Anthony Eaton's Blog: Musings from an Outer-Spiral-Arm , page 4

Hi everyone,



Firstly, thanks so much for all the lovely messages of support after my bleak and depressing post from last week. You'll be pleased to know that I've managed to come through my little meltdown and am feeling much happier and more like my usual self now.



On which note I did promise that I would post something this week and, well, here we are.



Actually, in the midst of all the last week's bleakness, I did have one particularly interesting experience. I'm pleased to say that early next year the lovely people at UQP have decided to repackage my second novel "a New Kind Of Dreaming" with a spanking new cover and all-new internals.



This, of course, means that I got the oddly pleasurable task of re-proofreading the book. As a general rule, once my books are finished, I tend to send about into the big wide world without so much as a second glance. Certainly I don't think I've ever actually sat down and re-read any of my books after publication-at least not from cover to cover. So was a weird feeling to settle down last week with a story I'd written over a decade earlier, right the very start of my writing career.



It was rather strange and for the first few pages I found myself spotting things that I would gladly change if given half a chance. But of course, that wasn't the point. The point of this particular proofreading was simply to pick up on any typos which may have crept through from the original edition.



What struck me most about reading the proofs, though, was how oddly different the book seemed. The version of "A New Kind Of Dreaming" in my mind didn't at all add up with the version on the pages. The book in my memory was, somehow, fundamentally different. It's hard to pin down exactly why or how, but I couldn't shake off this odd feeling of cognitive dissonance as I work through the pages of the new edition.



Don't get me wrong though, I'm still incredibly proud of the book. It's something I wrote when I was in a very different place in my life, when I was politically very angry, and which really says a lot about both who I was and who I am today. But working through the proofs last week, it felt like reading someone else's book.



So that's my little observation for this week. Not sure if it means anything though it probably does.



And also, if this post seems a little disjointed, it's because I'm "writing" it using my fun new voice recognition software which, inspired by John Birmingham, I've gone out and gotten for myself. This is in part to increase my productivity, and also because, quite frankly, sitting at a desk in front of a screen all day was playing havoc on my back. It's kind of strange talking on my computer, but I suspect I'm going to get to like this. I'll keep you posted.



In any case, thanks again for all the support last week it really made a difference.



Cheers,

Tony

Sometimes the words just won't come to life.



On the page, in the head, on the screen.



This is where I've been for the last couple of weeks. Feeling flat.



It's happened to me a couple of times before in my creative life; periods where no matter what I do, how hard I try, I just can't make myself interested. Can't make myself interested in the stories, in playing with the words, in the ideas, in writing, even in other people's writing.



Just. Plain. Flat.



And so I disconnect, and let the words lie fallow for a while.



This, in case you haven't worked it out already, is why there's been this big black hole of silence here for the last fortnight. It's not that I haven't wanted to put some posts up, not even that I haven't had ideas of stuff to post. Just that when I go to do it, I find myself feeling... flat.



It's the same with my books. I've had the draft of The Hunter sitting, half-edited, on my desk for over a month now, and every time I pick the damn thing up, and grab my pencil, I just get a few lines worked then then... flat.



And writing. I've got two big ideas that I want to work on at the moment. Both of them things I've been keen to write for ages. Both of them ideas that I've spent hours and hours thinking about, planning, anticipating.



Both of them, currently, seem like an utter waste of time and energy.



Like I say. Flat.



Still, it will pass. These things always do. Next week the teaching semester begins again and, like it or not, I'll be pulled back into the world of words, and hopefully it'll make a few of my own words rise up of the page, take on a bit of form and function and perspective. Take on some depth.



Wow. What a depressing post. Sorry for pouring all my flat out onto you like that.



Still, if it's any consolation, I'm feeling a little bumpy now. Slightly hummocked. Ruffled, even. This bleak post has more body to it than anything I've bashed out in a month.



Which is probably a good thing.



So thank for reading. See you all here next week.



Promise.

I'm home from Noumea, where Min and Toby and I had a wonderful holiday. Unfortunately I've managed to come down with a shocking head cold, and awful backlog of work, so here, just to keep you all envious, is a photo of Toby playing on the beach that I took last week...

I've been kinda itching to tell you all about this for a while, but wanted to wait until it was all official and stuff...

I'm pleased to say that there'll be a new edition of Into White Silence coming out a little later on this year - with all sorts of spanky new features (well, a new cover, at least, and in a nice big 'C' format)

And the first shiny happy copies dropped into my mailbox while I was up in Brisbane last week. So I'm pleased to be able to share the cover with you all now...

It's also going to be available as an e-book, so if you (like me) are embracing the digital reading revolution, then you can enjoy it on your e-reader of choice.

Sorry for the long silence. This is a recording....

I've been nose to the grindstone since getting back from Perth the other week, busily beavering away at the paper I delivered at the biennial IRSCL congress in Brisbane yesterday*. I looked at Coraline and The Graveyard Book, both by the wonderful Neil Gaiman, and examined the construction of family within them.**

So, of course, I've had to give both books a very close reading. My copy of Coraline has so many little yellow post it notes attached that it looks rather like a very odd sunflower. And The Graveyard book is even worse. For me, at least, a 'close reading' involves going through the book, pencil in hand, and literally reading it on a sentence-by-sentence basis, considering issues of construction and meaning behind pretty much every word.

All this has, of course, got me thinking...
During my visit to Perth the other week, two different people, both writers I respect enormously, told me how much they dislike academics who read into their books ideas and meanings that they never intended to be there in the first place. And I have to admit that I've read a few analytical comments about my own books in scholarly papers and had to fight the urge to bang off a quick email to the author.
But one of the central principles of literary analysis - and it's as constructed an idea as every other in the field - is that the meaning a reader, any reader - even a theory-obsessed academic -brings to a book is as valid, if not more valid, than the meaning that the author intended. There's also an argument to be made from an analytical perspective that authors are perhaps the least qualified people to comment upon the underlying social meanings that inform their writing.***

In any case, to get back to the central point of this post, one of the chief comments that writing students (and other writers) often make about having to do very close readings of books is that it can 'kill the enjoyment of the book for me'. The idea being that, in having to analyse a creative work so minutely, you lose sight of the overall beauty of it and that, in turn, doesn't help improve your writing. It's an argument I've heard a few times over the years.

And I have to say - speaking only for myself, of course - it's an argument I just can't agree with. Stephen King points out that 'if you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write', and I think you can take this a step further and argue that the more closely you allow yourself to engage with the words of other writers, the more you understand, at both a conscious and unconscious level, about your own writing.

If anything else, for me the process of doing a close reading only heightens my appreciation of other writers' works and my admiration of their skills. Seeing how the placement of a single word in the right place and time can frame up the rest of a story without you (the reader) realising it always gives me something of a thrill.

I'll give you an example from my paper -

Take Gaiman's The Graveyard Book - one of my favourite books. I've read it countless times, including the close reading I did for this paper. One of the things I picked up on when looking at the book was this, the fourth sentence of the novel, right on the first page...

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

There are a whole lot of things in that sentence that are really interesting in terms of my paper, but one thing that really got me is the power behind one little word there; 'almost'. As soon as you read that word you know - you just know in the back of your head - that until the knife has completed its work, one way or another, that the world is going to be a dangerous place. The word 'almost' implies such a strong sense of incompleteness, of tasks left hanging and unaccomplished, that the reader is immedately - just four sentences into the story - feeling unsettled and uneasy.

And for me, as both a writer and a reader, understanding something like that doesn't in any way diminish my capacity to enjoy the book. If anything, it heightens it. I still get all teary at the end of The Graveyard Book, perhaps even moreso now than the first time I read it.

And of course, this raises the question of whether or not Neil Gaiman deliberately placed that little word, 'almost' there to achieve that effect, or whether it's just a happy co-incidence, or whether I'm simply reading far too much into the book.

In all honesty, I suspect the answer to that question is: 'yes'. My feeling is that Neil Gaiman is far too accomplished a craftsman to not be aware, at some level, of the impact of every single word in his stories. I know I've had long discussions with my editors over the placement of individual words on many occasions.

I also know, from personal experience, that often the decision as to which words to include or not include aren't made on a conscious level, but are made in an instant - a hundredth of a second - at some instinctual level while you're writing, but that doesn't mean that you're not still making them.

And I also know - regardless of what Neil Gaiman himself intended - the effect that word 'almost' has upon me, as both a reader, a student of writing, and a practitioner of it. And at that one, Neil Gaiman's intentions (with all due respect to the man) become irrelevent.

So for me, at least, pulling books apart is part of the joy of reading them.

*A conference which has, to this point, had many highlights, one of which was me stepping into a duckpond up to my waist while walking through the botanical gardens on my way to catch the train to the airport to come home last night. Luckily I had spare clothes in my backpack. And enough money on me to afford a new pair of shoes on my way through town...

**I could, at this point, bang on using words and phrases like 'unravelling the liminal spaces', and 'transgressions of thresholds' and 'Freudian signifiers of the heimlich and unheimlich' and 'Lacanian o/Other' but, trust me, you've got better things to do with your life...

*** Though that's a whole other blog post...

Today I'm halfway through my stay at the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, and it's been a great week, if a busy one. I've been presenting as part of the FCLC's series of Youth Literature Days, which are always full on, but fantastic fun.I was lucky enough, back in about 2003 or 4, to be involved in the setting up of the first Youth Lit Days (or YLD's, as they shall henceforth be known), and it's a program that I'll happily keep coming back for. I think it's pretty safe to say that there's nothing else like it in Australia.Once each term, groups of students between years 9-12 meet up at the centre and spend a day working and writing together. The days are mentored by various writers - the groups I've been working with this week have, for example, worked so far with people like Markus Zusak, Bridget Lowry, James Roy, Julia Lawrinson and heaps of others. Next term they've got Isobelle Carmody coming and in term 4, Simon Higgins.YLD's tend to be a sort of win-win situation for all involved; the students selected (the criteria for selection is that you have to be interested and committed to writing. That's all. Grades etc... aren't important, just a love of putting words on pages) get the opportunity to work with some amazing and diverse writers, they get exposed to different ways of thinking about writing and stories, and different ways of approaching the various parts of the writing process. The writers, for their part, get to work with big groups of bright, motivated young writers, all of whom have actively chosen to be part of the program. From my point of view, I come out of YLD's really tired, but refreshed and excited.And some of the writing produced... wow!So that's how I'm spending my week. This week I've been doing days at the Centre in Fremantle with groups in their first and second years of the program. Next monday I'm doing one last day at the centre with a group who've been coming for four years now, and then Leslie (the centre director) and I head down south to Bunbury for a few days down there.I can't help but wish there'd been something like this around when I was a teenager - would have been just the sort of thing I'd have loved. Still, at least I get to be involved with them now.Have a good weekend, everyone.

So, I'm sitting here in the main reading room of the National Library of Australia, waiting for a book to come up from the stacks, so that I can not embarrass myself at the IRSCL Conference I'm speaking at in Brisbane in July. I won't pretend I'm not a little nervous about this paper, for a whole pile of reasons that I'm not going to go into right at the moment, but I'm sure that when this particular book* pops out of the little hatchway things will get a lot better.

I hope.

Still, on the upside, the 20 minute wait between logging a book request and having it appear on the shelves gives me a chance to pop over here and post a long overdue blog.

Since last we spoke, I've been buried in writing stuff. I've also had the printout of The Hunter** sitting on the coffee table in my office, staring accusingly at me, and quite literally whispering "edit me... you know you want to...." into the back of my mind*** I'm really hanging out to get my red pen out and start slashing away, but am restraining myself until I'm in Perth next week, because editing is just the perfect way to fill the evenings while away from home.

On the subject of which, I'm about to head over for a couple of weeks at the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre, which is just one of my favourite places in the world to work. I'll be doing a series of their Youth Literature Days, which are always fantastic. Also talking at the WA State Librarians Conference this saturday, and doing some sessions with the lovely Coral Tulloch (who is almost wholly responsible for encouraging me to go to Antarctica a few years back) at the FCLC open day on Sunday 19th June. If you're in Fremantle, and near the centre, please do come on by and say G'Day.

Then I'm home again for a week, which will doubtless be spent bashing out the rest of the paper which has currently got me sitting at the NLA, then up to Brisbane for the IRSCL, then back for a week, then off to Noumea for a week of (Shock! Horror!) ACTUAL HOLIDAYS!

So I'm keeping busy.

In the meantime, there've been all sorts of things I've wanted to blog about, including this incredibly stupid article from the Wall Street Journal, which rests upon all sorts of broad generalisations, and provides a fantastic example of how to cherry pick a genre in order to prove your (uninformed) point, but sadly time has gotten away from me, and all sorts of other bloggers have done a nice job of unpacking the piece, in any case.

I also recently read up a whole lot about Mary E. Patchett, and specifically her 1953 book Ajax the Warrior as the foundation for a book chapter I was invited to put together. It was a fascinating little journey into one of the little known byways of Australian Literary History.

In any case, the trolley has just popped out with a whole pile of books on it including, I suspect, the one I'm waiting for, so I'm off to be a happy little researcher for the next little while.



*New World Orders in Contemporary Children's Fiction, by Bradford, Mallan and Stephens, (2008), just in case you were wondering....
** Formerly known as Orion, but I've changed the title.
*** Actually, this might not in fact be true. I've been reading a lot of Neil Gaiman lately, and I suspect it's messing with my subconscious....

So I've been a little quiet of late. That's largely due to the usual end-of-semester marking frenzy, and also a trip to Sydney last weekend.

But, that's not what I'm here to talk about. I've got bigger news.

About an hour ago, I FINALLY FINISHED MY NEXT BOOK!

Thank God.

Sure, when I started it, my plan was for it to take six months (it's only 55,000 words, after all, how long can that take?) and it's ended up taking almost bang on eighteen. And during that time it's felt like a complete monkey on my back.

But now, it's done. And I've got a nice warm pile of paper, hot off the printers, sitting here on the table beside me, just waiting for me to launch into it with a red pen, and start slicing the crap (of which there is an abundance) out of it.

This, for those of you who've been silly enough to hang around here for the last year and a half, is my action / adventure book. It's different to all my other stuff. It's faster paced. Sillier. And has been a lot of fun to write. It's also intended to be the first of a series of (probably) four or five books. Which means that I'm really going to have to speed up my output a little, I suspect.

It's a strange feeling, finishing the first draft. There's an odd mixture of elation and relief, in equal parts. I've now got this big blank(ish) space looming in front of me, which I can fill with all sorts of other projects and ideas. I'll be able to sleep at night without worrying about this book possibly never being completed. And, of course, I've got to start editing it, now, which is where the fun really starts. Particularly for a book that's been written in as many fits and starts as this one.

Still, it's done. And soon, I might need some proofreaders. 13 - 16 year old guys with a penchant for action would be ideal.

Volunteers, anyone?

So I turned 39 last Saturday. I've been meaning t0 put this post up ever since, but - and this pretty much sums up the topic of this particular post - I've just plain been too busy. You can see my space filler of a post last week if you want the details*

But, as is the way with these things, I did get a little reflective over the weekend. Not least because I read this column here, by Aussie author and all-round-nice-person Bec Sparrow, hard upon the heels of having a long conversation with Min along the lines of 'what the hell happened to my 30's?'

Because, I'll be honest, I feel as though my 20's lasted about a decade, and my 30's roughly 5 minutes.

Still, when you do some comparative analysis** I think there's a pretty clear answer as to why.

During my 20's I:
Rowed BoatsDid TriathlonsTrained for rowing and triathlons.
TaughtHad relationships which lasted no longer than 6 months.Sailed on a tall ship twice a year.(Towards the end) wrote 1 book.
And that's about it, really. Now, let's look at the intervening 9(ish) years.

During my 30's I:
Wrote a bookChanged careerMoved interstateWrote another bookMoved back interstateGot engagedWrote another book
Started a PhDWrote another bookMaintained a touring schedule which kept me away from home roughly 3 months out of every year.Wrote another bookGot marriedBought an old run down houseRenovated old run down houseFinished PhDWent to AntarcticaWrote another bookMoved interstate.Wrote another book
Bought another houseSold renovated houseWrote another bookChanged career (again)Gave up touring scheduleBecame a fatherWrote another book.So, all things considered, I'm not overly surprised that I feel as though I missed a few years there. I've been - as has been mentioned on this blog a few times - rather busy.

It's really funny, though - I can remember being a teenager and wondering what my life would be like when I was 30. It's safe to say that I was pretty much incorrect on all counts. Now I'm 39, in the third year of my current career, and working incredibly hard to build up my research and academic profile. My writing career is ticking along nicely enough, even if I'm not getting nearly the writing time I'd like. And my family - both my immediate and extended family - continues to be the absolute joy of my life.***

Which is not a bad way to have spent a decade, in my opinion.

Even if I can't remember most of it...

* Nothing's changed...
** And let's face it, I'm a literary studies academic. Comparative analysis is what it's all about.
*** On that, I also became an uncle again last weekend. Birthday. Unclehood. A good weekend...

...I'm not dead. Nor in a coma. Just horribly, horribly, horribly busy.

Last week I got to the point where I had so much stuff on my plate that I got a bit, well, I guess 'paralysed' is probably the best way to describe it. For a couple of days there, I felt like I was going backwards with just about everything, with the result that a lot of things got pretty much dropped from my agenda. Like blogging, for example.

But I'm slowly getting back on top of things again now - my marking is - touch wood - almost done* I've only got four more lectures and one more class to deliver, and that's my teaching finished for the semester. Then I've got another insane amount of marking to get through, but such is life... I've got a book chapter and a conference paper to get written before the 10th of June, when I head off to Perth for three weeks work at the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre. Most of the papers for the journal I'm editing have come in, and so I'm in the process of chasing up peer reviewers for them. Three weeks ago, Melina Marchetta came and worked with our students at UC, and was *fantastic*. Last week we hosted Easter lunch for our extended Canberra family - all 11 of them - in our backyard. We also dyed eggs, using traditional wax and dyes, which was great fun. I'll admit that I watched most of the Royal Wedding, but went to bed before they went driving in Prince Charles' Aston Martin, which was probably the most interesting part of the whole thing. Toby is sleeping through the nights. Last night I cooked rosemary smoked ribs in the Weber. This morning I got to ride a nice little pony named Woody, and together we did some lovely canter transitions, and also trotted in spirals, which was a lot of fun. While I was doing that, Obama was announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden. I'm not unhappy about the fact that he's been chased down, but the degree of enthusiasm in some of the celebrations are making me slightly uncomfortable. I've never liked the idea of retribution as a cause for celebration. Not for anyone. Even Bin Laden.

Phew.

So, that's about that.

I'm hoping to have life more or less back under control by the end of this week, and so I'll hopefully have the energy to put a bit of time and thought into some decent blog posts.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

*this despite my stupid bloody version of MS Word for Mac freezing up randomly every couple of hours, and forcing me to lose up to 40 minutes of work at a time**
** Yes, I know about saving my work as I go. But, you know, sometimes you just forget. And those are almost inevetably the ones where my machine decides to give me the wheel of death...