A Postponement, An Apology and A Hearty Recommended Read

Due to foreseen illness I have delayed the first book of 52 for the year. I assure you it was worth the wait. So much so that - and this is highly unusual - I refuse to finish the book. It's that good. I've put off the last 50 or so pages because when it is done it will no longer be a parallel world, it will simply be a story in the past. I've come to terms with that and have set a side 3 pages a night, like dessert. My only solace lies in the fact Joseph Boyden has two previous novels awaiting my attention.

The book in question is Canadian writer Joseph Boyden's Through Black Spruce. The story unravels by alternating between two narrators. The first is Will, an aboriginal bush pilot with a penchant for alcohol. He is in a coma and begins to wander through his life, telling his story to his two nieces Annie and Suzanne.

Suzanne, a successful model disappeared with her boyfriend Gus Netmaker, the youngest in the Netmaker clan. A clan well known to import cocaine and crystal meth into the community of Moosonee with help from their underworld connections. While her family holds out little hope that she's alive, her sister Annie continues to hope. Annie follows her sister's life through the modeling world in Toronto then New York, wearing her clothes, meeting her friends, staying at the same places and even sharing the same modeling agent.

Annie comes home to Moosonee and talks to her uncle in a coma, telling him everything of her life for the past few months. Her only solace lies in the mute aboriginal man she found in Toronto who knew something of her sister. Together they live in a small cabin, writing notes, trapping marten and commuting to town by snowmobile.

The danger of two first-person narratives situated in the past is that there is no present story arc and little suspense. However, Boyden manages this extremely well, making sure there is a present story and the reader is compelled to read on to find out how this all unfolds.

Boyden depicts the harsh Canadian landscape with love. With each character and event the small town gains weight, fleshing out the story so it seems real, that these are real people and this story is the only one they belong to. Overall a ten!

Dear Writing, In Your Absence...

I am aware of the infrequent posts here on Devoted To Books. Fortunately my writing is going far better than my blogging. Yay for me! Every day I'm getting closer to completing the major over-haul on my novel and it's turning out better than I could've thought. There is one reason for this: reading. Reading copious amounts of literature. Good and bad.

Books. For some reason reading places me in the correct headspace to write. Books are why I started this blog in the first place. Admittedly I'm not a critic. Nor is it my desire to be. I once told Steven Hall (Raw Shark Texts) that I bought his book because it received rave reviews, which I don't usually do - I liked to purchase books with crappy reviews because I felt bad for them and because I thought it built up decent karma. I digest what I'm reading, sure, and I'm able to (on the most part) recognise literary nuances. But write about them? And I have one of the worst memories on the planet (what was that song again?) so I'm not going to regurgitate my undergraduate knowledge here. I'm going to tell you bluntly why I enjoyed the book, and what I didn't. Think of it more like talking to your book club (without the stuffy members and unsatisfied married women).

One thing that keeps my writing on track is a deadline. Thus, a deadline is needed for this blog. I pledge from now on to review a book weekly for one year. That's 52 books. It's an easy target. However to write about them will be interesting. I hope you think so too.

The first book up is Through The Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden. Besides his white straight-as teeth and dashing good looks, this 38 year-old writer is Canadian. And Canadian literature is something I'm embarrassingly starved for. Review to come next Saturday folks. That's Sunday for all you Australians.

My New Side Project

Well I'm back from New York and Ottawa and I tell you, what a trip! The Australian High Commissioner was a blast (he gave me some wise advice on my career - bodice rippers are the way to go as far as money earners. But don't put vampires in because they are passe and werewolves will never be sexy).

Yay, now I'm an official Aussie and I loved New York. I learnt something everyday. Example: Two young men sitting next to me on the subway were discussing how their friend just received a year in jail and how they were going to mess up the lawyer when a gaggle of young women boarded the train carriage. The guys then proceeded discussing 'taco butt', which is, by their standards, slang for a narrow butt. I do not suffer from taco butt, but ever the optimist I put it down to an addition to my street cred.

Since I'm back and the novel revision is coming along in strides, I've decided this is a great time to start up my side project. Take a gander here to investigate the matter further: thebiographer.wordpress.com

Above is a photo I took passing the the Lady of Liberty on the Staten Island Ferry. Below are a few other New York photos I took on the whirlwind tour.

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The Brooklyn Bridge.



Crossing the Canadian border into New York. Yes, their was drugs on our train carriage and we sat there for two hours.



Times Square.



A Christmas tree on Wall Street.



Our ride in Central Park.

What Tom Hanks and I Have In Common

Think Tom Hanks, and the generation Y of us think Turner and Hooch. At least I do. Or Big. His acting skills aside, turns out ol' Tommy has a quirk or two up his sleeve. He was interviewed earlier this year, by I forget who, and spoke of his collection - typewriters. Apparently he has stored up over 150 of these marvellous machines. Portables, Manuals, Remington to Hermes to Czechoslovakian wonders. Until then I was naive enough to believe typewriters were all dull like the electrical late 80s Corona machine my cheap ass father bought me when I asked for a computer in the mid 90s. The thing barely printed, had none of the character of its predecessors, and looked like the front end of a '81 Audi. My father seemed to worry about the use of computer technology, and thought I'd spend my days chatting online to people across the world. Turns out he was right in the end.

Back to the beautiful beasts. Yes, folks typewriters come in mint green to grapefruit, small or large. Who would've guessed vintage typewriters are good for more than their glass keys, used to make those 'bracelets' hanging in the accessory store windows. Being the sort I am, dabbling in words here and there, I was, er, am enamoured. I needed to source a gold mine and naturally hit up search engines before finally settling on a beautiful Remington Model 5 Portable from Ebay. It cost more than I had anticipated (around $200) but it is in decent nick and it came from Australia (very important to me). So now my collection is under way.

The last collection I had was the peanut butter jar of erasers. I ate them all, which might explain why my digestive system completely hates me. Wait I told a lie. The last collection I had was letters from pen pals, who I'd find in the back of old Horse and Rider magazines. I kept the letters in an old cream and gold suitcase and opened them with a gold letter opener with a rose on it. I suppose you're meant to write back to pen pals, which could explain why I the collection never flourished. Hopefully this collection is more successful.

Australian Citizenship, Canada, And New York City

I’m off to New York Citeee, folks! That’s right, land of theatre, shopping, history and literature. I couldn’t be happier. Well, yes, I could, but that would be greedy. Besides I haven’t been too happy of late and this unexpected trip has me excited. Australia hangs over my life here in Canada and some days it’s hard to see the sun. But in seven mere sleeps I will be an official Australian Citizen! (Oh so many exclamation marks in this paragraph, apologies.)

I’m heading to Ottawa to complete the final leg of my Australian Citizen journey, after nearly nine years, and Canada is making it extra special. Apparently the Australian High Embassador will be hosting the ceremony at his official residence because the rare, upcoming pomp and circumstance is the largest Australian Citizen shindig Canada has seen. To celebrate all this multiculturalism I’m popping across the border to celebrate in New York City.

This will be my first visit, and with only a five days scheduled the clichéd Big Apple, I am frantically googling, querying friends on hot spots, and scanning Lonely Planet’s New York Encounter for anything ‘not-to-miss’ (A highly recommended publication – saved my life in Paris). Since my younger sister is accompanying me, and we were both raised by a mother who displays her Christmas spirit by leaving all the decorations up year round, we can’t wait to skate beneath the lit tree at Rockefeller Center and stroll along the streets gazing at Macy’s store-front windows.

Now, with the writing studio finished, I just have to complete my novel’s revision and pick out a book for the plane. Me thinks I’ll chose Robert Bolano’s 2666 or Meg Rosoff’s new novel The Bride’s Farewell.

Writing Studio Vs Writer

Ahh, let this be a lesson to all the fellow stationary-living writers out there: you are more than likely unfit. Do not attempt to build a writing studio out of straw unless you train beforehand. Possible exercises include: 25 squats a day for two months, 50 pushups a day for two months and vast cardiovascular training. Also do not plan on writing during the build. Deadlines will be forfeited.

Okay, warnings aside, I'm really happy about how the straw studio is progressing.



At the time this photo was taken it was September. Hot days lifting bales, but I loved it. Tying the bales was laborious and my muscles ached more than having H1N1 (I know, I have it). The floor was environmentally friendly, made of washed sand, poly, sleepers and rigid insulation. No heat escaping here!



Then Pa and Brady put their man muscles to use and helped raise the window bucks (notice the budding building lingo) and door thingy (note the lack of building lingo).



By the time we started raising the walls until we finished was about four days with two of us working until we couldn't lift a glass of water to our lips. But just look at how cute it is. And just imagine all the writing I'm going to complete in wonderful insolation. (At this point I thought the hard work was mostly over, oh the naivety!)



Then came the rain. Poly tarpage to the rescue.





Then disaster struck. My Morgan mare of 18 years, and my first horse, passed away due to colic that lasted 5 horrible days. Two weeks later our Thoroughbred mare erupted into hives. The culprit is believed to have grown in our upper paddock this spring.



The wire mesh goes on. Oh. My. God. This was hard work, and definitely a formidable foe. At this point it is October and we've had record-breaking cold temperatures, which meant the stucco had to be done asap, before it snowed. Also I do not recommend weed-whacking the inside walls (even with a mask) for asthmatics.



Inside is scratch-coated.



Other than some paint on the boards, the outside it done, and by golly it feels great.



The inside walls are in the process of being painted white (yeah, this is where the H1N1 hit). The black ceiling is yet to be tacked up and the floorboards still need to be laid. Then think of the finished bliss. Watching the snow peter down from the sky, settling on the pine branches, sipping hot cocoa with a cozy blanket, tapping on the ol' typewriter. Bliss indeed. More to come.

Curse Of The Second Novel

So in 2004 I made a pledge with myself. "I shall raise good karma by purchasing and reading books that receive bad reviews". Sounds like a bad plan, right? I'm setting myself up for more than a few boring reads? Yes, but mostly no. In 2005 I saw John Banville speak in a basement bookshop in Melbourne. He said he'd only review the books he deemed worthy of promotion, not ever publishing a bad review of a book. I agreed with the theory. Then came poor Matthew Skelton and his children's novel Cirrus Flux.

First off let me begin by saying one of those critical despised books was Matthew Skelton's debut novel Endymion Spring. The review was published in The Age, declared the book to be too derivitive of Harry Potter, an all-together easy out for a reviewers these days not familiar with a multitude of fantasy books written for children and young adults. Yes, believe it or not, not all fantasy was written after JK Rowling's famous series. Yes, some books contain magic. It's not necessarily automatically derivative of the boy wizard. Anyhoo. After reading the synopsis of Endymion Spring and not understanding in the slightest how it deserved the bad review I purchased it and was moderately pleased when I read it. It wasn't like HP at all, just as I suspected. I liked it enough to buy Skelton's second novel which came out July 2009, Cirrus Flux. That's where my good karma comes undone.

As soon as one makes the shift from reader to writer, the reading experience changes. I have become more distanced from the story, admittingly, and more observant of craft. Unfortunately that's where Matthew Skelton falls short of skill with his second novel. Tauted as the Dan Brown of children's literature, he likes to mingle historical facts with fiction. I admit the facts he uses are interesting, but in the case of Cirrus Flux, they feel malaligned with the rest of the narrative. It feels as though he's spent more time with his historical research than imagining his two protagonists, Cirrus Flux and Pandora.

Cirrus and Pandora are two orphans who live in an okay orphanage until Pandora is swept away by the overtly evil Madam O who is after the sphere Cirrus Flux's father left him, which is believed to contain the Breath of God. Why? What does the Breath of God do? We never know, nor are we given any clues. So how does the reader know what is at stake? Why would the world crumble if she were to have the sphere? Cirrus doesn't give it much thought but goes to great lengths to keep it from her anyway. Pandora puts her life on the line to save a sphere she knows nothing about. The story would've benefited from a more character driven plot, like all decent stories, instead of feeling like the plot was predetermined and the characters just slotted into the outline, stuffed between crags of historical fact.

We are led through this story, sifting through massive amounts of Pullman's His Dark Materials. There is a difference between inspiration and imitation and Skelton walks a pretty dangerous line with this book. The line by line writing seems less sophisticated than its predecessor. The only character I was interested was Madam O's loyal servant, who even in the end chooses to stay by her side, albeit blindly. Even the setting (Oxford) wasn't fully imagined, and could've been richly developed to create more atmosphere.

Perhaps Skelton was working to a deadline. Maybe he didn't feel as compelled by his second novel. Whatever failed this book let Skelton's burgeoning fanbase dwindle in anticipation for his third novel.

Virginia Woolf and The Country Writing Studio

Alright, so I've been extremely slack with the bloggin (notice the dropped 'g', I'm trying to be more Canadian). Truth is I've been slack in the writing department all around. This move to Canada was extremely upsetting to the creative mojo. While family is great they come with drama (whose doesn't?). And there's been plenty of drama, let me assure you!

Returning home for a tentative year to live with my parents in their country town (yes, I did just turn 28 thank you for noticing) and driving my mother's old '91 Topaz is distructive to the ego, even if it's just a launching pad for me to build my own house. I've already had a few 'The Hours' re-enactions of Nicole Kidman's famous Virginia Woolf scene 'I'm dying in this town'. Except I furthered my scene by adding 'I want to go home to Melbourne' and my nose wasn't nearly so large. I think we've settled on splitting our time between Canada and Australia evenly, we've just yet to figure out how to do that on one wage.

But I haven't died yet...yet. And conjunctions aside, the straw bale writing studio is underway! That's right doubters, the stone foundation is layed. These keyboard-typing fingers of mine are capable of astonishing feats!

Here's a photo journal of the process.



1. Luckily my Pa is handy with a backhoe and familiar with trees. This one was guilty of a falling branch last winter, causing the imminent demise of the horse shelter. More importantly we have firewood forever and no one was killed during the process.



2. Okay so I like design and love when things look good, so after a lengthy discussion with Pa, I refused his advice on pouring a solid concrete foundation and went with the infinetly more asthetically pleasing stone foundation. And more environmentally friendly. Sure, I fainted on the first row but I surived. **Please note the structure in the background has nothing to do with my project. It's horse shelter the II. Also my Pa has a habit of copying me, the old bugger. Look at him in his green shirt with his bobcat, thinking he rules the mountain.



3. The supervisor is on sight. Some of you might remember my chihuahua on the 'Yawn Factor' post eariler this year. He's now found his calling. Also the ground has been smoothed and I've learnt how to mix mortar, use a level and rebar stakes. Oh and how to make things 'pretty' much square. This is only the outside wall, I had to still make the inside wall then fill in the center with found rocks and concrete.

Meanwhile this was the view from our house. Yes, it's a 8500 hectacre bush fire called the Terrace Mountain fire in the Okangan, British Columbia.







4. We leveled out the interior of the studio with wet sand first. Okay, Pa built me a simple inside form. I was all about the concrete after the physical demands of the outside stone wall. To rid any guilt I had about the environment I used a lot of rocks too. It was blasted hot so we layed down poly to keep the cement from drying too fast.

This is where this post ends my friends. You see, my poor studio has been awaiting the harvest of local straw. In just a few days I shall be the owner of 110 straw bales, ordered from an enthusiastic farming lady who uses far too many smiley faces in her emails. I love her though, secretly.

Recent Publications

Over the past month or so, I've had a few more pieces accepted for publication. Woo Who?

JAAM (Just Another Art Movement)

This New Zealand annual, out of Wellington, has published a short story of mine. This is my first New Zealand publication and it means a great deal because my partner is a Kiwi and so I hold a soft spot for the land of rolling hills and pinky bars. The 2009 edition is edited by Ingrid Horrocks and will be out this September. Bookmark it.


Toward The Light: Journal of Reflective Word & Image

I'm happy about publishing my short story in this Canadian biannual considering they have previously published a favourite author of mine, Susan Musgrave of Cargo of Orchids fame. You haven't read it? Read it. There's drugs, murder and love. It's what I imagine a South American soap opera to be, but with three dimensional characters.

BLOCK

BLOCK is a biannual out of Canberra. They have kindly accepted my poem Attachment. Issue 8 is being launched June 4th!

[untitled] A Melbourne Writers Magazine

Shrouded in mystery and veiled in a facebook homepage, this brand new writing shindig have published my poem To My Music Man, a little diddy ode to my main Kiwi squeeze and our mutual love for the musical genius of Bon Iver.

Matrix

A quarterly out of Canada, have published my poem 'Acquiring A Strange Thing' in the 82 edition. Side note: any one entering POP Montreal this year?

Plethora of Literary Wonderments and Ramblings

Those of you curious cats who find your way to my rant will know about the impending shift of countries (mine not the countries'). I'm ultra pleased to announce the Bookshelf Doomsday over! All are coming with me. To ensure this happens they are all packed in tidy boxes and situated in a prominent location next to the front door. To celebrate this triumph appropriately I bought more books.

Having said that I have a reading stack to devour that would make the Eiffel Tower blush, I should know, I've seen such wonders. These are books lent to me, given to me and lovingly brought back as gifts from Swine Flu land, ol' Me-hi-co itself. The list: The Collected novels of McCullers, Salt by Maurice Gee, Ghoul by Maurice Gee, The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, and Winds of Heaven (yeah, not the best title) by Judith Clarke. To top it all off the most recent edition of The Paris Review has landed!

I started reading Salt before bed. It's a fantasy novel about a boy who searches for his enslaved father in the deep salt mines run by Company (political and social philosophy abound, which Text Publishing seem to encourage, after publishing the likes of Genesis by Bernard Beckett). There's a dash of mind reading, mixed with the adventure of crossing the mysterious terrain with a Dweller woman and a Company girl who has fled a forced marriage. The writing is clean and acute, but the first night after reading I had nightmares about ravenous wild dogs. In the story they eat the boy's old man friend because the boy sends them too. Not to worry, the old man is hopefully dead first. The second time I read this before bed - nightmare town. A coincidence? By the third round of reading Salt before bed and having subsequent nightmares, I've labelled it day time reading only. Not sure if Ghoul will have such dark undertones but I'm guestimating it will. Hell, at least there's no wizards or dragons, which seem to dominate children's and YA fantasy at the moment.

So now I read The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, and dream of Mick, the prom party-hosting, smoking kid from the south (dang, I could've had a whole novel of just her). It's amazing isn't it that the American Southern writers have such distinct voices? McCullers work reminds me of Faulkner, whom I love, not just for the structure and multiple narrator point of view, but tone and mood.

But I couldn't leave the recent issue of The Paris Review in its wrapping. And I'm so glad I didn't. The first short story by James Lasdun The Hollow felt like home so much it almost made me homesick, until I realized I'd soon be up in the mountains, meeting my neighbours on horseback and hearing the local gossip, which my mother all ready fills me in on: the teenager living across the street had a baby, the bed and breakfast pricks next door sold to a young English couple who don't get along with the previous owner still living on the property, the gay couple behind our house are still probably growing drugs in their field (but no one really knows) and the hillside is looking pretty bare because the pine beetle have eaten all the pines. There now you're up to speed too.

The best news is that I've been granted permission to build a straw bale studio on my parents' property, using all reclaimed materials for an environmentally friendly space. I've already got a professional photographer on the books to document the raising of the 'Writing Shed'. No one seems to think I can build it. My mother says I have no muscles (OK, I admit it, I thought the new Melbourne train seats were broken for a week until I realised they were not - I just didn't have the strength to fold them down). We'll see. I anticipate sweat, and a certain level of disaster. This blog will host it all, starting this July.