New story published: Polysomnogram
The kind editors at Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k) have once again confirmed their taste and style, choosing to publish my story Polysomnogram in their august electronic pages.
A polysomnogram is a test performed on people with suspected sleeping disorders; in this case narcolepsy.
Polysomnogram is an exploration of the ideas and techniques I would use for my second novel, None of the Other Flies Follow My Crooked Lines. Juggling work and a young family, I found my writing hours relegated to the hours of eleven and three. I suspect stories about sleep disorders were a natural consequence.
Whenever I told people I was working on a story whose main character has narcolepsy, people often assumed I was writing a comedy. Although the story has what I hope are amusing moments, Ryan’s narcolepsy is never played for laughs, though it is a handy device to rely on when your scene runs out of steam and you need a quick transition to the next.
So? What are you waiting for?
Read Polysomnogram (should be a permanent link).
Enjoy the rest of Poor Mojo’s Almanac(k).
Read MoreNo win, just shortlist
Well, there you go. None Of The Other Flies Follow My Crooked Lines, despite its cool title, failed in the final hurdle of the Queensland Premier’s Awards. I’m bummed, but in a detached way. The American writer James Lee Burke once described the strange twilight writers must inhabit to quarantine themselves from the highs and lows of submission. Because we are rejected so frequently and consistently, we willingly cut ourselves off from reactions to our work as a matter of necessity. It reminds me, as many things do, of a bit of dialogue from the Simpsons:
‘We’re the MTV generation. We feel neither highs nor lows.’
‘Really? What’s it like?’
[Shrugs] ‘Myeh.’
So we play down achievements as an insurance policy against the crushing failure we know is just around the corner. It may not be ideal, but it works. And when, as usual, you get shortlisted for something and don’t win, you turn it around to realise that your manuscript was one of four selected from 900. Jesus! 900? And your name sat in close proximity to both JM Coetzee and David Malouf.
You take whatever victory you can and move on.
The third novel is coming along nicely, by the way.
Read MoreShortlisted for the Queensland Premiers Awards
Some time ago I started a blog to chart the creation of a new novel. The idea was to follow the ups and downs in writing—the long drawn out pauses between frantic flurries of activity that make up the writing of a larger work into something that might be something of a success.
That same novel, now titled None of the Other Flies Follow My Crooked Lines, has been shortlisted in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards in the unpublished manuscript category.
Wahoo! They even plonked my name on the front page of the site after JM Coetzee and David Malouf. How’s that for strange?
Read MoreOn the synopsis
Well, there it is. The synopsis is now out ‘in the wild’, as they say. It seems strange to put out so much information about a novel that exists only as a manuscript on someone’s desk (not mine).
I wanted to put it up on the web site though, partly to prove to myself that I actually complete it, but also to show how the synopsis will change over time. I recently dusted off the synopsis of my first novel, which is itself making a few rounds of prospective tree killers. It astounded me how ordinary and clunky the synopsis now sounded to my ears. I promptly hacked it to pieces and came up with something snappier. I’ll post up examples of those in coming days too.
The synopsis is a difficult piece of writing. How do you summarise 60,000 words of your blood and sweat into a few pithy paragraphs that prompt the reader to want more? Which bits of the story do you emphasise over others? Do you attempt to tie it all together and hint at the conclusion or do you leave the reader hanging? Will that piss them off?
The one essential requirement for writing a good synopsis is the one thing that the author has absolutely none of: perspective. Given time and some distance from the manuscript, it is possible for the author to approximate perspective and use such approximation to good effect. But I suspect that the publisher’s requirement of an author-penned synopsis is one final joke from the industry. You’re stupid enough to write a novel? Now summarise it!
Read MoreSynopsis: NOTOFFMCL
Liberty Star Jones was a shoo-in to take out the grand finale of the MusiClash, the television talent quest that pitches itself as the only show that matters. With a truckload of talent and the singular viciousness of her uber-stage-Mum, Bunny behind the scenes, Liberty was set to coast her way into this Christmas’s number one single. America beckoned.
How did it all go so wrong?
Read MoreThe Books
