Words Words Words Words Words Worlds....

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that it didn't take me long after my July Blog-a-thon to slip back into my bad old ways, aren't you.

Well, have I got news for you!

Uhm.

You're right.

Still, here I am. With bronchitis, nonetheless. But the antibiotics are cutting in now, and I can go for up to half an hour without coughing, which is nice.

Anyway, on to the serious stuff.

I spend my life swimming in words: when I'm not writing them, I'm speaking them or reading them, or assessing them. My 'spare time' is spent either weaving them together or pulling them apart. My own words, other people's words - doesn't matter.

Worlds of words.

And, of course, the upshot of this is that - like most people - most of the time nowadays I take words for granted. It's gotta be a pretty special set of words to leap off a page and catch my attention, and most of the time I just swim through them without noticing how beautiful - how powerful and miraculous - even the simplest word is.

The reason I mention it is that Toby is starting to talk at the moment.

Well, technically he's been talking for a little while, now, a couple of months at least. He started his first basic words back in about April or May; 'mum' 'water' 'milk', that sort of thing.

But lately, something has gone 'click' in that little brain of his, and now he's picking up words on a daily basis: he repeats whatever we say. He points excitedly at anything he recognises and tells us what we're looking at (Drives home are great fun; 'Car! Car! Car! Bus! Car! Car! Car! Truck! Car! Tiger!*)

Every word is a delight, to him and to me. The sheer joy that is written all over his little face at just having that simple, most basic skill of communication; the ability to name an object, and the connection that comes with it, reminds me every time of the sheer beauty of human communication; of what it brings to a life, and of what you can do with it.

This was really driven home to me when we were in Perth a couple of weeks ago. To Min and my amazement, Toby's cousin, Meri, who's about 18 months older than him and therefore a much more fluent speaker, could talk to him, and understand exactly what he was saying to her, even when we couldn't.

"Toby is thirsty. He wants water." She'd tell us, and suddenly the last five minutes of Toby trying to climb up onto the kitchen bench made sense.

"Toby's being silly." Meri informed us one evening, just as our son tried his best to stick his tongue into a dripping tap.

Watching the two of them talk - and they had long conversations on a few occasions - was one of the delights of the trip. Just like watching this little growing miracle of language is an ongoing delight now.

If nothing else, it's been a really good reminder to me not to take my words for granted - every single little utterance that Toby makes is hard fought for; he struggles to get his tongue around difficult sounds, or to tack on that extra syllable, or to pick one word out of a string of others. But when he gets it, there's delight all round.

And as a final, vaguely related offering, here's a video that's been doing my head in slightly. It's an Italian parody of a 60's pop song, sung in gibberish, but designed to sound like American English. You'll go nuts trying to 'interpret' it.

Which, at the moment, is probably how Toby is experiencing the world, too.



*I said his vocab was expanding, but we're still working on the difference between a cat and a tiger...

Launching my Family

Right, so I promised a write up on the launch that we had for 'Daywards' at the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre while I was in Perth last week.

To be honest, I thought I was a bit over book launches - for my own books, at least. I didn't launch Into White Silence or the last couple of Nathan Nuttboard books, largely because I couldn't really see the point.

I'm actually regretting that decision now - I think it was a mistake.

I'll explain why.

Last tuesday night was a lovely evening. And I know that as the author of the book in question I'm undoubtedly a little biased, but the whole night had a really nice feel about it. Perhaps this was just because people kept saying nice things about me and my book, or because we got the booze out well before the speeches, or just because almost everyone there was related to me in one way or another, but there was a good vibe going on.

Before we got to the formal bit of the launch, there was a lot of catching up: People I haven't seen in years turned up out of the woodwork for this one including; our old neighbours from Greenmount with their little girl who I last saw when she was about 11, and who is now 18 and about 7 feet tall. My cousin (who I used to share a house with) and her husband who I thought were still living in England. My old piano teacher from when I was a kid and her son, who's read A New Kind of Dreaming. My former colleague from the Trinity library, Rosemary. Past teachers. Old friends. All sorts of unexpected surprises.

And, of course, family. My sister and her two girls were there. Toby was there - tearing around the place with his cousins and making all sorts of noise (He kept walking up to the posters and exclaiming 'Dadda!' at the top of his voice, which I thoroughly approved of.)

And Mum. And Dad. We'll get back to them shortly.

First, we were all welcomed by the Director of the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, Lesley Reece. It's difficult for me to describe Lesley, except to say that she is one of the most incredible women I know. She set up the FCLC, seventeen years ago and has worked tirelessly ever since to turn it into one of the single most important and unique educational and cultural institutions in the country. She was the person responsible for supporting and encouraging my writing career: she put me in touch with Gary Crew, right back in 1997, and persuaded him that I was worth mentoring in my writing. Once I got published, she stood behind my books and ensured that I was able to get as much coverage for them as possible in the west. When I left teaching to become a full time writer, Lesley again worked on my behalf - finding me suitable speaking and teaching gigs to keep the wolf from the door.

And more than just patronage, Lesley (and her teams at the FCLC through the years) have also become close friends - to the point where, when Min and I were looking for a venue for our wedding, we asked if we could hold it on the Lawns of the Lit Centre, and Lesley agreed without hesitation.

The Fremantle Children's Literature Centre has been a special place for me and my family in the ten years that it took me to write this trilogy, and it was a delight to see the final book of the three go out into the world from the main gallery there.

Anyway...

Once everyone was welcomed, the book was launched by Melissa Parke, the federal MP for Fremantle, who I met a couple of years ago at another book launch, and who really impressed me at the time for her commitment to the lit centre, and to reading and children's literature generally. She's also a speculative fiction fan, which wins her huge points in my book.

And she did an incredible job - there she was, in the middle of an Election campaign, and yet she still found the time to not only launch the book, but also to read the entire trilogy beforehand! That's well over 1000 pages, which she got through in just a couple of weeks, while still campaigning for her seat. And not only did she read the books, but she thought about them, too. She picked up on all the little threads and ideas in the book that I'd hoped people would get but which, as a writer, you're never really certain have come through. Writers don't often get to experience someone doing such a close reading of their work, at least, not to our faces, and it was incredibly gratifying. I have a copy of her speech, which I'll tack on to the end of this post for anyone interested to have a look at. I'm sure she won't mind...

After she'd launched the book, I did a short and passably coherent speech; "thank you blah blah blah..." and then sat down again, expecting to get on with some serious book signing and wine drinking.

Except for one minor detail. Lesley had made other plans. She announced that we had another speaker.

I'll admit that I groaned, inwardly. One thing I kinda dislike are book launches with too many speeches, or speeches that go for too long.

Then it got worse. The person Lesley invited to the podium was...

...my mother.

Now, I should explain a little something here. Many years ago, I spoke at my brother and sister's 21st Birthday parties. I thought I spoke really well at both. Sure, I might have sworn perhaps once or twice. Certainly not more than three times. And nothing I said was even remotely outrageous. And so I was rather surprised when the family then voted to place an embargo on me ever speaking in public at family gatherings, ever again.

That didn't necessarily stop me, though. I just moved my venue a little. Those of you who've heard me tell stories about my writing will know that my family tend to, well, feature rather heavily. And not always in the most flattering light. Mum in particular gets a bit of a hard time in a couple of my stories.*

And, for some years now, Lesley has been threatening to find an occasion to give my mother the right of reply.

I really should have seen that coming, shouldn't I?

So mum got up to speak, and I poured myself a big glass of wine.

And she made a lovely speech, although she did dredge up several bits of my early writing which I was certain I'd destroyed some years ago. And she did tend to overstate a few things. But it was nice hearing her talk about what it's like to be the parent of a writer, and how proud she and dad are of the fact.

That was when I worked it out: book launches are for other people, not me.

Kinda obvious, really, but being the egocentric git that I am, it hadn't actually occurred to me that the idea of launching a book is to give people a chance to celebrate it, and each other, and the story, and their relationship to it. It's really got bugger all to do with the author, when all is said and done. Stories, after all, are one of the things that connect people to one another, and book launches are an example of that, writ large.

So, that's my booklaunch story. At the end of the evening, everyone went home happy; it was a lovely night and a celebration not just of my book, but of all books, of family, friends, the past and the future, of children and life.

My kind of a night out, really.

*stories which, I might add, are all COMPLETELY TRUE and not in any way exaggerated. Much.

Melissa Parke's Speech from the Launch for 'Daywards' at the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, Tuesday 27th August, 2010

I’d like to acknowledge the Noongar people as the traditional owners of the land we’re meeting on and pay respect to their elders past and present – this acknowledgment is particularly significant tonight as we talk about a book that greatly honours Indigenous knowledge and skills and connection to the land.

When I was asked quite recently to launch Tony Eaton’s book Daywards, as the third book of the Darklands trilogy I said (channelling Kevin Rudd) “Fair Suck of the Sauce Bottle Lesley! We’ve got an election coming and I can’t see myself having time to read one book let alone three.”

But what with Lesley’s persuasive powers, and me being a long-time lover of science fantasy books, and having enjoyed meeting Tony at the launch of another book – Marc Greenwood and Frane Lessac’s Simpson and his Donkey - I found myself agreeing to launch this book.

And I’m so glad I did. The target readership is young adults and upwards. I am definitely in the upwards part of that age bracket and I thoroughly enjoyed all three books. They can each be read on their own but I do think it’s worth experiencing each one in turn.

The entire story is set 1000 years into the future and it’s a future that is eerily familiar and frighteningly believable as we confront a harsh and unrelentingly hot and contaminated Australian landscape that is the result of late 21st century large-scale climate change causing the destabilisation of a large number of fission reactors and waste storage facilities throughout the world. In this world, there are two groups of people trying to survive.

In the first book, Nightpeople, part of the earth is closed off from the rest of the world by a huge wall and is sparsely populated by small tribes of elderly people called Darklanders, a few of whom are dreamers in the style of Aboriginal elders, who connect spiritually with the land and the life that lives within it, such as snakes, lizards and wild dogs, and sources of water.

The main character in the first book is Saria, the last of her race to be born and she is spirited away as a baby to be looked after in a secret valley until she is a teenager. She is then called upon to answer her destiny which involves actually leaving her land in a search for her mother who was taken by the Nightpeople to domed cities in the sky.
In the book Skyfall, we meet the other group of people trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic environment. They are the Skypeople or ‘Nightpeople’ so called because they can only travel at night as they have no ability to withstand the sun’s radiation. They live in artificial technological domed cities in the sky and have no direct contact with the environment. The upper classes live in luxury in the highest domes, albeit with protein supplements as their only food source, while there is an underclass serving them that lives in poverty. One of the domed sky cities is called Port city – reminding one of Fremantle - and there is a part of Port City called North Port Central, calling to mind the north port quay proposal to build futuristic dubai-style islands off the coast of Fremantle. Could this be our own doomed future helpfully described for us by Tony?

In the trilogy, the skypeople fear that their artificial society is breaking down both physically and socially and so they study the darklanders in order to understand their genetic makeup and see if they can isolate the genes that make people viable outdoors in the contaminated hot climate.

Saria was brought to the domed city in the sky by the skypeople to be studied. She meets Lari – a young man and – to cut to the chase, they team up to start their own clan which mingles the races of the earth and the sky to produce people who can withstand the harsh effects of the sun and the atmosphere outside of the domes without having to wear a special suit. In the third book Daywards the clan lives in caves in the forest, surviving by hunting and gathering, although there are still skypeople coming to study them. Saria – the heroine from the first book – is by now an elderly woman and she seeks to returns to her home in the Darklands.
The main young female character in Daywards is Dara. In the end, Dara is faced with the choice of returning with Saria to the Darklands or of going with the skypeople in order to see what kind of common future may be forged between the two peoples in this book. I won’t give the story away by saying what she chooses.

Although set 1000 years into the future these stories seem familiar to us in WA. For instance, Dara remembers her father showing her the giant forests down south. Not far from Port city there is the crumbling city of Per. There are animals called hoppers which from the description bear a great similarity to kangaroos. Dara’s favourite expletive is “Shi”, which bears a remarkable resemblance to a word in contemporary usage.

Like all of the best high-level science fantasy, this trilogy takes on the important imaginative task of casting a series of current trends and issues forward into a social and physical scenario that examines the consequence of heading down that path.
With phrases like “the blasted remains of a great human folly” the trilogy is a powerful warning of what could happen if we don’t act on climate change; if we don’t act to save the diversity of earth’s species, a large number of which are here in Australia; and if we don’t properly manage our precious sources of water.

I’m going to recommend that all of my parliamentary colleagues read it.
At a time when we have our first female PM – who as Lesley has noted has visited the Fremantle Children’s Literature centre when she was Minister for Education and acting PM - it is also appropriate to note the strong female characters in this trilogy who are called upon to save this future world that has been seared in the shifting and the burning. Saria and Dara are the most powerful characters because they are interconnected with the Earth and life on it and can harness that energy to devastating effect as we see throughout the trilogy but particularly in the thrilling climax in Daywards.

In an era when modern Australia is still only beginning to fully recognise and value the contribution of Aboriginal people to its history, its present and to its future, this trilogy is an acknowledgement of Aboriginal people’s connection to the land and a signal that we can learn from those who have respected the earth for thousands of years. It is also a celebration of family and of appreciation for both youth and elders in our community.

Finally, at a time when fear of ‘the other’ is such a feature of Australian community opinion on asylum-seekers and refugees, the trilogy has an important message about the need for diverse peoples to work together to try to understand and esteem each other as the only way we will ultimately all survive. We may at some stage all be boat or sky people or darklanders, needing to leave our homes and forge a new life elsewhere with other peoples in order to survive. If we do the right thing by the planet then hopefully our successors will not need to build sky domes made of plascrete and clearcrete to protect them from the atmosphere and will not a thousand years into the future find our detritus washed up on the beach. As described in the book “unidentifiable foam and rubber shapes, tangles of fine polymer mesh, lumps of weathered plascrete, all of it aeons old and all of it still clinging to the otherwise pristine beach like ancient tumours, stubbornly refusing to vanish even with the inexorable passage of time”.

I’d like to thank Tony for this fantastic series - it is beautifully written, tremendously thought-provoking and utterly believable. I note Tony’s comment that it has taken him 10 years to write and how happy he is to finally finish this epic, but I must ask Anthony to reconsider this decision as I really want to know what happens next! You know when you’ve read something fantastic because when you get to the end you are reluctant to put it down and you feel a bit lost. I certainly feel sad to have lost my method of election escapism but I am grateful to Tony and to Lesley for the lovely moments I have had reading these books. I’d also now like to suggest a prequel to tell us what exactly went wrong on earth that resulted in large scale climate change with its catastrophic consequences. Perhaps such a prequel could start with a conference in Copenhagen. Just an idea Tony.

Congratulations again on this beautiful book and thankyou for inviting me to be a part of it.

Why the Wheels Came off at the Final Corner...

So, my I will Post Every Day During July thing was going really nicely, up until about 48 hours ago, when things here plunged into a black hole of silence, which took us through to today, August first.

It's a pity, really - I enjoyed my (almost) daily blogging; having the obligation to produce something every day was good for my writing. Good for making me think a little more engagingly about my blog and do a little more planning for it. I was kinda sad to see it all fizzle out like that.

I'm sure you're all wondering 'What happened?'

Well, in two words: "Food Poisoning."

Friday, we took Toby and his cousins to the Zoo. We had a wonderful day. Took a lot of photos to use for the blog, saw tigers (they go 'Grrrrrrrrr') rode on the Merry-go-round (or 'carousel', if you happen to come from Texas), watched the elephant show, and all the other stuff that one does at the zoo. We also - and this is the important bit - ate lunch. Specifically one hot dog and one burger, which Min and I shared.

Then, at eleven p.m. friday night, I started throwing up.

I'll spare you the rest of the details. Trust me, you don't want 'em. It wasn't pretty. Suffice to say that by the time we got onto our plane home yesterday afternoon, both Min and I were sick as dogs, I'd had an anti-nausea injection from the only GP in Perth who'd fit us in at short notice, (Min's symptoms cut in just a little too late for the needle, but we got some pills into her) we'd dosed up on all sorts of other medications, and went through the longest four-hour-flight of our lives.

Luckily, we were picked up at the airport by Min's mum, who took us all home to her place and proceeded to look after Toby while Min and I slept for twelve hours.

So now it's Sunday afternoon. We've been home a couple of hours, are just getting unpacked, washing on, heater on, a very happy puppy at our feet, and are all feeling a lot better than we were this time yesterday.

And in the meantime, the end of my blogging July just sort of slipped past. Sorry about that, everyone, but at least my final excuse was a doozy.

In any case, I've got a few little bits and pieces that I'm going to post about during the next few days and weeks. While I'm not going to keep up daily posting, I'm going to shoot for a very achievable 3 posts per week, or thereabouts from here on in.

So, cheers to anyone who bothered reading my July ramblings - thanks for your patience.

Now, I'm going to try and eat some dry toast and vegemite...

Another of those short, late night, meeting my obligations and little else posts, I'm afraid. I've made a bit of a habit of it this week, I know, but in my defense, we've been absolutely booked solid. Today we were out of e house at 8.30 this morning, and only got back about half an hour ago (it's currently 11.17pm). This is a big day by any standards, it's a particularly big day for a toddler, but Toby has been a complete champion about it. Today's highlight was watching him and his two cousins in the bath together at my parent's house. There was splashing, and squealing in abundance. And I got soaked, even though I was standing a solid three feet away from the edge of the tub.

I should also take this opportunity to apologise for the largish number of typos In the last few blogs. Ive been blogging from the iPad which, while I still love it to pieces, isn't the most accurate keyboard in the universe.

Last night we had the Perth launch for Skyfall at the Fremantle Childrens Literature centre. I want to do a proper post about this sometime in the next few days, so I wont say anything more here apart from the fact that it was a lovely evening. With a very big surprise for me included.

Anyway, that's my token effort for tonight. Off to bed now, another big day tomorrow.

Cheers all,

Happiness is a Warm Gun

Lennon was being ironic, of course, and not without good reason.

I've never been a gun person. Never really got the whole fascination with firearms thing like a lot of other people, especially guys. When the other boys my age were drawing guns, I was generally drawing airplanes. As an adult, I think its reasonably safe to say that I'm anti-guns. Min and I are agreed on the fact that we won't be buying toy guns for Toby, or even really anything resembling a gun. During our visit to the USA last year, one of the most confronting things for me was watching a little girl getting measured up for her first handgun, in an outdoor store in Texas. She can't have been older than ten or eleven, and the idea of inculcating somebody into 'gun culture' at so young an age is a difficult one for me to come to terms with.

So no, not into guns.

But, I'm also a writer, and currently working on a book I which my protagonist is intimately familiar with weapons of all sorts, including guns.

Which, naturally, poses some problems.

The main one being that, while I'm writing the book in such a way as not to glorify gun use, I still feel very strongly that its the responsibility of a writer to get the details correct - my character uses a handgun, on more than one occasion. I've already written one of the scenes in which this happens, and like always, I did some homework before writing it: a lot of reading up on various types of guns, calibre of ammunition, weights, recoils, type and shape of grip, number of bullets in the magazine, that sort of thing. But, when push came to shove, the scene just didn't rIng true. All the reading in the world wasn't enough to tell me what it feels like to fire a handgun, especially a weapon designed for one purpose only - to kill or injure another human being.

So, this morning, I took myself to a shooting range here in Perth, hired a Ruger 9mm automatic pistol - the same model that I'd chosen for my character, was taught the basics of handgun handling and operation, and then left alone to blast away at some targets.

And, despite my misgivings, I'm glad I did it. For a number of reasons.

Firstly, the physical sensation was nothing like I'd expected. The feel of the gun in my hand, the leap of the recoil, the concussion of the noise, the smell of the gunpowder, the smell of gun oil, the satisfying 'ka-ching' of the spent cartridge ejecting from the firing chamber, the pleasure of seeing a hole punched in your target downrange.

Yes, I'll admit it: I actually enjoyed the experience.

Firing a handgun is a tactile experience, and a powerful one. There's implicit menace and danger in that lump of metal, and when you pick it up off the bench, slot home the magazine and release the safety, there's an odd feeling of implicit power, even in the controlled environment of a shooting range.

I'm also glad I went because of what I learned, and that the whole point of doing research, when all is said and done. By the time I'd shot off my 30 rounds, and then had a good chat to both the range technician and the range manager, I realized that I'd given my character the wrong gun, for the wrong purpose, and based on wrong interpretation of what I'd read. I'm going to be reworking those scenes in my book when get home next week.

I'm also glad I went because it gave me an unexpected respect for the people who handle and use weapons as part of their day to day lives: the police, the military. I never really understood, at a visceral level, how much those sort of jobs include the power of life and death. I know for certain now that I could never point a weapon like that at someone and pull the trigger, or probably even cope with the possibility that I might have to.

So, all in all, a valuable and interesting experience.

Am I still anti gun? Yes. Perhaps even more so. Especially small, concealable, automatic weapons like the one I fired today.

Am I still anti gun-people? Not so much. I won't be rushing back to the firing range, or taking up Olympic shooting, but at least now I can understand, to a degree, some of the appeal.

Kids, Family, Holidays and Sliding

We just got back from three hours in "Kidz Paradise" with Toby, his two cousins, one of my sister's Perth friends and her three kids, all under the age of 5. Aside from the fact that the proprietors can't spell 'Kids', it was a lot of fun.

Three hours of climbing, bouncing, sliding, ball pits, more climbing, running, climbing, sliding and bouncing.

And the kids were quite active, too.

There's that old biblical saying - you know the one; 'When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.' (1 Corinthians, 13:11)

Now, far be it from me to contradict the bible* but I don't think that the people responsible for Corinthians factored in 'Kidz Paradise', because I have to tell you, I suspect that I had more fun than Toby. In fact, it's fair to say that as soon as we were through the gate, my childish ways came storming back with avengence.

Of course, someone had to keep a close eye on Toby. And help him through the ball room. And up the climbing net. And down the ceiling-height tube slide. Even if he didn't think he wanted to go.

And, after all, what are fathers for?

You know the best bit? Adults were free! It cost us $7.00 for Toby, not a cent for me.

So I'm thinking of going back tomorrow, without the kids...

Actually, jokes aside, it has to be said that I wasn't the only person above 5 years of age crawling around in that playground maze. There were an awful lot of fathers, and mothers, and various other adult role models in there too. And they all seemed to be having just as much fun as I was. And watching us all, I realised that it was so much fun not just because it gave us an excuse to revisit our childhood, but it was an excuse to revisit our childhood with our own kids - and to share in theirs.

And so while, for the most part, I have put aside my childish ways, I'm also kinda pleased to discover that having a Toby in my life gives me an excuse to revisit them, every now and then.

I'm still thinking of going back tomorrow without him, though ;)

*actually, this is something of an overstatement. I've been known to contradict the bible on a couple of occasions. I haven't been smited for it, either. Yet. I'm told it's just a matter of time...

They say you can never go home again...

So we're back in Perth, where we (well, Min and I) grew up and, as always, it's lovely to be back again.

Thinking about it this afternoon, it occurred to me that it's been about 18 months since I was last here. This is the longest time I've been away from Perth since I was 10 years old. And it's rather odd, coming back after so long. It's still home, of course, it's still a place I know more intimately than anywhere else in this big, wide world, still a place I love, still one of the most stunning spots you could ever hope to end up. This morning we had our breakfast at Cottesloe beach, which was glowing in the morning sunlight, the Indian ocean its usual, unique deep blue. Twenty kilometers across the channel, Rottnest island crouched on the horizon. We've got a cottage booked there in December for a week - a WA traditional holiday.

As I say, stunning.

But, strangely, this Perth - the one we flew into last night isn't the city where I grew up, and today I realized that for the first time.

Seeing Perth today was like looking at something terribly familiar, but just slightly skewed - the elements of the place, the fundamentals and the essentials are all still there, but somehow now it just feels ... Different. It's still home, but not completely. Or not In the same way, perhaps.

Not sure exactly why this is, or if it'll fade as this week goes on, but it's interesting.

Anyway, it's now 11.30 at night ( see, told you I'd post every day, if possible. How's that for dedication?) it's been a long day and I'm pretty certain this post is one of the least coherent I've ever done, , so I'm going to turn the light out and hit the sack.

Night everyone, wherever you are.