23 June

2011 (aged 44)
Evie's seventh birthday. 'Mummy, were you surprised when I was born and you had a puppay instead of a human baby?'
'Yes, Evie, I was very surprised.'
2009 (aged 42)
We try to explain Holy Communion. Alice: Why would anyone want to eat Jesus? That's ludicrous!

Alice to Evie: Do you want to play vets?
Evie: I don't know. I'm a bit tired, being five all day.
2004 (aged 37)
Evie was born, at 11.16am at the Royal Women's Hospital. The cord was wrapped around her neck and they had been monitoring her heartbeat very anxiously for a couple of hours beforehand. I suppose I should have been frightened at the sludgey, uneven throb from the monitor, but when they told me, if you don't push this baby out in the next ten minutes, you'll have to have a caesar, it just seemed like a challenge I would have to rise to. I pushed, and she slid out, small and pale, and they rushed to grab and untangle her, and they gave her to me. She had a scratch on her cheek because her arm had been squashed up beside her head. Unlike Alice, who yelled and glared furiously around at everyone in the delivery room, Evie was sleepy and serene. A perfect little baby.
2002 (aged 35)
Trying to dress Alice, she crawls away & has to be enticed with her new GLITTERBALL!! Michael waves bye bye; Alice waves after he's gone.
1998 (aged 31)
(New York) Awake and ready ages before DC who wants till snooze till 10 and is right in holiday mode. Finally managed to prise him out then set off on tour of Seinfeld sites - primarily Tom's Restaurant, aka Monk's. Walked through Central Park then DC's turn to choose activity so we went to Virgin to shop for CDs!! Stayed there for hours getting tired and grumpy but didn't complain.
1996 (aged 29)
Consumed bucketful of margaritas with MT, discussed casual sex... He said, how could he know now I was putting him in my novel that I wasn't saying things like that just to see what he'd say? Which is crediting me with a lot more cunning than I actually possess!... Oh dear I'm really not up to working this morning - feeling quite seedy.
1993 (aged 26)
and there is dancing but dancing isn't everything
1987 (aged 20)
Had lunch with B; planned to open an ideologically sound bookshop with a baby upstairs. The new Cure album is brilliant.
1986 (aged 19)
Resolved to be good and wrote a timetable. Went to EVERYTHING!!! B turned up for lunch. Apparently he was shocked by my revelations of 3/6, had thought I was a paradigm of virtue. Oh well.
1985 (aged 18)
Candide rehearsal till 5.30 then home feeling whacked. Chatted to DT 3 times!!! Tea in front of Countdown.
1983 (aged 16)
English essay due (I hope - blame Rachel)
1981 (aged 14)
Rather depressed. Cried under slightest provocation in English. My stupid rainfall graph looks like a contorted rabbit.
1978 (aged 11)
I had a rotten day! These are the rotten things that happened - 1) Miss Wilkie made me rewrite a Social Studies letter. Now it's not a letter. It's a list. 2) Miss Osborn was away, so there was no library, no library lesson, no books. 3) We got unfair Maths homework. A few good things happened but not much.
1977 (aged 10)
I did my poem book. I dropped a duster out the window and Mr G teased me. We played keepings off and kicking.
1976 (aged 9)
Daddy is going to Port Morsbey for three days and I woke up early to say goodbye. Olny worked on Chitty; no school work. Chitty looks marvalous I made the windscreen.

The One True Reader

Sometimes, on school visits, I'm asked if I've written any novels that haven't been published. And this is the story that I tell.

Once upon a time, I wrote a novel called Alison and Jordy. It was the story of a couple of diffident twenty-something friends who couldn't quite manage to translate their liking for each other into romance. These two characters were, of course, based on myself, and a friend and workmate of mine who I really, really liked, but was never sure how much he liked me back.

Anyway, I was going off on an overseas trip and I gave the manuscript of this novel to a mutual friend to read -- a very unusual thing for me to do, by the way, as I am very protective of my works in progress and never show anything to anyone. However... while I was gadding about in Scotland and New York, this friend, absolutely without my knowledge or permission, gave the manuscript to the real life 'Jordy'.

(At this point all the girls in the audience usually gasp with horror.)

When I discovered that she had done this, I was completely mortified. Now 'Jordy' would find out how I felt about him! I would have to front up to work every day, with him knowing that I harboured this massive crush! How humiliating... how embarrassing... How could I ever look him in the eye again?

Well. The day I arrived back in Australia, 'Jordy' turned up on my doorstep. Not long after that, he confessed that he, too, harboured certain feelings that he'd been too shy to express... And we've been together ever since.

(At this point all the girls in the audience go awwwww!)

The manuscript of Alison and Jordy is still in my bottom drawer. It has never been published, and I daresay will never be published. But that doesn't matter, because, even though I didn't realise it at the time, it was written for just one person to read.

Happy (almost) anniversary, Mikey.

(And thank you, Sandra!)

Whither the Children's Book?: My Two Cents' Worth

In her excellent, thought-provoking post, Misrule discusses the state of the children's novel.

Obviously I must admit to some bias here. But deep down, I believe that the perfect children's novel is perhaps the highest work of art to which the writer can aspire. It's even possible to argue that the children's novel can discuss bigger, (purer?) issues than the YA novel, because it's not yet caught up in all the messy, personal business of identity formation and burgeoning sexuality. The children's novel routinely deals with death and grief and love and pain, and the deep delight of being alive.

The really good children's novel plants seeds in the rich and hungry soil of a child's imagination. The really good children's novel is a uniquely satisfying reading experience.

Off the top of my head (by no means an exhaustive list, but from a quick scan of my book shelf), here are some the children's novels that 'built' me - not just as a child, but as an adult reader:

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken
Skellig, David Almond
The Children of Green Knowe, Lucy M. Boston
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Dark Is Rising, Susan Cooper
Arthur: The Seeing Stone: Kevin Crossley-Holland
Charlotte Sometimes: Penelope Farmer
Down In The Cellar: Nicholas Stuart Gray
A Wrinkle In Time: Madeleine L'Engle
The Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: CS Lewis
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe: Penelope Lively
Anne Of Green Gables: LM Montgomery
Five Children and It, The Railway Children, The Treasure Seekers: E. Nesbit
Playing Beattie Bow: Ruth Park
Tom's Midnight Garden: Philippa Pearce
Swallows and Amazons: Arthur Ransome
Harry Potter: JK Rowling
Marianne Dreams: Catherine Storr
Ballet Shoes: Noel Streatfeild
Charlotte's Web: EB White

And I've left off heaps of books that I loved, and still love -- these are just a handful of the books that I think offer some special nourishment to the reader - a taste of philosophy, an introduction to ethics, a poetry of language, a richness of imagery, a model of courage or truthfulness, or a glimpse of the sheer breadth of the world out there, before and behind us.

Many, but not all, of these titles contain an element of magic, or the uncanny, or a crossing from one time into another. (Adult writing which enters this territory tends to be thrust dismissively into the 'spec fic' basket... but that's a topic for another time!)

But perhaps what the really good children's novel does (and I'm thinking aloud here) is open out the boundaries of the child's world a little. It pushes and pulls and stretches, it exercises the muscles of imagination and empathy. But it's not just 'teaching' something - it is art, a thing of beauty and value in its own right, and without them, the world would be a poorer place indeed.

The Elimination Challenge Update

Well, faithful reader, we have not been rigorous about disposing of one item per day, but the elimination challenge is underway!

In the corner of my bedroom is a bag of old clothes (mostly too small for the children, but also including a never-worn dressing-gown of Michael's). A pair of ancient jeans and a skirt I've worn every summer since 1994, transparent with age, have been consigned to the rag box. A box of 21 good-as-new but unbeloved books wait on the dining table to be donated to a charity book sale. A towering pile of magazines has been dumped in the recycling bin. Some random hats and a pair of holey sneakers have also bitten the dust.

It doesn't sound like much, but it's a start.

Gen Z Have Already Taken Over

 Scene: our house, before breakfast. Michael and Kate idly watching Evie's fingers fly over the computer keyboard.

Michael: You know, I think she can type faster than me.
Kate (wanders over to look): Nah, it's okay, she's just typing gibberish... (looks more closely) No, wait a minute -- she's typing backwards!!

Dna ehs saw. Yrev ylkciuq.

10th June

2011 (aged 44)
Very grumpy. Yelled at the children and succeeded in making their moods as bad as mine.
The dishwasher has died.
These facts may not be unrelated.
Rang C for a coffee.
2010 (aged 43)
Evie has decided to be a vegetarian. 'Because the animals should die when they feel like it, not get eaten by us. It's not fair.'
2008 (aged 41)
Evie: This can be a skirt. It can. Did you know Diddy is a transforming blanket? 
2005 (aged 38)
Go for walk to creek. Evie eats tan bark. Alice says, 'What a beautiful noise that is, with a woof-woof here and a tweet-tweet there.'
1998 (aged 31)
(Glasgow) C hungover. Spent most of the morning writing an air letter to MT. Shops all shutting early in preparation for the World Cup match - Scotland v Brazil - David v Goliath. J came over and we drank red wine, ate haggis and taties and watched the game. The city shut down for the duration and probably the whole country did too. Sat up doing tarots.
1996 (aged 29)
Working on Aust Council grant application which is making me feel sick like an exam!... Now I'm formulating ridiculous notions about kissing MT after k.d. lang on Wednesday. I should know better than that, but I can't help it. But in a way it is enough to have these feeble plots and schemes. The crush is still ON - bit of a worry... Asked if I could put him in the novel and he said yes but now feels under pressure to say funny things.
1995 (aged 28)
intense physical awareness - the space between them
the dissolution - the dissolving into dark, at last the dim red glow flanking the screen fades
but it's not made up just of evasions, silences, omissions, the elisions from frame to frame, there is substance there as well
1993 (aged 26)
People are looking at me today. I can't work out whether it's because I look good or because I look ridiculous.
1991 (aged 24)
Well, I'm on the plane and have just eaten a surprisingly delicious meal -- they were right about being a vegetarian -- I got blackeyed beans, dolmade, sprouty salad and strawberries!
1990 (aged 23)
C's brother is being held hostage on a yacht full of American millionaires which he accidentally sailed into Cuban waters. The Sun rang C & asked her, 'Do you think he deserves the treatment he's getting?' C said, 'What do you expect me to say, yes?'
1987 (aged 20)
I was sick in bed with a cold yesterday and D brought me flowers - isn't he wonderful?? Nothing in the world could have cheered me up better. 
1986 (aged 19)
Woken at 8 by C, vr pissed off cos had to wash up all glasses etc from Wine Soc bash last night... P sat at our table and hasn't noticed I'm pissed off with him! How dense can you get?? All men are bloody thick or bastards or both!
1985 (aged 18)
I love it, I love it, feeding Prince of Wales tea to cultured boys in my room at 2 in the morning and quoting bits of 'The Leopard' to each other. That boy is a FIND!... How long can this go on??
1983 (aged 16)
Midsummer Night's Dream rehearsal 4 - 7.30!! History questions; practise Speech
 1981 (aged 14)
Interform sport. WE WON THE HOCKEY!! First winning team I've ever been on!!
1977 (aged 10)
I don't think TB likes me any more. We played poison ball and netball. I miss E, and she hasn't written for ages. Maybe she doesn't like me either?
1976 (aged 9)
2 wrong in maths and 3 ticks for my story. It was called 'Caught in a Storm.'.

Do You Hear The Bells?

I've been indulging in a Penelope Lively binge. I've written elsewhere about The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, and while that remains my favourite Lively, the three books I've read in the last week or so all share a common theme with the story of James and his battles with Kempe's recalcitrant spirit. In these three novels, all written in the early 1970s, some element from the not-quite-buried past irrupts into the present day, with dangerous consequences. This is absolutely my favourite kind of story, and it's the kind of story I hope I've written in Crow Country (albeit transposed into an Australian setting).

In Astercote, a sleepy village is galvanised with fear and paranoia when a hidden treasure goes missing. In The Wild Hunt of Hagworthy, a re-enactment of an ancient ritual calls up unsuspected power and peril for the ignorant performers. And in The Whispering Knights, for a slightly younger readership, three children who make a witch's brew are dismayed to find that they've accidentally unleashed a very old and very frightening being, who threatens their whole village.

The English countryside is a strong presence in all these books. There is a sense of history bubbling beneath the landscape like a current -- invisible to the naked eye, but immensely powerful, and ultimately uncontrollable.

'... There's a funny feeling about this place sometimes, and the wood specially.'
'Oh,' said Evadne casually. 'The bells, I suppose you mean.'
Mair stared at her. 'Do you hear them?' she asked in astonishment.
'Not now. But I used to years ago when I was younger. About your age, I suppose -- no, younger, I think... You have to be in the right state of mind to hear them. Kind of open, receiving things from all directions, not thinking too much -- dreaming in the daytime, not knowing if its Monday or Tuesday, or morning or afternoon... that really only happens when you're a kid.'

In Lively's novels, the children spend long, idle (unsupervised!) days wandering the fields and woods, fishing, lying in the sun reading, exploring cliffs and quarries, brewing up magic spells in deserted barns.

I wonder if kids, these days, still have a chance to dream in the daytime; if their senses aren't so crowded with electronica and organised activities, that they're still open to receive those faint signals from beyond. Can any of us still hear the lost bells of Astercote?

The Elimination Challenge

I had a brilliant idea for a blog the other day, but I'm not sure I have the guts to follow through with it (also, someone else has surely done it already).

I looked around my cluttered house and thought, what I would like to do is get rid of one thing every day for a year, and blog about it.

Oh, the first days - weeks, even - would be easy. The ill-fitting op shop skirt bought on a whim - GONE. The lumpy clay object that Alice made at kinder six years ago, gathering dust on a window sill - GONE. The manky old shampoo bottle that Evie plays with in the bath - GONE. Outgrown clothes, neglected toys, the jar of dried beans that's been in the back of the pantry for three years.

But then things might start to get a little tricky. There are books I could sacrifice. There are stuffed toys I would gladly see the back of. I could probably tip out the big fruit bowl full of accumulated crap and buy myself a month right there - scraps of wool, pencil stubs, tram tickets. But when all those easy items have been removed, what next?

What could I live without? Do I really need four vegetable peelers? Eight saucepans? A cupboard full of ancient lunchboxes and superseded drink bottles? All those frocks? All those BOOKS? Those essays from Year 10?

If I was brave enough, I'd go through every room of my house and apply the classic tests: is it useful? Is it beautiful? Do I love it for some other reason? (Because it was made by a child, or inherited from an ancestor, for example - the only possible reason for hanging onto Nana's old perfume bottle in my sock drawer.) And I wonder, at the end of it, what would be left. And I wonder how much resistance I'd meet from the rest of the family. Michael would be into it -- he's a great one for chucking out (sometimes a little too enthusiastic, if the truth be told). But the girls would HATE it.

What I really need is a catchy name for the exercise: My Year of Paring Down? The Simplification Test?

Yeah. That's what's stopping me.

Transatlantic

I'm not sure how this has happened, but we seem to have spawned one child from England and one from California.

For Evie, it's all, 'Like, totally... awesome!' or 'LOL. Rolls eyes. Bor-ring!'
For Alice, things are either, 'Absolutely brilliant, Mummy!' or 'That's rubbish.'

Evie's Littlest Pets all speak in Valley Girl voices and share Valley Girl concerns about their accessories, BFFs and trips to summer camp.
On the other hand, I have lost count of the number of times people have asked me if Alice is English, such is the exaggerated toffiness of her accent. Is it all the English audiobooks that have lulled her to sleep over the last few years? But then why didn't the American versions of the Tremaris books have an effect on her speaking voice? Is it the influence of her English grandfather (who sounds Oz as these days, anyway)? And if so, why doesn't Evie share the Brit vibe?

It's a mystery.

The 250 Word Trick: Advanced Level

I've written previously about my million dollar secret of a productive writing day, ie to start off by writing 250 words before I do anything else.

After extensive research, I can now reveal the next step of the 250 word trick, strictly for advanced players only! This is the 250 words per hour trick. At the beginning of every hour, I write 250 words. Then I stop. The remainder of the hour, whether that's five minutes or fifty, is non-writing time. I can vacuum, hang out laundry, have a snack, read a book, go for a walk to the shops, browse the internet - but I am not allowed to write again until the next hour begins.

Strangely, this is a rule that's frequently broken. I find myself writing much more than 250 words in my allotted time, or I take a short break and return to the keyboard before my 'rest' time is up, to add some words that don't count towards my total (because the counter resets to zero every hour). And even if I adhere to it strictly, I can produce 1500 words in my working day.

I think the reason this works is because it removes the pressure to churn out stuff every moment I'm at the keyboard. If I know I'll earn a legitimate break once my 250 words is done, I relax. If I'm sitting at the laptop feeling guilty and lazy, the urge to distract myself with blog-browsing or fatty snacks is almost irresistable.

Structure! Permission to slack off! Low targets! Timetables and rewards! Strict discipline!

Forgive me. I can't help it. I'm a Virgo.

Life Lessons Footy Can Teach Us

Part 4: Some Things Never Change

They have been calling Collingwood the greatest football team to have ever run onto a field. (1905)

The theory that drinking plenty of beer is good for a footballer's condition has been disputed. (1907)

St Kilda finally look like fulfilling the promise that internal conflict and lack of discipline have denied them for so long. (1913)

Boxing champ signs up with Footscray (1933)

The North Melbourne Football Club has been rescued from a grave peril by an interest-free loan of 500 pounds from the Victorian Football League. (1935)

The Geelong bubble has finally burst. After a record number of 23 wins in a row they finally succumbed to the former record holder, Collingwood. (1953)

And one I hope doesn't come true this Sunday (but I fear it will)...
The Hawks trounced a tired and bewildered Footscray today. (1961)

 From 100 Years of Australian Football 

Disrespectful Is Not Clever

Last week Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu announced that the former Labor government's policy of acknowledging traditional Aboriginal land ownership at public events would be dropped. Acknowledging traditional owners is no longer official protocol, though it is still optional.

This news is so disappointing. What harm can it possibly do, to give a brief nod to the people who have lived in our country and been its guardians for so many thousands of years, before the rest of us arrived? It's only words, just a moment of respect and remembrance. And if it makes some people feel uncomfortable for a couple of minutes, well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. We ought to pause, just occasionally, and think about our history; think about the way this land used to be; think about the people lived here, and still do.

To say something is "politically correct" is not an argument. It's a pathetic excuse for not thinking hard enough.

Reading With Alice

9.25pm
Alice: Mummy, can I read to you?
(Strangely, she never shows any interest in reading to me unless it's after bed time.)
Kate: Okay, but just for a little while.
Alice: Can we read that Picture book?
(A recently acquired copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray, see below.)
Kate: Yes, but it's got lots of hard words, so I'll have to help you.
(She hates being helped. Together we look at the first paragraph and I pick out the troublesome words in advance -- studio, odour, stirred, amidst, delicate, perfume -- so she can read the whole paragraph with hardly a hitch. She launches into the second paragraph and I help her out when she stumbles.)
Alice: From the corner of the divan...
Kate: Like a couch.
Alice: ... of Persian saddle-bags on which he lay was lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable...
Kate: What might you smoke?
Alice:  Cigars? cigarettes, Lord Henry Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured blossoms of a laburnum...
Kate: Remember there was a laburnum tree in The Family From One End Street? In the village, with golden flowers?
Alice: (striking a pose) Does it look like this? Or like this?
Kate: I don't know. Keep reading.
Alice: ... whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to bear the burden of a beauty so flame-like as theirs... (huge yawn)
Kate: Let's just finish this sentence, okay?
Alice: Okay... and now and then the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long tussore...
Kate: I have no idea what that is.
Alice: ... tussore-silk... Is this still the same sentence?... curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, producing a kind of moment...momentary Japanese... When is this sentence going to end? (suddenly suspicious) Is this an elaborate plan to make me read the whole book?
Kate: Nearly there, I can see a full stop coming up. Keep going!
Alice: ... effect, and making him think of those pallid jade-faced painters of Tokio who, through the medium of an art that is necessarily immobile, seek? to convey the sense of swiftness and motion. Oh my God. Why did he write such long sentences??
(pause) Can you read to me now?

Library Book Sale Time Again

This time I took Alice with me, and she ended up with a lot more stuff than I did!
For Alice
Guinness Book of World Records 2010
"The best book ever in the whole world!"
Asterix In Britain, R. Goscinny & A. Uderzo
Okay, I confess, I picked up this one. In Grade 6 I used to read an Asterix or a Tintin every rainy lunchtime. Happy days.
Animal Evolution, Federica Colombo
Rhinos and giraffes on the front cover. Sold! At the moment Alice is tossing up whether to work in a zoo or to be an historian.
Cocker Spaniel, Dr Bruce Fogle
Royal Toy Spaniels, Alicia Pennington
Doesn't Alicia Pennington sound like just the perfect person to be an expert on Royal Toy Spaniels? If I'm not going to let my children buy a puppy, I may as well let them buy puppy books.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
Alice pounces on the creepy cover. 'What's this about, Mummy?' 'Um, it's about a man who gets his picture painted, and the picture grows old and he doesn't.' 'Ooh, yes please!' Should I be letting her read Oscar Wilde at 9? Sometimes it's slightly convenient that she can't read that well...
The Zoo Story, Catherine de Courcy
Now that I look at this more closely, I see that it's actually a book about the history and philosophy of zoo-keeping. Fascinating! We picked this up because of the cute lion cub on the cover but I think I might read it myself.

For me
Picture Writing: A new approach to writing for kids and teens, Anastasia Suen
Not about writing picture books, but making your writing more 'visually arresting'. Can't hurt, and I might learn something...
The Barrumbi Kids, Leonie Norrington
I've been meaning to read this for ages. The blurb says, 'an exciting, funny first novel about children moving between Aboriginal and white cultures.' Hooray for that.
Chenxi and the Foreigner, Sally Rippin
Very pleased about this pick up, especially since I met Sally at the PM's Award lunch (oh shut up) and she was absolutely lovely. I also can't wait to read her new book, Angel Creek, which is set around Merri Creek where we live too.

For Evie
Pups 4 Sale, Margaret Clark
Thank God there are so many books about puppies in the world. If Evie is careful, she might get through her entire life reading nothing else. She's certainly heading that way...

For Michael
The Psychology of Cricket, Graham Winter
I got this for Michael as a joke but I think he was actually a bit offended. Since he's in career best form and won Man of the Match in the cricket club Grand Final, he doesn't need the help of any psychology book, oh nooo, thank you very much.

Life Lessons Football Can Teach Us, Part 3

Hang In There

So things don't always go so well. Injuries strike your best players, or you realise with horror that over the space of a single summer, that vigorous and wily team member has suddenly become a doddering old man. The game plan that worked so well two years ago has become stale, and other teams are implementing it better than you. Is the beloved coach who brought you from the bottom of the ladder to within touching distance of the top now old-fashioned and ineffectual? The senior players are starting to slow down, but the kids are still too raw. Paradoxically, being so close for so long has taken its toll. Are the players tired? Have they stopped believing, after trying so hard for so long?

Administrations change. Coaches come and go. Games aren't played at the old ground any more. Legends retire. Your favourite player busts his knee. The words of the song are 'updated'; even the jumper gets tweaked and messed around with: horrible animals might appear, or bizarre swirls of colour. The very name of the team might change. Every season there are new faces and numbers to learn; the team doesn't stay the same for even two years in a row.

All that remains true is the love of the supporters for the club - that blind, unreasoning loyalty that keeps them faithful even after years of struggle and defeat.

Only the love endures.