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.

does it ever get easier to call yourself a writer?

I got my first payment for something I'd written almost thirty years ago. It didn't involve a lot of dollars but I remember thinking at the time, 'Oh-KAY! Now I'm a REAL writer.' If I'd thought about it, I guess I would have assumed that I would never again have that horrible experience of not knowing what to say when someone asked me what I did. Like so:

People at parties:   Pleased to meet you! And what do you DO?

Me:                        I'm a ... well ... I work in a deli actually. 

People at Parties:  Oh, how utterly fascination, darling!

Me:                        (desperately) But I'm also ... well... I'm PRIMARILY ...  a writer. 

People at Parties:  A writer! Well! Now I'm really utterly fascination! Before I was pretending. 

Me:                        That's fine. 

People at Parties:  (intimately, leaning in) Have you written anything I'd recognise? 

Me:                        Um. (long pause) No. Probably not. 

People at parties:  (leaning out again) So, do you have good kabanas at your deli? 

Me:                         (double desperate) My short film did play on SBS three times. Very late at night. 

People at Parties:  What about your fish? Which market do they come from?

Since then, I have at times, made a living from writing. Yes, they were short periods of time and it certainly was not a grand living - nevertheless, there were no sneaky bar-maid gigs, no black-ops in retail. I have two books published by well-known publishing houses and one self-published. I edit and I ghost-write. I do web copy. Nevertheless, I still find it just as hard as Simon Keck does to reply unselfconsciously to that awful question, 'So, what do you do?' 

From Simon's blog:

The volunteer at the box office flashed me the usual puzzled expression I receive when I tell people my surname.

“Keck? That can’t be right.”

“So it’s not on the list?”

“No, I mean it doesn’t sound right. Is it a real word?”

“No, it’s a real name."

“Oh… Is it like your nom de plume?”

"Just the nom really”

Honestly, this is just gorgeous. Simon Keck is definitely a Real Writer.

Conan the Barbarian, Sean Hood, writer tells us what it's like to watch your film tank

You know, I never thought I'd find such inspiration from anyone with anything to do with any version of Conan the Barbarian...

When I first read this piece, I nearly cried. It reminded me so much of a dear friend who was recently chewed up and spat out by the cold and unforgiving film industry. He worked day and night for years to produce his film which has a well-known cast and an experienced director in a tried and true genre. Devastating marketing errors torpedoed the project from the day of its premiere and he still struggles to regroup as the DVD sits prettily on JB HiFi shelves all over the country. He's still working in the film industry ('practising his trumpet' as Sean Hood shares so poignantly here about his father)  but he's not yet ready to try out for the orchestra again.

I have failed big creatively - not Conan the Barbarian big - but many many tens of thousands of dollars of a publishing company's money on a book that turned out to be a critical success but not the commercial one we were all expecting. Failure's never fun.

Look, when I reposted this, I meant to only include a couple of paragraphs and then link to its original location as is customary. But all of it is so good, I couldn't choose! Besides, I hate the thought of chopping up a great article like this; it should be read all in one flowing go.

Follow the link anyway - there's a couple of great responses from other filmmakers there who also talk about their experience with falling down and getting up again.

LINK: What's it like to have your film flop at the box office?

When you work "above the line" on a movie (writer, director, actor, producer, etc.) watching it flop at the box office is devastating. I had such an experience during the opening weekend of Conan the Barbarian 3D.
A movie's opening day is analogous to a political election night. Although I've never worked in politics, I remember having similar feelings of disappointment and disillusionment when my candidate lost a presidential bid, so I imagine that working as a speechwriter or a fundraiser for the losing campaign would feel about the same as working on an unsuccessful film. 

One joins a movie production, the same way one might join a campaign, years before the actual release/election, and in the beginning one is filled with hope, enthusiasm and belief. I joined the Conan team, having loved the character in comic books and the stories of Robert E. Howard, filled with the same kind of raw energy and drive that one needs in politics.

Any film production, like a long grueling campaign over months and years, is filled with crisis, compromise, exhaustion, conflict, elation, and blind faith that if one just works harder, the results will turn out all right in the end. During that process whatever anger, frustration, or disagreement you have with the candidate/film you keep to yourself. Privately you may oppose various decisions, strategies, or compromises; you may learn things about the candidate that cloud your resolve and shake your confidence, but you soldier on, committed to the end. You rationalize it along the way by imagining that the struggle will be worth it when the candidate wins.

A few months before release, "tracking numbers" play the role in movies that polls play in politics. It's easy to get caught up in this excitement, like a college volunteer handing out fliers for Howard Dean. (Months before Conan was released many close to the production believed it would open like last year's The Expendables.) As the release date approaches and the the tracking numbers start to fall, you start adjusting expectations, but always with a kind of desperate optimism. "I don't believe the polls," say the smiling candidates.

You hope that advertising and word of mouth will improve the numbers, and even as the numbers get tighter and the omens get darker, you keep telling yourself that things will turn around, that your guy will surprise the experts and pollsters. You stay optimistic. You begin selectively ignoring bad news and highlighting the good. You make the best of it. You believe.

In the days before the release, you get all sorts of enthusiastic congratulations from friends and family. Everyone seems to believe it will go well, and everyone has something positive to say, so you allow yourself to get swept up in it. 

You tell yourself to just enjoy the process. That whether you succeed or fail, win or lose, it will be fine. You pretend to be Zen. You adopt detachment, and ironic humor, while secretly praying for a miracle.

The Friday night of the release is like the Tuesday night of an election. "Exit polls" are taken of people leaving the theater, and estimated box office numbers start leaking out in the afternoon, like early ballot returns. You are glued to your computer, clicking wildly over websites, chatting nonstop with peers, and calling anyone and everyone to find out what they've heard. Have any numbers come back yet? That's when your stomach starts to drop.

By about 9 PM it's clear when your "candidate" has lost by a startlingly wide margin, more than you or even the most pessimistic political observers could have predicted. With a movie its much the same: trade magazines like Variety and Hollywood Reporter call the weekend winners and losers based on projections. That's when the reality of the loss sinks in, and you don't sleep the rest of the night.

For the next couple of days, you walk in a daze, and your friends and family offer kind words, but mostly avoid the subject. Since you had planned (ardently believed, despite it all) that success would propel you to new appointments and opportunities, you find yourself at a loss about what to do next. It can all seem very grim.
You make light of it, of course. You joke and shrug. But the blow to your ego and reputation can't be brushed off. Reviewers, even when they were positive, mocked Conan The Barbarian for its lack of story, lack of characterization, and lack of wit. This doesn't speak well of the screenwriting - and any filmmaker who tells you s/he "doesn't read reviews" just doesn't want to admit how much they sting.

Unfortunately, the work I do as a script doctor is hard to defend if the movie flops. I know that those who have read my Conan shooting script agree that much of the work I did on story and character never made it to screen. I myself know that given the difficulties of rewriting a script in the middle of production, I did work that I can be proud of. But it's still much like doing great work on a losing campaign. All anyone in the general public knows, all anyone in the industry remembers, is the flop. A loss is a loss.

But one thought this morning has lightened my mood:
My father is a retired trumpet player. I remember, when I was a boy, watching him spend months preparing for an audition with a famous philharmonic. Trumpet positions in major orchestras only become available once every few years. Hundreds of world class players will fly in to try out for these positions from all over the world. I remember my dad coming home from this competition, one that he desperately wanted to win, one that he desperately needed to win because work was so hard to come by. Out of hundreds of candidates and days of auditions and callbacks, my father came in....second.

It was devastating for him. He looked completely numb. To come that close and lose tore out his heart. But the next morning, at 6:00 AM, the same way he had done every morning since the age of 12, he did his mouthpiece drills. He did his warm ups. He practiced his usual routines, the same ones he tells his students they need to play every single day. He didn't take the morning off. He just went on. He was and is a trumpet player and that's what trumpet players do, come success or failure.

Less than a year later, he went on to win a position with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he played for three decades. Good thing he kept practicing.

So with my father's example in mind, here I sit, coffee cup steaming in its mug and dog asleep at my feet, starting my work for the day, revising yet another script, working out yet another pitch, thinking of the future (the next project, the next election) because I'm a screenwriter, and that's just what screenwriters do.

In the words of Ed Wood, "My next one will be BETTER!"