I’m often asked how we go about collaborating on a work of fiction. While all books are collaborative to some extent, shared authorship duties are relatively rare in our game. To be honest, it took us quite a while to figure out a collaborative approach that worked for us. We tried a few approaches unsuccessfully. Although our styles of writing are not that different from each other, the trick is finding a way to make them flow together. What we realised is that every project needs a champion and, while sharing text is relatively easy, a story’s vision can’t be doled out in a 50/50 split. Concentrate, a young adult novel, marked the first time we worked as a writing team, each of us taking on roles as necessary to serve the story. Here’s how I described the process three years ago:

We have tried collaboration before a few times. We tried taking alternate chapters. We tried taking on different characters. Nothing really worked and I consigned the whole endeavour to the ‘revisit one of these days’ file. Little did I know Darren was hatching his own variation on the concept.

What we eventually hit on was taking alternate drafts. The result was similar to writer-editor only with the editor taking a far more active role adding character layers and additional narrative. Our model was less ’50 per cent text each’ and something more like what Joel and Ethan Cohen do: share the writing credits where one or the other might take the lead on any individual project. Seems to work well for them. Why not us? We are already brothers after all.

It seemed to work for us. Not only did we finish the story, but Concentrate was shortlisted in the prestigious Text Prize for young adult writing later that year. So that’s something.

We’re now in the home stretch of a new collaborative work in the same series. This one is called Wake and it’s one we’re both really excited about. But with the new work under construction, we felt it was high time to bring Concentrate into the world. But we didn’t want this to be a big hairy deal, so we have realised the book for the Kindle platform. We hope to have an EPUB format available soon too, but for now it’s Kindle only.

We’ve also made it available in two editions (and under two titles) The original Australian story Concentrate will be released in the coming weeks. Available right now is the North American version: The Focus and The Freak. This is what’s it’s about:

The Focus and The Freak is a story of faith after loss, determination after setback and hope after defeat.  Combining the best elements of magic realist and literary young adult fiction, it contends there is no more powerful thing in this world as heartfelt belief.

If you’re in Australia and you want to hold out for the Concentrate, that’s fine, but if you want to collect them both (something neither I nor Darren would discourage), you can grab your copy of Focus. And be sure to rate the story and leave a review. Because, you know, that would be a nice thing to do. And you’re a nice person. Aren’t you?

UPDATE: Concentrate is now available too.

Buy The Focus and the Freak from the Kindle Store for US$3.99.

Buy Concentrate from the Kindle Store, also for US$3.99.

It appears to be a print-only experience thus far, but locals can check it out in Saturday’s LIFE section.

Each column includes links so, if you can’t get a copy of the paper, you can at least see what’s piquing my interest this week via the link timeline.

You have to knock. If you’re supposed to be there, someone will let you in. The exterior broadcasts little; only a small sign in the window marks the name of the magazine.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘Come on in.’

Inside, the walls groan with the weight of history hanging from them. Posters old and new jostle for the limited space available: Powderfinger bidding farewell to the world, the Smashing Pumpkins touring their new album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. To the left, a reception desk curves away from me around the corner of the room, overlooking the entire area. No one sits behind it. To the right, stacks of papers line the wall by the front door without any discernible order to them: the reformed Saints here, the Residents there. There’s at least fifteen years of history lying at my feet, almost discarded on the floor.

It’s available in all good bookshops or you can buy a copy online over hereabouts. Go buy it. Go on.

The article from the interview is published over at TOM Magazine, but I thought I’d add a few choice quotes from Quan that didn’t make it into the final text and that have some relevance to writing and publishing.

On working from home:

We did an EP in the studio and we just weren’t particularly blown away by the sound quality or the experience and we were left wondering why we spent the money. The technology has grown so quickly, you can’t tell where things are recorded any more. It’s really about getting the performances down. There are better producers and better mixers out there, but then 90% of the people don’t care as long as it’s a good song. Home is the ideal environment to record in for the both cost and control. As long as you have deadlines, then I think it’s a really great way of doing things.

On the influence of digital and the subsequent need for ‘artefacts’ among fans:

The reality now is that there’s less panic about selling the physical form than there used to be. It’s more that these are limited edition artefact for fans who need the thing in their hands and it’s really great to see the artwork in multiple forms. It’s great for an artist to see. If you want the artefact, then we’re happy for you to support us. But we’re also happy for you to have the music for free if that’s what you want. That is the state of affairs right now. Data is uncontrollable, take it if you want it, download it if you feel like it. Come to the live shows (which is how we survive right now). That’s the state of affairs.

Does that mean anything? Probably not, except that any mention of dead things in discussion of digital publishing will likely make the headline.

So the first piece was for The Book Shed, which is a UK-based blog so a bit of discussion around what’s happening on this side of the English-speaking market world was in order. So in bumbles the Minister for Small Business:

Everyone tells me the book is dead. I’d love to declare the death of premature declarations of death. But, sadly, I cannot.

In this line of work, it is sometimes difficult to avoid grand sweeping pronouncements. I understand that. When someone asks you a question on book futures and the truth takes twenty minutes just to get a sense of the industry’s complexity, it’s tempting to dismiss them with the equivalent of “Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own”, just so you can get to lunch on time.

“Look, the book’s dead, alright? Where are those sandwiches?”

Though expedient, such statements are, of course, completely ridiculous (except the bit about the sandwiches). After all, the book has been in its death throes since the nineteenth century. The latest high profile talker to succumb to the ridiculous isAustralian Commonwealth Minister for Small Business, Senator Nick Sherry.

“I think in five years, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, you will not see a book store. They will cease to exist.”

Call me cynical (please do), but I thought politicians weren’t supposed to say what they think. Independent booksellers account for up to 20% of the Australian trade, a much higher percentage than most other English language markets, and so represent a significant achievement for small business in this country. I guess we should just consider ourselves lucky Mr Sherry is not Minister for Health.

Read the full text here.

Zing! I wanted to continue with an imagined conversation with Nick Sherry, Minister for Health…

Minister: Why are we spending money on these people? It’s not like they’re still alive.

Aide: But they are alive. They’re walking around, working, even paying taxes.

Minister: You can’t fool me. I know dead.

But it was starting to turn into a pale mirror image of Monty Python’s parrot sketch.

The second piece for SPUNC was on why those lovely scallywags called literary journals should not fear pixels, but instead use them to broaden their audience and influence.

She adjusted her glasses and took a deep breath as silence descended on the room. Her eyes were red, but dry, her chest swelled and her jaw set: bring it on. When she spoke, her voice was cracking but not cracked. She talked about her love of the printed page, of the bound volume. She pointed to many examples of print culture declining in the news world—closure of news rooms, consolidation of mastheads, low revenues. She talked of print being under attack, and of its advocates being proudly out of step with the zeitgeist. She talked of being in the minority and of being right.

‘If you’re here to convince us to go digital, you can get the hell out.’

She didn’t say that directly to me, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t squirm.

The occasion was a gathering of small publishers and the speaker in question published and produced a small literary journal. As a writer with many contributions to small literary journals over the years, I felt strange and uncomfortable to be considered, even briefly, an antagonist to the little magazine. Really, I am heartened to hear that small publishers have no intention of walking away from their print editions, but I hope the speaker in question was kidding with all that digital stuff.

Though tempting, wholesale comparison with other industries are rarely of much use in divining the future of publishing. Even between forms of publishing, such comparisons are awkward and ill fitting.

Newspapers were always in the business of selling advertising. I assume, technically, they still are. They don’t compete for eyeballs with books or literary journals. Increasingly, they compete now with news aggregators, friend recommendations, RSS feeds, and user-generated content, all of it fuelled by the free exchange of information established in the world wide web’s DNA (and by the news’s own cut-and-paste advertising-funded approach to the web for the last fifteen years). Newspapers traditionally had to be both comprehensive and timely, two things the ubiquitous and space-generous world wide web does far more efficiently and often for free. That’s not to say newspapers have no place, but they have had to scramble to define what the printed edition brings to the table that a digital edition cannot. I’m still not sure they’ve solved that particular problem, especially when we see paywalls going up around the world.

And it’s not like the advent of digital is anything new for journal publishers. I loved publishers who insisted (in recent years on their web sites no less) that submissions were sent in hard copy only until they realised they actually wanted to publish the piece. Then the writer received a polite email requesting a Word document. Most new journals and a few older ones have now dispensed even with that, preferring email or web uploads for their submissions process. Today’s aspiring writers will never know the uniquely pitying smiles of post office workers recognising the signs of a serial submitter.

Read the full text here.

Oh those pitying smiles of the lovely people at Red Hill post office. One of them once wished me luck. Sadly, I can’t remember if it made any difference.

Speaking of literary journals, another non-fiction piece of mine is set to be published in the next (Septemeber) edition of Meanjin. More on that soon.

The premise of the project is simple. Bronwen and I find individual works—visual and text—that work together. Sometimes we will use previously created pieces; sometimes they will be newly minted. Sometimes the link between the two will be obvious; sometimes it won’t. It’s going to be a lot of fun seeing how things progress.

Though it begins life as a blog, we have an eye on a options to take it into the real world later on.

Bronwen created the cover image for the first series of ‘mini-shots’, a single-short-story magazine from Vignette Press, which included the gorgeous shot for Coda you can see here.

Click through to I See A Pattern Forming.

Keep checking back with the site regularly for updates. We hope you like it.

Big in heart, foul in mouth. Leith McAuley is Astrid’s confidant and friend throughout the story. She provides some critical perspective, offsetting Astrid’s hesitancy and doubt with spunk and a slew of profanities. Leith doesn’t like therapists or hospitals much, but that doesn’t stop her from meeting Astrid for lunch and guiding her progress in this most unusual of placements. But Leith has her own story to tell, most of which she keeps to herself until it’s too late.

Just when you think you’ve got her measure, Leith surprises you again.

From the novel

Her hair is a shock of communist-flag red hanging in stiff lengths of straw around her face. It’s a stark contrast to yesterday’s green though it maintains the dull flatness of hair that has been dyed within an inch of its life.

 

‘I was worried it would clash with the tutu, but it works fine.’

 

‘Who am I to argue?’ The tutu, a plate of pink meringue, may sit neatly over her legs, but it’s awkwardly wedged into the back and sides of her wheelchair. Her black t-shirt bears the slogan punk: the ultimate conformity in neat lettering. ‘I don’t mind the shoes either.’ They’re a pair of heavily scuffed white high heels, old wedding shoes, no doubt fresh from the Paddington op shops.

 

‘By the state of them, I doubt she was a virgin,’ she smiles, I assume in reference to the former owner of the shoes. Without the slightest effort, she tips her chair back and pirouettes on the spot before cruising to the end of the counter. Leith coasts around in a PhastChair, light and sleek, painted hot metallic red. Large cambered wheels and rollerblade castors set off a compact titanium frame. It’s the Ferrari of wheelchairs and Leith handles it with cool confidence, even though errant folds of the tutu are getting caught in the rims.

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

It was with some trepidation that I accepted the offer of a window in Martin Finn’s schedule for an interview. The window may have been open for an hour, but twenty minutes was all I would get. It would be a classic of understatement to say that his reputation that precedes him: the writer who has famously used acceptance speech platforms to deride the Australia Council, universities, and a growing litany of real or perceived foes. His television interview with a popular female presenter where he reduced the latter to tears is now the stuff of legend.

 

It’s a reputation he does not shy away from. Martin Finn is an imposing presence in the room. He carries with him the baggage of his awards and the quiet arrogance of the truly gifted writer. He folds himself wearily into the lounge chair and orders a doppio. He has positioned himself in front of a large expanse of window, presumably to hide his facial expression in a wash of glare.

 

‘The marketing for this book is completely different to anything I’ve ever done before. Apparently I sell now.’

 

Finn of course is referring to the Black Ink Award for his last novel, the monumental Red Right. Readers of the novel many already consider a modern masterpiece will recognise the same hand behind his new novel The Sparrow’s Nest. While Finn has dropped the politics and radicalism of the work that attracted the richest prize in modern literature, underlying themes of love, sex, and death remain entrenched in his work. Finn himself is circumspect on the thematic protractions.

 

‘The Sparrow’s Nest is a very different novel. It comes from a completely different place. A lot has happened since Red Right.’

 

Finn doesn’t make this claim lightly. The day after the London-based Black Ink committee catapulted him into highest echelons of Australia’s and the world’s literary canon, Finn’s mother died in a Brisbane nursing home. From there a series of upheavals rocked the author’s professional and personal life.

 

‘Let’s see,’ Finn says, ‘there was the death of my mother, the switch to new publishers, the birth of my daughter, the unconscionable banning of Red Right from religious bigots in the Commonwealth Government.’ He pauses a moment to sip his coffee. ‘I’m sure there are more.’

 

What about the very public falling out between Finn and his long-time friend and agent, Miles Drewe? For six months the pair conducted a bitter argument through open letters, interviews and newspaper articles. Finn claimed his agent had been withholding royalty payments throughout his career. Drewe claimed his client was morally bankrupt, egotistical, and artistically exhausted after the cathartic experience of Red Right. While Finn may have been justified in shaming his former agent, it was Drewe’s claims that had the greater impact, damaging Finn’s reputation perhaps permanently in the process.

 

‘I think I’ve said enough over the last few years. In the short term he probably scored a few hits, but frankly all I have to do to prevail is be myself. The tragedy is that history will remember poor old Miles Drewe as nothing more than the former agent of Martin Finn.’

 

‘This of course assumes that you will continue to find success as a writer.’

 

‘I’ll keep writing. Whether success finds me now is part history, part luck.’

 

‘Part history?’

 

‘You know this. Big awards create an inbuilt audience, or so they tell me. I can trade on the success of Red Right for years now, even if I write complete shit. Not that it’s shit, but it’s all good news for the success of The Sparrow’s Nest.’

 

‘Are you saying the book would have trouble finding a market without prior success?’

 

‘It would find a market, just one that’s not so big. It helps to have a name on the cover. Sparrow’s is a bit of a return to my earlier stuff. It was almost like puberty again, that fucking awful teenage angst. There’s a moment in the book I took from my own experience. My mother died and I carried her body to the hearse. I was struck by a tremendous sense of dread, like a foreboding. I felt like I was going to suffocate. I watched the funeral director go through his solemn motions like he must have done several times a day for years. I wondered about people who surround themselves with death for their entire lives, about what kind of effect that might have on your psychology and how such an environment would impact somebody who is losing control of themselves.’

 

‘In steps Elgar.’

 

‘Right.’

 

‘Would you consider Elgar as something of an alter ego?’

 

Finn seems to consider this for some time before responding. ‘I identify a lot with him – I wouldn’t have made him a main character otherwise – but alter ego is too strong and too easy. It’s the kind of thing lazy journalists cook up then reheat over and over so they don’t have to think. Elgar is his own man with his own foibles and, let’s be honest, some fairly abhorrent traits that I’d never lay claim to.’

 

‘This brings me to the claim by the federal government, following on from their objections to Red Right, that this new book contains graphic descriptions of necrophilia.’

 

‘Fucking laughable, isn’t it? Apparently they were too busy doing economics to pick up the most basic English skills. A government that can’t recognise a simile is not a government capable of representing Australia. So they want to ban another of my books – one they clearly haven’t read – from public schools? I say vote them out before they drag everyone down to their level of stupidity.’

 

‘I want to come back to that image of Elgar acting as pallbearer and the vision of the sparrows. You open the book with a reference to John Skelton’s Phyllyp Sparowe. Why did you choose this bird as the symbol of death for this novel rather than, say, ravens? What do you see as the primary role the sparrows play in Elgar’s psyche?’

 

‘You make it sound like the sparrows aren’t real.’

 

‘They are real?’

 

‘Hard to say. No one else in the story talks about them, so perhaps you’re right. But the reason the birds are sparrows? I mentioned my mother’s funeral as one inspiration. The other was not so much Skelton’s poem, but the ones it was inspired by.’

 

‘Which would be Catullus.’

 

‘Right. I think you’re the first person to pick up on the Catullus reference. We should do away with journalists altogether and just talk between novelists. Anyway, I came across a dodgy translation of Catullus in an old bookshop and I was struck by how he was able to swing wildly from precision and emotional maturity to childish point scoring and what I can only assume was the filthiest of Latin that never made it anywhere near churches or schools when I was growing up. You’ve got to love a poem with a first line like: I’m going to fuck you up the arse and make you suck my dick. He was like a Roman gangster rapper, a master of subtlety.’

 

‘So why not quote from Catullus directly, rather than Skelton?’

 

‘Skelton seemed to have a richer tone to his poem than the translated Catullus. I suspect Catullus works better in his native Latin, but I wasn’t going to open my novel with a quote in a dead language. At least you can still understand Skelton, at least if you read it out loud.’

 

At this point I glance down at my notes. I half suspect the kind of reaction I will get, so the next question fills me with dread. A few seconds in and I realise my anxiety is entirely justified. I watch Martin’s eyes cool and his body stiffen as I plough on.

 

‘A few reviewers have pointed to some of the more explicit scenes in The Sparrow’s Nest to make rather salacious claims of a secret extramarital affair you have supposedly been entangled in for the past several years.’

 

Martin stands, quite calmly, and drops his espresso cup onto the coffee table with a tremendous crack.

 

‘Fucking hell, at least have the balls to make the claim yourself instead of hiding behind some faceless group of reviewers. I’m sorry we couldn’t continue this conversation. I was having fun,’ he says simply.

 

I try to salvage the rest of the interview with a quick mea culpa, but the damage was done. Martin turned at the door to his assistant.

 

‘Find out who this fucker writes for. I want them blackballed. They don’t publish another fucking word from me, get it?’

Here Today is available now in both print and digital.

Martin Finn is a successful and highly respected novelist. His credits include the monumental Red Right, which won the Black Ink prize a few years back. His most recent novel is The Sparrow’s Nest, a dark, controversial work for its suggestions of incest and necrophilia.

Many would now assume The Sparrow’s Nest to be Finn’s final work. Following a rare form of stroke, Martin now has the condition called ‘locked-in syndrome’. The resulting paralysis has robbed Martin of all voluntary movement save for vertical movement in his eyes. He cannot speak with his wife and he cannot play with his young children. He is reduced to binary communication: up for yes, down for no.

But Martin isn’t finished telling stories.

From the novel

So this is it. This is what happened to Martin Finn.

 

It wasn’t that long ago the weekend arts sections trotted out their tired journalistic clichés around disability: Local writer struck down by a handicap. But past the inches of newsprint, this is the reality. Gone are the fierce intelligent poses on paperback novels, the mainstay of the festival circuit, the creative writing lecturer.

 

For the first time I notice a communication board: mixed up alphabet, numbers and words and phrases. I assume at this early stage the phrases have been chosen for him: STOP, WINDOW, NURSE, DOCTOR, GO, STAY. I notice there are also names: LENA, CONRAD, SHELLEY. And right at the bottom of the board: NEXT PAGE.

 

He watches me smile a little. Blinks.

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.

Astrid Reinhart is a young therapist taking on a short-term locum position in palliative care, the last place she expected to find herself. Usually, Astrid works in rehab, so how does she approach people with no hope of rehabilitating? Astrid is rootless and restless, never holding jobs down for long, never finding her place.

But things are changing. She has recently reconnected and moved in as flatmate with her old childhood friend, Leith, who fills her head with bravado and fuck-off philosophy. When she is approached by Martin Finn to help him write a new story, her immediate instinct is to say no, but she reconsiders and in the process opens a world of stories.

But Astrid has her own story and to share it means breaking down the professional facade she has spent years building around herself. Astrid has to make herself vulnerable before she can really help the people around her.

From the novel

Everything is so hot in here. My chest struggles to rise against oppressive humidity. Something has gripped my belly and is slowly, relentlessly squeezing.

 

Why is there even an occupational therapist on this ward? It’s all very well to forget everything you think you know, but if that’s the extent of the orientation, then it must rest on the expectation that a few dead patients will fill in the blanks.

 

The written material offers little more than the location of the fire exits. There’s nothing in there about cynical eye-rolling masquerading as a communication strategy. Nothing about relaxation sessions becoming anyone’s exit point.

 

Maybe that stodgy old script should include the last rites.

 

And the question remains: why does this ward need an occupational therapist?

 

‘Astrid?’

 

(okay stop, think)

 

In therapy we broaden the definition of occupation to become inclusive of any daily activity. Brushing teeth is occupation. Making meals is occupation. Catching a bus is occupation.

 

‘Astrid?’

 

Is dying occupation?

Here Today is now available in both print and digital.