Lili Wilkinson's Blog, page 13

Delia Derbyshire and the Doctor

I saw a documentary at MIFF on the weekend called The Delian Mode.

It was about Delia Derbyshire (great name), who worked at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s. Delia was a mathematician and musician, incredibly talented, innovative and eccentric. She's best known for creating the Doctor Who theme music. When composer Ron Grainer first heard Delia's version, he asked "did I really write this?". Delia replied, "most of it." She had spunk.

No computers. No synthesisers. Every sound...

Another new Scatterheart cover

…Is in paperback in Germany, and has a lovely new cover! Google Translate tells me the tagline means "banished into the distance", which is very poetic.

It's like David Lynch in a blender with Maureen McCarthy and a Werewolf

Come see me launch Leanne Hall's astonishing Text YA Fiction Prize-winning debut, This is Shyness. August 12. It'll blow you away. (the book, that is. but I hope to give a good speech as well. plus Leanne's wearing lairy tights and if you're all good then I will also.)

An imaginary letter (actually, it's a rant)

Dear X,

I have to tell you about my new man. He's older than me. Much older. Perhaps that's why he's a bit condescending – he often calls me absurd and thinks he knows better than me about stuff like whether I want to go to the prom or go to University. And he hates my friends. Calls them shallow, so I don't see them any more.

I admit our relationship isn't perfect. There was this one time he broke up with me, then threatened to kill himself. Oh, and he got his sister to kidnap me, and slashed ...

The roach motel

I'm not scared of spiders, or mice, or the dark, or moths. But I don't like cockroaches.

I don't think I'd ever seen a cockroach before I lived in Japan in my early 20s. They used to be very uncommon in Melbourne – not so much now.

Anyway, there were plenty of them in Tokyo. My flatmate and I used to squeamishly trap them in a jar, carry them outside and then squish them with a shoe. Until one day my flatmate found one in her bed, and something had to be done.

This is a cockroach trap, and...

When Pigs Fly

I'm writing a story at the moment that features a pig. A big, muddy, bristly pig. And it's led me on all sorts of interesting Wikipedia spiral adventures. Did you know that Wall Street in Manhattan is named for a wall built along it to stop pigs from getting into grain fields? And that the phrase "sweating like a pig" is totally inaccurate, because pigs don't sweat? (that's why they cover themselves in mud, to cool down)

But here's my favourite thing. An adynaton is a hyperbolic saying to...

Come see me talk about Romance!

When people ask me what kind of books I write, I generally answer "nerdy teen chicklit" – which seems the best way to describe Pink and The Not Quite Perfect Boyfriend, and also the two that I'm working on at the moment.  Scatterheart is probably historical romance fairy tale YA. And I don't even know where to begin with Angel Fish. Let's just say historical fiction.

But that kind of means that I'm also a romance writer*! How strange and exciting!

Next week is the Wheeler Centre's week of Love ...

Top 10 girls

How very chuffed I am that Ava from Pink made it onto Fiction Focus's Top 10 Girls in recent Aussie YA!

Except now I'm imagining what might happen if Ava and Anonymity Jones and Bo and Catherine and Riley and all the others got together to celebrate making the top 10. I think so many strong personalities might clash. Or maybe they'd have an awesome, raucous party full of stories and laughter and excited did you knows…

Either way, it's an exciting time, where more and more strong, interesting...

Trees. Rocks. Acts.

I had fun during my residency this week telling the students about basic three act structure. Or, better put:

You stick a guy up a tree. Throw rocks at him. Then he gets down again.

I explain it using Harry Potter. The tree is the PROBLEM of the series: namely, Voldemort wants to kill Harry. The rocks are all the bad stuff that happens to Harry. And the rocks start out quite little, like sand or gravel. The Dursleys are mean. Draco Malfoy is a tool. Snape is nasty. There's a troll in the...

A crazy week

So in the past six days I've given 18 talks/workshops. I'm exhausted! But I met lots of great young writers at Genazzano, and am looking forward to going back there next month.

Also, look at how we have our first female Prime Minister! I'm really excited to see Julia Gillard in office (an atheist, too!), although I wish I could have helped vote her in. I mean, I know that we live in a parliamentary democracy and all, but I felt like I played a part in electing Kevin Rudd. I was involved, but t...