Poems, by W.B.R.

The smallest books are often the strangest. From this comes a fleeting couplet that seemed charged with hope, and more than hope, called 'West Coast, Arran'. I hope it sticks with you as it has with me.

This land seems set about with wind and gale
That brings the strong seas leaping to her shores.

Holiday reading

A holiday reading update...

• I finished Wolf Hall at last.
• I was given both Imperial Bedrooms and Sunset Park by HRH for Christmas, which neither of us believe in.
• I was given The Quiet American by my mother for Christmas, which neither of us believe in.
  
• I am reading The Fruit Hunters and an overly foxed, 1953 copy of Captain Cook's Voyages in an impassioned return to non-fiction, which I somehow put aside as an ill-considered and ineffectual means to expedite my reading of Wolf Hall, which took six months anyway.
• Cosmopolis continues to break my brain. I wanted to kill myself on reading it this morning; fortunately, that's usually a sign that things are about to improve.
• I have cleared out my book stash, and made an exciting list of all the books I own that I've never read, and will aim to this year. Woo!
• All I seem to do is read and lie in the hammock. Thanks, in part, to this stupidly delightful weather.
  

And you? Holiday reading updates, please...

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Silence: redux

I don't know about you, but I can't stop thinking about this week's mind-blowing line:

It was a matter of silences, not words.

There's that old cliche that silence is golden, but what if it was the opposite?

What if silence were the blackest terror? What if silence precipitated danger, bodily harm, the kind of waiting that ends in a violent, unimaginable loss?

If that were the case, to embrace silence wouldn't just be isolating or lonely. It would be suicide.

To give in to silence would be to give up, to cease the struggle that has kept your face above the waves and disappear, sinking, irrecoverable. To let the icy black tide fill your lungs; to let your limbs, now deadweights, only drag you deeper. Nullification. Annihilation.

Annihilation.

Of course, it wouldn't be an actual suicide: like Eric in Cosmopolis, you'd be "alive", waiting corporeally for the sun to rise on another day, for the world to tick over and start up again.

The thing is, it wouldn't matter: you'd be sinking still, endless fathoms deep in suffocating darkness, waiting for the closedown of the last synapse, waiting -- always -- for the ultimate loss.

From this vantage, silence is a vast, unending death. A place in which we are perpetually poised on the brink of annihilation, and which itself annihilates by virtue of that fact.

Mind-blowing lines #23

Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo, is well and truly blowing my freaking mind. Why? Well, look. Here's the opening. Tell me if you're still standing once you read this:

"Sleep failed him more often now, not once or twice a week but four times, five. What did he do when this happened? He did not take long walks into the scrolling dawn. There was no friend he loved enough to harrow with a call. What was there to say? It was a matter of silences, not words."

If you're still upright, you must be inhuman. Try this, from the scene where Chin is biting his nails:

"He was gnawing, grinding his teeth on the hangnail, then the nail itself, then the base of the nail, the pale arc of quarter moon, the lunula, and there was something awful and atavistic in the scene ... Why is a hangnail called a hangnail? It's an alteration of agnail, which is Middle English, Eric happened to know, from Old English, with roots in torment and pain."

Reminds me of a pair of sisters I know.

Most-loathed phrase, 2010

To put a year to this phrase is unkind (I believe it's my most-loathed phrase ever), but I feel like being topical.

My most-loathed phrase of 2010 is...

"Harvest the produce."

Actually, it's any combination of the words "harvest" and "produce", or variants thereof.

"Oh, innocuous," you say. I say not. Sure, your Stephanies, your Jamies and Maggies may be happy to blurt it out at random every time they pass a raspberry cane or an in-flower fig. But this sort of bourgeois, food-porn, rosewater-tainted-spectacles approach to the grow-your-own-fucking-food reality has no truck with me. No truck at all.

Let me tell you about my most recent experience of harvesting the produce.

It was dusk. Forget pretty cloud arrangements and breathtaking light; think: mosquitoes. For some reason I located the broad beans almost as far from the house as is possible without actually having to get out a machete and enter the bush, so by the time I arrived at the patch, which had taken a full six months of urging, praying, and loaded compliments to come to production, I had been brought to a near-faint, the mosquitoes having made off with most of my blood.

Unlike the food-porn writers, who spring forth into their pretty kitchen gardens with antique baskets or bowls that came from their mothers' (glowing, cosy, twee) kitchens, I had a clean steel bowl with me, as well as the bucket I usually bleed and pluck the slaughtered chickens into, but which is currently reasonably clean -- this so that I could shell said peas in said garden and bucket said pods for throwing straight into the compost which is, almost inconceivably, even further from the house than the broad beans.

So I started pulling beans from plants, kicking a trapdoor spider off my be-thonged foot and thinking I probably should have worn the steel-toed boots I nearly cut through with the chainsaw last weekend. As I pawed my way through head-high plants, one flicked back, landing something -- a dew droplet? I begged -- in the corner of my eye. I rubbed it: a black slug came away on my knuckle. I smeared it across my jeans and continued picking, successfully avoiding the earwigs that cascaded from the glorious white-and-black blossoms like shiny, bitey, oversized pollen, but not the fucking mosquitoes.

In the end I had a few of palm-fulls of beans. Having hurdled the garden fence, I threw the pods in the compost, and began wading house-ward through the grass. But the goat, outraged that I should be in the vegetable garden without him, held me up. By which I don't mean that he delayed me -- no, no. He stood before me, enormous, stabby horns akimbo, eyeing me and my steel bowl with relish. I took a step. He took a step. I said his name. He rose upon his hind legs, head down, horns up, nostrils writhing in an anticipatory delirium at approximately the level of my scalp. I screamed his name and cursed my thongs; I turned and ran...

Beans in the grass, swearing, and threats of death ensued. It wasn't as bad as the time he head-butted my arse, somersaulting me through the wilderness like something from a Loony Tunes re-run, but still. By a small miracle obviously orchestrated by a suitably amused yet wry deity, I was able to recoup my losses and make a salad that involved -- yes! -- the hackneyed mint, marinated fetta, and olive oil. And boy, was it worth it.

No, frankly, it was not. Except for the fact that the beans were beyond fucking compare and I once again managed to prove my endless humanity and humility by not killing the goat.

This, my friends, is what harvesting the produce is all about. Enough with the sun-drenched footage, the birds crying in the hedgerows and the wind rustling the leaves. Think: bare-knuckled fight for survival, and you'll be closer to the mark.

Word of the Day #3: adelocity

adelocity, n. a measure of unknowability; the degree to which something or someone is obscure or unclear. adelocious, adj.

From the Greek adelos, meaning unknown.

It will come as no surprise that this term was commonly used in sentimental prose and poems written around the 18070s-90s. Thurston Scythesley, a popular British poet of the time, used the word freely in his works. This example comes from his epic Twelve Greek Loves, published by Faber:

Oh Thessaloniki,
Home of my sweet Eugenie.
She of the sun-gold skin,
wild hair,
budding lips,
and infinite adelocity.
When will you release me,
oh Thessaloniki?

Such recent (and florid) examples divert us from linguistic origins which appear much older and less ethereal. It was Pierre Neige, the renowned Undertaker of Reims, who is widely regarded in etymological research circles to have first used adelocity in print, in his Practical Embalming, a pamphlet that was copied and distributed among new recruits to his business in the years 760-70:

After death, the eyes often become marred by a milky sheen of great adelocity, and the colour of the eyes can be no more seen. By this time the remains of the spirit have most certainly left the body, and the draining of fluids can begin. If the eyes remain coloured, have the priest bless the body before embalming commences.

Despite this evidence, there is some argument as to the first actual usage of the word and its variants, since written evidence of it is rich even as early as this. While etymologists and linguists are constantly at work on the question, it seems the history of the word adelocity is in fact adelocious.

That ain't Jimmy

Jimmy Wales. This is the name of a gangster, a cockney ne'er-do-well with a chip on his shoulder and a greasy chip packet in his pocket.

Jimmy Wales is the name of a dangerous man, a man who'll do what the circumstances require, and what fate necessitates. He's not a man who dallies, nor the type to hesitate. Jimmy knows what he needs to do, and he does it.

In short, gentle reader, Jimmy Wales simply cannot be the man pictured in the above ad, which comes to us from Wikipedia. That guy's name is surely Thorn Blane or David Bureaux or Cavendish Slatesly or something. Perhaps it's White Male #567-a. He sure as hell is not Jimmy Wales. Come on. How could a low-grade hit man produce such a web-age wonder as Wikipedia?

Unless that's a disguise, and below the visage pictured, his stomach bulges out, balloon-like, and he's wearing snakeskin shoes and a pistol wedged into his waistband, this guy ain't the Jimmy I know.

Have you read more than six of these books?

Sometimes, I think Facebook is merely a replacement for those chain letters that used to submerge social circles in primary school for heady weeks on end.

Currently, friends on Facebook are inviting me to identify from a list of 100 books how many I've read, and started but not finished, in reference to a damning Guardian article that said the average moron had only ever read six of these great tomes.

The thing is, I can't be bothered proving the Guardian wrong. There are a few things you should know.

1. I didn't read a book until I was approximately 13 and was required to do so for school.
2. I haven't reveled in your "classics".
3. I haven't read widely, partly since if I like a book, I tend to re-read it a billion times over instead of getting a new one.
4. Like movies, books tend not to stick with me unless I read them a billion times over.
5. In all honesty, I really prefer to look at the pictures.
   

In short, I probably wouldn't remember which few of the 100 books I'd read. I can guarantee it's more than six, but it's not 100. Most likely I'd spend hours working through the list thus:

"Thomas Hardy ... didn't he write something set in ... the country? I read that one! Was it Tess, though? Who knows? Ooh Catcher in the Rye. I've read that a billion times: *tick*. Now, Salman Rushdie. I'm sure I read The Satanic Verses when I was 14 or so, but what the fuck happened in that? All I remember is a chapter entitled Ell Ow En, Dee Ow Enn..."

And on and on.

Question: what value is the reading if there is no memory of it?

(Hint: you can substitute any transitive verb you like for "reading" in that sentence.)

Mind-blowing lines #22

Today: a mind-blowing excerpt from Ghosts, by Paul Auster.

Ready?

But the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold. Such is the way of the world: one step at a time, one word and then the next. There are certain things that Blue cannot possibly know at this point. For knowledge comes slowly, and when it comes, it is often at great personal expense.

[finding home]

[The dull thud of shots
on a country morning
soothes the aching child in me

(raised on fear
and fist fights,
and headlights
menacing the black walls
of a thousand endless nights).

The fired shot
finds home and finishes:
the struggle stops;
the heart stills.

The sound--
suspended over summer fields
--vanishes.

There is no grim tomorrow,
no hard aftermath:
just a pause that dissipates
and lets the daylight win.]

Word of the Day #2: geoggravation

geoggravation, n. the supposed response of a deity outraged by the weaknesses of believers, manifested specifically in geological phenomena: earthquakes, volcanic activity, sinkholes, mudslides, and so on. geoggravate, geoggravating, v. and v.t.

The term was coined by missionaries who operated throughout various Pacific islands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and documented many tribal customs based around the avoidance, amelioration, and supplication of potential and perceived geological restitution supposedly meted out by enraged deities.

One Doctor of Theology, a Dr. Eugene Planck from Potsdam, Germany, observed a group of 23 females from a group visiting Matua Island systematically sacrifice over 1,000 Common Ravens (Corvus corax) by drowning at the island's Eastern shore in an attempt to minimise the possible geoggravation caused by their inadvertently setting fire to a ceremonial woven-palm basket. Planck used the term in a letter to his English colleague, Albert Fleming:

"...and then they took the birds, poor things, and drowned them until the whole of the lagoon was verily adrift with bedraggled bodies. Alas, despite these efforts, Matua erupted the following morning and the entire party was forced to flee the results of their geoggravation; several boats capsized and three additional ceremonial baskets were lost in the melee..."

This brief excerpt suggests the term was in common use during the period.

Trends

Now I've seen it all.
That's right! #girlswhodontgivehead is a Twitter Trend.

Lock up the kiddies and take an axe to the computer: the devil's in the house! And/or a common denominator of fuckwits now officially rules the Internet.

Mind-blowing lines #21

More from Wolf Hall. This time, one for the ladies.

When a woman withdraws to give birth the sun may be shining but the shutters of her room are closed so she can make her own weather. She is kept in the dark so she can dream. Her dreams drift far away, from terra firma to a marshy tract of land, to a landing stage, to a river where a mist closes over the further bank, and earth and sky are inseparate; there she must embark toward life and death, a muffled figure in the stern directing the oars. In this vessel prayers are said that men never hear. Bargains are struck between a woman and her God. The river is tidal, and between one feather-stroke and the next, her tide may turn.

Word of the Day: pygoceria

Once upon a time, a friend and I started coming up with words that weren't but should have been. These were our Words of the Day. They were a lot of fun, and I thought you, dear reader, might enjoy them too. Let's consider it a new feature, shall we?

pygoceria n. a rare but arresting physical condition whereby an animal develops horny protrusions on its flanks. pygoceric, adj.

The word is derived from the Greek pygo, rump, and ceros, horn. It was first recorded in an apocryphal chapter of The Odyssey in which Odysseus has his journey halted by a pygoceric horse who threatens to impale him if he fails to correctly solve a riddle.

Similarly, in scenes omitted from The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy reaches a crumbling yellow brick bridge and, not knowing how to cross it safely, seeks assistance from a Dodo called Pamela who manifests pygoceric symptoms.

These fictional cases are underpinned by a small but convincing body of anthropological and medical evidence uncovered in a Chinese family history, circa 1212, which culminated in the death of Li, the only child from the last surviving branch of the Xiu family. Li's premature passing at the hands of furious villagers who had sought his advice, but disliked its repercussions, ended a centuries-long heritage of pygoceria within his family.

This anecdotal report further serves to support in fact fiction's ongoing association of pygoceria with a degree of oracular insight.

Doing the Phantom

Among the likes of Rico and Aces and I there is a saying: when someone leaves a gathering unnoticed, they Do the Phantom. Until now I've been one to Do the Big Finale: waving teary goodbyes, promising to write, giving small trinkets of my affection, etc. etc.

But no more. This time, I'm doing the Phantom.

An almost unnoticeable retraction of sentiment here. A no-show there. A general letting of ships sail everywhere. It all adds up, people. It adds up to the Phantom.

I wish I was as elusive and subtle as the Phantom. I frequently wish I could disappear at will—who doesn't?—and I don't mind either purple or masks. If I could save the day, believe me, I would. But I'm not elusive or subtle or a day-saver. What I am, is instead beginning the necessary preparations for my reconstitution elsewhere.

If it all sounds a bit dramatic, don't worry. What you see here is merely enthusiasm for trying a different approach this time: an enthusiasm for doing the Phantom.

This is living

The media is full of self-help blather. Everyone seems constantly to insinuate that we can and should improve ourselves—be more environmentally aware, get off our lazy, dismal arses and act on our inspirations, or just stop whingeing and thank Christ we're still alive.

To that end, here, briefly, are the self-help catch-cries I never want to hear again, and the reasons why:

• Declutter or minimalise your life.
  Alida thinks: dude, if my life was any more minimalist, I'd be killing the goat for dinner. No, seriously. I really need to get some food into this house. I haven't been shopping in months, or bought clothing in an actual store for years. If I declutter any less I'll be living in a freaking treehouse in rags ... oh, that's right: I AM.
  
  
• Live your dreams/"follow" your "bliss".
  Alida thinks: *gag*
  
  
• Get some exercise.
  Alida thinks: *yawn*
  
  
• Listen to your inner voice.
  Alida thinks: if you knew what my inner voice was saying, there's no way in hell you'd advocate my apprehending it. My inner voice is telling me to track you down and reward your sanctimonious bullshit with a rusty fork to the eyeball.
  
  
• You get what you give.
  Alida thinks: I can present you with approximately 8.8 million reasons (annually) why this is a palpable lie. And that's just for starters.
  
  
• Money is not the answer.
  Alida thinks: no, but it would help pay that enormous rates notice I just received.
  
  
• Breathe.
  Alida thinks: that's not advice; it's a biological imperative, fucker.
  

Think you should be "better"? Forget it. So you have a wooden leg, multiple personalities, and a blind cat. Don't sweat it: the guy next door thinks he was kidnapped by aliens last night and now he's too scared to get out of bed.

Take him that leftover fried rice that's in your fridge and ask if you can borrow his mower. Your action won't prevent WWIII, global warming, or people dying tragically and unnecessarily, but, my friend (or friends, if your multiple personalities prefer), this is living.

A reading-in-the-bath disaster

Last night I got Andorra wet in the bath. I'd just bought it, and the edition is basically all-white, so the water marks aren't helping anything.

I don't even know how it got wet -- it was still 30-something degrees when I got into the bath with my G&T and the book, so there was barely enough water to submerge me, let alone the book. Fuck. And before you go blaming the gin, forget it. I'm an old, old hand at reading in the bath. I know what I'm doing. Ordinarily.

Anyway, here's the plan. Dry it out, then re-flatten between my concrete floor and my dictionaries. Any tips? Hints? Suggestions? Should I forget it and just set the thing on fire? Should I iron the pages?

I'm so careful with the books, really I am. I don't have to deal with this kind of eventuality too often. Any help you can give would be appreciated.

1994

Over the weekend I was presented with an article I'd written for my then-local paper in 1994. It was around the same time that I had my first long-copy ad published, also in the then-local paper, while on work experience in a then-local ad agency. But that's now-irrelevant, really.

What's relevant is that my capacity for producing carefully phrased bullshit -- hype, if you prefer -- was strong even at that tender age. If you had something to say, no matter how dreary, it appears that, even then, I could help you say it in a way that sounded appealing. Even when I didn't believe it myself.

When you work with stories all the time -- you spend your days deciphering what people want to say, then making those people and things sound better than they are -- you tend to lose your grip on reality. You tend to want to believe your own hype -- a dangerous thing for a copywriter. Or a human being.

The alternative, of course, is to become inordinately cynical, which seems to have been the most recent turn in my path of unrighteous writing. What next? A vow of silence, I expect.

On City of Glass

In City of Glass, by Paul Auster, the main character, Quinn, comes to the end of himself.

This is how it's explained in the text. Whether you've read the book or not, those words will imply something to you. Without giving the game away (too much), let me sketch out what it meant for Quinn.

1. Quinn is something of a hermit: wrapped up in work, he has no friends and virtually no real need to connect with others.

2. By chance, he gets pulled into a strange, unpredictable series of events. When I say by chance, I mean that they appear to have been intended for someone else. Yet he becomes hopelessly enmeshed. When I say events, I mean mundane physical events that have enormous psychological repercussions.

3. A crisis occurs.

4. His response to the crisis is his ultimate undoing.

5. By the end of the book, there is no more Quinn. Quinn is lost even to the author of the story; the reader begins to wonder if he was ever real.

I'm no literary scholar. I haven't even read much Auster. But I want to suggest that this plotline could perhaps represent the greatest fear of many people.

In some part of our being, we continually walk a tightrope between being here, and not. Between some semblance of control, and a wild, enormous infinity in which we are completely lost -- not just to ourselves, or lost in the world, but actually nonexistent.

To exist, and to not exist at the same time is a strange paradox. If you don't exist, then neither does anything you thought you had: your feelings, experiences, and beliefs are entirely mutable. That store of memories that charts your education in life, entertains you on a cold night, and lets you believe during difficult times that things can be better is revealed as mere fabrication.

Yet the voice inside says you do exist. It insists this is so. It wants to believe in the memories, no matter how fantastical they seem, because they happened.

Didn't they?

Perhaps it's this drive which keeps us going: the tension between the will to exist (not just to live, but to be), and the reality of nonexistence.

In City of Glass, that tension is overwhelmed in favour of nonexistence not by any one individual, or a given course of action, but by a range of evidence that's complex, ubiquitous, and unavoidable.

Ultimately, Quinn's nonexistence is evinced by his life. His being finally dismisses his own actuality, and that's the end of him.

Something about things

"Things" is one of the most generic, pointless, blithering nouns in the English language. The Pocket O begins its definition with the words "any possible object of thought". I didn't read on from there: I was too bored with it to bother.

What the fuck are "things"? If you don't know, stop writing until you've worked it out.

In trying to communicate with clarity, "thing" is not a word you should rely upon. I would go so far as to suggest—nay, demand (but then I'm a hard-arse, so you can selectively read "suggest" if you like)—that it is not a word that should be used in professional prose at all. It is a word to be avoided in all but the slimmest possible selection of cases.

A few golden rules, then:

• No headline should include this word.
• In prose, choose a more specific noun. Every single time.
  
• Yes, you can use "things" tongue in cheek, as part of an idiom ("First things first"), or colloquially, as in the title of this post. Alright then. But that's all.
  

I wasn't kidding about headlines. If I see one more article with a headline like "5 things you should know about cats", I'll scream.

Yes, there's sure to be a lot of screaming in the coming weeks.

Live the literature

I wanted to tell you about several fabulous holidays I've enjoyed as a result of books. It's topical: I'm planning another.

There was a visit to Vienna, to see the Big Wheel, the Mozart Cafe, and other places whence we saw the demise of Graham Greene's Harry Lime in The Third Man.

There was a trip to San Francisco, setting for A Crack in the Edge of the World. On the same adventure, I went to New York, to stare vacantly into the duck pond in Central Park where Holden met Phoebe in Catcher in the Rye, and pass the Plaza, where Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway drank champagne with Gastby and Daisy and lost Jordan, and stroll in Soho looking out for Patrick Bateman, the all-American Psycho.

And there was a trip to dark, mysterious Java, to visit Krakatau, Bogor, Anyer, Jakarta: crucial locations in The Day the World Exploded.

Where to next? Next is a long time off, I'm afraid, but it'll be Egypt -- inspired by Noel Coward's Middle East Diary of 1943 (as well as, oh, Death on the Nile, Tutankhamun, the Rosetta Stone, etc. etc.) -- and Spain, to follow in the dusty footsteps laid out in Rose Macaulay's Fabled Shore.

I can recommend this approach to travel: read a book, love it, and visit the place in which it was set. Look for the heros in their haunts, tread the pavements where the bad guys stalked, lie in fields in which hearts were lost, sit in the cafe where the heroine first appeared. Live the literature.

Hyphenated list items 101

Okay English speakers, buck up. Hyphenated items in a list? Piece of cake.

Consider the sentence, "I have short-term, medium-term, and long-term projects."

(Yes, a serial comma. But focus. Hyphens, okay?)

If you wanted to avoid repetition in this sentence, you'd write it as follows:

"I have short-, medium-, and long-term projects."

No kidding. The hyphens, you see, tie the modifiers (short, medium, long) to the common noun (term). This is how the sentence makes sense. Consider the same sentence sans hyphens:

"I have short, medium, and long-term projects."

That sentence literally says, I have short projects, I have medium projects, and I have long-term projects. Which is not the same as our sample sentence, where we're talking about when the projects take place, rather than how long they take. And: what in hell is a medium project?

Without the hyphens, short and medium could be substituted with any damn noun:

"I have love, peas, and long-term projects."

The hyphens are needed. They are not weird. If you have any questions, I will happily address them with due immovability on this matter in the comments.

Reports from the Real World

When the nation faces a federal election, the papers turn poorly. All the text is tit-for-tat one-up-manship, feuds and fallouts. All the photographs seem mere caricatures. Nothing's real: it's all hot air. And it's worse than the soaps.

On the other hand, when the political state is at least consistent, the press indulges us with all kinds of interesting developments -- Reports, if you will, from the Real World:


To summarise, key points of interest in today's news include:

• A plane engine exploded while the plane was in the sky. And: people lived!
  
• The oldest stone axe in the world has been found in Arnhem Land at a rock art site which, incidentally, was only discovered three years ago.
  
• A man was killed by a pride of lions in Zimbabwe (sidebar: another man died after a hyena attack in the same country).
• The oldest woman in the world died; she was born in 1896 and lived, by the way, in Curacao. Yes, like the drink.
  

That, friend, is news. These are news items. These are the kinds of tepid-off-the-presses non-scoops I live for: things that let us reflect upon the world as we know it.

Thoughts precipitated by such stories include, but are not limited to the following. Curacao is made with orange skins. She was 114. The oldest sharp edge in the world. The deeply happy Jawoyn people. Hyena attack. And: it's not often you see the phrase "a pride of lions" in print.

Good times, people. Good times.

The big enn oh

Every time I receive a rejection for something I've written, I think of John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the hilarious A Confederacy of Dunces, had it rejected once to often, and topped himself.

John's mother kept hawking the book, which was eventually sold and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.

Oh, John, I think, remembering fondly Burma Jones, my favourite character from the novel, and promising myself for the zillionth time I'll name my first-born after him. If only you'd hung in there.

My ongoing skirmishes with copy approvals, publishers, and readers have proven to me that there is no right in writing, pun intended (other than correct grammar and spelling, of course).

Creativity is like beauty in a lot of ways, but primarily, for this discussion, the similarity is that they're both subjective. What one loves, another will loathe. We can argue the merits of creative talent all rainy afternoon long, but in the end, we'll still have our innate preferences for certain creative outputs over others.

Some writers employ their rejection slips as office wallpaper, set fire to them, and/or use them as metaphorical fuel for more output. Seeing as all my rejections come via email -- or silence, as is the go now with book publishers -- my walls remain unfettered by physical evidence of loathing.

Each time a rejection comes, there is a brief moment of disappointment. And that's it.

There are rejections in life that we can rightly take to heart, question, pore over, and use to drive ourselves crazy if we wish. But rejection by a corporation manufacturing products is not one of them.

Mind-blowing lines #20

The proliferation of mind-blowing lines in Wolf Hall makes it virtually impossible to single one out. I have restricted my selection to two. For now.

In the first, Thomas Cromwell is remembering a brief youth spent at the hands of his violent father:

"One fear creates a dereliction, the offence brings on a greater fear, and there comes a point where the fear is too great and the human spirit just gives up and a child wanders off numb and directionless and ends up following a crowd and watching a killing."

The second is a comment from King Henry about Anne Boleyn:

"I chase but one hind, he says, one strange deer timid and wild, and she leads me off the paths that other men have trod, and by myself into the depths of the wood."

A king and a smith's son, both wholly bewildered. Cromwell has the benefit of hindsight, though: you can't blame Henry for being blindsided later in life. For being silly, perhaps, but not for being human.

[axe and rifle]

[It is one of those late, cold winter afternoons when solitude slips toward loneliness. The ferns drip in the glens and across the grim paddocks he can hear a cow lowing.

He is sharpening the axe.

There is a paved area beside the door, and here his breath forms small clouds in the chill air. All is silent; even the hens have housed themselves. The dying light seeps, luminous, over the dark green hillside to his right. The sun is retreating, an opalescent band barely visible above the hill. Still the sky is light; the house stands in a hollow. He has a good hour left.

He spots a movement on the gloomy hillside, in his small crook of valley, not one hundred meters away. He blinks, thinking it’s an apparition. But, no: he discerns legs flickering back and forth, resolute shoulders and a rifle. His axe is forgotten. The face is pinched, frowning, and -- despite the short hair -- not a man’s.

She is a shadow, a wraith green on darker green. Only the straight black line of the rifle is definite, discernible even in the hollow's dusk.]

News! I mean, News?

I'm afraid that when I saw this on theage.com on the weekend, I rolled my eyes so hard they hurt. In case you missed it, Melbourne, Australia, world, the war in Afghanistan is dubious!

Just so you don't have to look it up, the Pocket O defines dubious as ... wait for it ... "occasioning doubt". You can see the kind of hard-headed, tough-nut, devil-may-care, tell-it-straight journalism we have on our hands here. Look out, those of dubious actions.

Again: news? Haven't advertisers been trying to morph advertising into entertainment since the 1950s? Look at all the Pepsi product placement in Back the Future (not to mention the hilariously noted Lipton Iced Tea placements in 30 Rock). Look at the Will it Blend? videos.

"Whatever," says The Age. "Let's get some mileage outta Old Spice anyway." If they're right, it must be the slowest morph ever -- perhaps almost as slow as Sunday was as a news day.

Parity! Or: What to buy from America right now

Good ways to make the most of the unconscionably beefy AUD.

1. Buy a limited edition book (short stories, fiction, poetry, often illustrated and always beautifully produced) from Wallflower Press.
   
   
2. Purchase some new decks. Or new art. Call it what you will.
   
   
3. Subscribe to something good for once in your life. Consider: Lapham's Quarterly or The New Yorker.
   
   
4. Get educated. New Scientist, anyone?
   
   
5. Buck up, knuckle down, cut the corn, and book yourself in to see something fucking amazing on a whim. And at the whim of economics.

Questions? Comments? Other suggestions? Let's hear 'em.

The Gerund: in love and clown shoes

On Saturday, I awoke thinking of the Gerund.*

Some say the Gerund is a fabrication in English; they say it belongs to Latin. Perhaps this is true, but in my opinion, it's too good to let slip away.

In fact, I think I'm in love with the Gerund.

A Gerund is identical in form to an ing verb. It's the active present participle, if you will.

But let's not. Instead, let's focus our attention on the most commonly acknowledged Gerund form, the Gerund-and-possessive.

"I appreciate your bringing over the clown shoes."

As you can see, the ing verb here is bringing. The possessive plus Gerund is your bringing.

We could easily say, "I appreciate you bringing over the clown shoes."

But to the attentive ear -- the ear that adores subtletly and nuance, the ear that is attuned to social slights of which modern speakers are, dare I say it, rarely aware, let alone knowingly capable -- these are two very different statements.

One says: I appreciate your caring action.

The other says: I appreciate you. ...Oh, and that thing you did.

We could also say, "I appreciate that you brought over the clown shoes", but that puts the action in the past. It's been, it's gone, it's all said and done. In fact, people (okay, I) tend to use this construction most commonly when we plan to follow it with something like, "but they were purple, and clashed with my fight wig."

Don't believe me? Fine, scheister. Let's look at a more sensitive example, shall we?

"I appreciate your sympathy on the death of my cat."

In this sentence, the sympathy might as well be a commodity. You went out, boxed up your sympathy, and sent it over, along with a card that read, "With our sympathies."

"I appreciate your sympathising on the death of my cat."

In this sentence, we credit the reader with capabilities far beyond the perfunctory politess. We acknowledge their sensitivity, the potential that they may be grieving even now -- and in the future -- and we imply an understanding that sympathy is not as simple as an "I'm sorry about Fluffy."

The Gerund-and-possessive form allows us to strengthen a relationship, to communicate empathy. To show we get it.

Are you with me now? I knew you'd come around. And believe me, I'm glad. Really, I am. In fact, I'd go so far as to say:

I appreciate your coming around to the Gerund.

*If you didn't click on that link, you're crazy. For God's sakes, open it in a new tab. Gerunds don't get much more amusing than that.

Quote this

Often, one sees "content" that employs "quote marks" for "emphasis". Other times, the author is a bit less "crazy-bananas" and uses the quotes only to highlight slightly "odd" terms.

Of course, quote marks should be used for nothing of the sort. Quote marks, single or double, are intended for use:

• when you're quoting something that someone else has said or written
  
• in written dialogue
• to identify words that form a chapter, article, song, radio or tv title: The post "Quote this" on Backstoryesque discusses quotes.
• to explicitly identify a name or term as such within prose: The paper was marked "Fail".
• to explicitly identify jargon or colloquialisms as such: We call this hairdo a "mullet".
  

This last item seems to be the real sticking point. Why quote mullet but not crazy-bananas? How can you tell when to apply quotes?

If you're explicitly presenting a word as a special term -- as if saying "here's a word you should note or remember" -- give it quotes. If you're simply using the word in prose, it takes no quotes. Thus:

• We call this hairdo a "mullet".
• He had a mullet hairdo and blue suede shoes.

In combination, correctly applied quotes might look like this:

"Boo," said the man. He had a mullet hairdo, blue suede shoes, and "Mum" tattooed on his arm.

I'm not sure whether this guy's rockabilly or just from Reservoir; in any case, he's certainly a character. But not a "character".

[simple Lizzy]

[Cool hands
and a hot head
I played piano while
you played dead
We waited for the signal
that never came
let it hatch
strike a match
won't ever be the same.

You cocked your pistol
I struck a blow
where we went
they won't ever know
I listened for the sound
of the midnight train
in a trap
let her nap
won't ever be the same.

Simple Lizzy
take my hand
Lead me to
another land
Simple Lizzy
show me how—
'cause we ain't ever
goin' home now.

Cool hands
and a hot head
I wished on a star
that you were dead
Lay in the grass
in the morning rain
she's a catch
lift the latch
won't ever be the same.

Strike a match
in a trap
lift the latch
she's a catch
let her nap
in a trap,
in a trap.

Simple Lizzy
oh, sweetheart
Simple Lizzy
you won't ever be the same.]

Trouble in paradise

I have a small problem.

Since I dislike the oppressive walls of books that so many readers seem inexplicably to adore, I keep my books in the wardrobe. Beneath that shelf are eight drawers that look like this:

The thing is, I've run out of space. And since I started Wolf Hall, oh, aeons ago, I've barely looked in this cupboard but to add books (bought, borrowed) or to remove them to lend to others.

Not enough, clearly; I've added more than I've loaned, and now I'm not sure what to do. I literally cannot stand having books crowding about the walls of my rooms -- the rustling pages, the riot of spines, the squeak of cover on cover, the endless hubbub of their mingling ideas unsettling the quiet afternoons.

The cupboard next to this one has linen in it. I'm thinking of sacrificing the sheets for more book space. It's spring, after all, and the hammock is up. Who needs sheets? With books, on the other hand, confinement is entirely necessary; were they allowed out en masse, anything could happen. Whatever it was, it would be the end of my silent paradise.

It would be the end of silence, full stop.

Lies, published lies, and possible lies

The (lack of) scandal over Womens' Day's recent fabrication of Kate Ritchie's wedding exclusive is a grim reminder not to trust the media.

On principle, I'm no advocate of crowd-sourced "news" content. Those little notes at the end of embarrassingly short and usually poorly edited breaking stories on news sites begging, "Did you see the fire/shootout/explosion? Send us your photos and video!" make me want to set up a micropayment system for all the unpaid journalist-bystanders that support such publications.

However, the benefit of citizen-journliasm, crowd-sourced news, and the crappy camera in your phone is this: they help to reduce the prevalence of published lies.

It's not just tabloid newspapers that fabricate stories. These days I take literally everything I read with a grain of salt and as a consequence, the world seems intangible and fanciful, full of lies, published lies, and possible lies. Every piece of information comes to me through the twisted prism of The Great Race For Advertising Dollars. At best, what I know is a complete misrepresentation of reality.

Often, my own personal, physical experience seems like the only concrete reality. Perhaps that's the real reason why crowd-sourced content is beginning to seem so much more believable than the officially "produced" stories.

Don't tell me

A checklist of sorts. These are things I never want to hear ever again in my life, but especially in a submission or pitch:

• "I know [a whole lot of people], who you may know."
  Alida thinks: Who cares? Can you string a sentence together? The rest of this pitch suggests not.
  
  
• "I'd love to contribute something. Let me know if you're interested."
  Alida thinks: Something? Something? I'm not interested already!
  
  
• "I like you already!" (upon article acceptance)
  Alida thinks: Fuck off, you condescending wanker.
  
  
• "heading: My Story"
  Alida thinks: Dude, your story is boring. Get to the point for Christ's sakes! Oh, forget it: Rejected.
  
  
• "heading: Here's Where Things Get Interesting"
  Alida thinks: Thank Christ. I was beginning to wonder when the boring and irrelevant would end.
  
  
• "Why is this interesting?"
  Alida thinks: If you know I'm already wondering this, your article has already failed.
  
  
• "How is this relevant?"
  Alida thinks: See above. And stop torturing me.
  

[louise's daughter]

[In the evenings, the house is silent but for the crackling fire. Miss Lingham always had the stove in the kitchen going, and Elise does the same.

There is a photograph album in the bookshelf, filled with old pictures: picnics in black and white, starched families outside small colonial homesteads, unfamiliar women in a dusty road.

None of them is Miss Lingham.

There are countless stories in the house, but they’re hidden in the walls, the layers of paint, that broken door-lock, this repaired light shade, the chip in the milk jug and the cracked blue vase. Each flaw tells its own story. Each scar has its own secrets.

At nights, Elise may look around the room, eyes on the freshly-dusted picture rail as if that might be where the story of her great aunt is hiding.

But Miss Lingham is nowhere to be found.

And yet she’s everywhere. From the compost heap to the old plate serving spoon in the kitchen drawer, Miss Lingham is entirely present. Elise can feel it. Miss Lingham’s footfall doesn’t pause in the corridor; the bean frames stand silent without her chatter among them.

Is the chip in the milk jug a sad story or a happy one? Perhaps it’s no more than an innocent accident, unremarkable. There is no way of knowing.

Elise is a nobody, identified in Miss Lingham’s will only as "Louise’s daughter".

She doesn’t have parents now, and she didn’t know Miss Lingham.

She doesn’t know why she's here.]

The ghost writer

I saw a trailer for new cinematic experience The Ghost Writer recently, and boy did it look exciting. There were suspense, danger, nice suits, private jets, horn-rimmed spectacles, and good looking women. Dictaphones. Typewriters. Cigarettes burning low in long-forgotten ashtrays.

Occasionally someone held a sheaf of paper -- presumably it contained the thousands of words the ghost writer had already penned, and was momentarily sending to the publisher. The entire cast seemed perpetually poised on the dual brinks of literary fame and dramatic death, undoubtedly at the hands of a bespectacled man or a good looking woman. Or a private jet.

In my experience, ghost writing is less death and more deadline-related drama. Less glory and more grunt.

The ghost writer is akin to the elephant carrying the litter of the gold-silk-draped prince. The author-prince decides the direction; the elephant gets him there. The author-prince becomes distracted eating a pomegranate; the elephant fords a muddy torrent rather than being allowed to take the bridge that's just upstream. At the journey's end, the author-prince calls for lute players and virgins and virginal lute players, and prepares for the attention of the court; the elephant gets a long-awaited bath in the muddy torrent.

In short, ghost writing is like building any product for any brand. What I do is just like what you do. The only difference between a book and a shoe design, or an advertisement, or a piece of software, or a boat is that a book is usually attached to a name, and the laws of copyright have ensured that the public usually expects the name of the author to be the name of the person who put the actual words on the paper (or screen, if you're so inclined).

But this is the information age, kids. The era of personal branding and big ideas. And even if you lock yourself in your library of high-embodied-energy hardbacks and pretend it's 1860, you'll have to admit that unnamed editors have always had a strong hand in the way a book turns out, no matter who put the actual words on the paper in the first draft of the ms. These, alongside the association of private jets with ghost writers, are among the greatest misrepresentations of how content is produced.

The name "ghost writing" seems eminently suitable for such a veiled profession.

Order, today

If you're like me, the page pictured above makes you want to lie down.

When I look at this, my eyes frantically search for something to latch onto, and I find myself thinking that before I lie down, I should ORDER TODAY. After that, I'll lie down and try to divest my brain of the static that seems to have lodged there since I loaded this page.

I know: I'm overly dramatic. Sometimes, Alida, I tell myself, you just need to knuckle down and read all the words to imbibe information from the web.

But, really. Back at the Writing for the Internet Community College, the first class I took was Little Paras 101. There I learned to make each para small, and to make it start with some exciting words that tip off scanners as to what's in the para.

That, we learned, was the way to create order, today, in the chaos of online text: use word flags, signposts, whitespace -- headings, if you have them at your disposal -- and a lot of hinting. Accordingly, most of the time, writers try to write so that scanners can imply the thread of a story, roughly, by glancing at each para's first few words.

What about the readers?, you may ask. Well, they're getting the full story, the lucky, dedicated so-and-sos. But the scanners are effectively the lowest common denominator. I say this as a scanner myself. If you've catered to me and my moronic approach to web content, you've catered to the whole barrel of monkeys.

Perhaps, the cynic advances, the whole purpose of the page is to get me to order today: overwhelm users with words and a portion of them, in looking for an escape, will click on the pretty, inviting picture rather than the Back button. That ad is for the print version of this online publication -- Fast Company magazine.

But if I find the publication's content daunting before I even begin to read it, I posit that I will be unlikely to order today. I'm not about to pay money to be daunted.

The proposed defence, in this case, is that the article pictured here is an excerpt from a book. Yes, we could muse wryly all day over the clash of media, readability, content transferability, and [cue ellipsis here]. But the truth is: users don't care whether it's a book excerpt or a Martian communique beamed in from outer space. They just want smaller paragraphs.

Get a content editor to insert a couple of paragraph breaks where currently there are none. By all means, clear it with the publisher. But do it, because without that, you limit your readership automatically on the basis of layout, rather than content.

Evidence? I tried to read this article, but all I know was what's on the cover image at the top left of the page. And that I should ORDER TODAY.

Meet my mascot

This little guy is my current mascot, the leading light in the pantheon of charms I keep about me in an effort to divine some sort of light from the ether.

You might think he's limited, but to me he seems especially well-honed for the job at hand. When all you have is a rifle, everything starts looking like a battle. Lost your head? You can still shoot 'em up good. A dearth of functioning legs didn't stop one N. Kelly from trying to kill everything in sight.

As such, he's my counterweight. When I'm not tough enough to let go, this guys breaks my knuckles, one by one. When I'm too tired to bother, he points the rifle at my face. When I can't see in the dark, he screams 'Forward!'

He's the hard arse to my soft heart, the trench-bound fighter to my pussy-footing perambulations, the fresh blood dripping from the stilled heart on my sleeve. Neat, huh?

Reneging: the highlights reel

Recently, I decided to make some Life Decisions.

Immediately, everything took on a different hue. All Important Ideas started with initial caps and some even attained italicised status. My thoughts became punctuated with Loud Talking for the Crucial Bits.

I decided Never to Work Full-Time in an Office Again!

Then I took an eight-week full-time on-site writing contract.

I decided to Stop Editing and Only Write!

Then I got offered two nice, neat, entertaining-sounding projects that are largely editorial but may enable me to achieve some other Life Goals, like floating in a prawn trawler off Darwin, and growing my own bananas.

I decided to Travel to Egypt at Last!

Then HRH started talking about three weeks of free accommodation in Paris.

This is the highlights reel -- there have been many other, lesser Life Decisions that have also fallen by the wayside almost as soon as I finished italicising their Important Bits. It would appear that whatever I decide, the opposite will take place. As you can imagine, my progress is barely perceptible at best, and wildly unpredictable.

There seems to be no solution to this -- certainly making A Decision about it won't help. Instead, I've taken to gazing mindlessly at the Rand McNally map of The Political World above my desk and trying to imagine its two dimensions brought alive with some depth. Instead of reading the words HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS, I try to picture the ridges and creases, the snow, the Sherpas. The ice picks and tiny tents in a blizzard. Sun on the snow caps. The world in three dimensions.

Yet the items on the Reneging Highlights Reel remain on film, two-dimensional depictions of a fantastical reality, imagined but not lived.

Hot under the collar

Before we begin, I must warn you that this missive contains harsh words other than the tried and tested likes of "crap" and "fucking" I happily use here with gay abandon. It contains harsh words that I wouldn't ordinarily utter, being the prunish prude that we both know I am.

But last night, The Gruen Transfer broke this camel's back.

Backstory: within the last week I was presented with a woman's ample and amply Photoshopped upper portions while entering a 7/11 in search of that humble lunch staple, noodles in a cup. Not a DD cup, a plastic cup.

And I have had to endure having another woman's ample and amply Photoshopped upper portions displayed as Something to Aspire To on Facebook, kind courtesy of the latest advances in contextual underwear advertising.

As well as all this, while MYER staff have thankfully removed from their windows the larger-than-life decals of some football star in his undies, which appeared kind courtesy of the latest advances in completely-without-context underwear advertising, I find that more and more, the common language of the people is riddled with terms of an overtly sexual nature: hot, sexy, blow, suck, balls, blah blah fucking (I know, I know) blah.

And for some reason, every mass media publication, print or digital, sees it within their purview to report constantly on the sexploits of celebrities, would-be celebrities, and people who only become celebrities because of their sexploits (Paris Hilton and the freaking -- literally -- Octo Mum, for example).

The point? While trying to go about my business as a mild-mannered typist, I am constantly presented with irrelevant, uninteresting, dumber-than-dumb messages about sex.

So what? Is that what you just said? So what?

Consider: broccoli. It's great for you, affordable, and versatile. Consider: kindness. It's also great for you, affordable, and versatile. Broccoli and kindness are two things, like sex, that most people in this country can understand, apply, and enjoy. Yet broccoli and kindness feature far less often in mass media and everyday communications than do a woman's ample and amply Photoshopped upper portions, a man's "ripped" "abs", and the lewd implications thereof.

In short, there seems a disproportionate, unjustified focus on sex in the media.

And: it's fucking tedious.

Why must we tolerate this endless parade of bronzed body parts, the interweaving of normal dialogue with a ceaseless, driving hail of implied, or overt, sexuality? All I wanted was noodles! Noodles for Christ's sakes! Not, as the vernacular would have it, norgs.* Noodles.

But last night, all was explained to me. I saw my first-ever episode of the much-lauded Gruen Transfer (series 3 episode 10) in which The Pitch -- a competition where two agencies are given an unlikely brief and must come up with an ad concept in response to it -- involved marketing the legalisation of polygamy to the Australian people. The winning ad, which seemed excruciatingly 90s and tacky beyond words (I got the feeling it had been shot in a pokies venue), won largely because it included both the words "pussy" and "dick".

Only minutes later, that same panel of ad executives and comms big wheels who had voted this ad as the winner -- the cream of the industry, you might say -- were sitting around talking about how many ads assume idiocy on the part of the public. I was, as you can imagine, suitably stupefied.

I put it to both the producers and consumers of modern communications that "sex sells" is a lowest-common-denominator philosophy that assumes idiocy on the part of the public. It's boring. It assumes the only thing that will interest me in a product -- insurance, ice cream, eyeglasses -- is sex. It assumes that the only thing that's funny is sex. It assumes that the thing we all have in common isn't broccoli or kindness, but sex.

If that's the state of the nation's creative thought -- if that's all we've amounted to -- it's pathetic.

I wanted to take every ad exec on that panel, tape their eyes open, Clockwork Orange-style, and make them watch that shitty ad a thousand times over, until they never wanted to hear the words "pussy" or "dick", or listen to that blonde chick say "it's raining men" like some crap-80's-dance-anthem-turned-late-night-phone-sex-tv-commercial ever again.

Polygamy! Think of all the witty, entertaining, subtle, intelligent ways you could promote polygamy in a TVC. One might even suggest that if you're "creative" enough to use sex to sell everything from jeans to Jeeps, you could try using something other than sex to sell polygamy. But no. They wasted that glittering, glowing opportunity on pussy.

Fuckers!

*How is that even a word?!

Backlist? You betcha

Oh, happy days. Far Flung and Andorra arrived, via the postmistress, on Saturday, bringing to a neat conclusion my longing to possess -- and read,* though that will come in the ensuing weeks -- every single book ever written by Peter Cameron.

Okay, so there remains outside this arrangement one short story compilation that includes stories from One Way or Another and Far Flung, plus two others previously published in the press. Is it worth purchasing this one remaining book just to get those two other short stories? I keep telling myself it's not, but with the amazing affordability of second-hand books (in the US) these days, and the fact that soon I'll have read everything of Cameron's that there is to read, I think the answer may well turn out to be: you betcha.

*According to current plans, Andorra will be first.

Cloudy

New Scientist regularly brings us all manner of wacky science antics, not the least of them its tag cloud.
What is a science fiction sculpture? One pictures Han Solo frozen in that block of whatever-that-was. "Change cosmology!" seems quite the call to arms, and I'm mildly dismayed that I never went on a history of science holiday. This summer, perhaps?

On the other hand, mathematics medicine sounds a little theoretical for my liking, and a psychology religion would surely see the swift demise of our species (just look at Scientology).

My favourite, though, is the biology brain climate. What a torrid, changeable place that must be. Today's forecast for the biology brain climate? Cloudy.

Wish you were here #7

[your name here],

I escaped. Writing this to you from a chocolate box-car. The country outside is all caramel fields and broad, white horizon. Sorry for the small print, but I have a lot to tell you.

I locked the old man and woman in the garden shed. They called feebly for help, but the beautiful-eyed zebra was waiting. We rode for three days and nights, scotching our followers, until we arrived at the train line. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

But soon the searchers found us and there was a terrible battle. I climbed a tree and they set about cutting it down; I leapt through the boughs to another, but they lit a fire at its base. The zebra was wounded as it reared and kicked at them, and it fled. I was alone in the trees and the darkness. And still thinking of you.

The fire crept higher; so did I. I was at the very top of the tree when the flames began to warm my toes.

And then? And then I gave up hope -- of home, of you, even of myself. All was lost. I dropped from the treetop and landed on a bed of pine needles. Then, above the voices of my captors: the bleak scream of the train's horn in the darkness. I thought I was dead -- dreaming -- but I was running, and the zebra was beside me. I caught his mane, clamboured to his back. He broached the train and I leapt into the chocolate-box car. I left the zebra on the edge of the forest some distance from the crowd. I still don't know what they wanted from me. What could I give them?

The zebra reared and kicked and vanished in the dark. Both of us are homeward-bound now.

Very soon.
Alida xo

Wish you were here #6

Dear [your name here],

I'm sorry I haven't written, but I've had nothing to report. Little changes in the village. I haven't seen the zebra again, and even though the forest plants are starting to come into flower now, nothing feels like home.

I try to imagine how things are, and what might be happening with you. I think of [your partner's name]'s giggling laughter and hope your birthday was fun. I'm so sorry I couldn't be with you, but I didn't forget you. How I wished I was there. Soon, I hope to be. Though I don't see how.

Yours,
Alida xo

Wish you were here #5

[your name here], I saw the zebra again!

This time, I was digging potatoes in a small garden the villagers have cleared in the forest when I heard the noise. The other ladies were on the far side of the garden, and there in the forest not three metres away was the zebra, watching me. It took a step closer; it did too. Then it turned and looked over its shoulder, as if waiting for me. I dropped my hoe. But the ladies called to me at that moment, and the zebra was lost among the red-tipped boughs of the forest.

I suppose these little excitements are nothing compared to the goings on at home. I wonder what you're doing, and how you are. I wonder it often.

Alida x

Wish you were here #6

Wish you were here #4

Dear [your name here],

Are you well? I hope so. Today I went fishing with the old man at the river. He set me up and left me there to go hunting. They eat the orange squirrels that skitter around the forest here. I'd just caught and killed a fish when there was a noise in the leaves on the far river bank. It was a zebra with a brushy mane, but it had gentle eyes like a horse. It stood watching me, and I it, until the old man reappeared not with squirrel but with a purple bird he'd killed with his poison darts. Then the zebra was gone -- there was nothing among the trees.

I long for news of you and wish I had a return address for this place. I think the old couple know; they throw their mail on the fire, often unopened, and there is no chance for me to search the place. No one visits or leaves the village, but I long to see you again. I long for home.

As always,
Alida xo

Wish you were here #5

Wish you were here #3

Dear [your name here],

I don't know if you're getting these postcards. I know I sound paranoid, but the people in this village sort of won't let me leave. I think the old couple stole my guide book. There are no phones and any time I try to ask about a bus or moving on, people shrug or get distracted or mime elaborate excuses. The river shown overleaf runs through this town. It really is as pretty as the picture. This is the only postcard they sell in the shop, and they supposedly post the mail for everyone here. I hope this reaches you. Some days the forest seems soft and silent, but other times the trees seem to be closing in. Particularly at night.

I don't want you to worry about me, though. I'm fine, really, and I hope you are too. How's [your partner's name here] going? I trust you're both well.

I'll write when I can.
Alida x

Wish you were here #4

Wish you were here #2

Dear [your name here],

The gentleman pictured overleaf looks a lot like the man I asked for directions on a deserted road today. I'd left town early and became lost; I didn't speak his language but, with gestures and pointing and drawings in the dust, he gave me directions. At dusk I came to a small village in a forest. I don't think they get many visitors here: everyone turned to look at me in the square. An old lady took me to her house, where I'm staying the night with her and her husband. They're watching me write this card to you. I don't know what the name of the town is, because no one speaks English. I hope to be back on course tomorrow.

I hope you're well and getting some sunshine.

Missing you,
Alida

Wish you were here #3

Wish you were here

Dear [your name here],

As you can see from the front of this card, [placename] is a veritable Topsy Turvey world compared to home. Yesterday I sang with an elephant and strummed a lute; today I ate crickets with Conan Doyle and rowed a river of thickened cream to a walnut grove populated by dancing thornbills. You'd love it here. The air is clear and warm most days and there is a pool outside my room that burbles constantly, permeating my sleep and aquifying my dreams. Tomorrow I hope to climb a mountain to attend a festival of fabricated gods. I'll have to rise early, so I really must finish.

Hope you're well and happy. I'm thinking of you,
Alida

Wish you were here #2

WIP

You won't believe what I've been working on. I wrote this last week, and even now it makes me cringe. But I thought you'd be ... well, horrified, actually, and cry bitter tears of commiseration with me:

"In the new musical, RAIN, Australia’s most powerful women go on strike to protest climate change. ‘Not tonight,’ they advise. ‘We have a headache.’ But – wouldn’t you know it? – the high-profile partnerships of Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein remain unfazed by the putting-out drought, and storms start brewing… This cheeky, irreverent political satire is bound to ruffle more feathers than the ETS. Get your giggles before the next leadership spill!"

Link text? Why, I'm glad you asked. It was: Bring your brolly. Take that, usability advocates and people actually using screen readers! Good freaking luck. In case you're wondering, the ruffled feathers were entirely mine. Putting-out drought? Where do I get this stuff?

I also wrote the sentence, "From king fish wings to octopus dumplings, Tomodachi will take your tastebuds on a tantalising journey through Japanese cuisine" which, clearly, exemplifies my broader copywriting philosophy: if in doubt, employ alliteration and rhythm until your readers' eyes water.

Slightly frustrating

Slightly frustrating things about my contract workplace include:

• Nescafe Blend 43
• all the fucking people on the streets at lunch time for Christ's sakes
  
• Windows
• absolutely no web mail; Twitter and Facebook, however, deemed not to pose a problem
  
• Windows
• the world's weirdest document management system
• being able to get shirty because someone asks you to do something that is not actually writing, such as sourcing content or chasing up inputs from colleagues
  
• Windows, people, Windows
• no thesaurus

That last one's a bit weird and may take some swift remedying.

Word re-engineering and the subconscious

When overstimulated or under pressure, my subconscious has an embarrassing habit of re-engineering words. I'm not talking about typos. I'm talking full-scale augmentations and automatic amendments that convey a similar (or opposite) meanings, using phonetically or conceptually complementary terms. The more pressure there is, the more re-engineering takes place.

Example: last week, when trying to type the word question in the midst of prose, I produced the previously (and thankfully) unheard of whatstion.

"Well," I thought. "That certainly came out of nowhere" (which, incidentally, I just typed as knowhere. Jesus H. Christ.). Here are some others that have recently surfaced:

• denomalies
• outercontinental
• delucidate
• neveryday
• dischordinary

If you ask me, the ordinary is most commonly dischordinary. If words are our means for making sense of the world, then the likes of neveryday and dischordinary speak volumes. And denomalies says something -- something extremely damning -- about fluctuating exchange rates and my invoices.

Incidentalities

Sometimes, while researching the number 20,000 or Beatles songs co-written by McCartney and Lennon, or contemporary art fairs, as one does for, you know, work, one comes across some rare gem that requires pencils to be put down, pauses to be taken, thoughts to be stilled.

Today it was this short quote from a doomed man, a wash-up, a broken, beaten, down-hearted traveller at the end of an epic journey whose finish had not been heralded by fanfare, nor accolades. He'd tried to write the tale of his adventure many times over, but failed, saying:

"I wrote it sweet enough but it came up sour."

Perhaps these words struck me purely because this week I came up against so many creative dead ends, points at which I knew my heart wasn't sweet or buoyant or optimistic enough to give the delightful edge required to the copy I was writing. It's not the first time. Like George Beck, I've tried over and over to write a story as beautiful as the things I've seen, and though I have the words and the images, it keeps coming up sour.

Some authors say they write in order to know what they think, but sometimes it seems more sensible to keep those secret thoughts hidden. Sometimes it's better to think what we wish to, rather than to know, for certain, what the insides of our minds are like.

The content machine

It feels a bit like I've become the content machine. At any point at which my hands are not otherwise busy -- driving, cooking, lighting the fire, plucking a cockerel -- they are typing.

The cause of this status is a new, short, contract. It starts tomorrow, and will take up my every working hour. The remaining waking hours will be spent producing content for the charming individuals for whom I usually produce content. Sometimes, I may sleep. But there will be no time for anything else.

I will be the content machine, slamming out the text, auto-spell-checking, ALT-TABbing to my dictionary, reaching for Fowler's like some kind of obsessive automaton. Like something Huxley or Burgess would have dreamed up. Like a person composed entirely of letters -- ells for limbs, a capital H for the torso, a big fat O for a head. Little ps for feet and full stops for my joints.

You can see where this is heading. I'm losing it already. In eight weeks' time I'll be little more than a puddle of parentheses and paper cuts. But, blood-bespeckled fingers crossed, it'll be worth it.

An inauspicious commencement

Have you read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall?

I've had it on the list for a while, but I got distracted with other things. Then, on the weekend, I thought I'd give it a try. It was a sunny morning. The birds were atwitter and I had coffee, so the book-starting signs were all good.

I don't know what happened, but two pages in I was crying. Sobbing, really. Maybe it was three pages. I had to close the thing before I got to the page number. But it was no more than three.

Everyone's talking Toy Story Three tear counts at the moment. No one who's read Wolf Hall has mentioned anything to me about the start, about page 2, about the crying. I avoid reviews, but I haven't heard anyone mention that, you know, The Age's review of it was muddied with bitter tears or anything. God alone knows how the Man Booker people got to the end of it with enough presence of mind to give it the award.

Anyway. When I get the guts to try it again, I'll let you know if I get beyond page 3. In the meantime, if you've read it, and can warn me of any further bawling-sessions-in-waiting, that would be appreciated.

(Not you?)

More to come on this. But for now, all we need to know is that whoever designed this "secure service" has so little faith in their abilities that they view (Not you?) as an essential UI element.

On the other hand, perhaps s/he's just some smart-arse PhD developer who's trying to fuck with my head via subliminal existential messaging.

Whatever. I'm sure my precious data will be safe here. Unless I'm not actually me. Which happens all too often, apparently.