I just hit the "next blog" icon, and was directed to some Christian fundamentalist site in which C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying: 'A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell'.
Whilst my blog is not technically a rant about religion, I thought the fact that CS Lewis wrote it an interesting segue.
Moving on from this, I read a piece about how one can interpret Alice In Wonderland (and its sequel - the return through the looking glass) as some metaphor for the Comings and goings and apparents comings again of Christ. ... Are they absolutely for real?
Oh my fucking God! (And yes, I understand the irony of that statement but I'm into blasphemy, so deal with it!) Why is it that every piece of great literature has to be ruined by some nut with a messiah complex? Unless it's Milton, or something at least as obvious, can't we just have a good fantasy where good versus evil is not a replication of Genesis?
If anyone ever inteprets my stories as anything other than the angry, feminist, deeply anti-religious displays that they are, get ready to run.
Or bring me cupcakes!
(And those are just my young adult stories :-)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Computers and I are not friends!
Well, it’s been a few days now and I have done a few things to advance my writing career:
I have sent out a message asking practically everyone I know on the planet what fish food tastes like, in case I ever need to describe such a taste. Oddly enough, there were a few replies – gritty, salty and fishy seems to be the consensus!
I have found the contact details of a freelance editor I went to university with. So that, should I ever need to, I can at least contact an editor.
I’ve done next to nothing to move towards ever needing to contact a freelance editor. Even to say hi!
And, I have been convinced to start up a webpage. Because the URL that would contain my name is still available. And this, apparently, is a good enough reason!
Those that know me will also know how much I detest technology. Don’t get me wrong, I love google and fancy expresso machines as much as the next person, but I was once asked to design a faculty webpage for work, and the reaction can best be described as shortness of breath and chest pains.
Me and computers are not really friends.
We fake it. We mix in the same circles, of course – I am on one to write this, obviously - and I love receiving emails and googling, so our acquaintance is regular and friendly, but ask me to do anything beyond this (like use an interactive whiteboard – 5 hours of PD and I can’t even turn one on) and the relationship gets nasty. Very, very nasty.
But apparently, every budding writer has their own webpage – not a blog, but one they pay for. Why you’d want to pay for something that will, in the set up, strip years off your life is something I am still coming to terms with.
The hopefully not last words of KatMol: io la stupida e computare. Multo!
I have sent out a message asking practically everyone I know on the planet what fish food tastes like, in case I ever need to describe such a taste. Oddly enough, there were a few replies – gritty, salty and fishy seems to be the consensus!
I have found the contact details of a freelance editor I went to university with. So that, should I ever need to, I can at least contact an editor.
I’ve done next to nothing to move towards ever needing to contact a freelance editor. Even to say hi!
And, I have been convinced to start up a webpage. Because the URL that would contain my name is still available. And this, apparently, is a good enough reason!
Those that know me will also know how much I detest technology. Don’t get me wrong, I love google and fancy expresso machines as much as the next person, but I was once asked to design a faculty webpage for work, and the reaction can best be described as shortness of breath and chest pains.
Me and computers are not really friends.
We fake it. We mix in the same circles, of course – I am on one to write this, obviously - and I love receiving emails and googling, so our acquaintance is regular and friendly, but ask me to do anything beyond this (like use an interactive whiteboard – 5 hours of PD and I can’t even turn one on) and the relationship gets nasty. Very, very nasty.
But apparently, every budding writer has their own webpage – not a blog, but one they pay for. Why you’d want to pay for something that will, in the set up, strip years off your life is something I am still coming to terms with.
The hopefully not last words of KatMol: io la stupida e computare. Multo!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I work hard for the money - but what's the cost?
7pm.
There’s nothing quite like the excitement of seeing your words in print in a nationally syndicated magazine. That’s how I felt four years ago, anyway, when Take 5 and That’s Life and Woman’s Day, became first my “other” job.
Congratulations, your story has been selected to feature in an upcoming issue of -- was the first email I received this evening, and I realised the excitement has gone. It’s been four years since I Made my Best Friend Fat graced the glossy pages of the place where journalists go to die – an admittedly rubbish story for a rubbish publication.
But by God, do they pay!
Twenty minutes work for $400 dollars. A few fake email addresses (last count, 75 or so), a pretend phone call here and there where you pretend you really are the person who set fire to your twin sister’s house for shaving your dog and having an affair with your son (or other such dribble), and a large collection of shoes courtesy of the Packer corporation.
How does one give this up? I am just a teacher, after all! But to be just a writer - How do writers just write in a capitalist society where there are shoes and cute cardies and soy lattes that now cost up to four dollars a pop?!
I can’t do it! I am a slave to money. My once promised one overseas holiday a year is on the verge of becoming two. I realise I have become a gen x-er who is living in the materialist, instantly-gratify-me mindset of generation y.
I must have caught it at school.
I’ll never write the novel while I’m still writing drivel and arriving to work at seven, just so I can keep on top of my day job. But I’ll never want to do it if I can’t afford to buy a new pair of boots every winter.
But enough of that. It’s time to check my seventy-five email addresses. Which will waste at least an hour. To see if I’ve sold any more shit!
There’s nothing quite like the excitement of seeing your words in print in a nationally syndicated magazine. That’s how I felt four years ago, anyway, when Take 5 and That’s Life and Woman’s Day, became first my “other” job.
Congratulations, your story has been selected to feature in an upcoming issue of -- was the first email I received this evening, and I realised the excitement has gone. It’s been four years since I Made my Best Friend Fat graced the glossy pages of the place where journalists go to die – an admittedly rubbish story for a rubbish publication.
But by God, do they pay!
Twenty minutes work for $400 dollars. A few fake email addresses (last count, 75 or so), a pretend phone call here and there where you pretend you really are the person who set fire to your twin sister’s house for shaving your dog and having an affair with your son (or other such dribble), and a large collection of shoes courtesy of the Packer corporation.
How does one give this up? I am just a teacher, after all! But to be just a writer - How do writers just write in a capitalist society where there are shoes and cute cardies and soy lattes that now cost up to four dollars a pop?!
I can’t do it! I am a slave to money. My once promised one overseas holiday a year is on the verge of becoming two. I realise I have become a gen x-er who is living in the materialist, instantly-gratify-me mindset of generation y.
I must have caught it at school.
I’ll never write the novel while I’m still writing drivel and arriving to work at seven, just so I can keep on top of my day job. But I’ll never want to do it if I can’t afford to buy a new pair of boots every winter.
But enough of that. It’s time to check my seventy-five email addresses. Which will waste at least an hour. To see if I’ve sold any more shit!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
To keep or to kill ...
To make it really interesting, I guess I should set up some goals for myself.
And a desk. In a quiet space. And clean my room!
Who do I actually want to write for? It’s not really a question I’ve ever asked myself. I usually just lie in bed at night and imagine my acceptance speech after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (or world peace – because my book, of course is that good!) (Can you wear tulle to these things, like the Oscars? It doesn’t matter I guess, because my shoes are fucking brilliant.)
I’d like to thank the fairy godmother for writing this book, because I sure as hell didn’t do it myself!
That’s what I should be saying. I’ve never actually imagined my real imaginary speech though, because I very early on get fixated on the brilliance of my green d’orsay Manolo Blahnik pumps!
So clearly, I want to write a novel. I have actually written one – an entire manuscript, that is – but it would seem that, though my friend and sister had kind words to say about it, the publishing world was not all embracing (as my self-indulgent daydreaming predicted). Nor were my parents, who received their bound copy with much enthusiasm, before discarding it in the back room, where all things immaterial go to die.
So, not a good manuscript, it would seem.
But what do you do with fifty-five thousand words that no one wants to read? It’s fifty thousand words!!! The English language is a brilliant, provoking, insightful, inspired thing – I must have managed to string some sentences together that encapsulate these qualities.
I know I did!
To copy (and destroy) the words of my idol:
To rework, or not to rework – that is the question!
And a desk. In a quiet space. And clean my room!
Who do I actually want to write for? It’s not really a question I’ve ever asked myself. I usually just lie in bed at night and imagine my acceptance speech after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature (or world peace – because my book, of course is that good!) (Can you wear tulle to these things, like the Oscars? It doesn’t matter I guess, because my shoes are fucking brilliant.)
I’d like to thank the fairy godmother for writing this book, because I sure as hell didn’t do it myself!
That’s what I should be saying. I’ve never actually imagined my real imaginary speech though, because I very early on get fixated on the brilliance of my green d’orsay Manolo Blahnik pumps!
So clearly, I want to write a novel. I have actually written one – an entire manuscript, that is – but it would seem that, though my friend and sister had kind words to say about it, the publishing world was not all embracing (as my self-indulgent daydreaming predicted). Nor were my parents, who received their bound copy with much enthusiasm, before discarding it in the back room, where all things immaterial go to die.
So, not a good manuscript, it would seem.
But what do you do with fifty-five thousand words that no one wants to read? It’s fifty thousand words!!! The English language is a brilliant, provoking, insightful, inspired thing – I must have managed to string some sentences together that encapsulate these qualities.
I know I did!
To copy (and destroy) the words of my idol:
To rework, or not to rework – that is the question!
And So it begins ...
Well, actually - no it doesnt.
And that's the problem!
What does one have to do to call themselves a writer? Because this is what I have done:
A degree in Professional Writing (fabulous but fruitless)
A Masters in Creative Writing (inspiring but ultimately idle)
7 years as a teacher of all things creative and on the page. (Do those who can't really teach?)
I'm starting to wonder how qualified I really am!
So, it begins today! Not just the blog - for the blog, though a written log - does not necessarily a writer make! But my efforts to become a published writer.
I will document the trials and tribulations of a self-confessed lazy coucher, trying to find the stamina to make it in a full-time working world!
And, there will be cupcakes!
And that's the problem!
What does one have to do to call themselves a writer? Because this is what I have done:
A degree in Professional Writing (fabulous but fruitless)
A Masters in Creative Writing (inspiring but ultimately idle)
7 years as a teacher of all things creative and on the page. (Do those who can't really teach?)
I'm starting to wonder how qualified I really am!
So, it begins today! Not just the blog - for the blog, though a written log - does not necessarily a writer make! But my efforts to become a published writer.
I will document the trials and tribulations of a self-confessed lazy coucher, trying to find the stamina to make it in a full-time working world!
And, there will be cupcakes!
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