Margo Lanagan, plus some more Random Bits of News

Hello Bloggies -

Yet another week with only one post here. And on a friday, none the less. Talk about leaving things until the last minute.

But, in my defence, it's been a busy week. Also a really fun one. If exhausting. On Wednesday, I was lucky enough to spend the day with the wonderful author (and all round nice person) Margo Lanagan, who generously agreed to come down here to Canberra for a day to do a couple of lectures for my classes here at UC.

Margo, for the uninitiated, is the author of numerous novels and short story anthologies, most of which have won bucketloads of awards including (but not only) Hugos, Nebulas, Ditmars, Aurealis, Prinz Honours, CBCA awards, and many many others. Last year, her novel Tender Morsels was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel. (Also probably my favourite book of 2009, and which, as you can see, now has a spanky new cover by all round clever bugger Shaun Tan).

But most of you know that stuff already, so I won't bang on about it now.

Margo delivered two fantastic lectures for us. The first was a general talk about her creative process and the realities of life as a published, award winning author. One of the things I really love about Margo's approach to these things, and which I always find incredibly refreshing, is how completely grounded and down-to-earth she is in her treatment of these issues. As she took us through the writing process for Tender Morsels it became very clear to all present that here was a writer who took writing seriously - very seriously - but who at the same time was able to maintain a positive and sensible perspective on the balance between the writing life and 'real' life.

Her second lecture, which was to the literature studies class in which we're currently looking at Tender Morsels addressed all sorts of issues related to the novel, including its classification as 'YA', the tabloid media beat up in the UK which followed the book's release there, the use of violence and the inclusion of 'taboos' in writing, and about a dozen other equally interesting topics. It's always fun getting an insight into another author's ideas and creative process, not least because it enables me to flagrantly steal ideas and techniques for my own writing. (Which is fine to do, because Margo said so...)

All in all, Margo Lanagan Day was a really enjoyable one for all concerned at this end.

(For those interested, Margo is a prolfic twitterer, and can be found @margolanagan)

In other news, earlier in the week I got a package from Queensland, and inside it were two shiny new copies of the first print run of Daywards. After ten years, I'd expected to be all excited upon recieving these particualar books in the mail, but for the most part I have to say the predominant feeling was a profound sense of relief that it was all - finally - over.

The book looks very nice. Bright and, uhm... rather gold and shiny. (Dat Book gots bling, fo shizzle!) It also looks very, very nice parked beside Nightpeople and Skyfall. It'll hit the shelves on the 29th of March, but before then anyone lucky enough to be at the Somerset Celebration of Literature, between the 17th and 20th of March, can get an early copy from the bookshop there. On the first day of the festival the book will also be officially 'launched' by the very generous James Roy.

Anyway, that's it from me for the moment. Long weekend this week for all us ACT residents, and me and my little brood are off down the coast to Tathra.

Cheers
Tony

Nothing New Under the Sun.

Just in the last week or so, several people have asked me (jokingly) when I'll be launching my lawsuit against James Cameron. Apparently there's some similarities between Avatar (Which I've yet to see) and the Darklands Books - most particularly Skyfall.

Now, having only just watched the preview of Avatar, I can see that there might be some very broad similarities, but only in the same way that you can see broad similarities between, say, Les Miserables and Crime and Punishment. Sure they're both broadly about redemption, and there's some fairly common tropes about the nature of humanity in the face of moral dilemma, but the approaches to the story are fairly different.

It's got me thinking, though - one of the big risks you take whenever you put something creative 'out there' is the risk that someone's done it first. It's something that will, I suspect, happen to most writers at one point or another.

 I remember vividly one particular night in 2003 when Imogen and I were living in Brisbane and I was in the final editorial stages of Fireshadow. About three months before the book was due for release, I read David Metzenthen's Boys of Blood and Bone, which had just hit the bookshelves.

Imagine: There it was - a YA story set in the World War One (mine was in WW2), with two protagonists both in their upper teens (same as mine). One has gone off to fight the war (same as mine), while the other is a contemporary youth struggling with that period immediately after school (same as mine.) The chapter structure was the same - each chapter alternating between past and present with the present narrative told first. The similarities - especially across the first half of David's book - went on and on. The breaking point for me was when I got to the point where his protagonist goes off overseas unknowingly leaving his lover pregnant (Same as mine). That was when I yelled an obscenity and hurled the book across the room. 

I couldn't believe it. At that point I'd been working on Fireshadow for about five years. At that point I'd never met Dave Metzenthen. We'd never spoken, lived on opposite sides of the country and yet had managed to come up with two remarkably similar books, on similar topics and with similar narrative approaches, just six months apart from one another.

Wierd.

But it's the nature of ideas, I guess. 

According to Stephen King (I'm paraphrasing here) a lot of the time writers have no idea where their ideas come from, or what particular forces are shaping the way they see the world, but it's fairly probable that if an idea has occurred to you, then somewhere, someone is working on something very similar. And when it happens, it's awful. That night reading Boys of Blood and Bone (which is a book I love, by the way) was one of the most horrible moments of my life.

I think the secret, though, is to make sure you put a lot of yourself and your own world into everything you create. That's where the differences lie. Someone might have the same idea as you, but as long as you make your story your story, chances are that the points of difference will shine through and lend your work the unique elements that all creative works need.

That said, if James Cameron wants to cut me in for a percentage of the royalties, I'm willing to talk...