or win or lions (or loins).

So I typed in my name, and was confronted with a big long list of gibberish. Some of the strings included the above words, but none that really made any sense. Oh, and there was this one:

kill oil sin win

sounds like the US government's foreign policy, ne?

But what does it say about me???

My favourite things about regional Victoria (week two of tour)

1. the Eaglehawk cinema. One aged town hall; one screen; twenty sofas; glass of wine; Tristram Shandy. Highly recommended.
2. vanilla slices in Ouyen
3. watching actor Robin literally climb the walls of Gilmore College
4. seeing a wedge-tailed eagle eating a dead kangaroo
5. having reason to say Boort and Manangatang over and over again.

(and not-so-favourite things about regional Victoria)
1. unheated school gyms at 8am
2. the prison-issue furniture and Unpleasent Smell at the Oyuen motel
3. realising in Murrayville that I could be at my grandma's house in Adelaide for lunch, but I wasn't getting back to Melbourne until after dinner.

My favourite things about regional Victoria (week one of tour)

1. hedgehogs from country bakeries.
2. the secondhand bookshop in Benalla
3. Elizabeth Honey, the Best Car Passenger Ever
4. honeyjoys made by Glenrowan Primary School for Elizabeth Honey
5. actually having a good reason to say Yackandandah, Puckapunyal and Wang.

Best bookshop ever.

I want to live here. Always.

(it's a bookshop in China, btw. via boingboing)

somewhat incoherent ramblings on fandom

I've been thinking a lot about fandom, fanaticism and arrogant snobbery.

It started on the weekend when I went to Continuum, a speculative fiction convention here in Melbourne. I was speaking on two panels, one about YA fiction with Margo Lanagan, Lucy Sussex and a couple of other experts, and one about Harry Potter with Shaun Tan and some Young People. And I hung around and went to some other panels and talked to some people.

And the people are all lovely. Okay, some of them are a bit strange, but on the whole, that whole stereotype about the locking-yourself-in-the-basement-with-elf-ears-playing-computer-games is just bollocks.

I went to a panel on Doctor Who. Because it is good and I am totally in love with this man. And as I listened to the panellists talking about Doctor Who fans, and what the fans think of the new Doctor, I slowly started to realise something.

And the something was this: I didn't really care. I love Doctor Who. I also love lots of other so-called-geeky things like Red Dwarf and Blackadder and good fantasy books. But I don't belong in the world of fandom, because I don't care that much. I don't care if something is 'canon'. I don't care if 'kissing is just not Doctor Who'. I just care if it's good, and if it's entertaining. (and if David Tennant is wearing his glasses)

And this feeling of not-belonging made me a bit sad, and quite guilty. Maybe I was just being judgemental? Maybe I am secretly one of those people who sneer at science fiction fans. I always thought I was one of the fans, but I'm just not.

And then last night I went to see a documentary called Darkon, about Live Action Role Playing. It was an entertaining documentary. There were lots of funny bits. But there were also lots of really tragic bits. Like the bit where the school-age boy said that his in-game relationship with a gypsy (not a Relationship, just a relationship) was the first real relationship he's had with a human being that's not his parents. That is sad, and not in the jeering, pointing sense of the word that the rest of the audience clearly saw it as.

I think it's amazing that people can devote so much time and effort and creativity into an imaginary pursuit. It's like the game-playing I used to do as a kid (it's not all that unlike writing novels, really, except the LARPers actually put on clothes and leave the house). It is a Good Thing. More people should play and use their imaginations.

I wanted to kill most of the audience.

They were just a bunch of sniggering, finger-pointing snobs. You think it's funny that these people dress up as knights and fight each other in their spare time. What do you do in your spare time? You watch movies about people who dress up as knights and fight each other! And if you lived in a shitty American suburb and had a shitty job where you were never going to earn enough to be able to get out and do something, then wouldn't you want to do something amazing? And if that amazing thing is just imaginary, then who cares? Imaginary is good.

So all I can conclude (I said it would be incoherent) is that I may not fit in to the world of fandom, but I also don't fit in to the so-called-normal world either.

Maybe I'm like the fat kid from Darkon. Maybe I don't fit in anywhere. That's fine, cause I know a whole bunch of other people who don't fit in anywhere either. So I'm in good company.

sucks to be me

sucks to be you...

...sucks to be us, but not when we're together...

A defense of the word sucks.

bookses

There is not enough time in the day. I would very much like to crawl under my desk and fall asleep. That’s my excuse for this meme, instead of a proper post.

(oh and because READING GETS YOU LAID)

1. One book that changed your life?
   Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. (I know, that’s three books. Whatever)

2. One book you have read more than once?
   Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones. I try and read it once a year.
   

3. One book you would want on a desert island?
The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt (entirely unrelated to the evil Tom Cruise movie). Or Winnie the Pooh.

4. One book that made you laugh?
Doing It, by Melvin Burgess

5. One book that made you cry?
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. Heaven Eyes by David Almond.

6. One book you wish had been written?
The last book in the Obernewtyn series by Isobelle Carmody.

7. One book you wish had never had been written?
Barbara Baynton’s Bush Studies.

8. One book you are currently reading?
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire. Preperation before I see the musical in London. I am never going to be able to watch The Wizard of Oz again. Glinda is a MOLE.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?
*looks timidly at menacingly high pile of unread books*
*winces*
Erm. I don't want to pick one, in case the others get angry.

10. Now I’m supposed to tag five people, but as I’m tired, you can bloody well tag yourselves…