Several days ago at work (otherwise known as the best bookshop in the world) my boss, let’s call her Carrots gave me a stack of young adult manuscripts to read over. Seems that she had been asked to read through them and sort the gems from the dross.

At first I had a wee giggle at the content of the stories (two different manuscripts were written from a poodles perspective) and (not surprising given my "condition") I was struck by how bad the first line of every manuscript was. Well, okay, not bad but trying too hard. I started to get a feeling... a weird feeling... maybe there are more of us out there?

Suddenly my dodgy first lines didn't seem so bad. In fact the mere knowledge that these first lines were out there a seemed to quieten the thump, thump, thump beneath the floorboards.

Believe me, I'd love to tack some of these first lines onto the end of this blog but Carrots was standing guard over them like the Balrog over the Bridge of Khazad-dû.

She seemed to know what I was thinking (perhaps even planning in the manner of the Thomas Crown affair). The manuscripts glistened in the early morning light. Each first line seemed to call out to me from beyond the page.

But there she was, the red-haired Bastian of privacy, brandishing her flaming sword of copy write. Suffice it to say the manuscripts are safely where they should be and not being pillaged for the purposes of this blog.

However, if you have recently submitted a manuscript for a Young Adult Fiction competition please consider this blog a work of pure fiction.

Yeah. . . fiction (also, I'm thinking of starting a support group).

Struck Down in Her Prime

I’m sitting at my writing desk in my sweet little flat in Paddington (Brisbane) and listening to the dulcet tones of the man beneath us hosing his perfectly clean cement walkway and the cerebral delights of the girl next door sqwacking to her boyfriend about the dark color of her hair roots while they play acid wash rock at a volume that ripples the air in a 2 block radius.

What I should be doing (as delightful as these forays into the Brisbane elite are) is doing my frickin literature review which is due tomorrow. <

. . .Oh god, the wanna-be rock opera fusion singer has started doing scales upstairs. He sounds like The Fat Lady swallowed Robbie Williams.

Anyway the old Ishmael Syndrome has struck in a big way. My essay sits before me, gleaming with perfectly referenced quotes, elegantly written and complete but for the intro and the GODDAM FIRST LINE.

So, if you have any ideas about how one can introduce gender landscapes within the context of Moby-Dick and Jonah and The Big Fish while dissecting the feminine absent and the fear of submergence, please email me at leviathan@StickaForkInMeI’mDone.com.au

David Copperfield

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show"

Charles Dickens in David Copperfield

Holding My Ishmael

Okay, my Mum and brother have just called me to give me their feedback on my blog entries.

Now, I know I'm a fiction writer but I swear on Poseidon that I am not making this up! This conversation is verbatim. (See today's previous few blogs to have any idea what I'm rambling about)

"Possum?"

"Yes Mum."

"I just read your blog."

"Oh yeah?"

"It's very good."

"Did you read it to Charlie?"

"Not yet. He lent over my shoulder though and said, that boy looks like me. He's such a dill."

"Did you see the photo of me holding Moby-Dick?"

"Holding what?' (Sounds both shocked and incredulous)

"Moby-Dick!"

"Holding what? I don't know what you're saying?"

"Herman Melville's MOBY-DICK!"

"What are you holding?"

(From somewhere in the background my brother says) "She's holding her Ishmael."

"Ah ha ha ha! Did you hear that? Your brother said you're holding your Ishmael." (followed by more hysterical laughing)

(Massive sigh) "Mum if you scroll down, you'll see a photo of me holding a copy of Moby Dick."

"Holding ya what? Ah ha ha ha! It must be because I'm sixty. I'm losing my hearing."

Aged P

It’s my mother’s sixtieth birthday today. She rang me and the conversation went a little like this. . .

"Sweetheart!"

"Hi Mum."

"Yes it's me. I’m old. OLD OLD OLD."

"Yeah I know. Happy Birthday. I was going to ring you."

"I’m an Aged P (said Age'ed), like in Dickens. Which one was that? I think it was Dombey, no maybe it was Bleak House. Anyway this fellow called his father the "Aged P" like parent. Now that’s what I am. Looks like I may have a job. Remember that second hand book shop, the one with the women who sits in the window all day picking her nose? Well turns out when she is not picking her nose she is quite nice. Anyway I was in there and I said to myself, just go up and ask her if there is any work. So I did. Turns out she races Go Carts (and she’s quite large so I don’t know how that works) but when she is racing her Go Carts she needs someone to watch the shop. So looks like I may have a job."

"That's great."

"And I don't think the picking of ones nose is mandatory."

She shrieks.

"What’s wrong? Mum?!"

"Something has eaten the buds off my orchid!"

"What? You sounded like you’d been shot."

"Those bloody possums! Anyway how are you? How’s uni? How’s work and your friends?"

"Um. Good."

"That’s good. Sixty today!"

"Happy birthday."

"AGED P!"

"Yes, Mum."

"Sixty."

"Sixty is the new forty."

"Oh what nonsense. There’s a remarkable bird just outside my window."

"A what?"

"A bird, sweetie. Pity about the bloody possums though."

(From somewhere in the background I hear my brother offer her six dollars to shut up)

Anyway Happy Birthday, Mum. I wouldn't be this weird without you!

This Morning...

"This morning I met a Whale. It was just after five o'clock and I was down by the river"

Michael Morpurgo in This Morning I Met a Whale.

My Brother, My Captain, My... Whale Researcher

While collecting information for my literature review (due on Friday she said with an uncontrollable shaking of the hands) I came across an old favorite that I had almost forgotten existed. Michael Morporgo’s This Morning I Met A Whale. It is a picture book/early reader/novel about a young boy who tries to save a beached whale in London.

If you’ve never read it, go out and get a copy. It's one of the most beautifully sad books you’ll ever read. I gave a copy to my brother Charlie some months ago. Seeing as how he reads about as slow as a docking city cat on Sunday I really didn’t expect him to get back to me for a while. On Sunday he calls me and the conversation went a little bit like this,

"AHCHCHM" (he, for some reason I am yet to identify, always begins conversations on the phone by coughing first)

"Charlie?"

"Yes."

"Yes what? You rang me."

"Oh yes. How are you my girl?"

"Good matey. I’m at work though so I can’t talk for long."

"Oh yeah. Well I was just calling to say that I miss you. . ."

"That’s nice buddy. I miss you too."

". . . and I like my book,"

"That's great, mate."

". . . and I’ve decided that I'm going to study whales."

"Pardon?"

"Whales. I will study them."

"That’s what I do."

(Massive pause where I can literally hear the cogs in his brain working) "What?" (Clang, clang, clang)

"Whales. That’s what I’m doing."

"Oh yeah? (Translation; I’m suspicious of this as I am yet to see my little sister on a vessel of any kind, Old Man and The Sea style.)

"Yeah. I’m writing my honors on Moby-Dick and Jonah and the Big Fish."

"Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarah (followed by a chuckle) I mean REAL whales, not paper ones."

And there is was. In a shared moment with my genetic other I watched as the ocean of my reading (not to mention the last five years of my life writing a novel all about whaling and sea beasts) swirled in around me and the uppity face of my brother sails elegantly by like some glowing Hercules.

"Mind the word vomit," he shouts to his crew as they heave their ship away from the squawking siren alone on the beach quoting lines from Moby-Dick.

In one beautifully crystallized moment he had defined all that was futile about academia. Who would want to be a Melville scholar when they could be throwing themselves on Japanese whaling ships?

So here’s to my brother! The boy whose childhood bedroom looked like a waterlogged Da’Vinci lived there. I hope you do study whales. I know you, brave (and dumb) enough to throw yourself on a whales back, fight pirates in all seven seas and turf a beached Minke back into the ocean. . . probably barehanded. My hat goes off to you, Faramir of Gondor.

Lake Gargoyle?

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1055888/search-on-for-corpse-of-mystery-beast

And people say the stuff I write about couldn't happen...

My Body Strikes the Water

Okay, so I gave my speech to my entire honors class, supervisor and head of graduate studies on Thursday. Such were my nerves that I had to pee three times in forty five minutes. See the thing is, I have no trouble with public speaking and I’m not intimated by a room full of smarty pants (who wear vintage Nike jumpers and use words like existential and juxtapose) but I do have an issue with reading my fiction out loud.

FECKIN OUT LOUD PEOPLE. As in, “blar blar blar… come right in and take a good look around the salty, deep sea caves of my mind. Mind the coral…”

I’m not really sure how it went, nor am I particularly confident that the other creative writers didn’t want to have me murdered by the end (there were some very intimidating scowly faces). I suppose the only thing I can do now is lie back and think of Becks… I mean England… I mean Becks…

In terms of first lines I think I did okay. They felt good in my mouth and seemed to catch everyone's attention. Barr Fletcher once again gave a somewhat "merry" (in the way my Granny always uses the word) swipe of his saber pencil and cut the seaweed out of my prose.

Ahem... (imagine you are an honors student and have recently said either the word existential or juxtapose and this is being read to you by a frizzy haired girl who looks like she may wet herself)

My body strikes the water.

Cutting through the ocean's skin I fall. I fall through the sound of a heavy wooden hull crashing against the waves, through the shouts and cries of the crew, and through the echo of the water's surface.

Now imagine that this same frizzy haired girl has moved silently towards what she thinks is a door out into the cold, dark night only to discover that it is a blackboard. Thwack! ... Okay this didn't actually happen. But I did say imagine.

What's In A Name?

I named the boat in my novel today. This unnamed vessel has been a cause of concern for some time until finally today (while writing a speech for one of my classes) I happened across the perfect name. I looked up from the ocean floor pieces of my novel darting like fish above me and I saw it like the hull of the ship itself.

The Albatross.

… and I’m spent.

I Want Anonymity But...

My friend Sophia took this photo... a talent of leviathan proportions. I'll blow my anonymity just this once.

The Enemy

“Small Sam was playing in the car park behind Waitrose park when the grown-ups took him.”

Charlie Higson in The Enemy.

Neuromancer

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

William Gibson in Neuromancer

Notes From Underground

And just because that last blog had nothing to do with first lines...

"I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man."

By Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Notes From Underground

Barr and The Orb Weaver

I'm sitting in the university library supposedly finishing my assignment and instead find myself goggling pictures of leviathans on ancient Greek pottery. I’m not normal, I am aware of this.

In other news the ABR short story is due at the end of this week and I am sending "The Seagull". Mind you, it barely resembles the mess of several weeks ago due mostly to the edits of a good friend and sometimes college (when his football injuries allow) who tore it (not quite literally) to pieces. My poor friend (who I will hereafter refer to as Barr Fletcher) was so concerned that I would have a hysterical girl moment that he presented me with only one page of my three page story just to check that I would be okay for him to continue.

I looked at the spotted, scrawled over sheet of paper that had once been my short story with a kind of Patrick Bateman disregard. Almost as if I were being handed my own severed hand bleeding lead pencil. I stared at the page and the Scottish fist that passed it towards me.

Here it is, I thought, judgment day. Finally, someone has torn the still beating (seaweed covered, barnacled) heart of my writing and flung it, shot-put style, into the sea.The thing was, Barr had noticed my seamless, cobweb-like propensity to overwrite things. I had expected him to become just as tangled in editing my writing as I occasionally do in actually writing it. Many before him had attempted the task of chopping through my prose and it always ended badly. Scores of friends and writers have suffered the same fate; stumbling around a dark Queensland backyard, drunk on XXXX, surrounded by low hanging mango branches swatting away spider webs with one of my short stories.

Thing is, one has to keep an eye out for Orb Weavers and their tricky webs.

Cause that’s what I am. I’m the literary version of a big fat Orb Weaver. By night I weave my tangled word webs only to have some poor Scottish football aficionado get tangled in my prose by the dim dawn light. Mind you, this Scott was not going to fall pray to the web. Barr set aside his copy of “Soccer Duels: A History” and like some tartan-clad Achilles he unsheathed his lead pencil (I imagine this to be to the sound of a light saber activating) and cut through my prose like it was butter. One, two, swipe, stab… and the Scott was through while I (imagine me now in some kind of spindly Aragog form) sat shocked and somewhat placid before the bleeding first page.

“Wow.”

“Yeah sorry, I havenae got to the end yet. I can stop if ya want but I thought I better check before I keep going” (only imagine this in an Ewan McGregor-usque accent)

“Nah. Keep goin. I’m not going to freak out” (Now imagine an accent akin to a girly version of Bryan Brown in the “Shiralee”)

“Yaalrighthen.”

“Pardon?”

Ahem…

My friend Barr edited the entire three pages and each suffered the same lead treatment. Clumsy phrases were emphatically cut from between the branches of the mango tree and glistening silver pieces of web wafted to the ground where they disappeared into the dust. Standing, pencil saber in hand, was Barr, triumphant. The Orb Weaver glanced around her web. It seemed cleaner, less cluttered. She could get from one side to the other without tangling her many legs in the diamond shaped cross braces. All in all, it felt like the literary version of a trip to Ikea. It was like looking out over the ordered, meticulous show rooms and wondering how you are ever going to get the red wine stains out of your carpet. (God, I have to remember to throw out the empty wine bottles!)

So, from the much changed (but far less cluttered) web of the Orb Weaver (now nicely ordered and free of wine stains), this post goes out to my friend Barr and his sharp, ruthless pencil saber with much (if somewhat over-written gratitude). I have a copy of my novel with your name on it buddy! Only not literally… cause it still has my name on it.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

"In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together."

Carson McCullers in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Middle Passage

"Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women."

Charles Johnson in Middle Passage