New Novel Cover

I just finished my first draft of the design for the cover of my next novel, Min Min. 


What do you think? Too bleak? Too abstract? Should there be more colour? Does it suck entirely? 


Anyone? Anyone?  


I know I should probably finish the novel first but I wasn't actually actually aiming to do this when I first opened Photoshop. I was just killing time, playing around with a photo that I thought had potential, you know, just generally doing art-farty shit. After I'd pushed it, pulled it and recoloured it about 30 times over the course of several hours, it suddenly struck me that it illustrated Min Min perfectly.

And here is the photo that I made the cover from. I took it at the Burdekin River Bridge, built in the '80s, I think, and supposedly unfloodable. This one was taken during the flooding following Cyclone Yasi in February this year. The blue rectangle you can see, just to left and above the girl's head, is actually a sign in the camping area reminding people to be careful when they light fires. Haha.


Oh, and can I just say that I love Photoshop? 

A New Novel

Well.

I'm going to begin another novel.

But what? What? WHAT?!? shall I write about?

Should I start my Booker Award winning project called Min about the Min Min light? Actually, I already started that one -  3 years ago - but we were derailed by my foray into Retail Land.

Most of a writer's projects are just that - projects to be completed - but now and again, there's one that is like a child to be loved and nurtured  into existence. Min  is one of those; she lives in my mind and heart and I really want to complete her. However, I think I need to do another trip into the outback first so that I can feel what the brown interior is again. I've been there many times; it's in my blood and I remember it vividly. But I haven't been in a long while and there's a difference between remembering something vividly and still feeling the dust in your throat.

My father was a drover and I've spoken to him about taking a drive out to Boulia -  one of the main sites for Min Min sightings over the centuries - early next year. He was very excited about it; at the moment he cares for my mother, who is disabled, and the thought of getting back out to the scene of his wild youth while my daughter stays with Mum is pretty enticing.


So if I can't write Min till next year, what then? I have been meaning to write an intelligent chick lit novel for some time and I've tried to interest a couple of my writing friends in co-authoring it with me. I just figure that the going would be so much more fun if you were collaborating over Skype about it. Everyone thinks it sounds great at first, but so far no-one really wants to actually do it. Including me.

Soon it will be time for me to start selling calendars again and I really should be making novels while the sun shines instead of watching the entire series NCIS on DVD. But Jethro Leroy Gibbs and Tony DiNozzo continually prove too distracting for me; seriously, that is some heart palpitatingly man-flesh right there!

Maybe I should write a chick lit novel about a political lefty who is in lust with a right wing vigilante with a crooked smile and no communication skills.

Or maybe I'll just watch Season 5 of NCIS.

Why, Townsville? Why?

I have a very guilty secret.

No. No. You'll never get it out of me.

Oh, okay, then. The sad truth of my existence is that the breakfast staff of the local MacDonalds knows my order off by heart. (Tall cappuchino with an extra shot and a rosti wrap).

I can't help it. I don't like to cook in the mornings and yet I like a hot ... well, warmish ... breakfast. I love reading the local paper and not having to pay for it. I enjoy being out of the house early in the day for something that doesn't involve exercise.

A typical Text the Editor page.

Now, in the local paper, known as the Townsville Bulletin, there is a section that  I find particularly fascinating for some reason. It's called Text the Editor and it's taken over almost entirely from the old Letters to the Editor section.

I think I like it because so many people use it who would never have taken the time write an actual letter. You get some really crazy shit in there!

Anyhow, today whilst devouring my guilty breakfast and reading my free newspaper, I came across this little gem...

A certain specific crazy text to the editor

Well. I have another guilty secret; I am an habitual Text the Editor texter.

Here is what I texted in reply:

OMG, BC! I couldn't work out if you are for real or a clever satire trying to demonstrate how insane homophobes are by exaggerating their actions beyond all reason. 
If it is a clever satire, then yay, you! 
If however you are for real, someone should take your child away and store him somewhere safe where he isn't being brought up as a gay basher in waiting.


The most amusing thing about all of this was how my iphone kept auto-correcting me: first it tried to tell me that what I really meant was that homophones are insane and then that BC's son was in danger of becoming a gay badger.

I'm really glad I did a quick proofread before I sent it.

The Phoenix ...

... aka The Bridge aka It Gets Better...

All prospective names for my the feature length script I wrote a couple of years ago and which I still want to see made. You can find out a little about it here:

The Phoenix

I've just uploaded a couple of little mood reel-y type things to youtube that were put together at different times to demonstrate how we think the film would look, feel and sound.

This first one I put together to Paul Kelly's Dumb Things to demonstrate how I think my main character Clint looks. As soon as I saw Jean-Claude Van Damme in JCVD I thought, 'Now, this is Clint - tough but tired of fighting.'

Mind you, I've just finished reading Robbie Williams biography Feel and I'm thinking he would be a great Clint as well. Ah, the pleasures of daydreaming a cast ...

This next one is something Owen Johnson put together, using John Hiatt's Aint Ever Going Back when The Bridge was chosen for the script development hothouse, Indivision. It was quite spiffy really - we had a week long workshop with Gillian Armstrong (director Little Women, Charlotte Grey) and Andrew Fierberg (producer Secretary, Fur) as our mentors and they both loved the script. On the last night of the workshop, we had a dinner party and everyone got a little drunk. I guess there were about twenty five of us and as I was leaving, I stopped to thank Andrew and Gillian for all their lovely time, energy and input. They both kissed and hugged me and wished us well. Andrew said, 'Look, I'm not pissing in your pocket, as you Aussies say, most people I see have just got a script... You guys have really got a movie here.'

Andrew Rankin took the photos for this one.

why do writers love great names?

I'm sure I'm not the only writer on Earth who is prone to falling in love with a beautiful, or even just plain quirky, name. I know that when I name one of the people in my stories, I try to make it reflect some aspect of his or her character or life and I notice most writers do the same thing.

But even more than great made up names, I love great true life names. Hannah Blyth is a Welsh teenager who discovered an asteroid while on work experience at a telescope laboratory - so they've named the asteroid after her. How fantastic! Along with Halley's and Hale Bopp, we will now have Hannah Blyth out there floating about.

It makes me think of some of my other favourite names.

I fell in love with Harvey Milk some years ago when I read The Mayor of Castro street by Randy Shilts. My friend told me it was the just the latest in a long line of unavailable men I'd fallen for but Harvey was hit for six right out of the park unavailable, even for me; he was rampantly gay and had been dead for about 40 years. Apart from everything else appealing about him, I thought his name was so beautifully nutty - but then I read that his mother had been christened Minerva and she was known as Minnie Milk. His uncle was Morrie Milk.

I remember a year or so ago a woman came into The Incidental Bookshop and bought some books on credit. When I checked the receipt for her signature, I couldn't believe what I saw. I probably actually gawked at that completely average looking old credit card slip because, well, on it was written one of the most amazing names I'd ever seen.

Joy Bliss.

I must say I was sceptical as I looked at that name, thinking it must have been a scam, a fake card or at the least, the result of a deed poll change. But when I looked up and into the face the owner of that phantasmagorical label, I was reassured that the human who stood before me was indeed both joy and bliss personified. She was a fit old lady, I guess you would say spry, with a magnificently cheeky smile and eyes that emitted feel-good rays like an old time movie robot's emitted bad ones.

'You're kidding;' I said to her. 'That's really your name?'

'Oh, yes,' she said cheerfully. 'I married it, of course. My husband's name was Bob - but everyone called him Happy. So we were always Happy and Joy Bliss.'

Mrs Bliss (Miss-is Bliss - oh, glorious natural rhyme!) assured me they were well named and that their life together had been divine; I have no reason not to believe her. Though I didn't specifically ask, it was obvious from the things she said that Happy Bliss was no longer with us but it didn't seem to have daunted her optimism.

I smiled every time I thought of her for the rest of the day and just before I went to sleep that night, I noted how apt the name was; she had certainly brought a little bit of joy into the day of this retail imprisoned writer.

I once met another gorgeous old woman named Shirley Turley. She had also married into her moniker and I laughed when she said, 'That's how you know you're in love; when marriage is going to stick you with a poem for a name and you still say I do.'

I was once trying to name a character who was a fiery, optimistic, young Irish woman. I was thinking something like Truman Capote's Holly Golightly would be perfect but it takes a lot of storymaking skill to make a name like that seem real. I picked up my local paper one morning that week and on the front page, was the picture of a young mother named Bridie Lightbound who had started a support group for the wives of servicemen stationed in war zones. I christened my story girl Bridie Lightfoot; it was the perfect name for her.

I'd love to know about any great names you've seen - leave me a comment about it. I promise not to steal them if you tell me that you're a writer and may use it yourself sometime.