Writing

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Trip to Bundanon Artist Residency - Stop #1

Posted by lorin, August 14th, 2008 in

Report on first leg of road trip to Bundanon Artists' Residency.

KEY STATISTICS

Expected time of departure: 10am.

Actual time of departure: 1.30pm.

Reason for delayed departure: technological malfunction (Stew's iPhone died).

Kilometres traveled: approx 190 kms.

Percentage of those kilometres traveled in the Carlton/North Fitzroy area making "final arrangements" before leaving: 10%

Number of arguments regarding the packing of the car: none. This is due to Stewart's superior skills in this area. Here is a month's worth of stuff and both of our offices packed into a ford laser:

 

By the way, probably the number one thing it's best not to forget by thinking "That's obvious, I'll pack that later" when packing for a month of writing: your laptop. Yairs... Don't worry, Stew found it in time.

I write this from the freezing cold but very gorgeous Mansfield. Somewhere near this squiggly line:

 

In fact, we're right near the Subway, which, as Stew noticed, is 15 metres from here:

 

Also, I see from the cinema screen someone has erected in the local pub above the bar that the Australian women have been swimming back-to-back relays all day. They must be exhausted. From my calculations, they've won nineteen medals since dinner time. Good for them. Either that or they are REPLAYING THE SAME RACE OVER AND OVER AND WE NEVER SEE ANY OTHER FOOTAGE OF ANYTHING EVER AGAIN IN OUR LIVES. Dunno.

 

 

Tomorrow: Jamieson, Bright, cold, rain, potentially snow... life is good.

Signage

Posted by lorin, July 21st, 2008 in

Sign in a mountaineering shop in the middle of the city: Now Is The Winter of Our Discount Tents.

 

Hands up if you have an arts degree and you work in retail.

 

Definitely worth it.

Weekends

Posted by lorin, July 18th, 2008 in

Weekends are for resting, aren't they.

 

That's what I figure. So I go away for a nice break and I usually find myself naturally coming to write the odd thing.

 

On the weekends when I fight the relaxation and decide to work, I find myself sitting inside with my laptop looking out the window at people who are not fighting their desire to have a proper weekend full of relaxing and walking about aimlessly in parks.

 

This weekend, I intend to relax but am aware that there is a hidden intent to write. Does this count? I am trying to psych myself into the right mindset. Whatever that might be.

 

Have a good one.

Glimpses

Posted by lorin, July 10th, 2008 in

When you write, or I guess when you do anything that involves watching how other people exist, you find yourself being delighted by the smallest things. I had one of those moments last night when I was watching Lateline Business (although I have to be honest: I am clever enough to watch Lateline but not nearly clever enough to understand a blind word of Lateline Business. It's like the degree of difficulty increases the more tired you get).  

 

So anyway. I'm watching Lateline Business and trying to remember what the All Ordinaries might be when they're at home with their carpet slippers on... and there's a guy doing a report, very serious, lots of nodding and agreement with Leigh Sales about the state of things and whether there's likely to be any improvement as a result of something or other over the next period of something or other else... and behind him, in the background, is an office.  So there's this guy looking down the barrel of the camera and he's extremely focused on the matter at hand (something about impending global financial doom) and he's talking about the work he does for Macquarie (otherwise known at The Millionaire Factory, or it the Billionaire factory? I don't know, I'm merely a hundredaire factory at the moment) and there's a huge sign to his left that says Macquarie, for those viewers who may be deaf. In the background is, presumably, the office at Macquarie.  

 

Now, nothing devastating happened. Nobody mooned the camera. Nobody waved at mum at home. In fact, the beauty of it was that nobody in the office knew there was a bloke in a bowtie talking earnestly with Leigh Sales down the line at the ABC, apparently. But there was this one guy, and remember this is only just before midnight, who had his back to the camera and was sitting in a chair a whole open-plan-office away from where bowtie man was being interviewed. He's about an inch high to the top right of my TV screen.  He stood up from his office chair, still looking at the computer screen, back to the camera, and he sighed. You could see his shoulders drop. Our bowtie guy was talking about inflation and consumer confidence and stuff, but this guy was sighing. He was wearing, I seem to remember, a pink shirt, so your eye was drawn from bowtie man and the Macquarie sign, towards this guy with his pink shirt and his deep sigh.  

 

Then he raised his arms in the air. For a moment, it was unclear where he might be going with this. Was this an exclamation of joy? Was it an appeal to the heavens? The night before last, I saw a film called Hancock, about an ordinary bloke who could fly. It seemed to me that Pink Shirt Guy might just be preparing for takeoff.  He then proceeded to stretch. He grabbed his right hand with his left (both arms still aloft) and he swung like a pendulum in the background of the interview on Lateline Business. He then had a crack at the other side. He did a bit of basic physics after that, swinging his torso around in a little semicircle as he continued (I surmised) watching the computer screen. Then he looked briefly out of the window (what was he thinking about?) and he sat back down.  

 

I'm sure finance would fascinate me if I knew the slightest thing about it. I'm sure it would help significantly in my attempts to understand the workings of society and to detest capitalism while simultaneously admiring its superstructure or something. Somehow, though, for me, I understand a great deal more about society from watching Pink Shirt Guy having his little break in the middle of the night in his Millionaire Factory office, looking out the window and enjoying the simple sensation that is swaying. I see small children doing this. Testing out gravity. Leaning forward on their toes until they fall. Having a private moment with just them and the universe.  

 

I know I am probably presuming all sorts of things in this mini narrative that I don't even realise. I'm probably being patronising and pretentious and projecting my own simplistic romanticism on what is a fairly ordinary picture of a dude who is richer than I am but not as rich as BowTieGuy and who is simply having a stretch and letting his mind go blank, but it's not that I think it MEANS anything. It's just that it's a privilege sometimes, to get a glimpse into another person's universe, and to think your way into it, somehow.  It's one of the reasons I write. Pink Shirt Guy is one of the reasons I write. I wonder if he knows that.  

 

Probably thinks of little else.

 

A few overlooked contenders

Posted by lorin, July 3rd, 2008 in

I have subsequently found a few more contenders for the Best Writing In An As Yet Unrecognised Field, subsection: Text Messages. They are:

 

1. Tim Bain (already nominated in another category) for a text message that came in after I was misquoted in The Age saying that I wanted to hand in my citizenship documents and leave the country. Knowing this would not have pleased me, Tim sent the following text:

Bon Voyage, traitor!

 

2. A housemate of mine wrote the following text message when I was at the supermarket and she had stayed home:

Toilet paper? she asked hopefully.

 

3. Another housemate, home sick and having taught herself knitting:

I didn’t want such a long scarf but I don’t know how to cast off.

(Quite a nice metaphor I've always thought)

 

4. Stewart again, to Rita and myself:

Greetings fellow existers!

 

5. My friend Annabelle, who saw our 2007 comedy festival show which included a small appearance from Jane Austen in an Elizabethan style dress that I thought nobody would recognise:

I think my favourite thing was jane austen wearing your formal dress.

 

6. And lastly, from Melanie Howlett, Standing There Captain of Industry, who took me to my first Sydney Writers' Festival and saw Alex Miller reading at a session at which our table, quite literally, caught fire. Some months later, I texted Mel because I had seen Alex Miller at my local cafe. For several days, I got no response. Then:


This is a belated wow how cool that you saw alex miller! Had to google him before responding. See you very soon!
 

 

I love people. And it's going to be a tough decision from the judges, oh yes indeed.

 

Awards

Posted by lorin, July 2nd, 2008 in

Yesterday, on the topic of writing fiction, I mentioned that the category of Writing Good Emails should not be disregarded as a category worthy of praise. I have subsequently been thinking about other writing categories deserving of awards. 

For example:

Best text message

Definitely an overlooked but richly layered category, with many deserving nominees. Although this is of course contentious, I would be dishonest not to nominate my two Standing There Productions counterparts, Mr S. Thorn and Ms R. Walsh. After some consideration, here are a few nominees. I am of course open to submissions from the public in relation to this hotly contested category.

Nominee #1

R. Walsh, for her 4am text message after a massive week of hard work, at an event featuring free drinks:

"Hello. I an shambles".

I think this entry has everything. Polite salutations, information, a personal confession, and a subtext. A very hard entry to beat.

Nominee # 2

S. Thorn, for a text message that arrived just as I should have been leaving the house to get to a wedding. At the exact moment at which I was deciding perhaps I should change back into the original dress because I looked hideous and this dress and what was I thinking, comes the following message from Stew, who was two hours' drive away, in Bendigo:

"You look wonderful".

Again, this is a short message with a whole lot of punch. On the surface, it's a loving expression of support. Reading between the lines, however, it is a comment on the predictability of the always late and badly prepared recipient who should be leaving the house now, if not five minutes ago. It also provides a context for all the other times the nominee in this category uses the expression "You look wonderful", given that in this circumstance, he is prepared, sight unseen, to encourage the recipient to leave the house, regardless of whether or not she looks like an urchin character out of "Oliver!" This is either very encouraging or very discouraging, depending on your take on the nominee in this category, who is very lovely but also as cheeky as hell. 

Nominee # 3

My sister, who sends me messages such as:

"Great day for up!"

... which should in my view be the tagline for any anti-depression initiatives that might be in search of a tagline. It's from a children's book, and the above text message usually happens in Spring. 

 

There are of course more nominees in this category but I thought I'd get started. It's a big job, compiling forms of writing that are yet to be recognised in the form of awards, but I think I'm the girl for the job. 

 

As I say, submissions welcome. 

 

Things Writers Like

Posted by lorin, June 24th, 2008 in

Things Writers Like

- Eavesdropping (someone wearing headphones near your interesting conversation? If that person is a writer, there is a 98% chance the ipod is on pause).

- Book launches (free food, free drink, someone reads a section of the book so you never have to read it but can opine with authority).

- Describing the act of searching "funny animals" on youtube as not only research but a tax deduction.

- Hearing about other people's day jobs (you did WHAT for eleven hours? They told you off for wearing WHAT? etc).

 

Things Writers Do Not Like

- The fact that other people get paid actual money for their day jobs (you did WHAT for eleven hours? They paid you HOW MUCH?)

- Dreadful television shows made with public money and used as an argument for importing ready-made TV programs from overseas.

- The fact that membership of the Australian Writers' Guild, which is apparently designed to support Australian writers at all stages of their careers, costs more than a second-hand laptop, a freelance paycheque, or, you know, searching the internet for tax-deductable funny animals for two months.

- People who think any word ending in a vowel must have an apostrophe insterted between the vowel and the letter 'S' in the event of the word being plural. Hence tomato's.

 

Tomato is, says the writer. Tomato is what?

 

Then the writer realises that sometimes, there is another thing the writer doesn't like:

 

- The writer does not like the writer.

 

This only happens briefly and is usually solved by going outside and eavesdropping. Hence:

 

Workman 1 to woman walking down street: Oop. Sorry.

Woman: No, you're right.

Workman 1: No, no, after you. Beauty before... what are we?

Workman 2: Brawn.

Workman 1: Feckin brawn. Beauty before brawn.

 

 

See? Everything's better after those little moments.