What I've been reading lately

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Shot by Gail Bell
Ciara's Gift by Una Glennon
90 Packets of Instant Noodles by Deb Fitzpatrick
Wilt on High by Tom Sharpe
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (both books)
The Boat by Name Le
Beautiful Monster by Kate McCaffrey
Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (I thought I'd read this before, but if I did, I have no memory of it)
A People's History of Science by Clifford D. Conner

What writers want

As I ponder purchasing furniture for my first ever study, I have also been pondering what a writer needs to write.  Some writers need silence; others music; Annie Dillard reportedly papers over the windows in her study, lest she be distracted from her (glorious) work (if you haven't read An American Childhood, you're missing a gem).  It's not only a physical space in which to write that has been lacking to date; I also work full time in a demanding job, as well as being the parent of a teenager.  When people ask me how I find time to write, I often say, I don't know.  Because I don't.  I make time, obviously, either in holidays or on weekends or during insomniac hours or on trains or instead of watching television.  Maybe it's not the how: it's the why.  Why, when each hour of life is so precious, would I spend time writing, when the world would neither know nor care if I spent my rare hours of free time at the beach, or planting out my vege bed, or seeing much neglected friends and family?

Like most mid-career (shudder) authors, I've wished I lived in a culture where I could live off my writing (or wrote the kinds of books that would make it possible in this one), or had a sugar daddy, or could magically have my mortgage paid off, or could win a massive prize that meant I could dedicate myself (in my shiny new study) to writing.  Some days, it really bites that I have to expend energy where I would rather not; some days I resent the demands that mean I can't do what I love.  Virginia Woolf wrote that women writers need money and a room of my own, but I've managed without either.  Have I written The Waves?  Maybe not.  Has the pressure of working changed the kinds of books that I've written?  Absolutely.  It's no coincidence that my best novel was written when I had the year of grace afforded me by an Australia Council grant: working full time prevents me from traversing that kind of territory again. 

Because of what they cost me, I love my books like the unruly children they are, even if they're not top of the class, or the most popular, or the best looking.  I love them for their soul, their character.  They each have their friends, their circle who would miss them if they weren't there.  Each one is a product of its time: they could only have appeared when they did, and, if I hadn't seized the moment, their story would have passed unnoticed, unrecorded. 

So having a room to write in is a luxury, not a necessity.  To write, all you need is an ear attuned to the story that is only for you - and to write it.

Of things past

This is the only photograph I have of my paternal grandfather, taken during World War Two.  I don't remember how old I was when I first saw it: maybe when I was about ten, when I got my first letter from him, written in all capitals on blue airmail paper, warning me to BE CAREFUL OF SHARKS and enclosing similarly capitalised newspaper headings, such as WOMAN DIES AFTER POISONOUS SNAKEBITE and TOURIST WASHED OFF ROCKS BY FREAK WAVE, clearly the only times Australia made it into the English papers in that innocent, pre-Neighbours world.  I wondered if he was demented, but wrote back all the same.  It was a novelty, discovering an extra grandparent I had supposed to be dead: nobody had ever mentioned him until my aunty took it upon herself to write to the address he'd lived in twenty years earlier, enclosing details of the grandchildren he hadn't known about, and we began getting his strange, spidery-lettered missives from the other side of the world.

When I was twenty-one I took a bus up from London to see him, expecting to meet the handsome, robust man above, and had to hide my shock at meeting a stoop-backed old man with rheumy blue eyes, living on the ground floor of the council house in which he lived from birth to death, replete with photo frames caked with dust on the mantel.  He proudly showed me the contents of his fridge ('I look after meself, you know') - a half-finished tin of Spam, a single, cooked sausage, some milk - before taking me into town and to visit some cousins.  On the way he said 'I just want you to know, I don't know anything about all that other business' - I didn't dare ask what he meant - and then pointed at the factory he used to work in, before launching into a discussion about the outrageous price of sports shoes.  I declined the offer of a dusty, upstairs bed and caught the train to Liverpool in the dusk, where I found myself wandering the streets, weeping inconsolably without the faintest awareness why.

I didn't take a photo of him.  I wanted to protect his dignity, maybe: something told me he wouldn't want to have his image taken back to Australia, in his grimy front room, surrounded by pictures of people long dead, or long gone.  But maybe I wanted the picture of when I hadn't known him to be the only one, before he became such a disappointment to those who had loved him.

Bits of things

Having sent off major rewrite of the V Girls to my dear, patient publishers, my head is full of scattery thoughts and reflections, like:

1.  Last weekend I went to the 80th birthday of a third cousin, Dawnie, a wonderful, lively woman who is an inspiration re how to live.  I saw a photograph, for the first time, of my great-great-great grandfather, William Parmenter, a convict who was sent over on the Norwood in 1862, and who settled in Bunbury with his wife and children, whom he paid 3 pounds something to bring over once he got his ticket of leave. (There was also a photograph of her.)  One of his children, a twin, died on the voyage.

I also saw a letter written by my great-great uncle, also William Parmenter, in 29 June 1918, from wherever he was fighting in the war.  He was writing to his sister, Martha (whose deathbed I remember attending when I was a small child).  He said if he didn't get home soon, all his sisters would be married.  He commented that he mind that, so long as his girl wasn't married.  Then he asked his sister how Annie was: he hadn't heard from her.  Two sentences: so much sadness wedged between them.

Between 29 June and November, when the war ended, William was killed.  His mother was out, the morning the telegram was delivered.  After that, she never wanted to leave the house, convinced that something terrible would happen if she did. 

2.  I've almost finished Gail Bell's Shot.  The subtle exploration of how trauma affects people is remarkable, and should shut up the people who say Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is rubbish.  Having survived twice being close to (or fearing I was close to) death through traumatic experiences (once being attacked on a beach; once having a bone-crushing fall off a horse), I'm struck by how similar my reactions were to such disparate experiences. 

3.  Next week I am going to Sydney for work.  I'm reflecting on how different it is, travelling this way, than my first arrival in Sydney in 1987, when my friend Carita and I were dropped off in the pre-dawn dark in Alexandria by a speed-affected truck driver, who had kept yanking our hands over to the wheel, to get us to steer (as a prelude, I believed, yanking my hands back, to putting our hands elsewhere).  He did, however, take a detour on the way up from Melbourne to show me the Dog on the Tuckerbox, for which I am still grateful.

Telly love

I don't have a television.  It's my daughter's fault.  I'd warned her that if we had another argument about turning the telly off, I'd get rid of it.  She argued; I called the neighbours.  After they'd taken my temperature, they took away the television, as well as the recordable DVD player and the thousand remote controls I never got the hang of in the first place (good luck with that, guys!)  My daughter has yet to forgive me, but let's face it, if you possess a computer connected to a broadband network, there's not too many reasons to grieve: all of the networks are showing their wares in cyberspace, even if the commercial ones show that irritating, non-fastforwardable ad at the beginning.  One downside: unless you get recommendations from others, you end up missing out on some cracker shows, simply because you're not aware of their existence.

So I've belatedly become a fan of Beautiful People (thanks Liz!) and Glee (yes, I was already switched on to Mad Men, thanks to Michael).  I adore tv that has witty dialogue and a serious edge (Six Feet Under's earlier series being the best example of both).  Glee veers pretty close to cheese sometimes, and Beautiful People to slapstick, but they are redeemed by the utter gorgeousness of the characters, even the hideous ones.  I also love the way both series deal with the hard yards involved in creative endeavours - and the w*nkers and poseurs who occasionally, and generally temporarily, flourish in artsy environments (the Tracey Emin pisstake on BP was brilliant). 

The reason I've actually had some time to indulge in screen is because I've had a week off the dayjob to talk to kids at Churchlands Senior High School and Penrhos College, and to finish rewriting V Girls.  I really enjoyed being back in schools again, observing the different atmosphere each one creates, the way teachers interact with their students and vice versa, and the social order that is visible even to a visiting writer.  And oh, how I loved the cerese couches at Penhros - even though they so entirely matched my top that if I'd sat down, I would have vanished (as A.J. so rightly pointed out). 

Back to rewriting (sigh).  Oh, but wait - isn't there an episode of Glee I've missed? Then I'll turn it off.  I promise.

The art of illusion

Maybe everyone in the world has seen this, except me, but it's great.  Almost as good as this.

A different story

Yesterday I met B, a bright seven-year-old with French-plaited hair and flowers painted on her fingernails.  She has been doing some writing with the help of a wonderful young woman called Imogen; I read her A Girl Who Fell Into A Book; Imogen read me the latest installment of B's Magic Faraway Tree-inspired story series.  A few years ago, B had a car accident, and she can't move independently, nor speak - not in the conventional sense, anyway.  She makes her feelings clear with extraordinary facial expressions and mouthed words, and there is no mistaking her pleasure or otherwise.  Seeing B, and all the other children where she lives, with disability of varying but generally profound severity, forcibly reminded me of how utterly vulnerable we humans are, but how irreducible the spirit.  And made me reflect on all the parents and carers of these kids, the love and compassion that is so abundant (and yes, I know there is heartbreak too, and grief).  I was reminded of a radio show I heard about the mentally ill in India, and how so many of them are taken care of by people who take notice, and provide them with food and clothing in a matter-of-fact way.  Ordinary angels.

Also, B reminded me of the power of story.  In real life, B can't run, or climb a tree, or swim under the water, but in her stories she can.  And does.  And relishes every moment - you can see it in her eyes.