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On the Second Day pre-Christmas, this author said to me … (David Goodwin)
December 14, 2012Just pretend that I’m singing the titles to these blog posts, as tuneless as it might sound. It helps with the festive mood.
Up next on our reflections, David Goodwin on his poem ‘Cerulean Fire’.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
***
I wrote this piece after an unnumbered collection of nights made up from moments just like ‘Cerulean Fire’, often as a passenger in a car sluicing through the glittering circuit board of Melbourne post 2am. I’ve written many more since.
Depending on how you approach it – not to mention how you choose to fuel it – a night out in most cities usually presents its own witching hour for all choose to partake. While such a thing is often a chemical romance, I’ve found that it doesn’t subtract from its almost whispering splendour, nor its power to hang silken, but still warm, billowing occasionally in my folds of memory.
I still have many snapshots from nights where the city pulsed like a living thing, its dark arms pushing us through its circus of searing green, molten reds and that omniscient liquid blue that poured over the glass in an alien sheen as you sailed by entranced, staring from within the eye of a gathering storm.
With psy-trance leaking out the windows the world was a videogame of holographic ghosts; it was slower and softer but with a holy urgency thrumming from both inside and out.
And often, just as in voodoo where the half hour before midnight is for things of light, the following time attracted different energies. It’s hard to forget the club’s neon roar, its crunch a foundry of the gods as Medusan arms slithered between duelling swords of purple; rapturous funnel eyes machine-gunned by searing strobe light as they rose like an army, yanking unknowingly on the threads of the night.
On nights like this the city and its secrets were a racecourse for colour and dark, twisting like strands of DNA through an Oz that glittered, pernicious, like a promise that couldn’t be kept.
***
David Goodwin is a young Melbourne writer who is starting to enjoy poetry. This is his first published poem. He is currently seeking publication for his memoir detailing six chaotic years working nights in petrol stations. He enjoys psychedelic trance, semicolons, and attempting to train his French bulldog, Madeleine.
On the First Day pre-Christmas, this author said to me … (Amra Pajalic)
December 13, 2012Hi All,
Christmas is just around the corner, and at $24.95 the latest issue of pageseventeen just may fit some of those KK budgets.
A lot goes into each short story and poem that goes into an issue, and in the lead-up to Christmas I’ll be posting some of the reflections offered by the writers and poets featured in pageseventeen #10. Some of these reflections are from the pages of the latest issue – some will be blog-exclusive.
First up is Amra Pajalic, whose poem ‘Drill Sergeant’ was shortlisted in pageseventeen‘s 2012 Poetry Competition.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
***
I used to write poetry a long time ago and I began to feel the yearning again, but never quite found the time. In December last year I was reading Penni Russon’s blog and saw she was undertaking the Month of Poetry in January 2012, the purpose of which was to write a poem a day. Spontaneously I jumped on board and managed to write 31 poems that month. Most of them are works in progress as I found my internal poet again, but a few like ‘Drill Sergeant’ are gems that I’ve been submitting this year.
‘Drill Sergeant’ came from a conversation with my mother and she somehow weaved in a negative critique of my housekeeping with the words, ‘It’s my fault because I never taught you.’ Her words hit me hard. In her materialistic migrant mind it didn’t matter what achievements I had behind me or the qualifications I had collected, at the end of the day if my house wasn’t perfectly cleaned I was viewed as a failure as a woman.
Over the next few weeks I engaged in a frenzy of housekeeping determined that those words wouldn’t pass her lips again, only to realise it was a thankless task that gave me no respite or opportunity to do the things I truly liked doing, like playing with my daughter.
Being shortlisted in this competition has given me the confidence to keep writing poetry and trust in my muse. Since February poetry has been nudged off the agenda as I complete my second novel for submission to my publisher and undertook a new role as co-editor of an anthology, but now I’m determined to carve out time every week for poetry and ensure I feed my soul.
Amra Pajalic is a novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel The Good Daughter won the 2009 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Civic Choice Award. She is currently co-editing an anthology of Muslim writers to be published by Allen and Unwin. Her website is www.amrapajalic.com.
Outside the Page – 28 People Write, and Love and F*** Poems
December 2, 2012‘Outside the page’ will probably be a recurring little plug from me for when I hear of other events going on in town, especially when contributors to page seventeen are involved (let’s face it, we’re a pretty cool flock).
***
Bronwyn Evans featured in our most recent issue (#10 was launched only two weeks ago – plenty of copies still available online at the pageseventeen website or at the Busybird website). She’s also recently been involved in the editing of 28 People Write, a collection of short stories and poetry from writers in eastern Melbourne. 28 People Write is launching on the coming Wednesday at the Sandybeach Centre, at 2 Sims St, Sandringham. More details can be found here.
***
Koraly Dimitriadis, poetry judge for Issue 10, will be performing from her latest poetry collection, Love and F*** Poems, next Thursday night from 6:30 onwards at the Brunswick St Bookstore (305 Brunswich St, Fitzroy VIC). Short story judge for Issue 10 Les Zigomanis was editor for Love and F*** Poems as well. Please RSVP to info@outsidetheboxpress.com if you’re keen on attending!
***
If you’ve been involved with page seventeen in the past and have an event or something writerly coming up, let me know at beau@pageseventeen.com.
Beau Hillier | Editor, pageseventeen
page seventeen competition winners
November 21, 2012CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS FOR 2012
Cover Image Section
Winner: Cindy Keong, Water Drops
Short Story Section
Winner: Erol Engin, Sea Monkeys
Runner-Up: Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones, The River Man
Shortlisted ~
Beverley Lello, In the Web
Luke Thomas, Bumper
Julie Twohig, Helen Shoots the Messenger
Tanya Davies, The Boy on the Trampoline
Poetry Section
Winner: Glenn Ewing, In Peak Hour One Day
Runner-Up: James WF Roberts, Hot White Kiss
Shortlisted ~
John Carey, One of Those Difficult Letters
Carla Sari, The Call
Bronwyn Evans, Farewell
Fran Graham, Two Balinese Flies
Peter Malapanis, Suck This
David McLaren, Silent
Vanessa Page, Confessional Box
Amra Pajalic, Drill Sergeant
Simon Petkovich, Dead Society
Marian Spires, mnemonic of love
Mary Stone, Sticky Note
Andrea Louise Thomas, The Little Red Wagon
Helen Thurloe, Shelf Self
Show, don’t tell.
November 14, 2012Something we hear a lot about in writing is to ‘show, don’t tell.’
Showing allows us to paint a scene so that the reader experiences it as a character (usually the protagonist) does. It helps create the world of the story and is much more atmospheric than simply stating what’s going on, i.e. effectively talking at the reader.
Consider for example the following sentence:
- Bob was angry at Gloria.
Now you might question what’s wrong with that sentence. It tells us exactly how Bob’s feeling. He’s angry. At Gloria. Nice and simple. But that’s also a big part of the point. It tells us. It doesn’t create mood or setting or really help us understand an angry Bob or really contextualise the relationship he has with Gloria at this point (other than to establish the angry bit). Think about other ways to communicate Bob’s anger, e.g.
- Bob clenched his fists and glowered at Gloria.
That’s the most basic example, but it creates an image of Bob. We start to visualise him. We can see his reaction in anger. The reaction also implies potentially other consequences, e.g. with Bob clenching his fists, will he strike Gloria? Is he trying to refrain from striking Gloria? Already this very simple scene – five words when we tell it, eight words when we show it – has taken on a whole new meaning.
Another issue that occurs with telling is exposition. E.g.
- Bob had been a computer programmer for five years. He didn’t like it, but it was a living.
Here, we’re being told Bob’s circumstances. Some stories have reams of exposition where it’s really just the author telling the reader the backstory to set up the rest of the narrative. Be on the lookout for this. Lots of authors use it in digressions, sometimes to the point that you forget where the story was by the time you return to it.
Showing this can be difficult, and we can’t always do it exactly in the same place as the source material. Sometimes, it requires taking this information and finding another opportunity to seed it into the story. For example, Bob might be having a conversation with Gloria earlier, e.g.
- ‘So what do you for a living?’
‘Computer programmer.’
‘Yeah? That sounds interesting.’
‘It’s not. Need to find something else. After five years, enough is enough.’
Again, this is the most basic example, but we’ve found a new way to relay this information and now learn it as one of the other characters learns it. It’s no longer exposition but discovery. More than that, it creates mood and shows us a bit about Bob. From this self-deprecating answer, Bob seems to be a bit sullen. We didn’t get that when we just told the reader this information.
Another example:
- Bob was heartbroken when Gloria left him.
How else could we convey this information? Think about it for a moment. Here’s just a few alternatives off the top of my head:
- in a conversation with another character
- he might ring her, leave a message on her voicemail
- he might stare mutely at a picture of her.
The list could go on. And on.
When you write, think about how you relay information. Sometimes, telling is unavoidable. But try to minimize it when possible. It not only makes for more effective, evocative storytelling, but will challenge you to look at the structure of your story in a new light, and reconsider how it unfolds, opening your mind (and imagination) to new possibilities.
LZ.