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Thomas W. Devine's Blog, page 25
June 2, 2014
Warming Up for the General Election
In New Zealand politics, in election year, the Internet Party and the Mana party have formed an alliance. The Internet party was established by Tim Dotcom (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom ) who is a wanted man in the United States and currently fighting extradition from New Zealand.
Pam Corkery has just been appointed as press secretary to new Internet Party leader, Laila Harre.
Pam is a former Left-wing radio talkback host and one time Member of Parliament (MP), a position she reputedly left in disillusionment in 1999.
I encountered Pam one day at the Parliament end of Lambton Quay, in the nation’s capital, when she was still a MP and I was a state employee working for the Head Office of the Department of Conservation. I just happened to be waiting behind her to use an ATM machine.
After she completed her transaction, and continued along the sidewalk, I found that she had left her ATM card in the slot. I was about to call out to her when she must have remembered the card and turned back. Her cheeks were almost as red as her hair.
That’s why I found news of her career change an interesting political snippet. It’s not every day that you meet a MP in the street.
Pam Corkery has just been appointed as press secretary to new Internet Party leader, Laila Harre.
Pam is a former Left-wing radio talkback host and one time Member of Parliament (MP), a position she reputedly left in disillusionment in 1999.
I encountered Pam one day at the Parliament end of Lambton Quay, in the nation’s capital, when she was still a MP and I was a state employee working for the Head Office of the Department of Conservation. I just happened to be waiting behind her to use an ATM machine.
After she completed her transaction, and continued along the sidewalk, I found that she had left her ATM card in the slot. I was about to call out to her when she must have remembered the card and turned back. Her cheeks were almost as red as her hair.
That’s why I found news of her career change an interesting political snippet. It’s not every day that you meet a MP in the street.
May 26, 2014
Reader or Writer?
In my last post I told you about my plans to re-work and update my 2001 manuscript for a novel entitled “Vacation at Hillsend”. I’ve begun work on it, giving me a new purpose in my morning business hours.
I’ve become quite excited during my first run through the book. Because of the elapse of time, I’ve almost been able to experience the story as a reader rather than as its author. (I think I’ve lamented before, in a post, that an author, because of familiarity with his work, doesn’t get that experience. Now I find that time does make it possible, at least with a manuscript that hasn’t reached its final stages.)
I’ve learnt a lot from publishing seven books since I first drafted “Vacation at Hillsend” and I’m sure I can improve the manuscript. I've already done so in the first run through and there will be many more revisions, and editing, to come.
I also have some new ideas for further developing the plot as I go through the manuscript next. I now think I have a story that’s worth finishing.
___________________
I didn’t write a post last week. I flew up to Northland for a special family occasion, so was otherwise occupied.
www.thomaswdevine.com
I’ve become quite excited during my first run through the book. Because of the elapse of time, I’ve almost been able to experience the story as a reader rather than as its author. (I think I’ve lamented before, in a post, that an author, because of familiarity with his work, doesn’t get that experience. Now I find that time does make it possible, at least with a manuscript that hasn’t reached its final stages.)
I’ve learnt a lot from publishing seven books since I first drafted “Vacation at Hillsend” and I’m sure I can improve the manuscript. I've already done so in the first run through and there will be many more revisions, and editing, to come.
I also have some new ideas for further developing the plot as I go through the manuscript next. I now think I have a story that’s worth finishing.
___________________
I didn’t write a post last week. I flew up to Northland for a special family occasion, so was otherwise occupied.
www.thomaswdevine.com
May 12, 2014
The Ups & Downs of Writing Fiction
The last time I did a post about my writing, I was wondering if, at my age, I could make further withdrawals from the bank of my creativity without placing it in overdraft.
I’ve compromised by reviving a novel I drafted in 2001 but consigned to a floppy disc, and then a CD, until a moment like this came along.
Now, with seven published books under my belt, I feel more capable of revising it and, more or less, of achieving my original literary intention. I entitled the manuscript: “Vacation at Hillsend”.
The family holiday theme of the novel was inspired by Fiona Walker’s debut work, “French Relations” published in 1994 and written at age twenty-five. On Goodreads.com, it’s now her favourite work but I came across it as a Coronet paperback (ISBN-0-340-76587-9) and, being attracted by the cover, bought a copy just after it came out.
Today, Fiona Walker is deservedly a multi-million copy best-selling author and lives in Britain with her partner and two children. My career aspirations are far less ambitious.
”French Relations” is set in France, just like my first novel, “Reversal Point”. “Vacation at Hillsend”, on the other hand, stays in my homeland, New Zealand. The cast of characters in “French Relations” and “Vacation at Hillsend” are quite different and the story lines equally so, needless to say.
“French Relations” has the cover blurb: “It’s a summer of lust, bed-hopping, unresolved sexual tension, horses, dogs, bolshy kids – and lots of bad behaviour. And, in the midst of the bedlam, at least two people fall in love...”
I’ve yet to come up with a blurb for “Vacation at Hillsend”.
Okay, so you may be thinking I’ve taken the easy way out for my next novel. The trouble is, 12 chapters of the manuscript, towards the start, have been lost irretrievably in electronic conversions. With no paper copy in existence, the huge gap is largely why, before now, I’ve been disheartened and put off re-constructing the missing part of the story so that I can bring the novel to publication in an updated form.
Anyhow, it does beat continuing to batter my skull to come up with a new plot all together.
Publication date? Maybe about March next year.
Writing again, I couldn’t be happier.
I’ve compromised by reviving a novel I drafted in 2001 but consigned to a floppy disc, and then a CD, until a moment like this came along.
Now, with seven published books under my belt, I feel more capable of revising it and, more or less, of achieving my original literary intention. I entitled the manuscript: “Vacation at Hillsend”.
The family holiday theme of the novel was inspired by Fiona Walker’s debut work, “French Relations” published in 1994 and written at age twenty-five. On Goodreads.com, it’s now her favourite work but I came across it as a Coronet paperback (ISBN-0-340-76587-9) and, being attracted by the cover, bought a copy just after it came out.
Today, Fiona Walker is deservedly a multi-million copy best-selling author and lives in Britain with her partner and two children. My career aspirations are far less ambitious.
”French Relations” is set in France, just like my first novel, “Reversal Point”. “Vacation at Hillsend”, on the other hand, stays in my homeland, New Zealand. The cast of characters in “French Relations” and “Vacation at Hillsend” are quite different and the story lines equally so, needless to say.
“French Relations” has the cover blurb: “It’s a summer of lust, bed-hopping, unresolved sexual tension, horses, dogs, bolshy kids – and lots of bad behaviour. And, in the midst of the bedlam, at least two people fall in love...”
I’ve yet to come up with a blurb for “Vacation at Hillsend”.
Okay, so you may be thinking I’ve taken the easy way out for my next novel. The trouble is, 12 chapters of the manuscript, towards the start, have been lost irretrievably in electronic conversions. With no paper copy in existence, the huge gap is largely why, before now, I’ve been disheartened and put off re-constructing the missing part of the story so that I can bring the novel to publication in an updated form.
Anyhow, it does beat continuing to batter my skull to come up with a new plot all together.
Publication date? Maybe about March next year.
Writing again, I couldn’t be happier.
May 3, 2014
Censorship & Freedom
Have you, like me, been thinking about freedom of speech and freedom of thought as a result of the recent, internationally publicised, request a prominent man made to his girlfriend?
Are we experiencing continuing censorship by stealth through political correctness?
“By the early 1990s [political correctness] was adopted by US conservatives as a pejorative term for ... attempts to introduce new terms that sought to leave behind discriminatory baggage attached to older ones, and conversely, to try to make older ones taboo” [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politica...].
The only way to avoid the risk of undesirable censorship is to have none at all. But that would be an insupportable form of lawlessness. We have to censor in order to protect children, to start with. But how much further do we really have to go? If we, as a society, censor adult freedom of speech because it may result in offence to someone, where does it end? Have we, for example, somewhere along the way, lost our sense of humour and freedom to make our own judgements?
These questions matter to me as a writer.
There was, however, good news in the “NZ Catholic” (May 4-17, 2014) that the Vatican veto against a priest’s writing had been dropped. The priest was Fr Lorenzo Milani, an Italian. Reputedly, one Cardinal Betori has said that Milani’s book (“Pastoral Experiences”) “contained no doctrinal deviation but it was considered too socially advanced [in 1958] to be read by Catholics”. The mind boggles!
According to Judith Harris’s feature in the Catholic newspaper, Milani’s book had a “progressive tone that scandalised many”. The repressive solution in 1958 was religious censorship.
What more are we being “protected” from (whether for religious or secular reasons)? And does it do more harm than good?
Are we experiencing continuing censorship by stealth through political correctness?
“By the early 1990s [political correctness] was adopted by US conservatives as a pejorative term for ... attempts to introduce new terms that sought to leave behind discriminatory baggage attached to older ones, and conversely, to try to make older ones taboo” [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politica...].
The only way to avoid the risk of undesirable censorship is to have none at all. But that would be an insupportable form of lawlessness. We have to censor in order to protect children, to start with. But how much further do we really have to go? If we, as a society, censor adult freedom of speech because it may result in offence to someone, where does it end? Have we, for example, somewhere along the way, lost our sense of humour and freedom to make our own judgements?
These questions matter to me as a writer.
There was, however, good news in the “NZ Catholic” (May 4-17, 2014) that the Vatican veto against a priest’s writing had been dropped. The priest was Fr Lorenzo Milani, an Italian. Reputedly, one Cardinal Betori has said that Milani’s book (“Pastoral Experiences”) “contained no doctrinal deviation but it was considered too socially advanced [in 1958] to be read by Catholics”. The mind boggles!
According to Judith Harris’s feature in the Catholic newspaper, Milani’s book had a “progressive tone that scandalised many”. The repressive solution in 1958 was religious censorship.
What more are we being “protected” from (whether for religious or secular reasons)? And does it do more harm than good?
April 28, 2014
Where to for the Novel
The novel, Wikipedia says, may have been around for two thousand years, or at least since the eighteenth century. Will it undergo a decline or demise in the twenty-first century?
The Washington Post ran a feature (re-printed in The Dominion Post, April 23, 2014) that horrified me with the attention-grabbing sub-header: “Humans seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming, making it difficult to read a novel”.
According to the feature, cognitive neuroscientists are also alarmed. One of them, Maryanne Wolf, poses the question: “Will we become Twitter brains?”
No offence to Twitter, but are social networks going to create a generation who can no longer read in a linear way?
Will the novel have to change to appeal to non-linear readers? Is the novel already being re-shaped by young fiction writers?
I don’t know the answers but I’d like to see a dialogue on the subject among people who are better informed than me.
The Washington Post ran a feature (re-printed in The Dominion Post, April 23, 2014) that horrified me with the attention-grabbing sub-header: “Humans seem to be developing digital brains with new circuits for skimming, making it difficult to read a novel”.
According to the feature, cognitive neuroscientists are also alarmed. One of them, Maryanne Wolf, poses the question: “Will we become Twitter brains?”
No offence to Twitter, but are social networks going to create a generation who can no longer read in a linear way?
Will the novel have to change to appeal to non-linear readers? Is the novel already being re-shaped by young fiction writers?
I don’t know the answers but I’d like to see a dialogue on the subject among people who are better informed than me.
April 21, 2014
A Guy's Perspective on Being a Model Partner
In The Dominion Post's “Your Weekender” I follow the usually entertaining column of Haydn Jones.
In his latest, he claims to “introduce [the reader] to the cult of multiple personalities”. He asserts, I assume tongue in cheek, that the man at work, and the man who sits down to dinner with his family, or goes to a stag do, or who plays sport has a different personality for each.
He admires “the brutal honesty” of husbands that “tell their wives exactly how it is all the time.” He says, “They would fart in a car on a first date if they really had to ... a rare breed” but “endearing”.
He proposes (also tongue in cheek no doubt) that “in a perfect world, 95% honesty seems a sensible ratio”. But then, he confesses that he “loves” his “inner child”.
Only children can get away with being brutally honest 95% of the time.
It led me to reflecting about marital relationships. Mutual trust in marriage is always vital but, I ask myself, does a wife really want brutal honesty from her husband?
It’s not a perfect world so there’s no right ratio of honesty for every situation.
What woman, once married, would accept for example the brutal honesty of being told bluntly about her weaknesses or failures?
So, if you're a guy and you want to spare her feelings, just don’t get caught out in a lie. Women don’t seem to understand that particular motivation. And don’t expect ready forgiveness if, in the end, you’re trapped into telling the truth.
In his latest, he claims to “introduce [the reader] to the cult of multiple personalities”. He asserts, I assume tongue in cheek, that the man at work, and the man who sits down to dinner with his family, or goes to a stag do, or who plays sport has a different personality for each.
He admires “the brutal honesty” of husbands that “tell their wives exactly how it is all the time.” He says, “They would fart in a car on a first date if they really had to ... a rare breed” but “endearing”.
He proposes (also tongue in cheek no doubt) that “in a perfect world, 95% honesty seems a sensible ratio”. But then, he confesses that he “loves” his “inner child”.
Only children can get away with being brutally honest 95% of the time.
It led me to reflecting about marital relationships. Mutual trust in marriage is always vital but, I ask myself, does a wife really want brutal honesty from her husband?
It’s not a perfect world so there’s no right ratio of honesty for every situation.
What woman, once married, would accept for example the brutal honesty of being told bluntly about her weaknesses or failures?
So, if you're a guy and you want to spare her feelings, just don’t get caught out in a lie. Women don’t seem to understand that particular motivation. And don’t expect ready forgiveness if, in the end, you’re trapped into telling the truth.
April 14, 2014
Too Old to Wrtite?
With my seventh novel “Green Machinations” just published I’ve been wondering if I should begin an eighth.
Can I, I wonder, make any more withdrawals from the bank of my creativity or would that put me in overdraft?
New Zealand writer, David McGill [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mc... ] is putting down his pen/hanging up his keyboard at the age of 71 after writing full time for 30 years and having 51 books to his credit (“Your Weekender”, April 12,2014). I can only match that experience for the last 7 years, with a lower average output.
I don’t know McGill’s writing but I admire his past productivity and his acceptance of reaching an age where he can live a contented life without writing. For my part, I think I would go mad if I couldn’t keep producing fiction (whether published or not). Perhaps that will get me over my doubts though, at my age, they may be well-founded.
On the other hand, reader reaction to my latest novel (https://www.createspace.com/4635462 ) could remain positive and maybe I should keep going until I’m McGill’s age at least.
Anyhow, fair well in your retirement, David.
Now, what was that plot I had in the back of my mind...
Can I, I wonder, make any more withdrawals from the bank of my creativity or would that put me in overdraft?
New Zealand writer, David McGill [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mc... ] is putting down his pen/hanging up his keyboard at the age of 71 after writing full time for 30 years and having 51 books to his credit (“Your Weekender”, April 12,2014). I can only match that experience for the last 7 years, with a lower average output.
I don’t know McGill’s writing but I admire his past productivity and his acceptance of reaching an age where he can live a contented life without writing. For my part, I think I would go mad if I couldn’t keep producing fiction (whether published or not). Perhaps that will get me over my doubts though, at my age, they may be well-founded.
On the other hand, reader reaction to my latest novel (https://www.createspace.com/4635462 ) could remain positive and maybe I should keep going until I’m McGill’s age at least.
Anyhow, fair well in your retirement, David.
Now, what was that plot I had in the back of my mind...
April 12, 2014
The Cost of Challenging the Establishment
I am not a spokesperson for, but an ordinary member of, the Christchurch-based Right to Life New Zealand Incorporated [www.righttolife.org.nz].
Since May 2005 the Society has taken action through the highest courts to try and get legal recognition of:
• the status of the unborn child as a person having a right to life
• the duty of the Abortion Supervisory Committee to hold Certifying Consultants accountable for the lawfulness of the abortions they authorise[www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/abortio...].
The Court of Appeal rejected the Society’s case and the Supreme Court refused to accept an appeal.
Earlier, High Court Justice, Forrest Miller, held the view “that there was reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions authorised by Certifying Consultants.”
The Supreme Court found that the Abortion Supervisory Committee has the power and the duty to enquire into how Certifying Consultants were authorising 98% of abortions on mental health grounds but not to hold them accountable for individual decisions.
The Abortion Supervisory Committee has since recognised “the importance of monitoring” Certifying Consultants. A small victory that may save some precious lives.
Standing up for its principles, and the right to life, has cost the Society NZ$134,600 for its own legal fees, charged at a low concessionary rate, and it now has to pay NZ$77,575 towards the NZ$300,000 legal costs of the Abortion Supervisory Committee. The Committee wants this payment in full and will not allow the Society to pay by instalments.
The Society is currently fund-raising to enable it to make this payment and avoid being wound up and prevented from continuing to defend life.
Such is the cost of a small voluntary organization taking on the establishment in New Zealand.
Since May 2005 the Society has taken action through the highest courts to try and get legal recognition of:
• the status of the unborn child as a person having a right to life
• the duty of the Abortion Supervisory Committee to hold Certifying Consultants accountable for the lawfulness of the abortions they authorise[www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/abortio...].
The Court of Appeal rejected the Society’s case and the Supreme Court refused to accept an appeal.
Earlier, High Court Justice, Forrest Miller, held the view “that there was reason to doubt the lawfulness of many abortions authorised by Certifying Consultants.”
The Supreme Court found that the Abortion Supervisory Committee has the power and the duty to enquire into how Certifying Consultants were authorising 98% of abortions on mental health grounds but not to hold them accountable for individual decisions.
The Abortion Supervisory Committee has since recognised “the importance of monitoring” Certifying Consultants. A small victory that may save some precious lives.
Standing up for its principles, and the right to life, has cost the Society NZ$134,600 for its own legal fees, charged at a low concessionary rate, and it now has to pay NZ$77,575 towards the NZ$300,000 legal costs of the Abortion Supervisory Committee. The Committee wants this payment in full and will not allow the Society to pay by instalments.
The Society is currently fund-raising to enable it to make this payment and avoid being wound up and prevented from continuing to defend life.
Such is the cost of a small voluntary organization taking on the establishment in New Zealand.
April 11, 2014
The Beat Generation Unearthed
Looking for Kerouac by MS Mercedes Webb-PullmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Skilfully combines travelogue (USA) and autobiography with anecdotes about the life of Jack Kerouac. The author has great powers of description that bring to life each place she visits and each person she meets.
The only background information she gives in "about the author" is about having a recent MA in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington. She appears justly proud of her skill as a writer. She is no young student though, not with the colourful life the book reveals she has lived.
If I knew as much about Kerouac in my teenage age years as I know after reading this book he would never have become an author I idolised in my youth.
I read the book at a leisurely pace as a time-filler (I don't read much non-fiction) and was always happy to pick it up again and continue to the end.
The choice of dark cover & mountain photo (not shown here) are unfortunate - a more attractive one might be less off-putting. The cover did not turn out to match the narrative, which was not all dark or sombre.
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Roman Conquest
Claudius by Douglas JacksonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I rarely read historical fiction but the ancient Romans have always fascinated me - and my copy of this book came cheaply in a book sale.
I expected it to be bloodthirsty, with horrible deeds, and it did fulfil that expectation, of course; the reason I put off reading it at first.
The violence could have been less graphically described and would have left an entertaining tale that spoke less of man's inhumanity to man, and the horrors of war and conquest, no matter what the epoch.
Both Roman and British motivation in slaughtering each other are well brought out in the book and the fate of the British hero, King Caratacus, is left slightly in doubt in the last few lines.
The trouble with historical novels, with real historical figures in them, is that you can resolve any dilemma about what happened. Two websites I checked confirm that Caratacus was pardoned by Claudius and left to wander Rome.
The records I searched do not mention what happened to him after that.
Rufus is an engaging minnow among characters in the story but is frequently at the forefront of the plot and is most likely to get the sympathy vote from a reader.
The epic story is masterfully told, living up the book blurb.
View all my reviews
