An Elephant, a Duck, and a Community

When is a book launch not a book launch? When the author writes about his family and his upbringing then invites all those, and some, over to lunch to celebrate his parents, their love and tuition, the memory of them and all those (immediate family and others) who had some part in creating his story. Not the written one that is, but the knitted one. The one that binds everyone in a community together. I was very privileged today to have lunch on the family farm of Peter Fitzsimons (here listening to his uncle) and to meet not only family but to chat with people from the Peats Ridge area, be served a cup of tea by a lady wearing a CWA apron (when was the last time that happened? When I was fighting bush fires in Bamawm I think, in 1980!) and to have earnest conversation with old friends I had only just met. As only country folk seem to be able to do.  When Peter spoke to the throng (using the elephant as a pulpit) he spoke about family and community and of bonds that sadly we let fray and separate too quickly in our city lives. There was a book signing too but that was not really the gift of this afternoon. Or the point I suspect. Rather, it was about a community fabric that allowed a perfect (actually not so perfect) stranger to be woven into it and to enjoy some of its warmth and love. The duck snuggles in at the foot of the elephant. Fitting somehow.

The Devil’s Shilling

In the deserts of South Australia there are numerous monuments to failed enterprises and settlements. Standing at an old crossroads in the middle of saltbush country is a  derelict hotel with flowery wallpaper slowly peeling off the walls, floors caving in and a cellar blown into the street. It became the scene for a gothic short story task, the end result being titled “The Devil’s Shilling”

A Word of Distraction

Last year I used the NanoWriMo competition of bash out the Iraq novel. This year it was used to smash into the biography of Herb Money. Bash and smash are the only way to describe trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days, when lots of other things are out there distracting you. I now confess to taking the laptop to the shearers quarters in South Australia. Happily I can report that it was not dragged out for the purposes of writing - which meant I had to do a lot of catching up. Crossed the 50,000 word line tonight - though all I think I have achieved at this point is a good idea about how the publishers book proposal should look. That cannot be a bad thing. Now, that short story for the writers group. Oops, no, better get back into the prospectus we need to have concluded in the next 24 hours or so.

Black and White - with Lots of Colour

The first time my name was in print I was shy to the point of embarrassment. The second time I was published I was paid 900 pounds sterling but thought I had better keep my name off that piece - it was some analysis on China and given where I was working at the time some might have taken a dim view of that. I can still scarcely believe it was for only 600 words! Since then my name has been on a lot of things but aligning name in print with cash for the trouble remains elusive. But hey, that is not what writing is about is it (is it?) Well, certainly not this effort by the Fast Twitch Writers Group which landed in my mail box (the one in the garden wall, not my laptop) this evening. This is a brilliant labour of love with some really good writing in it (no, not mine) by some local folk with a real gift for writing. Writing is like sex - the fun lies in the creating. I can’t promise being taken to pleasurable heights, real or imagined. But I can promise some creativity here which is impressive. If you want a copy try here…If not, that is okay too. You can admire the cover instead - daughter Miriam trying to look awake over the Saturday morning papers but really still tucked up in bed!

The Smell of A Book

Sir Ernest Barker, clearly part of “the establishment” if his Wikipedia entry is any guide, thought The Reader Over Your Shoulder is ‘a national service.’ Only a knight would judge a book on writing to be so. Actually a knight who was also a don at Oxford and a professor at Cambridge, which may or may not mean something other than the possibility that he had to support two opposing teams in the Boat Race. I wonder where his allegiance really lay? I digress however, evidence that I have purchased the correct book if my writing needs are to be met!

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A Malayan Emergency

We were set a task of writing a short story romance (2000 words) which included reference to a black and white photograph. I started with a photo I had found in a second hand store in Vietnam, but always thought the face gazing out of it looked Malay. I picked it up off my desk when I got back from Writers Group and the short story fell out of it. For better or worse. Here it is… Read more

Iraqi Muse

I found Iraq to be a very seductive place. There is something about the country, Baghdad in particular, which I found akin my experience of some parts of India. Life is such a precarious thing in these places that people grasp it with both hands and make the most of what they have. Those who live in the face of guns, under the prospect of random and butchering death know how to live. We have no idea. Read more

Along Came the Muse…

…and sat down beside her. And Capucine took every advantage of that and put the rest of us to shame with a rollicking story which is full of imagination and characters, has a beginning, middle and end, good versus bad and a whole lot of nuances, subtle and otherwise. But above all it is just a story full of pure joy. Have a look at the video over on the right hand side to hear and see her tell the story and try not to be distracted by a 4 year olds cuteness. It will be a tonic in your day. (And if a writer may just spur you to greater things!)

A Land Flowing with Honey and Diesel

Recollections of an attempt to seize raw honeycomb from a live hive, nestled out of the way in a willow tree.

A Land Flowing with Honey and Diesel
A Story by PickledEel

Escape from Colditz

My boyhood years were spent with my siblings in small rural town in Otago, New Zealand. More rural than town, our upbringing had a Huck Finn flavour about it in some respects. A well established and fond memory are the “contraptions” built by one of the brothers, the building of one being distilled in this (very) short story.

Escape from Colditz
A Story by PickledEel

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