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Sam van Zweden

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Excuses

People say it’s easy to make excuses.

I disagree. It’s bloody hard!

In the last two or so weeks I’ve missed, skipped, and bowed out of half a dozen things. Mainly things I would’ve enjoyed, too. Life has just gotten in the way – an illness in the family, money stress, double-booking myself, final assessment pieces coming up for school. I know they’re all valid excuses, but I’ve skipped so many things that I almost feel like they’re not.

I also find these excuses popping up for writing… Too much noise, half-baked idea, other things need doing more, too emotional right now, the list goes on. I’m good at excuses.

I keep having to remind myself that writers write, and that one poem or paragraph or blog a week does not a writer make. Life doesn’t ever stop and shuffle off to the side to make room for me to write comfortably. Most of the time it is a necessarily uncomfortable process.

Enough excuses. I’m going to go write.

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Library Greed

I’m quite a fan of libraries. Especially since the Kew library is only a ten minute walk away. Even on wet and cold days, I can make that trek relatively unscathed and unsweaty. Libraries are warm and wholesome places – good for the soul.

However, a strange sort of greed overcomes me at the library.

Yesterday I went in to pick up a book I’d had a reservation on (Lark and Termite by Jane Anne Phillips), and to print some school work.

“Ten minutes,” thought I, “and I’ll be out of here.”

I picked up my reservation. I printed my work.

Then I thought I’d check for any books relevant to my current school work. I came out with Borges: A Life by Edwin Williamson, and Borges on Writing by Giovanni, Halpern & MacShane (eds). While one of these books might be handy, there is no reasonable way that I will get all my school reading done plus a biography, plus a collection of short stories, plus a book of interviews, plus some fiction book I picked up last week…all in the next three-ish weeks before the due date.

Libraries do this to me though. I get in there and the fever overcomes me. I see a book and panic that it won’t be there when I come back… This is ridiculous of course; it’s a library, the books will always come back and I’ll get a chance to read it when I actually do have time.

It’s almost like an ownership thing, only I’m well aware that borrowing a book doesn’t constitute ownership. Perhaps it’s my reading anxiety at work again, trying to get as much in as possible, even if it’s an unreasonable amount.

My library isn’t helpful in this matter either. They have lovely displays of “featured books”; themes and new acquisitions which take on a certain importance and urgency. I tried taking a smaller bag yesterday, but my library even provides free bags… I’m running out of ideas. Reason simply doesn’t suffice. My library-mind is a reasonless grab frenzy.

Is anyone else out there suffering from this curse?

4

A Tangible Ass-Kicking

I know there are people out there who read lots. It’s a real thing. I know this.

There’s a whole list of them partaking in J Kaye’s 100+ Books Reading Challenge. However, the snob in me discounts them as those kind of people who read crime fiction/airport novels exclusively, chewing through five books a week. These people do the 100+ Books Challenge and write posts about how last year they read 200 books, which they’d really like to beat this year … sure. Why not?

But I also know that those people I respect read a lot. And it’s their enumeration of what they’ve read that makes my reading anxiety all the greater, and the ass-kicking I’m receiving all the more apparent.

Estelle Tang at 3000 Books estimates 50 books a year, and what she reads is always pretty respectable. I admire her.

I also admire Chris Flynn, whose post this week about the 31 books he’s read in 2010 made the ass-kicking my reading is receiving quite tangible.

Freakish reader Misha Adair has, at last update, read 30 books this year.

I’m falling behind! I’m only up to 17. Oh lordy. What a terrible person I must be! What am I doing with my time!?

…Studying. Working. Writing. Filming. Domestic-ing.

I do have some friendly competition of my own calibre though. JorjaKelly’s tally is now up to 15. She also studies and has busy busy days.

My 17 equals one book per week so far, not that it’s actually happened like that… That puts me on target for the 50 that Estelle Tang aims for. A worthy number, surely…But not 100.

To follow Chris Flynn’s quite entertaining post, though, here’s some stats. I love numbers. Just love them:

13 men. 4 women.
1 graphic novel. 14 fiction. 2 non-fiction.
3 Australian. 14 non-Australian.

Looks like I share reading habits with Chris Flynn, if perhaps not quite reading at the same rate…

But enough of this analysing business. Back to the books!

1

Reading Anxiety

Am I reading enough? I constantly ask myself.

Jacinda Woodhead at Meanland says no.

Jacinda talks about the guilt she feels when she does other things instead of reading. I get this. Somehow in my mind, reading has a privileged place which nothing else quite lives up to, meaning that anything else I do with my time creates guilt – apart from writing. That’s worthy. But the two should certainly be balanced and in much higher quantities that they are right now.

This last week I’ve had the flu, completed (to genuine satisfaction, too) three out of four assessment pieces that are due next week, organized a great many overdue things and put things in order… All of these things, including the homework, made me feel guilty for not reading. Somehow homework reading doesn’t feel like it counts. Most of it, anyway.

So Jacinda talks about all the different sources of reading she has, and it’s no wonder she hasn’t got enough time to keep up with it all. I know this feeling, and I’m sure you do too.

Jacinda talks about Google Reader – are any of you guys onto this? I’m not, but I know I have a few readers who are. I check back to a LOT of different blogs daily, so I think this would really help … but it has the potential to be very crap. So tell me, bloggosphere – to Google-Read, or not?

And Twitter – I’m well and truly into it now. I never knew I could get so much amazing independent news from one place! Honestly, there’s always something great offered to me via Twitter. I love it!
…but I also hate it. I follow 57 people on Twitter. and that adds up to a LOT of extra reading every day.

One problematic reading-source that Jacinda skips over pretty quickly is blogrolls.
You read someone’s post and they blow you away, and you wonder, “What does this person read?”  Enter the Blogroll… Some are so extensive that they take multiple visits to work through.

“I have so many books within arm’s reach waiting for my attention,” says Jacinda… Oh yes. The To-Be-Read Pile…
I thought I got smart on mine, I put many of them on my shelf. Not in a pile at all! Haha! Outsmarted, Reading Pile!
…but no. I took four of those books and put them next to my bed in a micro-TBR. I thought this would make it easier. Now when I go to bed I pick one until my eyelids won’t prop themselves open any longer. I don’t know if this has helped it or not though…

Jacinda also nods to awards lists and literary journals as incoming reading.

Besides these, I also have Classics (a very big pile and growing), books recommended by respected friends (friends who don’t read yet recommend things are ignored), review books for Yartz , and the supplementary stuff for school.

The world of literature is not shrinking. Does it scare the shit out of you?!

2

Beginnings

I’m beat. Bushed. Buggered. Sooooo tired. I feel like I woke up on Saturday, and haven’t stopped since.

Up until this point, I’ve avoided blogging about my latest achievement simply because I was terrified it wouldn’t stick – that I’d get there and the collective psyche would vote me out. However, on Saturday afternoon the first episode of Yartz featuring my pretty porcelain face was filmed.

Yartz is an awesome community TV show on Channel 31, (airs at 10pm Mondays and a repeat I think on Thursday night – also on youtube) which basically acts as a very independent cultural commentator, picking out all the cool things in the world and letting you know all about them…At times fanatical, at other times utterly scathing – which is where I come in.

I have been appointed book-fan extraordinaire, working with the Yartz crew and contributing to the bookish side of things. A more lovely bunch of people you could not find, so a big thankyou to one Misha Adair for his expert casting skills, and to the rest of those I’ve had anything to do with thus far for being so ready to have me on board.

Not having television myself I won’t be able to tell you when I’m on, I’m not sure if it’s this week or next, BUT as soon as it hits youtube you can expect to hear about it.

In other beginnings, today was the first day of my life at RMIT completing their Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing). AMPED! First days are always less productive, and it did enough to get me excited about the course overall. It’s still a very new course, only in its second year, and it’s a very small group. There’s 42 of us in first year.

Today I had Cinema Studies, which consisted of Lumiere shorts and The Wizard of Oz… While it’s a 9.30 class, I get to be all cozy in a Hoyts cinema and watch films, so it’s bearable. Enjoyable, even. The news of needing to purchase a $110 textbook was a little less than welcome, but I’ve since found a filmmaker-friend who is willing to lend me a copy – thank god for commonly used textbooks!

I have to admit, this viewing of The Wizard of Oz was the first time I’d noticed the Wizard calling Scarecrow a “blundering bale of bovine fodder”… That’s the kind of insult I wish I’d penned!

The afternoon saw an “orientation” type talk in the space where Telling Stories would usually take place – and my goodness, the second year students have got me excited! The thing that always discouraged me about Swinburne was the lack of community feeling and a total lack of enthusiasm for writing. It was seen as an easy elective and not something to be pursued outside of what was forced upon us. That didn’t stop me, of course, but I was always chasing the extracurricular opportunities by myself.

Now, writing’s such an alone activity that I feel that this community feeling I’ve been wanting is absolutely crucial to being able to do it. The second year students in my course are so excited about the writing opportunities they have and create, especially those they do outside of school and share. They’re really pulling together as an artists’ collective and making it all work for themselves. Good on them, and I can’t wait to join the ranks!

So, a few new beginnings and much, much, MUCH excitement.

…just a bit proud of myself at the moment.

7

The ways I reach the people…

Running a blog through WordPress is quite a novel experience. There’s so many nifty things you can do and see at the back end of the blog, like how many posts you’ve made with which tags and in which categories, what links people actually click on while reading your blog, how many people have visited when, and my favourite – what search engine terms people have followed into your blog.

A piece of advice for all you young would-be bloggers out there: when you start a blog, try not to include anything in the title which might be a typo of anything pervy. The word “pen,” for example.

Some search engine terms that I get are really obvious. At least once every day I get a hit or two from a search concerning Nick Cave’s “The Death of Bunny Munro”.

I also daily get hits from search terms containing really interesting uses of the word “pen”:
– “big pens young girls”
– “wife needs big pens”
– “how to get big pens”
– “man who has big pens”

There’s the downright disturbing, “sex with very very young girls”.

Then there’s the searches that are a little more puzzling, like “bed head realism”.

My personal favourite though?

“story: she slept nipple”

2

Breakdown

I just saw an ad in Voiceworks for SYN.

It’s a cartoon of a cityscape, which highlights all its features and breaks them down to their parts.

For example:
“Local Share House:
24% accumulated junk mail and bills
28% negleted home-brew project
15% rent assistance rorts
3% linoleum
8% cold teabags on sink
22% vintage gaming consoles”

I like the idea of breaking something down this way. And not just characters either, but emotions, buildings, ideas.

I just love lists.

Our House:
9% last week’s dishes
5% growing mould
7% online gaming
10% notebooks and novels
30% “how will we pay for…?”
19% drafts, dreams, ideas
20% illegal downloads

1

Big buckets of LANGUAGE!

I haven’t blogged for a few days. I’m being entirely self-indulgent today, sulking and wallowing in self-pity – I suspect I have the opposite of Seasonal Affective Disorder, where the hot weather just stresses me the fuck out. Bring on the rains.

Anyway, I am an avid collector of language… Not surprisingly, some of my favourites have come from kids.

“Look Mum, that dog is a crocodile!”

(Kid on tram, looking at raised tram platforms): “They’re boats, those ones! Look at the people on the boats!”
Father: “Boats?”
Kid: “Yes. Anchored to the road.”

(Kid at my work): “Dry white wine? But it’s all wet!”

(My 4 year old neice being a monster, so we say): “what, are you just going to stand there and whine? That’s fine, we’ll watch the movie by ourselves, you can go to bed.”
(she pauses for a while, then as sulkily as possible): “I don’t drink wine.”

…gosh. They just use words so unashamedly!

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Wheely?

I’d like to briefly blog today about the latest fantastic installation in Melbourne’s “UNESCO City Of Literature” status…

This has been a long long time coming, but it’s finally here! In February, The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas opens its doors.

Trying to books tickets for its first event proved disappointing – I had to wait until a pay day, and even then there were still four weeks to go until the event – plenty of time, I thought. However, many many fellow Melburnians are excited about this event, and beat me to it. Sold out. Fail.

However, there’s some really exciting stuff coming up there, (apart from the fact that it’s just going to BE there) – Irvine Welsh will be talking to Alan Brough on the 10th of March. I have tickets for this. I got in early.

Good news; the website is incredibly up-to-date and user-friendly. They daily blog about interesting things reading and writing, and their events calendar is posted pretty far ahead of events – the current calendar already runs up to May.

In other news, I went yesterday to enrol at RMIT. I’m officially itching to start, having talked to lecturers and convenors about what we’ll be working on, the fact that RMIT is across the road from the Wheeler Centre and the State Library, what’s expected from us, and what we can expect from the course. Let me at it! Now!

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