What I did on My Weekend.

Busy busy... blah blah blah... busy.... no time to post... sorry... blah blah*

So last year for his birthday, Min and I bought her brother, my awesome BIL a half day stunt driving course as his present. I was very jealous. So for Christmas, Min got the same thing for me.

Then we were both very excited. We picked a date. We booked ourselves in. We talked about it. A lot.

Then, three days before we were due to drive up to Sydney for the experience, the NSW Traffic Police shut down the operation, apparently on the basis that the Eastern Creek Raceway qualifies as a public road, and that we were therefore obligated to drive according to the road rules. Which don't allow for driving on two wheels, jumping over ramps, or doing high speed handbrake turns. More's the pity**

Luckily, we'd purchased our experiences through Redballoon, who have a great returns policy, so we decided to cast around for something else.

Then we found this.

Now, I'm something of an aviation junkie. I might have mentioned this before. My dad was a pilot, and worked for the Civil Aviation Authority so I grew up on airports and around planes. I like planes. A lot. When I'm rich and famous***, I'm going to actually get my pilot's license.

In the meantime, I've also spent more than a few hours playing with Microsoft Flight Simulator****

So this was ideal. And a couple of weeks ago, we drove up to Bankstown airport for the afternoon, and spent two hours pretending to be pilots. And despite a few technical issues with the simulator (having to fly it from the co-pilot's seat, for example) it was awesome fun. I won't bore you with the entire 2 hour, 20 minute video (though I can, if you're interested...) but here we are flying the short hop from the new Hong Kong airport across to the old one - which had one of the more difficult and spectacular landings anywhere in the world. I'm off camera in the (co) Pilot's seat, with my BIL right in front of camera. Excuse the dodgy takeoff, too (and the language!) - the simulator's rudder pedals were a little... awkward.

... and who says grown-ups shouldn't play with toys?


*You've heard all this before, so I've decided to condense. 
** Not really. I'm actually a big fan of road rules.
*** Clearly not in the foreseeable future.
**** Though sadly, not for the last couple of years, owing to lack of suitable computer, and lack of suitable time.

Telephones, or why technology is bad for writers.

Don't worry. I'm sitting here bashing this out using my speech recognition software, while searching out links and images on my new iPad. I don't really think technology is bad for writers. Or at least, not bad for writing...

You might remember that late last year, among all the fun and games that is the silly season,  my lovely publishers at University of Queensland Press put out the new edition of my 2001 book A New Kind Of Dreaming. One of the nice things about having a new edition released is that it gives you the kind of reassurance that your writing hasn't dated.

Actually, this is something I often tell writing students to be very aware of, particularly when writing young adult fiction – there's this difficult balancing act  between being relevant and contemporary, and being too ‘trendy’ (for want of a better term), in which case you run a very real risk of your work becoming very quickly dated. The first of my Nathan Nuttboard books, for example, includes a scene where the main character and his sister have a fight because she's stolen the batteries to his Discman CD player. Remember those? When I wrote that book they'd been around for about a twenty years, and were – in my opinion – just the coolest things ever. And they were exactly what a boy of Nathan's age would've used to wile away the hours of a long car journey.

Image and excerpt from Nathan Nuttboard Hits the Beach

The thought of another 6 hours of tractor music and Nadine whispering “crap" every five seconds was almost too much to take. I dug around behind the seat and pulled out my Discman. At least I could do something about the music.

I put in my favourite CD, Machines of Blood and Glory. I don't actually like the music all that much, but Narelle absolutely hates it, so I tend to play quite a bit. The best thing about a Discman is that you can turn the volume up loud enough so that only the sound of the drumbeats escapes through the earphones. It's a little bit like having a mozzie buzzing around your ears in the middle of the night. Totally annoying, and there's nothing you can do about it. It would drive both of the girls crazy. I pressed play.

Nathan Nuttboard Hits the Beach was published in early 2002, hitting the shelves and almost immediately finding a solid readership and getting good reviews. What I hadn't factored in, however, was that a few months earlier – on 23 October, 2001, to be precise – the Apple Computer company had announced a funky new product. An odd little music playing device they called the iPod. And, of course, within 2 years the Discman as a piece of technology was effectively dead in the water. And so was that chapter of my book. I couldn't have timed it worse.

But of course, that's the problem with trying to write for posterity; you can't. It's impossible to predict – especially in this day and age, with technology being what it is – what the digital landscape is going to look like in 6 months, let alone in 10 years.

That's why I was thrilled when UQP agreed to re-release and repackage Dreaming – It's really nice to have a vote of confidence in the fact that I'm not the only one who feels that the book is still relevant and worth keeping on the shelves.

And I'm pleased to see that other people think so too; the talented Steph Bowe earlier this week posted this lovely review of the new edition on her blog. And she makes a very good point about telephones, too. Certainly when I was bashing out the first draft of Dreaming, in the late 1990s, mobile phones were technology on the increase, but certainly not as widespread or as powerful as they are today. In fact, the school where I was teaching at the time had a policy that all students with mobile phones were to turn them in at the office at the start of the day, and pick them up at the end. This was a school with roughly 800 students. There were regularly about 9 phones in the collection box. I don't imagine any school would even try enforcing such a policy today.

And, as Steph points out in her review, the rise of the mobile phone has in many ways made life a lot more difficult for the writer of realist action/adventure. Her observation that "about 90% of problems in novels can be solved with a phone call or text…" is so true.

Luckily, however, even mobiles have their weaknesses. Flat batteries, signal holes, or they might be attached to the Virgin mobile network in Canberra. There is a solution, of course, and that's to simply  set everything in a slightly alternative world or near future. But I suspect that's not entirely sustainable. All you can really do is 'future proof' your writing as much as is possible, try not to rely too much on contemporary trends and jargon, and cross your fingers.

In any case, thanks, Steph, for the lovely review. It's really nice to know that the book is still working after all these years.

And now I'm off to start work on my next novel. It's about a girl who develops a 'One Direction' app for her iPad2  ;)

Hiatus...

Hi.

Remember me?

I'm the guy that used to blog here, on a semi-regular basis.

Not lately though.

To be honest with you, I've been feeling really bad about my complete lack of bloggage in the last month or two, but I just haven't had the energy. Or the time.

Of course, the reasons are all the usual ones: utterly snowed under at work, teaching load, organising conference* having to host every communicable virus visiting Canberra, etc... etc... etc...

Plus that nasty old inertia - which I think I've mentioned here before. It's had me in a headlock the last month or two, and as a result I haven't written anything. Not an academic paper, not a goodreads review, not a book, not a blog post. I've written lectures, and a few tweets, a couple of grant applications, some peer reviews, a bunch of judge's comments for a writing competition, and a shitload of emails. So. Many. Emails. But nothing in the creative department.

And now, I feel a bit like Andrew McDonald.

But there is news. Most of it good. And many things to write about, so in the days ahead I'm going to do my best to ease back into the writing habit again, and get some stuff up. It won't be earth shattering or ground breaking, for the most part, but at least it'll be writing. Which is, after all, what it's all about.

So bear with me. I'll be back soon.

Promise.


*which is coming along nicely, by the way.

Tobography

On Saturday morning, while I was attempting to get through a mountain of laundry, Toby was wandering around the house with a toy camera pointing and clicking. Which gave me an idea;

Take my iPhone
Turn off the wireless
Fire up my 'Hipstamatic' photography app, which puts all sorts of funky filters across your pictures, all of which are designed – oddly enough – to make your high-tech digital photographs resemble old-fashioned analogue ones.
Set said application to randomise
Give phone/camera to 3-year-old

So off went my son, happily clicking away for about 45 min, during which time he managed to catch all manner of weird and crazy images. Going back through them, though, I found it fascinating viewing the world through his eyes–both looking at the subjects he chose, and the way he captured them.

And because sharing is caring, here they are:

Barbecue #1.


Barbecue #2


An extreme close-up of our (very tolerant) dog


An extreme close-up of his (very tolerant) mother


playground/kitchen


to be honest, I'm not hundred percent certain what this is. But it's pretty, nevertheless.


Weeds growing out of our patio. ( What can I say, it's been a rainy summer)


The back steps.


A table, and a toy box.


Toys #1


toys #2

aside from the fact that most of his photos are better than anything I could take, it was great fun just watching him taking these. From the point of view of someone who writes for children (whatever that means) I think this was also a useful reminder of the value of seeing the world through different eyes whenever possible.

The Artist

Something's Gotta Give…

So you might have noticed but I haven't been posting an awful lot here of late. This is not because I don't like you all, nor because I don't have anything to post about, but simply because of outright busyness.

The last few weeks have been what I can only describe as chaotic. In addition to the start of our teaching semester (and this semester I have 300 students, in 2 different units, in 3 different teaching modes), I've also been ramping up the organisation of the ACLAR conference which we are holding here in June, rewriting The Hunter to get it back to my agent, Cheryl (who made some awesome suggestions!) by next month, reworking my literary studies unit pretty much from the ground up, wrestling with the new online learning system that we have installed at the uni, putting together a couple of research grant applications with a colleague of mine, and, of course, trying to be a good dad.

So, of course, something had to give and sadly it's turned out to be ‘Musings…’

But don't abandon me quite yet! With a bit of luck the next few weeks are going to settle down somewhat, and I'll be back to some regular blogging. There's a few things I really want to write about, including the nature of criticism, some observations on the gender of characters, and I will probably mention horse riding (just for something different :-)

And if you are craving some slightly more regular blog updates from our family then I'm pleased to report that my gorgeous wife, Imogen, has rather taken up the blogging reins during the last month or so. One of the other things we've decided to do as a family this year is to try and visit at least one of the very many local fairs that happen around Canberra per month.Min will be blogging these as we do them, (as well as other random bits and pieces). So far we have visited the Lucky Dragon Chinese Cultural day at the National Museum, and the International Festival which takes over the centre of civic every year for a weekend.

So, anyway, that's just a quick update, apology, and explanation for my absence, but I will be back more regularly soon. Promise

Perhaps.

New Year's Resolution... (plus chickens, bikes and...other stuff)

I'm going to blog every week this year. Without exception. Except, obviously, for most of January...

Actually, I've been wanting to blog since the start of January – have had all sorts of things lined up to write about, but for some reason every time I start I get oddly ‘blocked’. Still, it doesn't matter, we're here now, and that's what's important.

So, first things first, Happy (very belated) New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lovely break, and my sincere wish for you all is that unlike me, you haven't had to go back to work yet.

This, by nature, is going to be something of a ‘newsy infodump’ of a post – so feel free to skip over it and come back next week if you wish.

Item 1 on the agenda: because this is a writing blog, after all, and because I know that you're all terribly interested in my desk, here's a link to the fantastic blog of Tristan Bancks (who, unlike other bloggers I could name, actually updates regularly) and the contribution he asked me to do for his ‘the writer's studio’ series of posts. I've always really enjoyed these particular columns on Tristan's blog – it's fascinating the multitude of environments and methods by which writers and artists and other creative people all accomplish similar goals. And, of course, it was lovely to be invited to be part of it.

Item 2: (and moving away from writing now, and into family news) we have chickens! For a few years now Imogen and I have talked about getting some chooks for the yard, but for various reasons (slightly insane dog, lack of chicken coop etc…) we have put off doing anything about it. Late last year, though, while wandering around at the fantastic Murrumbateman field day, we spotted these beautifully designed mobile chicken runs, and that (combined with the fact that our previously-mentioned dog had knee surgery last year and is no longer nearly as mobile as she used to be) inspired us to get our poultry acts together. So last week we picked up our 4 ‘girls’ (I use the quote marks there because, to be honest, there's about a 20% chance that at least one of them will turn out to be a rooster and then, soon after, dinner...) who are now happily scratching around in the yard. Their names (because I'm sure you all want to know) are Charlotte, Spot, Hedwig and Rosie Primrose. 100 points for anyone who can spot the theme…

Charlotte (or, Lottie - as she likes to be known)

L-R: Spot, Hedwig and Rosie Primrose

Item 3: just in case you're interested. Later this year I'll be turning 40 (Shock! Horror! (And, to be honest, parental amazement, I suspect))* by that point I would like to be just a little bit fitter than I am at the moment and so Toby and I, inspired by my sister's bicycle-powered lifestyle in Holland, have set ourselves up and started cycling into work/daycare every morning. There are lots of birds, playgrounds to explore, things to look at, creeks and lakes and, of course, singing. And I'm quite certain that riding along pulling an extra 30 odd kilos of boy, bags, and child seat on my already heavy bike is probably going to do my fitness ambitions no harm at all. One of these mornings, I'll take my camera along and post some pictures of the ride. In the meantime, here we are, arriving home after ride on a 34 degree, windy afternoon...


Item 4: 2012. It's going to be a very big, and busy year for me this year – semester starts again in just a couple of weeks, and then it will be into the usual breakneck world of teaching. In June I'm convening the biennial ACLAR conference here in Canberra (with my friend Shaun Tan and the incredible Professors Clare Bradford and Kerry Mallan as our keynote speakers) the organisation of which should make the first half of this year particularly ‘interesting’. After that, our little family are off for a three-week holiday in Vietnam and Indonesia, at least one week of which will be spent on a beach with my sister, her husband, their 3 girls, my parents, and an assortment of other friends and relatives. I've also got the 2nd of my ‘Hunter’ books to get written, and my fantastic new agent and I will no doubt get to work on finding a home for the 1st one.

Plus, as promised, weekly blog posts here :-)

So, anyway–that's pretty much everything happening in my world, at the moment. From next week I'll try and get back to some more regular and focused blog posts. Welcome back to Musings… for 2012, everyone.

*I'd also like to take this opportunity to apologise for the overuse of parenthesis in this post, and particularly for the awful nested example indicated here. (I know this bugs some people...)

Christmas, Something cool I made, plus a book...

Hi Everyone,

I've been on holidays from everything for the last two weeks - including the blog (not that that probably made a noticeable difference, given my consistency here this year...), but I wanted to pop by quickly and say a happy pre-emptive Christmas, and to show off a couple of things.

We like Christmas in our house, but this year, with a 3 year old who is suddenly really understanding lots of concepts like 'Father Christmas' and 'Presents', it's proving more fun than ever. So much so, that I've spent a good chunk of this week down in my shed making him this hobby horse:


I'm really proud of it. I made it from scratch, working without plans or a template, apart from doing a bit of googling and stealing several ideas from several different pictures on line. I love working with wood - there's something ineffably theraputic about it, I think. It also gave me an excuse to buy myself the hand router that I've been wanting for about five years....

My other little bit of book related news arrived in a postpack from UQP today. I mentioned earlier this year that I'd been re-reading my 2001 novel A New Kind of Dreaming ahead of a new edition. Well, the new edition is done, and it looks just great!



Actually, I'm pretty happy to see this book all dressed up and updated. It's been a consistent performer for me for a decade now, and it's still one of the books I'm proudest of. I wrote ANKOD at a very different time in my life, when I was very, very pissed off about a lot of things, and trying to work out how I felt about them. I also wrote it at the same time as the whole issue of boat refugees was being really politicised for the first time, and I'm pleased (though also rather sad) that it still reads as fresh and relevent today as it did back when I wrote it in the late 1990's.

Anyway, that's my little pre-christmas contribution. I'm planning to bash out something else next week, but before then I hope you all have a lovely, restful and joyous Christmas.