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Sam van Zweden

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Page Parlour Haul

Today was awesome. I woke up late, I went to Page Parlour, I met someone I’d only ever known via twitter, I went to an art show, I caught up with friends.

Day three of the Emerging Writers’ Festival saw the Page Parlour grace the heated walkways of the atrium at Federation Square. Page Parlour brings together a bunch of emerging writers and publishers to present their books and zines in a market type setting.

My Haul?

– The Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam
– Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing ed. Karen Andrews
– Neon Pilgrim by Lisa Dempster

There were other things I wanted to buy – uni student income said no.

But I’m pretty satisfied and itching to get into this haul!

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Two days down…

…Eight to go!

The Emerging Writers’ Festival has launched, it’s here, it’s on! And what a launch it was…

There was dancing, theatre, poetry, stories, debates, and even a short very very Australian rendition of “All You Need Is Love”. Oh yes, it had everything a wonderful night should have!

Lisa Dempster, in her debut year as festival director, achieved no small feat in orchestrating the evening. All the performers were really strong, and the debate (as always) very entertaining. Even Lisa’s voice-overs provided a strange Big Brother-y ambience that no other festival has had before.

At times the evening felt like it might have used an overall host or something to more tightly pull the performances together, to give them all a connection point, but just as that thought formed, there was Lisa’s voice, (EVERYWHERE!) bringing you back to the action and propelling you straight into whatever was next.

Highlight of the evening was easily Slow Clap Productions’  dancing man, Vachel Spirason. His piece was about a man whose body becomes possessed by various inanimate objects, giving a meek poor man a voice and a dance entirely unlike his own. I was incredibly glad to hear that Slow Clap will be back for Wordstock next Thursday – if you know what’s good for you, go book your tickets now!

The debaters argued with themselves over the issue of Love VS Angst – What Makes A Better Writer? The debate host, Michael Williams, declared no winner… But from where I was sitting, it sounded like angst won.

Today was spent at the Wheeler Centre. From 10am-12pm, I was in a workshop with Jo Case, on writing great book reviews. Everyone in the workshop was reasonably unafraid to speak up, and Jo had some amazing tips about review-writing. One thing I generally have trouble with is structuring book reviews in a coherent way, and Jo gave us help in this area – complete with examples and step-by-step type “tips”. Thanks, Jo! Let’s hope LGWABP benefits from this… I feel like it will.

In the afternoon (4-6pm) I was in a workshop with Harvest editors Davina Bell and Julia Carlomagno. The workshop was around editing work for publication. I was a little disappointed with this one – it covered a lot of stuff I’ve covered before (being considerate of editors before sending in unpolished work with sloppy formatting, just generally being professional). While that kind of thing wasn’t new for me, Davina and Julia still had a lot to contribute to my never-ending search for Someone Who Will Publish Me, so still a well-spent few hours.

This has only been the first two days of the festival – still eight days to go!

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A Wheely Great Program!

Yep, made that terrible pun again. I can’t help it. I just have to!

Today, the Wheeler Centre have released their events program for the next quarter.

I thought it would be hard to top last quarter’s program – Shane Maloney was very entertaining, Irvine Welsh was great, the Meanland panels on eReaders were important stuff. So I was curious to see what they’d be doing to beat that this quarter.

To be honest, I panicked a bit when I saw June. “The Deakins 2010” lectures take up most of June, and they’re not really something that interests me. As important as I know this stuff is.

July, however, is reasonably jam-packed with winners.

The week beginning on the 5th of July is “A Week of Love and Lust” … Most of what’s on during this week seems a little trashy, but no doubt far too enjoyable. Most of interest to me though, is the Lunchbox/Soapbox event about “The Case For Gay Marriage”. Well done, Wheeler!

Also during this week is a night about “Erotic Fan Fiction”, where the fantastic Marieke Hardy and Justin Heazelwood (and others) “turn their craft into a night of smut and hilarity”…

On the 14th of July John Birmingham, author of He Died With A falafel In His Hand will be speaking and promoting his new book.

“Voiceworks Live” on the 22nd of July will be a chance to meet fellow Voiceworks readers, as well as contributors and people behind the scenes of the fabulous publication.

On the 29th of July, Jennifer Byrne will be talking to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a reasonably controversial feminist activist and political. This one is ticketed, and will be taking place at the Capitol Theatre, so probably quite a big night.

And THE big one for this quarter: Bret Easton Ellis. Author of Less Than Zero, Rules of Attraction, and American Psycho, amongst others, Bret will be in Australia talking about his new book, which is based around the characters from his debut novel Less Than Zero.

All in all – you’ve produced a winner, Wheeler! This kind of stuff is what makes us deserve the UNESCO “City Of Literature” title.

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Thinking About Process

Thinking about process never fails to interest me. I’ve been learning a lot about my own process lately.

I’ve tried many different ways of writing. Long-hand only. Typing only. Thinking up almost the majority of a piece before committing it in any way to black-and-white…

What I’ve discovered works for me, is long-handing first drafts. Then typing, and re-drafng as I type. Then reading aloud to help edit. Then pondering and re-editing. Then letting it torture me for a few days: take a comma out, put a comma back in. No, take the comma back out…

It’s taken me a really long time to get to the point where I know what the most effective way for me to write is.

The way I write also helps heaps with the “blank page” problem. That gripping terror that overcomes a writer staring at a blank page with only tenuous, if any, ideas floating around in their wordy brain… I long-hand everything in my notebook. I’m now at the stage where that notebook has a fair few other stories or poems that have been long-handed. I take heart from looking back at them, seeing how utterly terrible the first draft was, and knowing that I worked past the crap to produce pieces I’ve been really happy with.

“The first draft of anything is shit.” – Ernest Hemmingway

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Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
  •  You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

  • “Although I told myself I was looking merely for a soothing presence, a glorified pot-au-feu, an animated merkin, what really attracted me to Valeria was the imitation she gave of a little girl. She gave it not because she had divined something about me; it was just her style – and I fell for it.”

From Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

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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?

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Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
  •  You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

“He did not want to compose another Quixote – which is easy – but the Quixote itself. Needless to say, he never contemplated a mechanical transcription of the original; he did not propose to copy it.”

-From “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” in Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths

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Themes, They Are A-Changin’!

Today you clicked that Twitter or Facebook link here, and all of a sudden you were somewhere unfamiliar, right?

“What the hell is this?!” you said.

“White background?! Drop down menus?! This is not that same blog that reeks of default that I know and love!”

…Suck it up. You’ll learn to know and love this one. I promise.

I got sick of the oh-so-default theme I had, there was something disgustingly kitsch about it. And entirely not customisable; Thanks WordPress!

So now we have something which navigates much more nicely, is much easier on the eye than the old theme, and which I feel can be taken more seriously.

In the coming weeks (…months? Year?) the default banner will be changed to something personalised and swish. Just you wait ‘n’ see!

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