Cath Crowley's Blog, page 4

some zoe keating while you write

 

some zoe keating while you write

the night forest and the strange little ocean oh, and I...

 the night forest and the strange little ocean 

oh, and I am trying out tumblr here

 

 

this is cool

Wildlife Launch – 23 May

 

 

 

Fiona Wood’s new book Wildlife is divine.

Lou and Sibylla are the kind of people I’d want as friends.

This book is funny, it’s smart, it’s a snick in the heart. It’s beautifully written. Read it. And come to the launch to celebrate that a book like this is in the world.

 

Life? It’s simple: be true to yourself.

The tricky part is finding out exactly who you are…

“In the holidays before the dreaded term at Crowthorne Grammar’s outdoor education camp two things out of the ordinary happened.

A picture of me was plastered all over a twenty-metre billboard.

And I kissed Ben Capaldi.”

Boarding for a term in the wilderness, sixteen-year-old Sibylla expects the gruesome outdoor education program – but friendship complications, and love that goes wrong? They’re extra-curricula.

Enter Lou from Six Impossible Things – the reluctant new girl for this term in the great outdoors. Fragile behind an implacable mask, she is grieving a death that occurred almost a year ago. Despite herself, Lou becomes intrigued by the unfolding drama between her housemates Sibylla and Holly, and has to decide whether to end her self-imposed detachment and join the fray.

And as Sibylla confronts a tangle of betrayal, she needs to renegotiate everything she thought she knew about surviving in the wild.

A story about first love, friendship and NOT fitting in.

 

 

 

It’s no secret how much I loved Six Impossible Things (I read it more than six times). And I have just as much love for Wildlife.

 

 

 

A few people have been emailing me about The Howling Boy,...

A few people have been emailing me about The Howling Boy, asking for a taster. It won’t be ready for a little while yet, but it’s on the way. The only taster I have is this piece I wrote for one of my very talented students – Anna Cowan. Look out for her writing. She’s amazing. You can find the piece on her wonderful blog diary of a(n accidental) housewife
 
It takes me the longest time to get to the heartbreak and kissing

first there’s nothing in the new world but shadows and space.


I keep hoping that one day I’ll find a shortcut, a door that takes me from one novel into the next. Takes me straight from Ed and Lucy’s kiss, through a small gap in the air, onto the street where Giselle and Charlie are waiting. Or even better, couldn’t I just walk a little way down the road, and have them existing on different streets in the same world?

But for me there’s no door or small walk. I go the long way around.

I leave the dark parks of Graffiti Moon and arrive on a highway. I’m in a car at night, and there’s not even a sling of moon. The only light comes from the car. Every now and then the driver flicks the headlights to high beam and makes a ghost of the world. There are two people, three if you include me, and we’re heaving all over the road. It seems as if the driver’s heart is hooked to the breaks. The two people in the front are eating Fruit Loops from a snap lock bag and for some reason one of them is wearing pajamas. There’s a flickering light in the car and it takes me a while to see that it’s their conversation.

I write it down.
I write down all their conversations. The book is nothing but talk and driving through the dark. The world outside is shadow. Other people appear in the car and I write what they say too.
I write stream of consciousness. I talk to other writers about it. I plan, I plot, I re plan. I make character maps.
I confide in one good friend that I can’t get them out of the car. They’re in the front seat talking, and thinking about kissing, driving on a ghost highway and tossing Fruit Loops to the air and they won’t get out. Maybe the setting is the car? I can’t write a whole novel in a car.
I write a page without stopping and the characters’ words are sweet lights that they roll around their tongues and swap when they kiss. They’re in lust, driving towards love, maybe. Why would you get out of the car?
They have all the expectation and none of the risk. You can’t get physically close in a moving car; you don’t have to stop at any of the points in the landscape that you don’t want to look at. You don’t have to face up to the howling that’s going on outside the window.
What is that howling? I ask.
I think it’s a boy, Giselle says. She’s not getting out of the car to investigate.
I take away their Fruit Loops and give them a flat tyre. We’re getting out of the car.
I force them into a world they don’t want to be in, out of the safe place.
And slowly, putting together all my notebooks of conversations and thoughts and fears, the plot of the story comes.
I know what happens between Charlie and Giselle. I know them so well now. We’ve been on a very long road trip together. I know how they kiss and I know their heartbreak because I’ve been with them so long.
I know they arrive, two characters on the corner of a dark highway. Waiting for the lights of something beautiful.

And so the book is out in Germany

my morning walkmy lovely creek turned to foam, which I d...

my morning walk

my lovely creek turned to foam, which I don’t love. And a piece of artwork that I do.

 

you distract me, magnetic poetry on my fridge

You are the slow the fast the weird the wine the night the sea the hoot the owl the want the be the skin the taste the fear the know the tell the ask the beat the sky the cloud the ache the spin the sip the drink the slam the wish.

This month I went to stay with an old friend who lives in...

This month I went to stay with an old friend who lives in Derby, WA. So. Some pictures and a soundtrack to go with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite times were dusk and dark. The stars were ripe for wishing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a map, in case, like me, your geography isn’t so good.

 

 

 

On the way to from Broome to Derby.

This boab tree with the resting bird made me think of the last line of Chasing Charlie Duskin (or A Little Wanting Song, depending on where you are in the world).

 

Windjana Gorge. There were freshwater crocodiles that aren’t meant to be dangerous but I do not believe that anything with that many teeth can be harmless.

 

And the best part of my stay… I did some work at Derby District High where my friend teaches. It was a great privilege to work with the students there. You can see some of the fantastic stories in the pictures. (See a drawing of me in the picture too – thanks to the artist – I love it!)

 

Huge thanks to the students who made this display – the card throwers – you know who you are. Thanks for letting me read your picture storybooks, thanks for telling me your stories and being so generous with your knowledge of the area.

 

 

As a thank you my friend took me to Broome so I could look out at the Indian Ocean. 

 

I could see the sky from my shower.

I really should go outdoors more often.

 

So I’m finishing up at Derby High School in The Kimberley...

So I’m finishing up at Derby High School in The Kimberley.

 

Just one more day on Friday. I’ve been lucky enough to work with very talented storytellers. Lucky enough to read stories about what it’s like to fish for Barra, what it’s like to ride a motorbike. I can now imagine the death roll of a salt water crocodile. I’ve watched long sunsets and seen stars a hundred times brighter than the ones over me in Melbourne. I’ve heard about a blood red moon.

 

Big thanks to the students at Derby for making me feel very welcome. And for being patient enough to answer the questions of a (very, very) curious city girl.