L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 7

Book Review: The Fifth Letter by Nicola Moriarty

Oh, dear. My year of reading books by Australian female writers isn’t improving.

Deb, Trina, Eden and Joni have been friends since the start of high school and they’ve managed to stay friends through careers, husbands and kids. Once a year, they get together for a few days away from their families. This year, they have decided to write anonymous letters to reveal their deepest and darkest secrets without having to be judged. Except when the letters are finished, there are five. And the fifth letter is a doozy. One of the women harbours a murderous grudge against one of the other women.

The person who wrote the letter knew that she shouldn’t have and tried to burn it after writing a replacement letter but Joni pulls it half-destroyed from the hearth and then finds the original in the Recycle Bin on the computer of the holiday house they’re renting. Then she spends the rest of the book trying to figure out which one of her friends wants to kill either her or another of her friends.

As hard as I tried not to, I couldn’t help but compare this book to the far superior The Husband’s Secret by Nicola’s much more famous sister, Liane. They both contain letters that weren’t supposed to be read, they both contain murderous confessions, they both take far too long to have the main characters read the letters and get the story really rolling. But that’s where the similarities end.

The Fifth Letter unfortunately sounds like it was written by a teenager imagining what life is like for married adults. The four main characters are annoying and don’t actually seem to like each other that much, so it makes the revelation that one of them wants to kill another of them not that much of a surprise.

Moriarty uses the completely unnecessary plot device of Joni confessing for hours to a priest even though she isn’t a Catholic in order to drop a bunch of first person exposition.

And when the reason for the woman wanting to kill one of her friends is revealed, it is a piss poor, juvenile, ridiculous excuse, the circumstances of which the woman created herself by lying to her friends all the way back when they were teenagers.

The book is a collection of so-so writing, uninventive plot, uninteresting characters and a blah ending and I mostly resent it for making me have to write a book review saying so.

2 stars

*First published on Goodreads 21 April 2019

Spelling

Hi, all. I’m hoping you can help me with something. A couple of months ago, I posted about wanting to write a book about writing for child writers. This is the first chapter I’ve written and I’d love some feedback on whether it’s appropriate for the target audience. (I like to think there’s something in it for us grown-ups too.) Thanks.

*****

Why Is Spelling Important for Writers?

Wen a werd iz speld rite, it’s eze-er 2 reed. Wen a sintins iz speld rite, the meenin iz eze-er 2 unerstan. wen a howl artycall, storie or bok iz speld rite, ur reedr well no wat u wer tring 2 til thum.

What? Let me make it clear by fixing up the spelling.

When a word is spelled right, it’s easier to read. When a sentence is spelled right, the meaning is easier to understand. When a whole article, story or book is spelled right, your reader will know what you were trying to tell them.

Why Is Spelling So Hard Sometimes?

Spelling is hard sometimes because the English language breaks its own rules – a lot! Have you ever heard “i before e except after c”? It doesn’t always work (in fact, it mostly doesn’t work). It works in “receive” and “receipt” and “friend” and “believe”. But it doesn’t work when “foreign feisty neighbours unveil their beige glaciers”. Ha ha!

This often means that rather than relying on rules for spelling groups of words, we just have to learn how each word is spelled and try to remember. The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains over 300,000 words. That’s a lot of words! Plus, new words are being created all the time, sometimes because advances in technology and society make it necessary, other times because young people want a cool secret language their uncool parents and teachers can’t understand.

Did you know…? Some of the world’s biggest dictionaries are so big it takes decades to write them. The original Oxford English Dictionary was begun in 1888 and was finally finished in 1928. In 2000, the editors of the dictionary began a project to create the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and they don’t expect to finish until 2037.

Is There Any Way to Make Spelling Easier?

Sometimes the best way to remember how to spell a word is to come up with a rhyme or game or rule that helps you remember. Here are a few examples:

*Separate – the two a’s separate the two e’s

*Definite – the two i’s definitely separate the two e’s

*Rhythm – rhythm helps your two hips move (see how the first letter of each word spells “rhythm”)

*Laugh – laugh and you get happy (a similar method to remembering “rhythm” even though they’re not all first letters)

*Because – big elephants can always understand small elephants

*Dessert and desert – there are two s’s in “dessert” just like strawberry shortcake and there is one s in “desert” just like a lonely snake in the sand

*Island – an “island” is land!

*Necessary – there’s half a cesspool in “necessary”

Of course, you won’t need one of these funny ways to remember for every word. Some words you’ll have no trouble with and won’t need a way to help you remember because you already know how. The best idea is to write a list of the words that you do have trouble spelling and find or come up with a way to remember the spellings of those ones. After all, everybody has words that they struggle with but not everybody struggles with the same words.

Did you know…? Some people think the longest English word is “antidisestablishmentarianism”, which has 28 letters. But there are a few other words (usually technical or scientific) that are just as long or longer. Perhaps the reason why people like to think this is the longest word is because it’s easier to say than some other long words. Have a go at trying to say these:

*floccinaucinihilipilification (29 letters)

*hepaticocholangiogastronomy (28 letters)

*spectrophotofluorometrically (28 letters)

Hard, right? Well, at least most people know how to say (or sing) this one:

*supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (34 letters)

Thanks, Mary Poppins!

What If You Can’t Remember How to Spell All the Words?

Don’t worry, nobody knows how to spell all the words in the English language and nobody is expected to be able to remember. That’s what dictionaries, spell checkers and editors are for.

Dictionaries

As a writer, you should always have a good dictionary with you when you are writing. That way, when you need to look up how a word is spelled, it’s right there waiting for you. There are lots of different dictionaries, little ones with just a few words, bigger ones with more words and huge ones with lots of words that are really heavy. The bigger the dictionary, the more words it will have. It’s up to you to choose which one you want.

There are also dictionaries available online. Make sure when using an internet dictionary that it is for your region (see below).

Did you know…? If you’re Australian, you will need an Australian English dictionary. If you’re Canadian, you will need a Canadian English dictionary. If you’re American, you will need an American English dictionary. This is because there are little differences in each of these variations of English that have evolved over time.

Handy hint! Big dictionaries can be expensive sometimes. If you can’t afford a brand new big dictionary, have a look in your local second-hand store for an old one. It might not have all the new words but it will still be pretty good.

Spell Checkers

If you’re writing in Microsoft Word, you can use the Spell Checker to find spelling mistakes in your writing. Make sure you’ve set the language to the right English for your region and then run the Spell Checker to find any mistakes.

Handy hint! If you’ve used a correctly spelled word that isn’t the right word for the sentence (such as “I left the bike hear” when it should be “I left the bike here”, Microsoft Word won’t pick it up. Computers are helpful but they’re not perfect.

Editors

An editor is someone who has studied the English language (usually at university or at TAFE or at college – at a higher lever than high school anyway) and knows a lot about spelling (and grammar and punctuation and all the parts of language). It’s their job to find all the mistakes in writing.

Did you know…? Because being an editor is a job, if you want a piece of your writing edited by an editor, you have to pay them to do it. It can cost a lot of money. At the beginning, the best people to ask for editing help are your parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and teachers. They will help you for free. But when you want to professionally publish a piece of writing, then it’s better to hire an editor. Ask the editor how much it will cost and then decide if you can afford it.

How to Write Your Author Biography

Harry: “Why don’t you tell me the story of your life.”

Sally: “The story of my life?”

Harry: “We’ve got eighteen hours to kill before we hit New York.”

Sally: “The story of my life isn’t even going to get us out of Chicago. I mean nothing’s happened to me yet. That’s why I’m going to New York.”

Harry: “So something can happen to you?”

Sally: “Yes.”

Harry: “Like what?”

Sally: “Like I’m going to journalism school to become a reporter.”

Harry: “So you can write about things that happen to other people.”

Sally: “That’s one way to look at it.”

When Harry Met Sally

It’s strange but the one thing writers seem to struggle with the most is the subject they know better than anyone else: themselves. Perhaps that’s because writing an author biography is about finding the balance between arrogance and unworthiness (something everybody struggles with, of course, but only writers have to put the results down on paper). Toot your own horn without at least a smidge of self-deprecation and potential readers may write you off as a narcissist. Fail to toot your own horn enough and potential readers may write you off as a nobody who doesn’t have the right to ask them for an hours’ long commitment.

Perhaps it’s also because an author biography tends to be something we dash off at the last minute instead of giving it the thought and attention it really deserves. You’ve spent months, possibly years, polishing a piece of writing and now that it’s being published, you need a few paragraphs that will be appended to the end of it to enlighten readers about the person it came from. But if you feel like “nothing’s happened” to you, then it can be tough no matter how long you spend on it.

There is no foolproof template for writing an author biography but here are a few things that might help get your creative juices flowing about your least favourite topic.

Family

If you’re married and have children, most people like to mention this in their author biographies. Significant others are good filler. And if you’re lucky enough to be related to someone on whose coattails you can ride while you’re establishing your own bona fides, then that’s good material, too. A grandparent, an uncle, an aunt, a parent or a sibling who is also a writer or some other type of creative goes to show talent runs in the family.

Location

Nobody needs to know your exact address but a city, county, state or country can add some flavour. If you’re an American in Paris or a Nova Scotian in Nigeria or a Mongolian in Argentina, you’ll certainly seem more exotic than the rest of us. Even if you’ve lived in the one place all your life, then at least the locals will know you’re one of them and can get around you.

Age

Including your age isn’t necessary or even important – unless, of course, there’s something a little bit different about the stage of your life at which you are accomplishing your writing achievements. If you are younger (before your mid-twenties) or older (past your mid-fifties), particularly if you are releasing your debut book, then listing your age is really a coded message that it’s never too early or too late to start writing and publishing.

Qualifications

Qualifications aren’t important either, especially for writers because there are plenty of wonderful published authors who have never studied a day in their life since leaving high school. But if you’ve gone to all the effort of getting them and you’re struggling for points of interest in your author biography, then why not include them? Did you study something completely unrelated to writing? So what? The truth is that all study requires the ability to write and edit and receive criticism. What better preparation for being a writer!

I have three qualifications – a Bachelor of Arts (American History and International Politics), which taught me how to research, an Advanced Diploma of Arts (Professional Writing and Editing), which taught me how to edit, and a Master of Arts (Writing), which taught me to introduce more complex components into my writing.

Recognised Expert in a Specific Field

If you have succeeded in a field other than writing and are recognised as an expert, especially if it relates somehow to what you’re writing about, then by all means tell the world. A former television star writes a novel about an actress? Sounds like they’ll have the inside scoop. A former prisoner writes a crime novel? Should be packed full of details that give it more than just verisimilitude. Just like your qualifications, if you’ve gone to all the effort of becoming an expert, then figuring out a way to use it to fill out your author biography seems like a no-brainer.

Medical Conditions

If you have been diagnosed with a medical condition and either beaten it or are living with it every day, then that will likely have shaped you and who you are as a writer. It also tends to be a source of pride. A cancer survivor, a disability advocate, a sufferer of a chronic condition. These days, many writers include medical conditions in their author biographies. However, don’t feel pressured to do it if it makes you uncomfortable. Your health is very personal and you may not want to be defined by it so specifically.

Victim of a Crime or Natural Disaster

Same goes for if you’ve been a victim of crime or a natural disaster. Surviving difficult challenges is inspirational to those that haven’t had it happen to them. Caught up in an act of terrorism or an act of God. Survivor of rape or child abuse. Had all your money stolen by a conman. But if it doesn’t sit right with you, then it’s perfectly okay not to include it. After all, this is your narrative, not your sob story. The tale you tell is entirely up to you.

Other Books Published

Apart from anything else, if you’ve published other books, including that information in your author biography will prompt readers to seek them out if they enjoy the piece of writing your author biography appears in. If you’ve written only a couple, then list them by name. If you’ve written dozens, then a statement that you’re the author of that number of books will suffice. You can include a list of your other works on a separate page instead of bloating your author profile with them.

Winner/Nominee of Award

This is a gimme! If you or your writing has ever been recognised by being nominated or shortlisted for or winning an award, then you must include it in your author biography. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the most prestigious award known immediately around the world as soon as it’s mentioned or something your local library sponsored, if a panel of judges thought your writing was a class above most others that entered a competition, then that’s information worth sharing with your readers.

Unusual Facts

This is box number three, as Josh Lyman in The West Wing would call it. Trivia, ephemera, the stuff that has very little to do with anything but is interesting anyway. My ephemera is crazy cat lady, Collingwood supporter, world’s greatest aunt, things I own seem to catch on fire more than I would prefer (my car and my house within a year of each other, although that was a while ago now; I’ve been fire-free for over a decade now). If you’ve climbed mountains on every continent or had seventeen different jobs or invented something or been to space or own an animal refuge or speak a dozen languages, now’s your chance to tell your readers.

My Author Biographies

From the announcement that my novel Black Spot had been shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize: “Louise Truscott is a blogger and author from Melbourne. Her debut novel, Enemies Closer, came out in 2012 and her non-fiction work, Project December, in 2015.”

From The Victorian Writer when they published my article “A Dirty Word”: “Louise Truscott is the author of the novel Enemies Closer and two non-fiction books, Project December: A Book About Writing and Project January: A Sequel About Writing. She also writes a blog called Single White Female Writer. Black Spot, her upcoming novel, was shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize.”

From the Swinburne University profile of me: “Master of Arts (Writing) graduate Louise Truscott has found the balance between corporate and creative writing. After publishing several books spanning fiction and non-fiction and recognition from the writing world, Louise is more satisfied with her career than ever.”

From my blog and used as the author bio in both Project December and Project January: “Louise Truscott was born, brought up and still lives in Melbourne, Australia. She tried not being a writer and editor, then tried being a corporate writer and editor, but she’s only truly happy writing and editing when she chooses what to write and what to edit. With a blog called Single White Female Writer, there are lots of hints in the name about who she is. She published Enemies Closer, her debut novel, under the name LE Truscott in 2012. Project December: A Book About Writing, her second book, was published in 2015 and Project January: A Sequel About Writing was published in 2017. Black Spot, her upcoming novel, was shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize.”

Each of these biographies says essentially the same thing, although the last is a little more personal (probably because I wrote it) whereas the others were written by someone else using information I had provided and no doubt had word limits that needed to be strictly followed. And the Swinburne University profile is very focused on the master’s degree I obtained there and how it contributed to my career because they were trying to sell potential students on doing further studies.

*****

My advice on preparing your author biography is to write a broad draft and then have an independent editor cull it into a short and sweet couple of paragraphs (a relatively inexpensive request since it’s a very short piece of writing). As a corporate writer, I prepared a lot of employee biographies for tender submissions and the people who were the subjects of the biographies always seemed to have the same reaction, which was that they never knew they could sound so impressive. The truth is that they didn’t sound that impressive when they were writing about themselves but after I took the basic facts they provided and jazzed them up, they were suddenly their own biggest fans. As we all should be.

Getting Around the Censors: Making Up Your Own Swear Words

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Let’s face it, unless you’re a saint, the occasional swear word (also known as curse words in certain parts of the world) will slip out every now and then. Whether you’re stuck behind the world’s worst driver or you’ve dropped something on your foot, sometimes it just happens.

But having characters in fiction drop the “s”, “f” and “c” words – amongst an array of offensive others – can have some readers, publishers and moral guardians shaking their heads in disapproval. To get around this, certain writers have simply made up their own swear words.

The best of them seem to be in science fiction and fantasy writing, in worlds completely removed from our own, and many of them are clearly a variation of the “f” word we are all familiar with:

*Battlestar Galactica – in both versions of the classic sci-fi television show, “frak” is the swear word of choice and what makes it so believable is its similarity to the word it emulates.

*Farscape – a combination of the “f” word and hell, “frell” first appeared in the ninth episode of Farscape and is used as both a verb and a noun.

*Babylon 5 – another thinly veiled “f” bomb, yet somehow “frag” lacks a little, probably because it lacks the harsh consonant that tends to really sell the profanity of a swear word.

*Scrubs – okay, this one’s not science fiction or fantasy and it’s also commonly used in the real world by people who need to swear but can’t bring themselves to get down and dirty. Still, I defy anyone to come up with a better use of a faux swear word than Dr Elliot Reed, played by Sarah Chalke, saying “frick” on the many, many, many times her life goes down the crapper.

*Mrs Brown’s Boys – another real world show but certainly not the only one to use the traditional Irish substitution of “feck”. There’s something almost adorable about hearing an Irish person use this word.

*Red Dwarf – “smeg” is one of several swear words in the Red Dwarf universe but it is the best of them, sold beautifully by the character Dave Lister played by Craig Charles.

*Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – “zark” is probably the most swear-word like swear word in the Hitchhiker’s books (unlike “Belgium”, described as the “rudest word in the universe” and completely banned in all parts of the galaxy except for one where they don’t know what it means).

*The Smurfs – “Smurf, smurf, smurfety, smurf!” says Patrick Winslow in the 2011 movie and Gutsy responds with, “There is no call for that sort of language, laddie!” “Smurf” replaces a variety of swear words and even not-so-offensive words in The Smurfs to save the delicate ears of children and just for general added smurfety.

Goodness, if I lived in a different universe, I’d need to wash my mouth out with soap after all of that! But we’re still not finished:

*Firefly (and Serenity) – while “gorram” (probably a variation on “God damn”) and “rutting” seem fairly standard, it’s the random Chinese insults where the Browncoat universe really comes into its own. Because this version of the future envisions the English-speaking world and China merging into overarching world dominance, everyone speaks both languages but Mandarin is mostly reserved for the creative expletives the characters pepper their dialogue with. Translations of the insults include “stupid inbred stack of meat”, “panda piss”, “frog-humping son of a bitch”, “filthy fornicators of livestock”, “motherless goat of all motherless goats”, “holy mother of God and all her wacky nephews”, “the explosive diarrhoea of an elephant” and “holy testicle Tuesday”.

If you’re feeling especially salty but thoroughly uncreative, you can always go with foreign swear words, although it tends to be an issue if and when your writing is being translated into that foreign language. Or if you’re feeling salty and don’t give a f**k what the readers, publishers, moral guardians and censors think, you can embark on a real world swear word writing spree and see if you like the results.

George Washington said that “swearing is a vice so mean and so low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it” but sometimes it’s exactly what fictional characters need to release the stress of the things writers put them through.

Book Review: The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

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This book won the Stella Prize in 2016. I should know better by now. I am consistently disappointed by award winners. I’m going to blame it on being a Gemini. I need to know who, what, where, when, how and why. Not all at once but slowly revealed to show a complete picture by the end of the book. And The Natural Way of Things is distinctly lacking in most of these respects. What it does have is terrific writing and an intriguing concept but it’s not enough to completely make up for the other things it’s missing.

Yolanda and Verla wake up from being drugged to find themselves in a decrepit wooden house somewhere in outback Australia. They don’t know why, they don’t know each other and they don’t know how they got there. They are given rags to wear and have their heads shaved and then discover there are other women in precisely the same position as themselves.

Their wardens are two young men – Boncer, a stereotypical misogynist, and Teddy, a more New Age misogynist – and a ditzy woman named Nancy who pretends to be a nurse. Boncer chains the prisoners together and makes them trek for hours to a massive electrified fence. What does it mean? There is no escape so they better behave themselves.

The women fairly quickly realise what it is they have in common. They have all been inconvenient thorns in the side of prominent men and society more generally. Yolanda was pack raped by a group of footballers. Verla was the other woman in an affair with a politician. Izzy accused an airline CEO of sexual harassment. Lydia was left for dead in the toilets of a cruise liner. Hetty was molested by a Catholic cardinal. Barbs wouldn’t keep quiet about “sports massages” inflicted by an Olympic coach. Rhiannon was the gamer girl (enough said). The stories of the others are barely told but by this point it doesn’t matter. Someone – many someones – wanted them gone and it was made to happen.

Most of the book is the day-to-day grind of existing in the harsh outback conditions. There’s food – at the start – but it quickly runs out. There’s exhausting heat as the women are forced to build a road (although it’s not clear why) and then there’s bitter cold as summer turns to winter. There’s the slow psychological change that affects them all in different ways as they realise that no one is coming to save them. And there’s not much else.

There’s no plot to speak of and apart from Yolanda and Verla, all the women are reduced to poorly fleshed out background characters. Despite the fact that they far outnumber their captors, it never occurs to anyone that they should try to take control. And no one tries to escape. Maybe it’s all metaphor for the lives women lead today – blindly accepting instead of challenging and changing – but it makes for a dull story.

Like so many highly praised literary novels, The Natural Way of Things is beautifully written and flawlessly conceived but the plot is non-existent and the ending is completely unsatisfying. In fact, out of who, what, where, when, how and why, it’s really only what and where that are fully revealed. And it’s terribly frustrating.

Charlotte Wood is clearly a talented writer. She’s got a lot of skills in her arsenal. (Apropos of nothing, I love the cover of this book, so clearly one of them in a great cover designer.) But she needs a few more.

2.5 stars

*First published on Goodreads 10 March 2019

The Thirty Books That Spark My Joy

Anyone who doesn’t live under a rock will have heard of Marie Kondo, the tidying expert. She helps people to declutter their homes and their lives and when it comes to books, she lives by the following motto: “I now keep my collection of books to about thirty volumes at any one time.”

As happens frequently on the internet, this statement went through a huge round of Chinese (or perhaps that should be Japanese, in light of her nationality) whispers and suddenly everyone was saying that Marie Kondo was telling people to throw away most, if not all, of their books.

She wasn’t saying that. Her general advice is that the items you do keep should spark your joy. And if books spark your joy, then feel free to have as many of them as you want.

Books spark my joy. I have thousands. I have an entire room just for my books. I could have bought a cheaper house if books didn’t spark my joy so much. Still, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to find the thirty books that really spark my joy.

It was a lot harder than I thought. Mostly because I read a lot of books that are thematically dark, fiction and non-fiction about many different but difficult topics. But I got there in the end. So here, in alphabetical order because it was hard enough choosing them without trying to rank them, are the thirty books from the thousands in my collection that spark my joy.

Bluey Truscott by Ivan Southall

A biography of the famous Keith “Bluey” Truscott. My grandfather and Bluey had the same great-grandfather so there’s a family connection. It’s more like propaganda than a proper biography and given the fact that he was a champion Aussie Rules footballer as well as a fighter pilot and war hero who died during World War II, it’s not surprising.

Cleo by Helen Brown

The tragic story of how Helen Brown and her family coped with the death of one of her children and the key role in that process played by Cleo the kitten.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss

You have to love a book that takes its title from a joke about punctuation. What? You don’t have to? Okay, you don’t. But I do. One for the language purists.

English Dictionary

My favourite book. The one book I can’t live without. Read more about it here.

Freedom to Love by Carole Mortimer

The first Mills & Boon I ever read so it holds a special nostalgic place in my heart. Written in the 1970s, it hasn’t aged well but then again not many Mills & Boon books from that time have. There was a copy of this book in my high school library and many years later I found a copy of it in a second-hand book store.

Hornet’s Nest by Patricia Cornwell

My favourite Patricia Cornwell book, perhaps surprisingly not about her most famous creation, Kay Scarpetta. But perhaps not, considering one of the main characters is a cat.

Jennifer Government by Max Barry

A book that ingeniously skewers the path of global consumerism we’re on and it’s written by an Australian. Just one of Max Barry’s brilliant books.

Ninety East Ridge by Stephen Reilly

The one and only published novel from the brother of famous Australian author Matthew Reilly, it contains my most favourite description ever, “star spangled smile”.

No Way Back by Matthew Klein

A deceptively simple book that is brilliantly written, about regretting the life choices we make and how we go about rectifying them. That makes it sound pretentious but it’s actually mainstream fiction. An amazing ending.

Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer

I love Jeffrey Archer’s early career novels and this was his first. The back story behind it is as good as the book itself.

Paula and Me by John “JJ” Jeffery

The first published book edited by me that I didn’t write. It wouldn’t generally be the kind of book I am drawn to but I was trusted by JJ to help him honour his wife and I think we achieved something wonderful together.

Postcards from Planet Earth

The book of poetry I studied in Year 12. I hated it at the time but it has grown on me. Some of the poems suffer from their age and societal changes but it is an amazing collection from various poets.

Reverse Dictionary

A book from Reader’s Digest that lists simple words and gives various complex synonyms. And much, much more. Great for word nerds like me.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice gets all the glory but I actually prefer Sense and Sensibility. The Misses Dashwood kick the asses of the Bennet sisters in my opinion.

Sometimes Gladness by Bruce Dawe

The collected poems of my favourite poet.

Texts from Dog by October Jones

Comprised entirely of text messages between October and his dog, it’s hilarious and a lovely escape from the neverending serious books out there.

The Bible

I’m not especially religious but I recognise a good story when I read one. The Bible is full of brilliant tales, regardless of whether you think it’s word for worth truth, completely made up and somewhere in between.

The Blair Witch Project: A Dossier by DA Stern

A side project, I imagine much of it made up from the research that went into creating the movie, that made my jaw drop in an “Oh my God” moment in a way that the movie by itself never did.

The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Discovery, the Investigation, the Debate by Shirley Harrison

Written and published before the diary was proved to be a hoax, it’s still a fascinating book.

The Ern Malley Affair by Michael Heyward

It’s ironic and appropriate that The Ern Malley Affair comes after The Diary of Jack the Ripper. After all, they’re both books about literary hoaxes. Ern Malley was the creation of James McAuley and Harold Stewart. In the middle of the twentieth century, they wrote what they considered to be bad poetry and submitted it to a literary magazine. Modernists loved it and then the hoax was revealed, embarrassing them. Michael Heyward’s tale of the affair is delicious.

The Great Flood Mystery by Jane Curry

The Great Flood Mystery is the first proper chapter book I can remember reading as a child. This must have been the beginning of my lifelong appreciation of a good mystery being revealed layer by layer.

The Lady and the Chocolate by Edward Monkton

An absolute gem about a bar of chocolate convincing a lady that she must give meaning to its life by eating it.

The Last Victim by Anne E Graham and Carol Emmas

The story of Florence Maybrick. Fascinating on its own, the authors used the claims that her husband, James Maybrick, may have been Jack the Ripper to spice it up even further. She was convicted of murdering him and went to jail. Was she Jack the Ripper’s last victim? Probably not, but still a terrific read.

The Pig of Happiness by Edward Monkton

He is so happy. Another gem, this time about a happy pig. It’s as simple as that.

The Poet by Michael Connolly

The first Michael Connelly book I read and the reason I’ve read every other book of his since.

The Poet’s Manuel and Rhyming Dictionary

As I’m sure you can already tell, I love a good dictionary and for anyone who likes to write rhyming poetry or songs, this takes the hassle out of coming up with rhymes. It gives you rhymes you would never, ever have thought of.

The Watcher’s Guides (Volume 1 by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder, Volume 2 by Nancy Holder, Jeff Mariotte and Maryelizabeth Hart and Volume 3 by Paul Ruditis and Allie Costa)

Only for the true Buffy fans, these books go into all the details that nobody else cares about.

Thirty-Something and Over It by Kasey Edwards

In the 1960s, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique coined the term “the problem that has no name”. This was the equivalent book for me. I was desperately unhappy working in the corporate rat race and couldn’t quite put my finger on why until Kasey Edwards helped me realise I was just thirty-something and over it, doing a job and living a life that didn’t “spark my joy,” as Marie Kondo would put it.

Twentieth Century Russian Poetry selected with an introduction by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Okay, I can’t read Russian but these poems have all been translated into English and they cover a period of huge tumult in Russia. It’s like a history book from the unique perspective of Russia’s poets.

William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays

The tragedies, the comedies, the histories, the romances, Shakespeare’s plays have everything. Much Ado About Nothing is probably my favourite but there’s something for every mood and for every day.

*****

So that’s it. One of the most surprising things to me was how many Australian books I chose. It shouldn’t have been surprising since I’m Australian but I’m more glad about it than I thought I would be. I like that local content is sprinkled amongst the books from the rest of the world. But it probably also shows that I need to expand my horizons a little to read more books from authors of non-English speaking backgrounds. As I write this, I’m doing a year of reading Australian women writers so it’s a longer term goal. But I’ve got plenty of reading years left in me. I hope you do, too.

The Question Every Writer Is Asked: What’s Your Real Job?

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At Christmas last year, I was talking to my eleven-year-old niece about what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“An author,” she said. I threw my arms around her, mostly in solidarity but a little in sympathy since I knew what she was in for. A bit of success but more often than not a lot of struggle.

In January, just over a month later, at my sister’s birthday party, my niece and I were having the same conversation with my twelve-year-old nephew. “You can get paid to play Fortnite, you know,” he told me. There was a tournament being held at the Australian Open that weekend with half a million dollars in prizemoney available.

“But what will your other job be?” I asked. He looked at me blankly. “Getting paid to play Fortnite is a pretty sweet gig so there will be lots of people who want that job. But not everyone can get paid to play Fortnite so you’ll probably need another job,” I explained. He couldn’t come up with anything else and that’s okay because he’s twelve.

I was very careful to ask the question that way – “What will your other job be?” – because almost every writer – and even Fortnite players trying to make a career out of it – knows they will need another job and almost every writer, upon responding to the question of “What do you do?” by saying they’re a writer, has been asked, “What’s your real job?”

It’s not just writers without a profile who are subjected to this. Clementine Ford, a reasonably well-known Australian writer, recently announced that she would no longer be writing columns for Fairfax newspapers (her decision) and conservative media responded by calling her “unemployed”. The fact that she’d never been employed by Fairfax in the first place – because she was and still is a freelancer – didn’t seem important to them. Neither did the fact that her columns will now be appearing in other media outlets. Or that she’s the author of two bestselling books, Fight Like a Girl and Boys Will Be Boys. Apparently, if it isn’t a permanent role with a salary, superannuation and sick leave, even if it does earn you money, then they think it isn’t worthy of being called a job.

For the past eighteen months, I’ve been working an administration role during the day, doing freelance editing work during the evenings and trying to write in the very little spare time I have. When I started that administration role, I made a very clear choice not to add it to my LinkedIn profile or change my description, which reads, “Blogger, Writer and Editor.” Writing and editing are my career. They have been for a long time – more than fifteen years – and that includes permanent roles, temporary roles, freelance roles and my own unpaid writing work (mostly permanent roles actually, ten of those fifteen years). Administration is just what I’m doing now to pay the bills and save up enough money to write full-time again.

This, I have decided, will be my new normal. I don’t want a permanent role, writing, editing or otherwise. I want to choose what to write and edit. But I still need to be able to support myself. So I will work a job I don’t give two hoots about for as long as I need to reach a certain savings goal (or for as long as I can stand it without wanting to kill all my co-workers). And then I will go back to writing full-time for as long as I can (until the money runs out). And then I will do it all again.

It’s not a perfect solution. (In fact, it’s one that worries my family – what if I run out of money, can’t get another job, have to sell my still-mortgaged house and subsequently move in with one of them? None of us wants that.) But this is the compromise deal I’ve made with myself. I live an unsatisfactory life for a couple of years so I can live a happy one for a couple of years afterwards.

And in those couple of happy years, when I’m asked what my real job is, I will only be able to say I’m a writer. Just a writer. Nothing more, nothing less, no back-up answer, no socially acceptable alternative. And anyone who doesn’t like it can go get a real job.

The Rules of Reading

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Sometimes I have a love-hate relationship with reading. I love to read. I hate finishing a book and wishing it had been better. One-third of the way through reading a non-fiction book that has been well-reviewed, that has set the author up to write a series of similar books and has established her as a figurehead of the “fuck up the patriarchy” movement (I’m paraphrasing but that’s definitely the kind of language she would use), I was finding it a bit… tedious. So much so that the idea of picking it up again made me not want to read at all.

I looked longingly instead at my TBR pile. And then had guilt. The most ridiculous kind of guilt. As if I was considering cheating. On a book. Because of some arbitrary rules that I must have set for myself somewhere along the way without realising it.

So I’m creating a new set of reading rules (as much for myself as for anyone else).

You don’t have to buy a book.

If you want to own a book, then you have to buy it. But if you just want to read it, then you can borrow it from a library or someone you know who has a copy of it. But whatever you do, you must never steal a book. Never download a pirated copy of a book. It is stealing from the author. If you can’t afford to buy a copy, become a member of a library and borrow it. Some authors will even give you a free copy of their book if you ask nicely. It doesn’t cost anything except a little bit of your time.

You don’t have to read all genres.

Reading widely is a great way of expanding your knowledge of the world. But most of us read simply for pleasure and the expansion of our knowledge is just a by-product. If we are reading for pleasure, then it’s unlikely we are going to enjoy all genres of writing. If you don’t enjoy a particular genre, then you don’t have to read it. It’s completely counterintuitive. If you only enjoy one genre and you only want to read that one genre, then you are perfectly within your rights.

You don’t have to stick to one genre.

There is also nothing that says you can’t read more than one genre. Read them all if you like. Read any combination of genres that satisfies your reading appetite. Read the popular and the obscure, read the bestsellers and the flops, read the critically acclaimed and the universally panned, read fiction and non-fiction, read romance and horror, read thrillers and dramas, read sci-fi and historical, read steampunk and erotica, read fantasy and urban realism, read crime and westerns, and when you’re done reading all the genres that exist now, look for new ones because they are being invented every day.

You don’t have to read age-appropriate or demographic-appropriate books.

Most fiction seems to get divided up into categories based on which age group it is meant for: pre-school, new readers, middle grade, young adult, new adult and adult. And then there are the categories we’re told we should like based on who we are: women’s fiction for women, adventure for men, sci-fi for nerds and so on. But you can read books from any or all of these classifications. Most publishers stumble into books that go on to be bestsellers and that’s if they aren’t too busy falling all over themselves to reject them completely. The idea that they know who should be reading what, better than the readers themselves, is laughable.

You don’t have to read a book just because everybody else is.

FOMO (fear of missing out) is real, even when it comes to reading. But just because everybody else is reading a book because it was Oprah’s pick or it had a billion dollar marketing budget or it’s currently being made into a movie that may or may not suck doesn’t mean you should feel obligated. Getting sucked into reading a book that everybody else seems to be talking about often means it will fail to meet expectations because they’re almost never as good as the hype suggests. It’s perfectly reasonable to instead spend that time reading something you actually want to read rather than something you have just been tricked into reading.

You can read the last page of the book before reading the first.

Oh, how it pains me to write that! You will never catch me reading the last page of a book before reading all the other pages before it linearly. Mostly because the words have no real meaning to me if I haven’t read all the words before them. But if reading the last page of a book before diving in at the start is what floats your boat, then go for it. If it’s a crime, then it’s certainly a victimless one.

You don’t have to finish reading a book just because you started it.

On several occasions, I’ve read books – struggled through them actually – only to find that getting to the end made all of that struggle worth it. And with just as many (probably more), I’ve struggled through only to find that it wasn’t worth it at all. And then there are the books that I never finished. The one I always cite is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. It just didn’t speak to me. But there have been a few others. The Haldeman Diaries, a memoir kept by HR Haldeman for the four years he was Richard Nixon’s Chief of Staff. It’s still in my library with a bookmark marking the place where I gave up over a decade ago. I might go back to it one day. But I might not. And that’s perfectly okay.

You don’t have to finish reading a book before starting to read another.

Ah, the dilemma that propelled me into writing these rules. I’m not very good at remembering what happened in a book if I don’t read it all in one go, so I try to stick to one book at a time. But whether it’s circumstances or the book itself, sometimes you feel like reading but don’t feel like reading that particular book. So it’s completely acceptable to read something else instead. You might go back to the other book. You might not. It’s entirely up to you.

You don’t have to like a book just because everybody else does.

I won’t name the two books that I dislike the most but one of them is considered a classic (my review: “this is the story of – to be frank – nothing very interesting and nothing much happening… the kind of bad novel a teenage boy might write before compiling a manifesto and then going on a killing spree”) and the other was made into a TV show (my review: “the only redeeming thing about this book is that it serves as an important lesson for everyone out there writing: if something as bad as this book can be published, then there’s still hope for the rest of us”). Different books speak to different people for different reasons and just as often they don’t speak to us at all. There’s no right and there’s no wrong when it comes to opinions, just lots and lots of them.

You don’t have to like everything one author writes.

Some writers write to the same formula in book after book. If you like the formula, then you’ll probably consider that a good thing. But it’s possible that you might get tired of the formula after a while. Similarly, some writers bore themselves sticking to the same writing formula, so decide to try something different. They might like the results. You might not. It is not compulsory to like everything that comes from one writer. And if the day comes that it is compulsory, then they’re no longer an author, they’re a cult leader.

You don’t have to review a book once you’ve finished reading it (but the author would probably appreciate it if you do).

If it isn’t clear by now, let me spell it out for you one last time: when it comes to reading, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. And that includes posting reviews. Yes, writers like reviews (particularly positive reviews) and if you can manage it, they’ll be eternally grateful. But if you can’t, then don’t worry. You don’t owe them anything. In fact, if you’ve read their book, then you’ve already done more for them than most people have.

*****

So that’s it. And the rules of reading all really come down to one thing: do whatever the hell you want. As long as you keep reading. After all, as Mark Twain so eloquently put it, those who don’t read have no advantage over those who can’t read.

Book Review: Cleave by Nikki Gemmell

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The Australia in this book is the Australia that all Australian novels are supposed to be about: set in the outback, full of indigenous characters, not appropriating their culture but living in harmony with them, battling the elements and inner demons. The problem with that is most Australians don’t live lives anything like what is described here and are made to feel less Australian than those living a supposedly more authentic life.

Snip, an artist, has recently received an inheritance from her grandmother along with a note requesting she track down her father to discover the family secret. Her mother wishes she would just let it be but Snip’s never been good at doing what’s expected of her. Neither has her father. Her real name is Philippa and Snip is a nickname from when her father abducted her as a child and cut her hair to pass her off as a boy.

So Snip buys a ute in Sydney, hires Dave as a driver (because she can’t drive the manual car but wouldn’t be seen dead in an automatic and needs someone to drive/teach her) and heads to Alice Springs in the middle of outback Australia where her father has been living a reclusive life for the past two decades.

Dave and Snip have no chemistry whatsoever but we’re supposed to think they do and they get it on, so whatever. When they get to Alice Springs, he makes a dumb comment about how he has to prioritise his friends while he’s in town so without looking back, she heads off to the remote community her father lives in and where she is always drawn back to after her long travels in search of inspiration for her paintings. It’s an indigenous township but Snip is welcomed in a way most other white people aren’t because she’s made an effort to learn the language and the culture and not trample all over it.

Her father, however, is a bit clueless. And when he accidentally steals “sacred men’s business” by having an old car body towed away, he decides to run away from the expected anger and tribal revenge of the indigenous men and hide out at a mate’s place. Snip decides to drive him. But the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knew where they were going, nobody knows they need helps and nobody is coming to look for them.

This book is over 20 years old but it has a timeless quality. It could have been written last year or 50 years ago. The prose is fluid and lyrical. But that appears to be where all the focus has gone. Cleave is 60% description, 30% character and 10% plot. The balance is off.

It’s also full of women playing roles – good daughter, good mother, good girlfriend – without considering whether their parents, their children, their partners deserve their loyalty (they almost universally don’t). Snip is made to feel guilty about the fact that she likes to live her life a certain way and she lets the people around her dictate what she does.

By the time I got to the end of the book, I realised it was a literary Mills & Boon. A woman with a tormented past and desperate for a connection. Confected misunderstandings that lead to completely unnecessary plot twists and turns. And while the author managed to avoid culture appropriation, the indigenous characters were nothing more than background to the all-white cast of lead characters.

It was just okay. It wasn’t less than okay. It wasn’t more than okay. It’s not the kind of book you will read twice. It’s not the kind of book you will remember fondly. It’s not the kind of book you will remember much about at all after a few months. It’s good writing lost in a poor plot. And it’s a shame.

2.5 stars

*First published 2 February 2019 on Goodreads

How You Can Tell The West Wing Was Written by Writers’ Writers – Part Two

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If you missed part one, see last week’s post.

*****

Toby Ziegler: “Ms Fortis?”

Tabatha Fortis: “Yeah.”

Toby Ziegler: “I’m Toby Ziegler.”

Tabatha Fortis: “I’ve been thinking a lot about it since you called.”

Toby Ziegler: “Yeah?”

Tabatha Fortis: “There’s nothing that rhymes with Ziegler.”

Toby Ziegler: “That’s why no one writes poetry about me.”

Tabatha Fortis: “You could write in blank verse. Dylan could do it.”

Toby Ziegler: “Yeah but he hasn’t yet.”

“The US Poet Laureate”, Episode 16, Season 3

CJ Cregg: “Let me explain something to you. This is sort of my field. The people on these sites, they’re the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The muumuu-wearing Parliament smoker, that’s Nurse Ratchet. When Nurse Ratchet is unhappy, the patients are unhappy. You, you’re McMurphy. You swoop in there with your card games and your fishing trips—”

Josh Lyman: “I didn’t swoop in, I came in exactly the same way everybody else did.”

CJ Cregg: “Well, now I’m telling you to open the ward room window and climb on out before they give you a pre-frontal lobotomy and I have to smother you with a pillow.”

Josh Lyman: “You’re Chief Bromden?”

CJ Cregg: “I’m Chief Bromden, yes, at this particular moment.”

“The US Poet Laureate”, Episode 16, Season 3

Tabatha Fortis: “You think I think that an artist’s job is to speak the truth. An artist’s job is to captivate you for however long we’ve asked for your attention. If we stumble into truth, we got lucky. And I don’t get to decide what truth is.”

“The US Poet Laureate”, Episode 16, Season 3

Nikolai Ivanovich: “On his arrival and during outdoor photograph opportunity, President Bartlet must wear overcoat.”

Sam Seaborn: “A coat?”

Nikolai Ivanovich: “He must wear coat. He must wear gloves. Scarves and ear muffs permissible but optional.”

Sam Seaborn: “Hang on ’cause… Yes, ’cause President Chigorin wants to wear a coat and doesn’t want to look like a wimp.”

Nikolai Ivanovich: “Sam, it is freezing too cold in Reykjavik. It is freezing too cold in Helsinki. It is freezing too cold in Gstaad. Why must every American president bound out of an automobile like as at a yacht club while in comparison our leader looks like… I don’t even know what word is.

Sam Seaborn: “Frumpy?”

Nikolai Ivanovich: “I don’t know what ‘frump’ is but onomatopoetically sounds right.”

Sam Seaborn: “It’s hard not to like a guy who doesn’t know ‘frumpy’ but knows ‘onomatopoeia’.”

“Enemies Foreign and Domestic”, Episode 18, Season 3

CJ Cregg: “‘Regulatory duopoly, democracy by favouristic fiat, a bureaucratic junta’…”

Bruno Gianelli: “Yes.”

CJ Cregg: “…‘that is clearly prohibited under federal law.’”

Toby Ziegler: “There’s no way ‘favouristic’ is a word.”

Sam Seaborn: “We all agree with you, Toby, we just don’t think it’s grounds for appeal.”

“College Kids”, Episode 3, Season 4

Toby Ziegler: “When you mention that we want five debates, say what they are. One on the economy, one on foreign policy, with another on global threats and national security, one on the environment and one on strengthening family life, which would include healthcare, education and retirement. I also think there should be one on parts of speech and sentence structure and one on fractions.”

CJ Cregg: “Is there any chance I’m going to get an opportunity to speak in this conversation or are you just writing out loud?”

“The Red Mass”, Episode 4, Season 4

Toby Ziegler: “So you want a job on the speechwriting staff.”

Will Bailey: “I’m sorry?”

Toby Ziegler: “You want a job on the speechwriting staff.”

Will Bailey: “No.”

Toby Ziegler: “I’m sorry?”

Will Bailey: “I don’t want a job on the speechwriting staff.”

Toby Ziegler: “You’re Will Bailey?”

Will Bailey: “Yes.”

Toby Ziegler: “Sam told me you wanted a job on the speechwriting staff.”

Will Bailey: “Well, Sam told me you wanted help with the inauguration.”

Toby Ziegler: “He did?”

Will Bailey: “Yeah.”

Toby Ziegler: “Sam’s doing a little matchmaking. I’m fine doing this by myself.”

Will Bailey: “That’s it?”

Toby Ziegler: “Yeah.”

Will Bailey: “Okay. Your garbage can is on fire.”

Toby Ziegler: “Yeah. It’s not personal. A speech like this, obviously it’s… it takes a certain amount of experience and ah… a certain something.”

Will Bailey: “Just out of curiosity, how do you know I don’t have the something?”

Toby Ziegler: “’Cause you don’t have the experience.”

Will Bailey: “Okay. Well, it was nice meeting you.”

Toby Ziegler: “You, too.”

Will Bailey: “For the record, I was President of Cambridge Union on a Marshall scholarship and I’ve written for three congressional races and a governor.”

Toby Ziegler: “I read the Stanford Club speech. I thought it was good. Not as good as other people thought it was.”

Will Bailey: “Yeah?”

Toby Ziegler: “Call and response isn’t going to work in front of a joint session. You’re alliteration happy – ‘guardians of gridlock, protectors of privilege’ – I needed an avalanche of Advil. And when you use pop culture references, your speech has a shelf life of twelve minutes. You don’t mind constructive criticism, do you?”

Will Bailey: “No, sir.”

Toby Ziegler: “Anyway, thanks for coming in. I told Sam I can do this by myself.”

Will Bailey: “Well, maybe he thought that your speeches were obscurantist policy tracts lost in a cul de sac of their own internal self-righteousness and groaning from the weight of statistics. I’m just speculating, I can’t say for sure.”

“Arctic Radar”, Episode 10, Season 4

Charlie Young: “‘Baldwin, long a fixture in DC and Manhattan society, whether for her work on charity boards or her position on the arm of some of Wall Street, Washington and Hollywood’s most eligible men, as well as hosting some of the Beltway’s favourite—’ What the hell kind of sentence is this?”

“Life on Mars”, Episode 21, Season 4

President Josiah Bartlet: “This draft of the Rose Garden thing, it needs more altitude.”

Will Bailey: “Altitude?”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Loftier. If I don’t sound enthused, how do we expect the country to get excited about this guy?”

Will Bailey: “Yes, sir.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “You’re not very excited about him.”

Will Bailey: “Oh, no. I mean sure. I mean I’m not not excited about him.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “What you sounded like just then is how this reads. Let’s take the equivocation out of it.”

Will Bailey: “Yes, sir.”

President Josiah Bartlet: “Okay.”

Will Bailey: “Thank you, Mr President.”

…

Toby Ziegler: “VP intro needs to go on the prompter by two. How you doing?”

Will Bailey: “I have altitude sickness.”

Toby Ziegler: “I’m sorry?”

Will Bailey: “The President wants more altitude. I’m having conscience issues.”

Toby Ziegler: “I’m sure you’ve had to say things you haven’t meant before. You’ve read friends’ poetry, you’ve had girlfriends.”

Will Bailey: “I could use help.”

Toby Ziegler: “Just hold your nose and hype him.”

Will Bailey: “The President hated this. My self-confidence is down around my ankles.”

Toby Ziegler: “Well, hitch it up and start typing. Come on. Clackety clack.”

Will Bailey: “You’re really not going to help me?”

Toby Ziegler: “I have things to do.”

“Han”, Episode 4, Season 5

Toby Ziegler: “How long has it been?”

Will Bailey: “Half an hour.”

Toby Ziegler: “This is like something out of Beckett.”

Will Bailey: “You mean Sartre.”

Toby Ziegler: “If I meant Sartre, I would have said Sartre.”

Will Bailey: “‘Hell is other people’?”

Toby Ziegler: “Okay, Sartre.”

“No Exit”, Episode 20, Season 5

Kate Harper: “Leo, you wanted to see me?”

Leo McGarry: “Yeah. Listen, with Nancy McNally out of the country, you’re gonna have to be our go-to… Geez, I was gonna say ‘guy’. The problem with English. ‘Guy’ is wrong, ‘gal’ is patronising and ‘person’ sounds arch.”

Kate Harper: “‘Go-to guy’ is fine.”

Leo McGarry: “Good, because you’re it. Which is a lot to throw at you weeks into the job. I want you to know you have my and the president’s full support.”

Kate Harper: “I appreciate your confidence.”

Leo McGarry: “We’ll need you to coordinate all the intelligence agencies. Especially CIA and FBI. You may have heard. They have trouble playing nicely together.”

Kate Harper: “Well, boys will be boys.”

Leo McGarry: “Don’t be afraid to knock heads together. We don’t want petty turf wars slowing down the intel.”

Kate Harper: “I’ll keep on them.”

Leo McGarry: “You run into resistance, you let me know.”

Kate Harper: “I hope that won’t be necessary.”

Leo McGarry: “Another thing. The president’s not crazy about the DCI. It’s chemical, just rubs him the wrong way.”

Kate Harper: “Okay.”

Leo McGarry: “This isn’t gossip. It’s guidance. If the CIA’s got something, the director’s not always the most effective vessel for communicating it.”

Kate Harper: “I’ll make sure to underline anything I think is significant.”

Leo McGarry: “We just need you to be all over this. State. Defence. You’re the White House point… person.”

Kate Harper: “I won’t let you down. Oh, and on that whole language score, I was in the military. I manned battleships, was one of the boys, occasionally was exhorted to drop my… you know, and grab my socks. I’ve made my peace with the colloquial.”

Leo McGarry: “Okay.”

Kate Harper: “Just between us girls.”

“Gaza”, Episode 21, Season 5

Sheila Brooks: “Do we have that new direct mail piece?”

Bob Mayer: “Yeah, I took out about seventeen exclamation points.”

“King Corn”, Episode 13, Season 6