Ben Peek's Blog, page 11
July 25, 2013
A Small Note on Dialogue
I like dialogue.
I like it in novels, comics, movies, TV, anything, anywhere, and I like it in its many different forms, with the one exception of the comic book stylised accent speech that, no matter how it is done, is by and large awful.
Mostly, I think that is because it is forced and artificial. You can have artificial speech, of course: the majority of monologues, narrative conversations, and stylised speech is artificial, and nothing like real life. In fact, I would probably argue that most dialogue in fiction is artificial, simply because dialogue in real life is often made up of small communications, touches, movements, and the word, 'uh,' on repeat through anything that stretches out for more than two sentences (one of my pet hates in radio presenters, that). But within the confines of a work of fiction, the rules change, as they do for all things. Just as you don't need to see every moment in the toilet, every bad smell, choice body odour and whatever else you don't usually see, dialogue is subject to that, and people can turn and speak to the reader, give huge speeches without pause, and exchange quick, rapid fire exchanges that require precise comic timing to pull it off. In that world, the bad phonetics of, "Ye cannae stop it!" is forced and artificial, and it is rarely done well, in part because of the rest of the words that surround it, and which rarely compliment the use.
At any rate, back to working on Innocence. I have been plotting and cutting and rewriting away as I structure a rather complex part of it, and everything proceeds along, the whole thing taking shape and substance as it does.
Well, at least so far.
I like it in novels, comics, movies, TV, anything, anywhere, and I like it in its many different forms, with the one exception of the comic book stylised accent speech that, no matter how it is done, is by and large awful.
Mostly, I think that is because it is forced and artificial. You can have artificial speech, of course: the majority of monologues, narrative conversations, and stylised speech is artificial, and nothing like real life. In fact, I would probably argue that most dialogue in fiction is artificial, simply because dialogue in real life is often made up of small communications, touches, movements, and the word, 'uh,' on repeat through anything that stretches out for more than two sentences (one of my pet hates in radio presenters, that). But within the confines of a work of fiction, the rules change, as they do for all things. Just as you don't need to see every moment in the toilet, every bad smell, choice body odour and whatever else you don't usually see, dialogue is subject to that, and people can turn and speak to the reader, give huge speeches without pause, and exchange quick, rapid fire exchanges that require precise comic timing to pull it off. In that world, the bad phonetics of, "Ye cannae stop it!" is forced and artificial, and it is rarely done well, in part because of the rest of the words that surround it, and which rarely compliment the use.
At any rate, back to working on Innocence. I have been plotting and cutting and rewriting away as I structure a rather complex part of it, and everything proceeds along, the whole thing taking shape and substance as it does.
Well, at least so far.
July 18, 2013
On the Western Suburbs of Sydney
I have lived in Western Sydney all my life.
It is a poorly represented area in Sydney, an area that is blamed for violence, racism, and various other unpleasant things that happen in Australia. Quite often, you'll hear it quoted in a political news piece that "The people of Western Sydney don't want," followed by an assertion of asylum seekers, homosexuals, and women. There's more. You can fill in your own minority. Since Western Sydney is the largest part of Sydney, keeping around about seventy five percent of the population within its invisible borders, you will always find a minority that is disliked. Such is (sadly) the way with huge groups of people and shifting, invisible borders that hold a minorities of uneducated, poor opinions fueled by bad media and racist politics. But it is mostly not true: The Western Suburbs of Sydney is a huge, multicultural expanse of people, and within that diversity a huge range of intelligent, decent people exist, from all kinds of backgrounds, heading to all kinds of futures. They're moved by the very real issues of people everywhere: opportunity, education, and the standard of living.
Misrepresentation is common in the media and life. Every city, every country, needs its supposed dark alleys, its violent subgroups, its drugs, its sex, whatever. It is a narrative we like to have, no matter how flawed, incorrect, and damaging it might well be. But the huge multicultural Western Suburbs that is this for many is used by politicians and the media to justify awful things, and must be combated. Michael Mohammed Ahmad, writing for the Guardian, talks a little about this and it's worth a read:
Currently, the Labor Government is talking about ways to address the 'boat people' issue, claiming, in part, that to do so will save politician seats in Western Sydney. In claiming so, they have failed to realise the shifting, altering nature of the Western Suburbs, where a huge multicultural community exists, and the demonisation of these poor people escaping terrible conditions only results in a rising current of hate to people who have settled and contributed to the community here. There are many terrible tragedies that are emerging from the current debate on asylum seekers in Australia--from the ridiculous claim of 'economic migrants' to the illegality of those legally seeking asylum--that we all out to be ashamed by what is happening, and be concerned on how it is portraying parts of the community to all within and without Australia.
I have to stop myself from going on more, because I have work to do today, but I could go on about this topic for thousands and thousands of words. It is what drew me to my doctorate on racial representation and Sydney, and what has laid the ground work for a lot of my ideologies about fiction and work.
But it is raining outside, and that is a favourite time to write, so laters.
It is a poorly represented area in Sydney, an area that is blamed for violence, racism, and various other unpleasant things that happen in Australia. Quite often, you'll hear it quoted in a political news piece that "The people of Western Sydney don't want," followed by an assertion of asylum seekers, homosexuals, and women. There's more. You can fill in your own minority. Since Western Sydney is the largest part of Sydney, keeping around about seventy five percent of the population within its invisible borders, you will always find a minority that is disliked. Such is (sadly) the way with huge groups of people and shifting, invisible borders that hold a minorities of uneducated, poor opinions fueled by bad media and racist politics. But it is mostly not true: The Western Suburbs of Sydney is a huge, multicultural expanse of people, and within that diversity a huge range of intelligent, decent people exist, from all kinds of backgrounds, heading to all kinds of futures. They're moved by the very real issues of people everywhere: opportunity, education, and the standard of living.
Misrepresentation is common in the media and life. Every city, every country, needs its supposed dark alleys, its violent subgroups, its drugs, its sex, whatever. It is a narrative we like to have, no matter how flawed, incorrect, and damaging it might well be. But the huge multicultural Western Suburbs that is this for many is used by politicians and the media to justify awful things, and must be combated. Michael Mohammed Ahmad, writing for the Guardian, talks a little about this and it's worth a read:
Western Sydney is my community. To me, the region has always represented both the heart of where I live, and the heart of Australia. It is the country's most densely populated region, and specifically, the most diverse region, with the largest populations of people from Aboriginal, migrant and refugee backgrounds.
It represents the kind of Australia that we all imagine and hear about, and that we constantly say is worth celebrating, but one that is heavily underrepresented when I watch television, read books, go to theatres, or attend arts festivals.
Sadly, the community of western Sydney not only suffers from underrepresentation; it also suffers from limited representation and misrepresentation. There is a picture that hangs in the office of my previous employer titled "Tintin in Bankstown". He keeps it up because he says it’s funny. It features the famous European adventurer walking down a street with Bankstown train station directly behind him. There is also a dead body, bloodstains and bird poo behind him. This perception of Bankstown as a violent, dirty place is a common one.
Currently, the Labor Government is talking about ways to address the 'boat people' issue, claiming, in part, that to do so will save politician seats in Western Sydney. In claiming so, they have failed to realise the shifting, altering nature of the Western Suburbs, where a huge multicultural community exists, and the demonisation of these poor people escaping terrible conditions only results in a rising current of hate to people who have settled and contributed to the community here. There are many terrible tragedies that are emerging from the current debate on asylum seekers in Australia--from the ridiculous claim of 'economic migrants' to the illegality of those legally seeking asylum--that we all out to be ashamed by what is happening, and be concerned on how it is portraying parts of the community to all within and without Australia.
I have to stop myself from going on more, because I have work to do today, but I could go on about this topic for thousands and thousands of words. It is what drew me to my doctorate on racial representation and Sydney, and what has laid the ground work for a lot of my ideologies about fiction and work.
But it is raining outside, and that is a favourite time to write, so laters.
July 10, 2013
The Improbable, Impractical, Impolite
If there has one been one thing that has become apparent to me while writing Innocence, it is that I would have made a terrible designer of cities.
I design things on aesthetic, on metaphor, on symbolism, on what will, perhaps, be interesting to destroy. I care not for sanitation, the environment, or common sense. I am reminded of a painting by the artist Greg Bridges, who operates a coffee shop in my neighbourhood. The inside, filled with old odds and ends he has picked up over the years, has his various bits of his art in it, including a painting of a city built on the edge of a cliff. Hanggliders, or kites, or balloons, move around in the background--I cannot remember exactly--but the city sits right on the edge of a cliff, and has various bad natured elevators and sudden drops, while a dirty plain leads off panel. It's a cool painting, and when I am in the shop, I look at it and let my mind turn over all the ways that, while a visually distinctive and neat piece of work, it's an amazingly poorly designed city, a city in which children fall to their deaths every day, where suicides are high, employment low, and invading armies lay siege and then simply starve everyone out. It looks cool, but it's hugely impractical in terms of design and sustainability, and if you followed the lay of the land suggested by the painting, could have easily been built in a much saner place.
Though, y'know, it would not have looked as cool.
There are lots of examples that I am sure you can think of, from books both large and small. They are cities built in largely impractical areas with largely impossible designs--either by their site or by their material--in which, if you stopped and thought about it, must result in at least hundreds of accidental deaths each year. A lot seem to be built on the top of mountains, though I am sure there's enough on volcanoes, ocean edges, and other poorly selected locations that a rather long and terrifying list can be created. The Impractical Cities of Fantasy, you could call it. But it doesn't really matter--in the same way that you don't stress the poor dental hygiene, the defined lack of factories to produce toilet paper, the sewage systems, and likely plagues that break out every few years from the combination thereof, you don't really stress the Improbably Design of Fantasy Cities (that's a better title, surely?) and so long as they work within the text and do not break the world (literature works on metaphor and symbolism, remember) you're all good.
Which is good, because that's the balance I run. I would be wasted designing real cities, planning urban sprawl and environmental existence, on assuring native life still has places to exist next to huge towers. I see the side of a cliff and I say, "My giant stone castle is going to sit right there," and I don't stress the weight of that on the overhanging cliff. To me, the fantasy is not just in the immortals, the gods, the magic, the fighting and the like, but it's in the design of the world, in the ability to use your literary designs in big, fabulous ways. A fantasy novel is a big, wide screen experience--by its very nature it is not small and isolated in tiny rooms--and I reckon its best when you go with that in design especially. I like giant stone canals. I like huge bridges to link islands together. I like the complete and utter madness that lets me create something wild and insane and which, in the end, would be shaken off by any government as ridiculous. Well, until you stop and think about San Pedro Prison, at any rate.
I design things on aesthetic, on metaphor, on symbolism, on what will, perhaps, be interesting to destroy. I care not for sanitation, the environment, or common sense. I am reminded of a painting by the artist Greg Bridges, who operates a coffee shop in my neighbourhood. The inside, filled with old odds and ends he has picked up over the years, has his various bits of his art in it, including a painting of a city built on the edge of a cliff. Hanggliders, or kites, or balloons, move around in the background--I cannot remember exactly--but the city sits right on the edge of a cliff, and has various bad natured elevators and sudden drops, while a dirty plain leads off panel. It's a cool painting, and when I am in the shop, I look at it and let my mind turn over all the ways that, while a visually distinctive and neat piece of work, it's an amazingly poorly designed city, a city in which children fall to their deaths every day, where suicides are high, employment low, and invading armies lay siege and then simply starve everyone out. It looks cool, but it's hugely impractical in terms of design and sustainability, and if you followed the lay of the land suggested by the painting, could have easily been built in a much saner place.
Though, y'know, it would not have looked as cool.
There are lots of examples that I am sure you can think of, from books both large and small. They are cities built in largely impractical areas with largely impossible designs--either by their site or by their material--in which, if you stopped and thought about it, must result in at least hundreds of accidental deaths each year. A lot seem to be built on the top of mountains, though I am sure there's enough on volcanoes, ocean edges, and other poorly selected locations that a rather long and terrifying list can be created. The Impractical Cities of Fantasy, you could call it. But it doesn't really matter--in the same way that you don't stress the poor dental hygiene, the defined lack of factories to produce toilet paper, the sewage systems, and likely plagues that break out every few years from the combination thereof, you don't really stress the Improbably Design of Fantasy Cities (that's a better title, surely?) and so long as they work within the text and do not break the world (literature works on metaphor and symbolism, remember) you're all good.
Which is good, because that's the balance I run. I would be wasted designing real cities, planning urban sprawl and environmental existence, on assuring native life still has places to exist next to huge towers. I see the side of a cliff and I say, "My giant stone castle is going to sit right there," and I don't stress the weight of that on the overhanging cliff. To me, the fantasy is not just in the immortals, the gods, the magic, the fighting and the like, but it's in the design of the world, in the ability to use your literary designs in big, fabulous ways. A fantasy novel is a big, wide screen experience--by its very nature it is not small and isolated in tiny rooms--and I reckon its best when you go with that in design especially. I like giant stone canals. I like huge bridges to link islands together. I like the complete and utter madness that lets me create something wild and insane and which, in the end, would be shaken off by any government as ridiculous. Well, until you stop and think about San Pedro Prison, at any rate.
July 3, 2013
After the Workshop
I taught a workshop over the last three days, one based on vampires and horror. An odd choice, because horror isn't really a love of mine, but the vampire has gone through some interesting changes over the years, from villains to anti-heroes to heroes, even. I spoke a lot about how the representation of women had changed as well in these stories, going from being victims of fallen sexuality to everything opposite and in between. I spoke about metaphors and representation. I spoke about old books and new books and old films and new films. An episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a crowd favourite, which, y'know, there are worse things right?
It felt good to be able to talk about those things. After weeks of watching a female Prime Minister reduced to her 'big red box' and being given questions about the sexuality of her partner, after the Australian Army announcing a systemic culture of abuse to women was in their ranks, after reading blog posts about women being subjected to sexual harassment in science fiction cons, and hearing about female journalists that have been raped in Egypt... it was nice to be able to talk about how the representation of women, somewhere, had changed. Horror fiction is not a shining light of womens rights, not by any definition, and I said once that it was a deep pool of crap in which you had to fish out the good work, but there are other genres like that, as well. It's not unique to horror.
But it was nice, still.
Now, however, it is time to return to writing Innocence.
It felt good to be able to talk about those things. After weeks of watching a female Prime Minister reduced to her 'big red box' and being given questions about the sexuality of her partner, after the Australian Army announcing a systemic culture of abuse to women was in their ranks, after reading blog posts about women being subjected to sexual harassment in science fiction cons, and hearing about female journalists that have been raped in Egypt... it was nice to be able to talk about how the representation of women, somewhere, had changed. Horror fiction is not a shining light of womens rights, not by any definition, and I said once that it was a deep pool of crap in which you had to fish out the good work, but there are other genres like that, as well. It's not unique to horror.
But it was nice, still.
Now, however, it is time to return to writing Innocence.
June 26, 2013
The Devil You Know
And so, in coming full cycle, Kevin Rudd deposed Julia Gillard three years and three days after she deposed him, before an election.
It was inevitable: Gillard could never justify the political removal of Rudd as Prime Minister as anything other than a moment of political weakness on the part of the Labor Party. Despite the fact that she, personally, would display an almost three year run of political will that shook off two challenges and what appeared an endless parade of dissenters, Gillard fell to the same Labor Party weakness. It came from deep within the party, is part of the culture, the smile of 21st Century career politicians who value employment over morals, drive, and running that thin line of unpopular but good policy. The dare is gone: the last vision of it, John Howard taking on gun control after Port Arthur, will unfortunately allow good things to be said about him. Yet, there was a difference to the removal of Gillard, this time. Unlike those who deposed him, Rudd played his hand out in the public. The public was all he had, after all, and they appeared all to willing an audience, and his methodical, slow destruction of Gillard--aided by Gillard herself at times--left no doubt in the mind of the public why it had happened. Like it or not, you knew why at the end of last night, and you didn't need the sound bite to explain it.
Yet, it was culturally awful to watch. It revealed a deep, sexist thread that ran through Australia, and it tied itself to allowing an endless series of hate speech to exist. It was one of the most important tools to undermining Gillard as Prime Minister, and one that both Rudd and the conservative politicians of Australia played. Never forget that, in response to the menu that referred to Gillard's vagina as a 'big red box', Rudd said that, “It’s wrong, inappropriate and he (Brough) should donate every dollar raised to the RSPCA.”
That's right: rather that attack it for its very obvious sexism, Rudd himself took a piece of that pie.
In an excellent article on the Guardian today, Katherine Murphy wrote about Gillard:
It is absolutely true, as is the discomfiting reality that Gillard faced gratuitous attacks that were entirely gender-based. Over and over, we saw confirmation that there was a proportion of people in Australia who struggled with Gillard as a public manifestation of feminist progress. This pushback against the prime minister was, at times, extraordinary – and for a woman of my generation, depressing.
...
But the deep personal flaws were there too. Gillard could command admiration, but not respect. She shape-shifted. She confounded rather than connected. She was, in turns, too loyal and then too ruthless. The tempo of project Julia was ragged. She could not nurture a fractured government back to functionality. She did not command the caucus, the cabinet, the voters. She became a solo act, shrinking before our eyes.
Of course she would say her failure to reassure was an unnatural condition imposed on her by her enemies – the people who made it their business to keep her in tumult, to make sure her feet never touched solid ground. Abbott was utterly pitiless, forgiving his own severity and minimising it before highlighting hers. The hung parliament and its freewheeling characters were a backing track of instability. Rudd would not accept defeat, no matter how many times she outflanked him and won. He remained on the field, resolutely on the moral high ground, camped out in luxury, plotting and scripting revenge of the nerds while she dragged Labor behind her in a singular act of will that was as terrifying as it was admirable.
She would point in her defence to the toxicity of the media cycle. Before she could unpack her bags in the official residence the news cycle fragmented, chasing its own increasingly desperate shadow. Media outlets seemed to lose their will and their capacity to cover complexity, seemed to lack the courage to stand still. Gillard watched as her prime ministership was transformed into a soap opera. Heads she lost. Tails she lost. Commentators she had declined to flatter and court and appoint keepers of her personal mythology elevated rivals and critics at her expense, recording their laments in minute detail, playing gleeful stenographers to the disaffected. Her disintegration became grist to the hourly mill, a habit that the media could not kick. “Gillard’s woes” was a standing item on every news list in the country.
And then she would point to those haters. The culture warriors who resisted the progressive threat on principle. The type of Australians who could not accept a lady in the Lodge – and certainly not an unconventional one, with a sub-optimal boyfriend, no husband, no children, no God, no instinct to defer. Her steady prevailing, without flourish, without self-indulgence, without self-pity only gave fresh succour to their hatred. Who knew there were so many of them, lurking and fulminating in their self-righteous loathing? Stuffing her in chaff bags. Peeping through her window. Dinosaurs in a last desperate act of fire-breathing, consuming her and themselves – a bizarre and terrible immolation.
She’d be right in these assessments, more or less.
It’s all been part of the Julia Gillard story, an incredible tale where Australia chewed up and spat out its first female prime minister.
It has, as I said, been sad to see. For Australia, for women: because while, yes, what Rudd did to her last night is what she did to him three years ago, the way that it has been brought about has been an undermining of her as a woman. Yes, she was undermined also for poor political choices, but that was always second to the fact that her cleavage got shown, or her heel caused her to stumble, or that her misogyny speech was full of shit, or that she shouldn't talk to women about abortion (because, like, women shouldn't discuss abortion, no) or the countless other things that were said and done (chaff bags, is your partner gay, etc). There was never enough time spent on her entirely political based opposition to gay marriage that revealed the conservative core of Labor, her massive misstep with Nova Peris, the ridiculous use of Peter Slipper, and the frankly dismal ratcheting of racism that revealed that not just her, but all of politics in general, have not kept with the changing nature of Sydney's Western Suburbs.
The Labor Party will gain and lose in equal amounts at the election, and rightfully so. The truth is, after all this, if you do not want to vote for Labor because they are a dysfunctional, deeply divided party who are a shade to the left of the Liberals and Nationals in their coalition, you'd be completely within your right to do so. Yes, there are a few policy difference, but Rudd won't drive for education reform as Gillard did, and the promise of a good broadband in Australia is nice, but not a deal breaker for most, I believe. With luck, this will send some of the left leaning people to the Greens (where racism is, how shall we say, less, and gay marriage is supported) or to independents, rather than to suffer one major party or the other, but with the way that preferential voting works, it will probably not. Already people claim to hate what they have seen the Labor Party engage in, but they will vote to keep Abbott out of the seat, in a strange belief that somehow all this inequality we have seen will suddenly stop.
But that, of course, is exactly par the course in the two party system. It's the Devil you know, until the bitter end.
It was inevitable: Gillard could never justify the political removal of Rudd as Prime Minister as anything other than a moment of political weakness on the part of the Labor Party. Despite the fact that she, personally, would display an almost three year run of political will that shook off two challenges and what appeared an endless parade of dissenters, Gillard fell to the same Labor Party weakness. It came from deep within the party, is part of the culture, the smile of 21st Century career politicians who value employment over morals, drive, and running that thin line of unpopular but good policy. The dare is gone: the last vision of it, John Howard taking on gun control after Port Arthur, will unfortunately allow good things to be said about him. Yet, there was a difference to the removal of Gillard, this time. Unlike those who deposed him, Rudd played his hand out in the public. The public was all he had, after all, and they appeared all to willing an audience, and his methodical, slow destruction of Gillard--aided by Gillard herself at times--left no doubt in the mind of the public why it had happened. Like it or not, you knew why at the end of last night, and you didn't need the sound bite to explain it.
Yet, it was culturally awful to watch. It revealed a deep, sexist thread that ran through Australia, and it tied itself to allowing an endless series of hate speech to exist. It was one of the most important tools to undermining Gillard as Prime Minister, and one that both Rudd and the conservative politicians of Australia played. Never forget that, in response to the menu that referred to Gillard's vagina as a 'big red box', Rudd said that, “It’s wrong, inappropriate and he (Brough) should donate every dollar raised to the RSPCA.”
That's right: rather that attack it for its very obvious sexism, Rudd himself took a piece of that pie.
In an excellent article on the Guardian today, Katherine Murphy wrote about Gillard:
It is absolutely true, as is the discomfiting reality that Gillard faced gratuitous attacks that were entirely gender-based. Over and over, we saw confirmation that there was a proportion of people in Australia who struggled with Gillard as a public manifestation of feminist progress. This pushback against the prime minister was, at times, extraordinary – and for a woman of my generation, depressing.
...
But the deep personal flaws were there too. Gillard could command admiration, but not respect. She shape-shifted. She confounded rather than connected. She was, in turns, too loyal and then too ruthless. The tempo of project Julia was ragged. She could not nurture a fractured government back to functionality. She did not command the caucus, the cabinet, the voters. She became a solo act, shrinking before our eyes.
Of course she would say her failure to reassure was an unnatural condition imposed on her by her enemies – the people who made it their business to keep her in tumult, to make sure her feet never touched solid ground. Abbott was utterly pitiless, forgiving his own severity and minimising it before highlighting hers. The hung parliament and its freewheeling characters were a backing track of instability. Rudd would not accept defeat, no matter how many times she outflanked him and won. He remained on the field, resolutely on the moral high ground, camped out in luxury, plotting and scripting revenge of the nerds while she dragged Labor behind her in a singular act of will that was as terrifying as it was admirable.
She would point in her defence to the toxicity of the media cycle. Before she could unpack her bags in the official residence the news cycle fragmented, chasing its own increasingly desperate shadow. Media outlets seemed to lose their will and their capacity to cover complexity, seemed to lack the courage to stand still. Gillard watched as her prime ministership was transformed into a soap opera. Heads she lost. Tails she lost. Commentators she had declined to flatter and court and appoint keepers of her personal mythology elevated rivals and critics at her expense, recording their laments in minute detail, playing gleeful stenographers to the disaffected. Her disintegration became grist to the hourly mill, a habit that the media could not kick. “Gillard’s woes” was a standing item on every news list in the country.
And then she would point to those haters. The culture warriors who resisted the progressive threat on principle. The type of Australians who could not accept a lady in the Lodge – and certainly not an unconventional one, with a sub-optimal boyfriend, no husband, no children, no God, no instinct to defer. Her steady prevailing, without flourish, without self-indulgence, without self-pity only gave fresh succour to their hatred. Who knew there were so many of them, lurking and fulminating in their self-righteous loathing? Stuffing her in chaff bags. Peeping through her window. Dinosaurs in a last desperate act of fire-breathing, consuming her and themselves – a bizarre and terrible immolation.
She’d be right in these assessments, more or less.
It’s all been part of the Julia Gillard story, an incredible tale where Australia chewed up and spat out its first female prime minister.
It has, as I said, been sad to see. For Australia, for women: because while, yes, what Rudd did to her last night is what she did to him three years ago, the way that it has been brought about has been an undermining of her as a woman. Yes, she was undermined also for poor political choices, but that was always second to the fact that her cleavage got shown, or her heel caused her to stumble, or that her misogyny speech was full of shit, or that she shouldn't talk to women about abortion (because, like, women shouldn't discuss abortion, no) or the countless other things that were said and done (chaff bags, is your partner gay, etc). There was never enough time spent on her entirely political based opposition to gay marriage that revealed the conservative core of Labor, her massive misstep with Nova Peris, the ridiculous use of Peter Slipper, and the frankly dismal ratcheting of racism that revealed that not just her, but all of politics in general, have not kept with the changing nature of Sydney's Western Suburbs.
The Labor Party will gain and lose in equal amounts at the election, and rightfully so. The truth is, after all this, if you do not want to vote for Labor because they are a dysfunctional, deeply divided party who are a shade to the left of the Liberals and Nationals in their coalition, you'd be completely within your right to do so. Yes, there are a few policy difference, but Rudd won't drive for education reform as Gillard did, and the promise of a good broadband in Australia is nice, but not a deal breaker for most, I believe. With luck, this will send some of the left leaning people to the Greens (where racism is, how shall we say, less, and gay marriage is supported) or to independents, rather than to suffer one major party or the other, but with the way that preferential voting works, it will probably not. Already people claim to hate what they have seen the Labor Party engage in, but they will vote to keep Abbott out of the seat, in a strange belief that somehow all this inequality we have seen will suddenly stop.
But that, of course, is exactly par the course in the two party system. It's the Devil you know, until the bitter end.
June 24, 2013
The Fish
Earlier today, an old Ukrainian man came to my door. He arrived in an old, black hatchback. He was short, a thick man, his hair cut short and a mix of silver and grey. He wore heavy clothes, for it was cold, and raining. In his hand he carried a red bucket with plastic containers.
"Hi there," he said when I opened the door. "I'm here for the fish."
After a few moments, we agreed that he had the wrong address.
"Hi there," he said when I opened the door. "I'm here for the fish."
After a few moments, we agreed that he had the wrong address.
June 20, 2013
Sold to US
Happy to announce the US sale of the Children series to Peter Wolverton of Thomas Dunne Books at St Martin's Press. Here's the Press release:
Harriet Sanders, Rights Director at Macmillan, has sold US rights in three novels by Australian fantasy novelist Ben Peek – IMMOLATION, INNOCENCE and INCARNATION – to Peter Wolverton of Thomas Dunne Books at St Martin's Press for a good five-figure sum..
The trilogy is called 'Children'. IMMOLATION is set fifteen thousand years after the War of the Gods. The bodies of the gods now lie across the world, slowly dying as men and women awake with strange powers that are derived from their bodies. Ayae, a young cartographer's apprentice, is attacked and discovers she cannot be harmed by fire. Her new power makes her a target for an army that is marching on her home. With the help of the immortal Zaifyr, she is taught the awful history of 'cursed' men and women, coming to grips with her new powers and the enemies they make. The saboteur Bueralan infiltrates the army that is approaching her home to learn its terrible secret. Split between the three points of view, Immolation's narrative reaches its conclusion during an epic siege, where Ayae, Zaifyr and Bueralan are forced not just into conflict with those invading, but with those inside the city who wish to do them harm.
SMP will publish in summer 2014, as will Tor UK.
World rights in these titles were acquired by Julie Crisp at Tor UK from agent John Jarrold for a six-figure advance after an auction.
Contact Harriet Sanders or John Jarrold for further information:
Harriet Sanders – e-mail: H.Sanders@macmillan.co.uk phone 020 7014 6148
John Jarrold: e-mail: j.jarrold@btinternet.com phone: 01522 510544.
June 19, 2013
Deadlines and Insulting Piers Akerman
I have self imposed deadlines and imposed deadlines. The latter informs the former.
I have one year deadlines for each of the novels in Children, which seems like a lot--I have seen some authors with half that--but I rewrite a lot, and I'll need that time. Because of the way I work, I have divided up my larger deadline into smaller ones, and I have marks in the work that I have to hit every couple of weeks. If I haven't hit that, I fall behind, and that requires me to expend a bit more time in the day writing, or bail on a plan, or something similar. None of it is a particular problem, but it explains the blog silence over the last week and a bit. I suspect it'll happen here and there, as well, and I apologise if you come by and there's nothing new for a few days here and there.
In the meantime, I have been watching the Australian media devour itself in an attempt to prove who is or isn't more sexist. Most recently, I saw Piers Akerman attempt to validate the question made by Howard Sattler on Insiders ("Is your partner gay?") and then claim it to be a left wing, blogsphere conspiracy that was kicking up a fuss about it. Of course, Akerman, who has been brought up on sexual harassment charges, as well as assault charges against a female editor, knows nothing of sexism, and we're all just making a mistake suggesting that he's nothing but a spineless, weak willed, climate denying, homophobic, sexist piece of garbage.
Yes, a mistake.
Frankly, I have been amazed and saddened by how awful Australia has generally been acting in the last few weeks, not to mention the months and years of this. I thought equality was a thing we had all agreed upon as being good and important? I get that you might not like Julia Gillard, or another woman, but what, you can't mount a critique of their ideas? You can't be reasoned and informed? There's enough there to argue that Gillard's Labor has been unsuccessful at times (and successful at others) and you don't need to suggest her partner is gay, or write offensive menus where you refer to her vagina as a big red box. It's shameful--it's shameful to me as an Australian person who is a man that you are doing this. If I was in another country now, I would claim to be Canadian or some shit, rather than be associated with what you are doing.
I could go on, and on, but ultimately, it'd come back to not understanding why.
Why?
Why do this?
Don't you have mothers and daughters and partners, Australia? Don't you have female friends?
Do you all want to be known as a misogynistic, hate filled religious country without the obscenely conservative religious views?
It is sexist and it is degrading and it is shameful and it needs to stop.
I have one year deadlines for each of the novels in Children, which seems like a lot--I have seen some authors with half that--but I rewrite a lot, and I'll need that time. Because of the way I work, I have divided up my larger deadline into smaller ones, and I have marks in the work that I have to hit every couple of weeks. If I haven't hit that, I fall behind, and that requires me to expend a bit more time in the day writing, or bail on a plan, or something similar. None of it is a particular problem, but it explains the blog silence over the last week and a bit. I suspect it'll happen here and there, as well, and I apologise if you come by and there's nothing new for a few days here and there.
In the meantime, I have been watching the Australian media devour itself in an attempt to prove who is or isn't more sexist. Most recently, I saw Piers Akerman attempt to validate the question made by Howard Sattler on Insiders ("Is your partner gay?") and then claim it to be a left wing, blogsphere conspiracy that was kicking up a fuss about it. Of course, Akerman, who has been brought up on sexual harassment charges, as well as assault charges against a female editor, knows nothing of sexism, and we're all just making a mistake suggesting that he's nothing but a spineless, weak willed, climate denying, homophobic, sexist piece of garbage.
Yes, a mistake.
Frankly, I have been amazed and saddened by how awful Australia has generally been acting in the last few weeks, not to mention the months and years of this. I thought equality was a thing we had all agreed upon as being good and important? I get that you might not like Julia Gillard, or another woman, but what, you can't mount a critique of their ideas? You can't be reasoned and informed? There's enough there to argue that Gillard's Labor has been unsuccessful at times (and successful at others) and you don't need to suggest her partner is gay, or write offensive menus where you refer to her vagina as a big red box. It's shameful--it's shameful to me as an Australian person who is a man that you are doing this. If I was in another country now, I would claim to be Canadian or some shit, rather than be associated with what you are doing.
I could go on, and on, but ultimately, it'd come back to not understanding why.
Why?
Why do this?
Don't you have mothers and daughters and partners, Australia? Don't you have female friends?
Do you all want to be known as a misogynistic, hate filled religious country without the obscenely conservative religious views?
It is sexist and it is degrading and it is shameful and it needs to stop.
June 6, 2013
In the Guardian.
Over in the Guardian today, David Barnett talks about Australian Speculative Fiction, using the recent sales of both Rjurik Davidson and myself as a launching pad.
Most of the hard lifting and quoting here is done by others, so I get to sit there and look pretty.
Yes.
Despite the healthy homegrown scene, success for writers depends on getting on the global stage. Ben Peek says: "There's a solid indie press lot, but if you want to reach an audience, the best choice is actually to get out of the country.
"Part of it, from what I understand, is the distribution scheme. Once you're published by, say, HarperCollins in Australia, the UK division will be reluctant to take you on because you've already been part of their 'market'. In addition, for a first book the print runs by a mainstream press are about three to five thousand – roughly what a good indie press out of the States will do."
Rjurik Davidson adds: "I do think the SF scene is relatively healthy, particularly with its indie presses. There are quite a few really fine writers – Angela Slatter, Kaaron Warren, Kirstyn McDermott, etc – published by them here. Having said that, the aim of every SF writer is to be published in the UK or the US, as the size of the market here is just too small."
Cheryl Morgan agrees. "Many of the big multinationals have SF&f imprints, and there are some very interesting small presses, most notably Alisa Krasnostein's Twelfth Planet Press. However, to make a living as a science fiction writer, you probably need international sales."
Most of the hard lifting and quoting here is done by others, so I get to sit there and look pretty.
Yes.
