Why I Love the State Library

People often ask me what my favourite part of the State Library is. Sometimes I say the dome, or the Mirror of the World exhibition. But I'm lying.

My real favourite place in the Library is right next to my staff kitchenette. It's this:

I like to think of it as a rather profound and existential statement on the human condition.

The Inevitable Post about Dumbledore

"The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance,"

-JK Rowling

I find with all things Harry Potter, that I really enjoy it, until I start thinking, and then I get irritated. It was the same with Rowling's recent announcement about Dumbledore's sexuality.

At first I thought "awesome! positive gay characters in children's literature!"

And then I thought 4 things.

Thing #1

"He is my character. He is what he is and I have the right to say what I say about him."

Once your book is published, it doesn't belong to you anymore. It belongs to your readers. Let THEM tell YOU what happens next, not the other round.

Thing #2

"If I'd known it would make you so happy, I would have announced it years ago!"

No. You should have announced it years ago anyway. You should have put it in the books. You are probably the most influential human being in the world for young people. You have more power to influence young people's attitudes than the United Nations, Sesame Street and their parents combined. You had an opportunity to present them with a positive gay role model, and you chose not to, I assume, because you were scared of the reaction from the religious right.

Thing #3

[Rowling] didn't feel the need to be explicit about Dumbledore's sexual preferences because she wanted to focus on character development.

I'm going to skip over the fact that many gay people might find that sentence deeply offensive.

Dumbledore was brave. Dumbledore liked to stick it to the Man (no pun intended). Dumbledore was never afraid to tell anyone his opinion, no matter how powerful or dangerous they were.

Except no one in the Harry Potter world knew he was gay. Not Harry, or anyone else that we know of. So he was in the closet.

So if a man as open and brave as Dumbledore felt he needed to keep his sexuality a secret - exactly what kind of a world is the Potterverse? How homophobic must the world be for Dumbledore to conceal such an important part of his identity? That's not a "positive message" at all, or a "prolonged argument for tolerance". It's sad and regressive and scary.

Thing #4

Seriously. Like Rita Skeeter wouldn't have known and put it in her book.

Improve Your Vocabulary - help developing nations!

Check out Free Rice, a project from poverty.com

For every word you correctly label, poverty.com will donate 10 grains of rice to a developing nation.

It's procrastination AND worthy AND promotes literacy!

Advertising and Bunnies

My parents always mute the TV and go and do something whenever the ads come on. I do too. Most of the time.

Except ads are getting... well... really good.

Advertising companies are obviously hiring some fresh-thinking film school graduates to make amazing, expensive, innovative short films with brands attached. Like that (and I can't believe I'm saying this) that Golden Arches ad where all the kiddies climb out of the grown-ups tummies. And the eBay one with the shopping trollies and the snow (although I kinda don't like the way it implies that when you buy so

mething from eBay, it's never what you expected).

But my very favourite ads are the Sony Bravia ads*. You know, the first one was all the millions of little bouncy balls bouncing their rainbowy goodness down hills in San Francisco? And the one with the building being demolished with layers of coloured paint exploding out of each floor as it went?

The think I like the most about these ads is they REALLY do them. They really did let a million coloured bouncy balls loose in SF. And they really did explode a building full of paint. Bugger all this CG nonsense (sorry, Gollum).

Well now there's a new one. And it has bunnies in New York.

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*due to my leftiecommiepinko guilt at essentially giving Sony some free promotion, I need to link to this article about how plasma screens are really bad for the environment.

Freedom to Read

There is an organisation called the Happy Endings Foundation's East of England Cheering Committee.

What do they do? (I hear you ask.) Do they reunite orphans with their long lost parents? Do they find Handsome Princes for Lowly Peasant Girls? Do they provide support and counselling for failed Idol participants?

No. This lady and all her lovely, caring friends are out there to make sure that kids don't get too upset by books with sad endings.

Oh (you say), that's nice. They talk about why the Snowman melted, and why the puppy had to go to the Big Doghouse in the Sky.

No. They just burn all the books with sad endings.

(they WHAT?)

They burn them. With fire. They call it a Bad Book Bonfire, and they have them quite often.

So the newspaper article says that Lemony Snicket is on the pyre. But I'm thinking you'd have to torch The House at Pooh Corner, Charlotte's Web and Bridge to Terabithia as well. And let's not even mention The Velveteen Rabbit.

Now seems like a REALLY good time to mention that it's Banned Books Week.

This weekend, read a Sad Book or a Bad Book or a Banned Book to celebrate your Freedom to Read...

Memetastic

(from Penni)

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car)
Mishka Swift (hott. with two 't's.)

2. My gangsta name (ice cream flavour plus cookie, or biscuit)
Cookies & Cream Shortbread (sounds more like a fluffy bunny)

3. My fly girl name (first letter of first name, first three letters of last name)
L Wil (meh)

4. My detective name (favourite colour, favourite animal)
Green Bear (rawwr)

5. My soap opera name (middle name, city of birth)
Mei-Ling Melbourne (i can totally see her. she'd wear lots of awful faux-Chinese dresses)

6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name)
Wil-Li

7. My superhero name (second favourite colour, favourite drink, add “the”)
The Blue Water (She surfs. She wears a bikini. She's on the ABC. She's soft porn for teenagers...)

8. My Nascar name (first two names of my two grandfathers)
Jack James (I like this one a lot)

9. My stripper name (favourite perfume, favourite sweet)
Olene Musk Sticks (how foxy is that? She'd be a totally classy strippper)

10. My witness protection name (mother’s and father’s middle names)
Ann Richard

11. My weather anchor name (fifth grade teacher’s name, a major city beginning with the same letter)
Jeremy Jakarta

12. My spy name (favourite season/flower)
Spring Jasmine

13. Cartoon name (favourite fruit plus garment you’re wearing, with an “ie” or “y” added)
Cherry Red Bootsie (she'd be unreal)

14 Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast plus favourite tree)
Peanut Butter Toast Ornamental Cherry (well, if by 'hippy' you mean 'utter nonsense')

15. Your rockstar tour name (favourite hobby plus weather element, with “the”)
The Reading Fire. (sounds a bit Christian Rock...)

BY NOD LET IN

So, if Enid Blyton left secret codes in her books to tell the world how much she hated her first husband... well, that would be Made of Awesome.

But the "clues" that biographer Duncan McClaren found in the Mystery books are... unconvincing. To say the least:

1. Her husband used to drink in the cellar. The bumbling policeman got locked in the cellar. Once.
2. Her husband had no imagination. The bumbling policeman had no imagination.
3. Her husband's name was Hugh. The bumbling policeman's name was Theophilus Goon, which anagrams to O Hugh Spoilt One or O Let Hugh Poison.

Yeah? Well it also anagrams to Highest I Polo On and Eighth Oil Spoon. And Sleigh Hop In Too.

There are, in fact 32250 legitimate anagrams of Theophilus Goon. Yep. THIRTY TWO THOUSAND. Secret code my foot.

So let's give up on that particular "theory", and look at the awesome new promotion for the Wyoming Library.

Pros and Cons

Pro: singing karaoke with my peeps til the wee hours of the morning.

Con: my head today which is ouch.

Con: getting out of bed.

Pro: doughuts.

Con: going to the office on a Saturday.

Pro: (from The Age) "Apart from Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow, there are few stand-out young adult books with an Australian history background. Scatterheart is a notable exception."

Now it is time for a nap.

What I Know Is

1. Heroes is much better when you watch it in Spanish*. (it's pretty good normally, but Made of Awesome in Spanish, especially if you do funny voices over the top of it.)

2. Old people Baby Boomers are far more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour than teenagers. Take note, Today Tonight and Jim Schembri: "Middle-aged hooligans!", not "teenage hooligans!". Binge drinkers? More than double the amount of boomers than teens/early 20s. Illegal drug-death? Five times more boomers. For shame. (via Justine)

3. The following statement could not be more untrue:

Children’s book protagonists skirt past private wounds; they are too busy exploring Narnia or Neverland and fending off witches, pirates and Indian chiefs — or hostile saleswomen at Bendel’s.
Only adult fiction indulges the grown-up delusion that children are interested in their parents’ personal lives.

Too busy exploring Neverland? Please. There's a reason why Mr Darling and Captain Hook is usually played by the same actor.

____________________

* This may not be true if you actually speak Spanish.

Launch of a Lili

All of these photos were taken by the wondrous Snazzles, who is made of awesome.

Shortlisted!

Joan of Arc has been shortlisted for a NSW Premier's History Award!

It's the Young People's History Prize, and I'm shortlisted alongside John Nicholson (for Songlines and Stone Axes) and Peter Macinnis (Kokoda Track: 101 Days).

I'm awfully glad to be on a shortlist with such good company.

Scatterheart review

I promise I won't do this for every review. Just the ones that use the word "brilliant".

(from the Sydney Morning Herald)


Equally brilliant, but quite different again, is Scatterheart by Lili Wilkinson, children's literature critic, author and blogger (see, thinkingsofalili.blogspot.com). This epic tale begins in 1814 London, where 15-year-old Hannah Cheshire awaits trial for a crime she did not commit.
The descriptions of the prison itself, and of those imprisoned alongside Hannah, are vivid and gruesome. Hannah is convicted and sent to Australia on the convict ship the Derby Ram, another wonderfully realised setting. The hopelessness and injustice of the situation is palpable but Hannah proves surprisingly resilient, finding strength in new friendships and the possibility of a rediscovering old ones.
Wilkinson weaves the narrative together with great skill - from Hannah's present situation, back to when she led a life of wealth and privilege - revealing bit-by-bit how the naive young woman has ended up in such awful circumstances.
Also entwined with Hannah's story is a fairytale, Scatterheart, which bears many similarities to what's happening to Hannah, and allows the reader to hope that she will find her "happily ever after". The fairytale shares the same epic qualities as the novel, as well as creating a strong contrast between fantasy and gritty realism.

Scatterheart launch

Come to my book launch!

Tue September 11, 6pm
Readings Hawthorn
701 Glenferrie Road Hawthorn

rsvp by September 7 to rsvp@bdb.com.au

Making a difference

Watch this if you're a teacher. No, watch it if you think that being a teacher is a soft option. Just watch it.

Harry Potter: Tree Killer

If an editor had taken out all of the unnecessary adverbial dialogue tags and other nonsense from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, there would be 130 000 more trees in the world today.

Don't believe me? Oz and Ends has crunched the numbers.

THE SCATTERHEART SMALLTOWN COMPETITION

The Deal:

Remember Douglas Adams' Meaning of Liff? Where he and John Lloyd took place names and gave them dictionary definitions?

Well I want you to do that with some of the places I've been to in the last fortnight (on tour with work). They are all actual places in regional Victoria. And the best two will win a free copy of Scatterheart.

An Example:

Yeungroon: (verb) The noise you make when you've eaten three vanilla slices in rapid succession. The girl went a funny greenish-yellow colour and let out a pained yeungroon.

Now it's your turn. I offer the following placenames for your consideration:

Manangatang

Patchewallock

Boinka

Boigbeat

Teddywally West

Bollangum

Minyip

Wycheproof

Nyah

Boomahnoomoonah

(submit your entries in the comments. competition will be open until... i don't know. a fortnight? we'll see. you can enter as many times as you like. apologies to anyone who lives in these towns, or speaks the language that they are named in, and is offended)

Friday lolz

I used to love the idea of these books as a kid, but was always deeply disappointed. I also went through a phase where I read those Fighting Fantasy books, which was like a Choose Your Own Adventure but played with dice. Except I always cheated - cause who's gonna know?

Anyway, for your Friday lolz I purloin present: The Choose Your Own Adventure Novels That Never Quite Made It.



More here. (check out the Deadwood one on page 5 that I am not posting here because of Delicate Young Eyes)

Also, I am guilty of six of the 20 most overused things in YA literature. The shame.

PostSecret

This song always makes me cry.

Scrivener (a somewhat advertorial post)

So instead of talking about the book that just came out on the shelves, I thought I'd talk about the book I just finished writing. (writing the first draft of, that is).

Actually, I'm not going to say anything about the new book, other than: It was so much fun to write.

What I am going to talk about is how I wrote it.

I wrote it without Microsoft Word.
(shh, don't tell Bill Gates)

Scrivener is a word-processor for people who write books. Or plays, or films, or articles. People who write stuff.

It does everything that Microsoft Word doesn't do - and you don't realise exactly how much Word doesn't do, until you've tried Scrivener.

Scrivener sorts your book into chapters. You can split the main window if you like, and work on two chapters simultaneously (awesome if you're cutting and pasting, or doing Big Edits). Or, if you'd rather, you can have a chapter open in one pane, and an image/website/audio file/video file/pdf in the other and transcribe.

It also has some unreal subject/category sorting things, so you can just hit a button and see how many times I've talked about spelling in a chapter. Or how many times Tarni does something dumb.

I'm currently loving the target options. I can say: My novel needs to be 40 000 words. This chapter needs to be 2500 words, and I want to write 1000 words in this session. And it will give you lovely sliders to show you how you're going on all these.

Ooh! And research. You can attach research to any section or chapter, and have notes and things just sitting there all the time, when you need them. And link to other bits in your book or another file or website.

BUT

Here are my two favourite things.

Thing #1: Full Screen Mode, to Avoid Distractions:

Thing #2: The Corkboard, for the Structure Fiend in You
And the icing on the cake?

Microsoft Word Professional costs US$399.99.

Scrivener costs US$34.99.

Bill Gates can bite me.

I'm a Thinking Blogger!

The tiny and delightful Lisa has given me a Thinking Blogger Award. I am quite flattered.

My bloggy birthday passed several months ago, and I didn't even realise. It's been lovely and surprising how many people come up to me and tell me that they read (and enjoy) my blog.

Here are the TBA rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

So here are Five Blogs that Make Me Think:
1. Misrule, for thought-provoking and interesting things about the world of children's and YA lit.
2. Audrey and the Bad Apples, for ranting, raving and being rosy-cheeked, all with astonishing style and poise. (and also for proving that bloggers can become Real Live Friends)
3. eglantine's cake, which takes equal parts of thinking, feeling and laughing and bakes something very tasty with it all.
4. Justine Larbalestier, who has the amazing gift of being prolific and not-boring at the same time, AND managing to write kick-arse books while she does it.
5. the munkey can type, who doesn't blog nearly often enough, but when he does it's always made of awesome. Even when it's about Big Brother.

Go forth. Read and think.