Fudging The Menu

Trial of the Romance Novelist: Part Two

2012-03-07T16:44:00.004+11:00

~ The Antagonist ~

Big Publishing doesn’t like to think for itself. That’s why God invented literary agents. You could say literary agents are tools of the trade.

I don't know what I expected. It wasn't what I found. (You have to submit to literary agents? You mean, I don't just choose one?) It's them versus us, them being writers and us being the agent/publisher – that single beast of two heads, one mind and half a heart.

Death is preferable to allowing a breach in the perimeter. Thou shalt nots: submissions with typos will result in swift death – only if there aren’t too many, in which case, slow death – the misspelling of an agent’s name will unleash the righteous and wrathful god of rejection, addressing an agent by their first name will provoke gang warfare, and any number of lesser offences will bring a bevy of heavies to your door, intent on kicking a troublesome writer’s head in.

Shalt wilts: submit in a manuscript box (I can state with confidence that this creature, if ever it did exist, is now extinct); have ten friends or family members read your novel before submitting it (I don’t have that many friends, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t have after asking them to critique my work. As to family members – sorry, I’m not prepared to ask my mum/dad/brother to read my highly erotic romance novel); if thou art professional, thou will use a hook/if thou art professional, thou will never use a hook; sell us on your idea/any writer who tries to sell us on their idea lacks confidence in their work and will automatically be rejected; few publishing credits? – that’s okay – just tell us how many books you’ve written and that tells us how long you’ve been writing/for the love of God, don’t tell us about unpublished works gathering dust on the shelves/do not offend us by mentioning your self-published books, this will do more harm than good; etc.

Any trespass of The Rules will result in the loss of your first born child, who will be taken from you and used as child labour in Hell’s printing press – if you’re lucky – but if your transgressions are too many, you will be obliged to hand over your ovaries as well.

A sermon from the fount: The professions of journalist and novelist are not interchangeable, as many writers think they are. They are two seperate (sic) and distinct professions. We are only interested in representing authors who write in one genre/category – history dictates that you cannot successfully write fiction and non-fiction both.

Oh boy. His rejection letter to Leonardo Da Vinci must have been a fuckin' beaut. And it seems Bill Bryson’s been making a rich fool of himself for years.

All of this is demanded of writers, but what of the people doing the demanding?

Quasi-literate, verbose, okay – let’s call a spade a fucking shovel – half of them couldn’t stitch a basic business letter together if their bloody lives depended on it. And the sixty-four-thousand dollar question: they all use a form rejection letter, why can’t they even get that much right? I mean it’s one page and they only have to write it once.

Many thanks for your recent query regarding your book project what you sent to us recently.[1]

These are the people who decide what you and I get to read.

***

Dear Chuck

Lit Agents ‘R Us,

New York, NY, 10018.

Dear Chuck,

Thanks a bunch for sending me your novel, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass.

First of all, there’s a weird formality to your language. It’s like something out of Pride & Prejudice, and the problem here is that I don’t see your book appealing to the Chick Lit market.

Which leads me to ask, did you research your genre at all before submitting? I mean, do you actually know where your book fits in on the shelf? Because I don’t.

I couldn’t help but notice how your heroines have a habit of just up and dying the minute something upsets them. First the protagonist’s mother croaks for no other reason that her husband and sister-in-law are bad-assing her. (I mean, was a good old-fashioned divorce really out of the question?) Then his wife dies of not-very-much-at-all (and her dog along with her, for God’s sake). I mean, they don’t have Prozac where you come from?

I just don’t see the Sex and the City set identifying with women who up and die over something they’d cure with a couple of margaritas. Know what I’m saying?

As to the wife’s dog, it would be better if it were a breed the reader could identify with – say, something more along the lines of a border collie – a dog that actually does something, you know? Not just sits there yap yap yapping all the goddamned long day. Dog like that – it’s gonna get up the reader’s nose, you know? Nobody’s gonna sympathise when a mutt like that yips its last yap, know what I’m saying?

I’d have a tough time selling a book of this length by an inexperienced writer. Frankly, Chuck, your book is a bit, well, wordy. It’s almost as wordy as that character, what was his name? Micawber. What was that guy about, anyway? A word to the wise: you’d be better off cutting him altogether, along with several other characters, including your protagonist’s first wife. I mean, what purpose does she really serve, anyway?

Also, I don’t understand why you had to kill off Steerforth. I mean, he and Uriah Heep were the only go-getters in the whole darned book and one of them ends up dead and the other in jail? What for, man?

I think you’d be better off if you also did away with the whole Pegotty family (what sort of name’s that, anyway? – makes them sound like a rickety set of stairs) – particularly that guy Ham (he sounds like a rickety set of stairs and Thanksgiving dinner!)

And your hero could be a little more, well, manly. I mean, he slaps Uriah’s face with an open palm? What is this, a bitch fight, man? I mean, Manhattan girls would do better than that, sans margaritas. Know what I’m saying? Maybe you could make him a bit more like Harrison Ford, something like that. Or maybe Brad Pitt... yeah… definitely Brad Pitt. Least that ways, nancy could throw a punch. Know what I’m saying? Yeah. The Chick Lit demographic would go for that big time, Chuck.

But they’re never going to go for your hero’s aunt. I mean, she’s not the most likeable old dame, is she? Couldn’t you make her a little bit more like, say, Julie Andrews in Sound Of Music?

While you’re at it, you need to do something with his second wife. I mean, she’s just so wholesome that she’s one-dimensional. Couldn’t you develop her character a little more? (Maybe she could have a boyfriend while he’s still married to his first wife?) Readers want to see the human side of your characters, Chuck. As she stands, there’s not a lot for them to warm to. Know what I’m saying?

(Hey – apropos your hero, I just had an even better thought – why not make him a bit more like Elvis? I mean, name me the woman who didn’t like Elvis.)

This house on the beach that’s really a boat – is it hull down or up? Because if it’s hull down, I can’t work out what the hell’s keeping it from falling over. Come to think of it: same thing for hull up.

I’m sorry to have to disappoint you but it would have been better if you’d done a little research before submitting. I recommend you do it now, before you start on the re-write. Coming up to Christmas the stores are full of the books you need to read. Around this time of year any good book store will have books by Lynda La Plante, Ben Elton, Patricia Cornwall, Jeffrey Archer, Stephen King, John Grisham, Dan Brown, James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Sidney Sheldon, Robert Ludlum and Nora Roberts. You could learn a lot from them, particularly in terms of pacing and dialogue. And plot. Definitely plot.

I have to say that from the first chapter of your book I knew that there wasn’t going to be enough conflict to sustain the plot, and certainly not the length. You need to cut it at least by half – that would make it a lot easier to sell.

And, Chuck, you seem to have forgotten the writer’s golden rule: show – don’t tell.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, but David Copperfield isn’t up to publication standard. Another agent may well feel differently. Good luck finding them.

A. Moe (BA)

***

More Beginning

Canned love – just add cum. Say hello to the modern romance novel.

Guilty as charged. It’s true I didn’t research the genre by reading its offspring. But I tried, honest to God, I swear to you I tried. I went to a newsagent, bought a romance novel that I couldn’t read because it was just too awful. Then I tried skimming it. I couldn’t do that either. That’s how bloody awful it was.

So I wrote something better. Simple. Or so I thought.

Or so I thought.

Truth is, big publishing likes Big Macs.

Send it a well-made hamburger instead, say, something on a halfway decent gutsy bun, a patty made with caramelised onion, a little Dijon mustard, corn relish and horseradish, topped with some well ripened vine tomato and freshly crisp lettuce, a little smoky short cut bacon, perhaps a slice of sweet, grilled pineapple, and just maybe a little dollop of chargrilled tomato salsa – send big publishing that instead of a Big Mac, big publishing will take one bite, say it tastes funny and spit it back at you.

Homogenised humanity – the modern commercial novel, key change instead of song, where the human beast isn’t a complicated beast, or even a beast at all, but something that farts perfume, where the ‘gamut’ of emotions equals three, all of them black and white, all of them action/reaction. It’s okay for your character to have soul, as long it’s deep fried. It’s okay for them to have emotion, as long as they cry tears of special sauce.

In case you’re interested, the formula goes something like this: hope / despair / big black moment / seems all is lost / all is not lost / world saved / opponent defeated and shamed + bolted on token love interest / somebody sticking their tongue down somebody else’s throat = published.)

Just once I’d like to write the honest, let’s not bullshit each other, let’s not kid ourselves romance synopsis: argument / argument / argument / kiss / argument / near miss / argument / sex / argument / sex sex and more sex / she loves him, doesn’t think he loves her / sex / misunderstanding / sex / parting (not legs) / sex (yes legs) / resolution / sex / declaration of love / oral sex / marriage. That's it – two tickles, six pants, a grunt and a squeal later, you've got a romance novel.

You want to know what makes a hero heroic? The size of his endowment. Yep – both ways.

The characters might toot perfume but the books still stink.

God help you if you present the agent slash publisher with a deviation from the template. Their horrified response will make you think they’re washing their eyes out with soap at the other end. There’s a sort of oh no no no no no (which in a just world should always precede an orgasm) that comes through in the rejection slips that’ll make you think they’re looking over their shoulders in case someone caught them reading something different.

Now, it’s okay to have a woman packing a machine gun… as long as she goes home to put her lipstick on. It’s okay for your character to be a career woman as long as the career is ultimately revealed to be a void filler until, dewy eyed, she realises what she really needs is love (represented by a jolly good rogering). If however, her epiphany doesn’t involve the sudden realisation that what she really wants is to give a man a blow job, then they’ll say she’s a man-hater, that readers won't be able to empathise with her.

I'm getting ahead of myself again. Truth is, I didn't know any of that back then, way back then, before my writer's heart lost its innocence.

***

Trial Of The Romance Novelist

The persons of the play

Carmen Priest:	The Romance Novelist
Elspeth Bottithorn:	Woman’s Magazine Editor
Valentine Dumquerque:	Prosecuting Attorney
Justice Anthony Dunleaven:	The Judge
A Jury Of Her Peers
The Public Gallery

ACT ONE

SCENE: A Courtroom. Through a high, narrow window, a solitary ray of winter sun falls on a young woman standing in the dock, her gaze transfixed by the dance of dust motes in the light. She is visibly aquiver.

Valentine Dumquerque: (buttoning jacket as he rises) If it pleases the court, your honour, the prosecution calls Elspeth Bottithorn to the stand.

Justice Dunleaven: Proceed.

A middle-aged woman of formidable grooming approaches the witness stand, each resounding stiletto-heeled step a dagger to the heart of the defendant, who flinches with every footfall.

Her back impossibly straight and lips compressed into a glossed pink line, Elspeth Bottithorn takes the stand.

Valentine Dumquerque: Miss Bottithorn, let me begin by saying that I know this is difficult for you. (Witness raises her head stoically and looks into the distance.) Please tell the court how you came to be acquainted with the defendant.

Elspeth Bottithorn: Certainly not through choice.

Valentine Dumquerque: (too quietly) I see. Against your will, then?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (her deep voice not her own) You have misconstrued me.

Holding her in his steadfast gaze all the while, VD closes the space between them with a few lengthy strides.

Valentine Dumquerque: Perhaps you would care to enlighten me?

Elspeth Bottithorn: And perhaps you would care to ask the question you really want to ask.

Justice Dunleaven: I wish someone would ask or answer a friggin’ question.

Unable to bear the weight of his censure, Elspeth Bottithorn lowers her eyes demurely, peeking at VD from beneath impossibly long lashes.

Valentine Dumquerque: (adjusting cravat) Let’s try again, shall we? Please tell the court how you came to be acquainted with Carmen Priest.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (inaudibly) I am a magazine editor…

Valentine Dumquerque: Miss Bottithorn, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to speak up.

Elspeth’s lips tremble. And her chin quivers too.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (softly, apologetically) I’m so very sorry. It’s just that I find it difficult to be so… brash.

Valentine Dumquerque: I do understand, Miss Bottithorn. A lady like you has no place in a public court … Being here is akin to… rough trade, is it not?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (eyes flashing) I don’t know what you’re implying.

Valentine Dumquerque: Perhaps it is you who infers.

Justice Dunleaven: Are you two pissed, or what?

Valentine Dumquerque: (his gaze lingering) Pray, continue.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (bravely) I am editor of Ladies Day – actually, the most successful editor the magazine has known. In my time, circulation and net profits per capita have risen –

Valentine Dumquerque: Dear, brave, Miss Bottithorn! Trying to distract yourself from the terrible testimony you must give! How lovely you are when in earnest! But my dear, I would do you a disservice if I were to allow you to continue with that distraction.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (demure once more) I became acquainted with Ms. Priest, or rather her work, when I commissioned a piece of romance fiction from her.

Valentine Dumquerque: Pray, continue.

Elspeth Bottithorn: In good faith, I commissioned from Ms. Priest a work of romance. But what she submitted was… almost too terrible for words!

Valentine Dumquerque: In what way?

Elspeth lowers her face.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (quietly) To begin with, there was the matter of the hero.

Valentine Dumquerque: Yes?

Elspeth Bottithorn: I am ashamed to say it.

Valentine Dumquerque: Something so natural need not be the source of shame.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (her mouth works silently, her lips forming the words she cannot speak. At length, the terrible words come out in a rush) He worked for a living!

As one, the jury and gallery GASP.

Justice Dunleaven: Jeez. What’s wrong with youse mob?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (trembling, fighting back tears) The hero in Ms. Priest’s romance novel was a… was a… carpenter!

A cry from the public gallery: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Valentine Dumquerque: (directing his cold gaze to the wretched young woman in the dock) I see. A mere tradesperson. Any hidden riches? An inheritance perhaps?

Elspeth Bottithorn shakes her head briefly, too overcome to speak.

Valentine Dumquerque: Let the record show that the witness has indicated in the negative.

The witness’s chest is rising and falling rapidly, the effort of breathing a testament to the maelstrom of her swirling emotions.

Elspeth Bottithorn: The hero was… coarse.

Valentine Dumquerque: (Suddenly all ears). Coarse, you say? Like rough trade, perhaps? Or…

Elspeth Bottithorn: He compared the heroine to a bottle of wine.

Valentine Dumquerque: What was wrong with that?

Elspeth Bottithorn: The wine was an Australian red (a great hesitation) A rough, Australian, red!

Several jurors: tch tch.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (wretchedly, wringing her hands) She called him Bruce! Bruce Jones!

From the gallery in rapid succession, cries of disbelief. Some jurors are writhing on the floor.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (haunted, her voice thick with emotion) Then there was the heroine.

Valentine Dumquerque: Yes?

Elspeth Bottithorn: She made the first move.

Valentine Dumquerque: She took the initiative?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (her face glass) If you could call it that. (quickly) There’s worse. She was… un–Chaste!

Elspeth mewls at the memory, her fist finds her mouth in a childlike gesture of abject despair. Several members of the jury are openly weeping. Others are convulsing. Others still are stepping over them on their way to the bar.

Elspeth Bottithorn: And their relationship was… unacceptable.

Valentine Dumquerque: How so?

Elspeth Bottithorn: He treated her gently! (She turns her tear streaked face to the jury) They met on… they met on… (indignation rising) They met on page twelve and liked – liked each other – instantly!

Murray Walker: I am absolutely gutted!

Justice Dunleaven: (gavelling) Mister Walker will refrain from commentary.

Murray Walker: I was very much mistaken.

Valentine Dumquerque: The heroine was flawed?

Elspeth Bottithorn: Indubitably.

Valentine Dumquerque: Would you care to elucidate, madam, or is it your will that I am forced to ask?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (her deep voice not her own) I will elucidate freely.

Valentine Dumquerque: (too intently) I see.

Elspeth Bottithorn: Her character was objectionable.

Valentine Dumquerque: In what way?

Elspeth Bottithorn: (guttural, like a huey) Frankly, she may as well have dressed in a tent.

Valentine Dumquerque: Miss, Bottithorn, how would you describe the tone of the submitted piece?

Elspeth Bottithorn: Her chest heaves on a swelling tide of emotion. Suddenly she stabs a finger toward the accused standing in the dock. There’s a fine line between vulgar and tasteful – and SHE crossed it!

Cries from the public gallery: Here here!

Elspeth Bottithorn: The heroine engaged in… encounters with an… inappropriate number of parties.

Valentine Dumquerque: Threesomes?

Elspeth Bottithorn: Onesomes. There's worse.

Valentine Dumquerque: Like rough trade?

Elspeth Bottithorn: Handcuffs.

Valentine Dumquerque: She refused them?

Elspeth Bottithorn: She used them.

Valentine Dumquerque: Do say?

Elspeth Bottithorn: When she wasn’t ripping condom packets open… with her… with her… WITH HER TEETH!

Valentine Dumquerque: Miss Bottithorn, you have shown remarkable courage today. There is one last question I must ask you.

Her worst fears are realised. She shakes her head from side to side.

Elspeth Bottithorn: Please, I beg of you – spare me?

Valentine Dumquerque: (relentlessly) The heroine used a certain word.

Elspeth Bottithorn: You mean yee-hah?

Valentine Dumquerque: Not that one. I think you know the one I mean.

Elspeth is wild-eyed, knowing what must come and yet hoping against hope to avoid it.

Elspeth Bottithorn: (her deep voice someone else’s) It was coarse and hateful! Don’t make me say it.

Elspeth rocks backward and forward in the stand, her arms crossed against her breast in a pitiful gesture of self-comfort.

Valentine Dumquerque: (breathlessly) It’s for your own good.

EB: No!

VD: It began with the letter F.

EB: I…

VD: Yes?

EB: I…

VD: Yes!

EB: Oh, I!

VD: YES! YES!

Justice Dunleaven: Oy, boofhead! Get your pants back on.

Elspeth knows that she will have no choice but to utter the dreadful word, and knowing that its mere utterance will forever cost her innocence, her loss is reflected in the profound bow of her head.

Elspeth Bottithorn: Feminist! She used the word, feminist!

A sea of outraged voices swells to a crescendo, raised against the young woman in the dock. Overwrought, Elspeth collapses in the witness stand– –

Valentine Dumquerque: In like Flynn!

– and someone sneezes. Above the furore, AN IMPASSIONED VOICE from the public gallery: HANGING’S TOO GOOD FOR THE LIKES OF YOU!

The court is scandalised. The calls for justice! from the public gallery are swiftly answered.

Justice Dunleaven: I sentence you, Carmen Priest, to be taken from this court and published under your own name –

Carmen Priest: No! No! Mercy – I beg you! Kill me rather!

Justice Dunleaven: Bailiff, take her away.

Carmen Priest: Sob.

(Someone sneezes again)

[1] This poet laureate hailed from W-----s H---e

Trial of the Romance Novelist: Part One

2012-03-03T18:42:00.016+11:00

Praise for

Trial of the Romance Novelist

'Thank Christ there wasn't more of it' ~ Frank Moorhouse

'We'll give you money to leave us alone – cash, and lots of it' ~ Southerly

'Awful, just awful' ~ Heat

'Not only roman a clef but also roman a these, all the more remarkably bizarre for being told from the vibrator's point of view' ~ Jane Gleeson-White

'Jean D'Arque is not to be missed. If you see her, shoot her ~ Carmel Bird

'Memorable for many reasons – none of them good' ~ Island

'Please, just fuck off' ~ Meanjin

'Funny and original. Now put down the gun' ~ Julia Beaven, Wakefield Press

'I just wanted it to end' ~ Jennifer Byrne, First Tuesday Book Club

'A literary enema' ~ Stephen Fry

'What's an adjective?' ~ Dan Brown

'A complete woofer' ~ Salman Rushdie

'@#!!*!#?' ~ Osama Bin Laden

'You should have been drowned at birth. It's not too late. I urge you – do it now ~ Gore Vidal

'Made me want to rip my eyes out. I still might ~ Jason Steger, The Age

'Please please don't send us any more of your work' ~ The Griffith Review

'We've already moved address once to get away from you, and we're prepared to do it again' ~ McSweeney's

'Please don't procreate' ~ The Harvard Review

'No amount of alcohol could make this look good' ~ Kirkus Reviews

'Stunning – I've never seen anything this bad. Just appalling' ~ Peter Craven

Yeah, well, Peter Craven doesn't fart frankincense – which is a damned shame, `cause if he doubled as an oil burner then at least he'd have one useful purpose in this life. (Full marks to Meanjin though, for managing to use the words please and fuck off in a single sentence. Guess that's what makes `em literary.)

Don't get me started – just don't get me started – on the agent slash publisher, that single beast with two heads and one heart, or at least, a place where the heart should be. How the hell is it that editors and literary agents claim to discover writers anyway? I mean, I've never had Molly Friedrich knock on my door, say, Jean, mate, I'm here to discover you, mate. Just go sit down and have a cup of tea – no, on second thoughts, let me make it for you, maaaate, or maybe you'd like a beer, mate? – then you go have it in front of a bit of telly – no, no, I insist – just go and relax while I pop off to your study and discover you, right before she zips back to New York with my manuscript on her flaming flying pig.

I mean, swivelling your chair in the general direction of the slush pile – or more to the point, booting your teenaged intern in its direction – is hardly the stuff of Burke and Wills, is it? The slush pile may well give the agent slash publisher the shits but it's hardly the same as a lethal dose of dysentery, now is it?

Yeah, maybe those are the bitter rantings of the failed writer. And yeah, maybe, I am a prima donna. But I didn’t start out that way. Let me tell you how prima donnas are made. Let me tell you how I became the bloody Madonna of the publishing world – and if that evokes images of me typing away with the tips of my pointy bras to save my nails, well, that’s probably not too far from the truth. But it wasn’t to begin with.

If I'm bitter, it's with good cause. Just maybe, if not for the gatekeepers – the editors and the agents – the whole sorry incident with Salman Rushdie, Herpes, Jesus and Oprah never would have happened. Maybe I never would have had cause to write:

Seven days ago, I killed a person. Now, nobody will talk to me.

To be honest, that isn't quite accurate. Although, neither is it strictly untrue. It’s more the case that some of it is arguable, or as they like to say on rejection slips, subjective.

You see the individual I killed was a literary agent, not a person. And the thing about nobody wanting to talk to me isn’t quite true either. In fact, everybody wants to talk to me, from Salman Rushdie to Oprah Winfrey to DaviDDDDDD Lettaaaaahman. It’s just that they want to talk to me in Braille, if you know what I mean – i.e., with baseball bats, or other blunt instruments of their choice.

But if, as The Pocket Baird says, juxtaposition is the mark of a great story, then maybe I should let you in on the action that caused the reaction (as in How To Write A Synopsis.) Now that I think about it, if I had followed the advice of the The Pocket Baird (subtitle: how to write a bestseller) more often, then what came to pass on that day, the last day of winter, may never have happened.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I was taught in primary school that all stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Best start with the beginning then.

Then again, if I'm not mistaken, you'd probably prefer to know about all about my history as a failed pornographer first.

***

Character Development

Technically, I wrote erotica, not porn. The difference is pretty simple: erotica is porn trying to pretend it's not porn. Erotica is porn with pretensions. Porn in denial. Happily-ever-after in a hand job[1], erotica would have you believe that cunnilingus is Latin for the meaning of life.

At least porn is honest; it doesn't pretend to have a plot, which is more than can be said about erotica.

A story, not just scene upon scene of meaningless sex. The writer’s salute to this dictate of erotica guidelines is spurious and hilarious: during a ménage a trois of two cowpokes (literally) and a woman rancher, briefly unoccupied mouths discuss saving the farm; a woman in some sort of group sex club has her eye on two blokes she’d like to gang bang but … will her plus size put her off…?

Maybe that I wrote half of the U.S. Navy into an orgy during the time of Osama-Bin-Whack-Job and the rest of the merry crew from Cut Snakes 'R Us then submitted it to an American publisher is ultimately what doomed my porn career to failure. Or maybe that was one factor among many. Maybe there was just too much I didn't know or didn't get. For a start, I didn't get the whole thing about anal sex, which to my mind would likely feel like a homesick constipation was trying to elbow its way back in. And when I first encountered GLBT, my mouth watered, anticipating some sort of bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich with a new, exotic ingredient (maybe gherkin) thrown in. In a way, that wasn't too far from the truth.

Vanilla sex, when I first heard of it, had me terribly excited, thinking as I did it must be sex not only involving lovemaking, but perhaps a milkshake as well – or even some properly made custard! Maybe you got to make love and have a cake at the same time! Oh how good would that be? Or maybe a cake and properly made custard – a yummy beignet filled with vanilla custard! And… and… if there was such a thing as vanilla sex, maybe it came in other flavours too, like raspberry, ‘cause raspberry’s my favourite! Oh how eagerly I looked it up.

Oh.

What a blow. Vanilla sex didn't live up to its promise at all. It is in fact a term used to describe plain sex. I could forget my high hopes for chocolate sex, not to mention chocolate covered raspberry liquorice sex. Now, that one really had me drooling.

Then I think: hang on a minute. Anyone who says that about vanilla doesn’t know very much about vanilla in my opinion. I mean, there’s vanilla and there’s vanilla. Are we talking about a gorgeous vanilla pod here, some beautifully aromatic extract, or just some piss poor imitation vanilla? `Cause if you’re using imitation vanilla, well you’ve only got yourself to blame. There’s nothing wrong with real vanilla, treated properly, nothing at all. I’m not kidding – do right by vanilla and you’ll never complain about it again.

Maybe someone who didn't know what vanilla sex means really wasn't best qualified to be writing erotica.

***

I hadn’t known that there was such a thing as paranormal romance either, much less paranormal erotica, but there is. This amounts to lots of group sex with werewolves, vampires, shape shifters, big cats and other ectoplasmic thingies of the night. Perusing the genres, book lengths and reader advisories on publisher Ellora’s Cave website was nothing short of hilarious:

Vampire / quickie / ménage a trois or more

Even better when a holiday theme was introduced:

Werewolves / full length / anal sex / ménage a trois / Christmas

Sort of adds new meaning to the old saying, I thought all my Christmases had come at once;

Vampires / four or more / oral sex / Thanksgiving

Yes, well, I suppose I’d be giving thanks too.

They must be far, far better writers than I, because for the life of me, I couldn't work out how I’d fit all that in.

There were other things I didn't understand. MMFM sex I took literally to mean not just three men and one woman taking turns but simultaneous male to male to female to male sex, and I just didn't see how that would be possible, unless they’re playing Twister. I mean, if a guy’s on top of another guy, and that guy’s on top of her, they’re going to be far too heavy for her.

(Fast forward twenty-four hours.)

Ahhhh. If I flip her over, put her on her hands and knees… now I’ve got it… guy on guy on girl kneeling before another guy. Right. I’m glad I worked that out.

(Hang on.)

It seemed to me that would require extraordinarily rhythmic co-ordination, otherwise someone’s going to choke or end up bent So how would it work? Someone says, Right! One two three (presumably not her, unless she’s a ventriloquist). And even then it’s risky – what if one of them starts at the end of one two three but someone else is waiting for GO?

Frank and graphic language! demanded the publisher's guidelines. No purple prose or euphemism! Yet coyly, they handled the hero's wang with kid gloves. The hero must be well-endowed, they said delicately.

Best write him as a shape shifting horse, then.

Hi, ho, silver!

I'm sorry, your honour. Yes I did digress.

Maybe the jury will think I'm too hard-bitten. Maybe my career as a pornographer wasn't the best place to start. According to A Baird In Your Pocket: An Emerging Writer's Bible, for readers to empathise with your characters, they have to be likeable. So maybe you need to know that before I was a failed pornographer, I was an aspiring romance novelist.

Yeah, me. Hard to believe isn't it?

***

A Prologue In The

Wrong Place

Once upon a time, in another life, I might have started this with some sucky little line to demonstrate my longing like, For the longest time, I have wanted to write. Not now though, I'm not that person any more. That would have been long before I thought that publishing will be the death of writing, when it was still unthinkable I would stand before you on trial; long before it was conceivable I would kill a person.

Looking back, if there is one piece of advice I’d give to literary agents, one way this whole sorry mess could have been avoided, it would be this: well it may be an agent’s golden rule for writers to know their genre, but it is a writer’s golden rule to know your subject.

Agent A----- P------ of N-- E------ Publishing Agency asserts that: Editors seem as gods to mere authors… higher beings (who) decree which authorlings shall be raised from obscurity and which consigned to the hell of the unpublished.

A belly laugh hit me like a sucker punch. Any agent who doesn’t know that your average writer will, in all likelihood, besmirch the parentage of a rejecting editor, is living in la la land. In fact, your average writer, half-insane through rejection, and half-insane by proclivity, is highly likely to draw a family tree of said rejecting editor charting a long lineage of dilettante on one side and Philistine on the other (and nary a marriage between them) and while it’s uncertain whether your average writer will do this vehemently or dispassionately, one thing you can be sure of is that, baby, your average writer is not going to deify a rejecting editor (unless it can be argued that son-of-a bitch, if capitalised, may be considered beatification) and any agent who reckons otherwise does not know writers at all.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Any how-to-write book will tell you to introduce your main characters as close to page one as possible.

***

The Beginning Proper

For the longest time, I have wanted to write.

Life’s demands, vicissitudes, the crises and needs aroused in all people who love and who are loved, kept my dream earth bound. There was always something, someone that had to come first. For the most part I remained sanguine, if achingly so. In my heart, I knew the day would come when my hope would take flight.

Then, at the age of thirty-eight, I had a health scare. (More accurately, a death scare.) Sanguine I may be, quixotic I am not. Telling all whom I held most dear to go fuck themselves I took myself to a hotel, where at last, and maybe too late, I began to write.

Literary writers say their work is informed by life. My literary dream was informed first and foremost by poverty. Literature is a great lover, but a lazy bastard around the house – however thoughtful he might be. If you want to hold on to him – which of course you do – you’re going to have to find a way to support that fair-haired boy and yourself financially, because there’s no way he’s going to get his hands dirty for you.

I chose, as my potboiling poison, romance (a.k.a. God's reason for inventing pen names.)

If I was going to do it, then I would do it well.

It’s terrifying, gut-wrenching, to glide your aching, long-held picture-perfect dream across the precipice into burgeoning reality. It's like an angel who by becoming mortal risks disease and disfigurement. It's like being at Heaven's Airport and wondering if there's a place for you on a flight[2]. See, the thing about dreams is that they never have to use Liquid Paper. But when they're about to materialise from the ether into real life, out of the lollipop sunshine of your pure and righteous vision comes a bitey querulous little bastard called fear tenacious as a dog humping a leg.[3]

What if I had been wrong? What if I couldn’t write, after all? What would I dream about then? After twenty-four years of dreaming of the day I would write, when finally it came, I could barely type for shaking.

But type I did.

It seemed I could do what I always felt I could, after all. After a time of sub-standard cooking, little communication and even less relationship, after several tremulous, teary little months, (during which I refused to return to the doctor to get my test results ie find out whether I would live) my book was finished. A mere potboiler it may have been, but a well-written potboiler it certainly was, and I was to-the-boots-proud of my little novel.

Now, to send it to the lucky publisher. I contemplated the publisher’s guidelines – tell us what is special about your book – in ill-humour.

I tried to adopt a confident tone – confidence – that thing that other people have. I thought of the gift I was making this publisher: a well-written romance novel. No crap on my watch. So, what was special about my book? I concluded, and wrote, that I have strenuously avoided the cliché of the plundering hero and submissive heroine, in favour of more subtle and sophisticated aspirations. Yes, I’m laughing too. Looking back, I can scarcely believe my writer’s heart was ever so innocent.

Three chapters and a synopsis duly despatched, the letter box vigil began.

One rainy day, I discovered the wooden door to the letter box had swollen shut. It became necessary to remove it. I know this evokes images of a calm, surgical removal employing a screwdriver, but the reality was, when the letter box refused to give up its booty, I took to it with a hammer.

After an hour’s battering, I held in my hands a letter from The Salvation Army, asking for money.

(My neighbours, who it would seem witnessed this operation, were extremely polite to me and very considerate ever after. There would never be another episode of Billy Joel at volume again)

My letter box was now without a door. This had advantages: I could see from the upstairs bedroom window whether I had mail, and could therefore decide whether it was worth my while to get out of bed. On the down side, the mail slipped out the backless letter box onto the ground to be exposed to the weather. Not that it was ever lying there for very long.

Five months later a letter arrived from the romance publisher to whom I had submitted my partial manuscript. Opened is way too polite a word to describe the evisceration that killed that envelope.

I had been invited to send the full manuscript.

I called the other half in tears that just wouldn’t stop. At last, at last! The way to my brilliant career was being paved. And I had done it my way. I had written a quality romance novel.

The letter warned me that this was not an offer of publication. I wasn’t worried. There wasn’t a chance that my lovely, original novel would be rejected.

Just when it was most needed, my printer gave up the ghost. I ordered a new one. By the end of the week when it still hadn’t arrived, the other half called the supplier and calmly but persuasively arranged its liberation from whatever disgruntled faction it is that takes printers captive.

Four weeks after I had been invited to send the full manuscript, I finally got it into the post. I breathed a sigh of relief. And then I held my breath. Again.

***

The big day arrived at last. At last! Nine long months of mail-box-vigil later, the other half raced up the stairs to proclaim, The Letter You Have Been Waiting For Has Arrived. We tore down the stairs together. He was so very happy for me, God love him.

I look at the envelope.

Um, love, I say, I think there’s something wrong. That envelope isn’t big enough to hold a contract.

Confidently, he says, That’s just the letter to tell you that your book has been accepted and the contract will be coming separately.

With a bad, bad feeling, I open the envelope.

The unthinkable has happened. My quality romance novel has been rejected.

Worse, the rejection letter is scathing: Too intense and overwritten, it says.

No! No! I am wounded!

No, no, NO, this is all wrong!

The other half gives me a leg up to the horse that has thrown me, slaps it on the rump and sends me to a bookshop to research alternative publishers. Right now. Today.

A few hours later I am in a bookshop, in a state of dazed determination; a state soon to give way to queasy and stunned.

The alternative publishers are protected by a talisman designed to keep writers like me at bay: No unsolicited manuscripts.

My little, honest work, with its hopeful beating heart, appears to be dead in the water.

A week later, I'm still in bed.

As an older ‘new’ writer, I thought I was better prepared for rejection. I was wrong.

The other half sends me flowers with the message: If it was easy, then it wouldn’t be fun.

It’s a miracle he’s still breathing.

***

The Plot Dump

What's that Skip? Dad and Ken drove off a cliff into Rasmussen's Ravine, Dad bumped his head and passed out, the ute's leaking diesel, we're having steak for dinner, it's snowing in Switzerland, Mrs. James just fell pregnant, there's a lizard in the bathtub, Ken's wearing a red shirt and Kevin Rudd's about to challenge Julia Gillard for the leadership of the ALP, a party first founded in… click kerBOOM!

Shut the fuck up, Skip. Nobody likes a garrulous fucking kangaroo, mate.

Maybe I should have flogged every literary agent trying to flog me their book on how to get a literary agent my book on how to write a professional rejection letter – one that wouldn’t result in a writer with a fashion sense leaning toward balaclavas and Smith & Wesson accessories quietly letting themselves into your house in the wee small hours.

(The pen may well be mightier than the sword but I’ll take a thirty-gauge Winchester any day of the week, quoth she.)

I was going to need a literary agent. I found this embarrassing and pretentious in equal parts. My publishing history amounts to two short stories. Why did someone like me possibly need a literary agent? I mean, what for, exactly?

Blushing, I tried submitting to Australian literary agents first. One of them replied. I'll remember the names of the other two – don't you worry about that.

So not only would I need a literary agent, I would have to find one overseas.

The hunt for an American literary agent – a creature so faint-hearted it defines bravery as having an office outside of New York – was about to cast me forth across a landscape so shallow that any movie with a death in it automatically gets an Academy Award.

Oh yes, death – it's profound all right.

[1] It may be worth mentioning at this juncture that Word accused me of verb confusion in using the term 'fart frankincense.' It had me at hand job, though, which really should have been two words, not one.

[2] An illustration of why emerging writers should avoid similes.

[3] Another illustration as to why emerging writers should avoid similes. Only emerging writers think their similies are 'great'. In truth, they're pretentious; they really fucking suck, and not like a blow job either. More like repatriated diahorrea. Shit. Does anyone know how to spell that? Fucking MS Word.

Indians, Pirates, the Mob & Elance

2012-03-02T15:04:00.001+11:00

The first time I uploaded an ebook for sale, it sold inside a minute. My second title sold a copy within seconds – not long enough for anyone to read the blurb, much less a sample – and the penny dropped. Somewhere out there, before my baby drew breath, its bastard twin was being conceived – quite possibly rewritten to the highest standard of Bangladeshi English. I am the mafia Don Ranjeet and I am going to shoot you with Vishnu's curses and cannolis, another one thing. You dirty ratfink, is that vindaloo in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Of course I'd heard of e-book piracy. What I couldn't have guessed was just how much piracy business is conducted through supposedly legitimate virtual worker websites like Elance and Odesk.

On any given day, the writing and translation jobs on these sites feature open calls for plagiarism; article spinners to conceal stolen content (often pointing to the websites from which the original content is to be taken) and contracts for blocks of ebooks to be rewritten to pass Copyscape (plagiarism detection software). Then there's the contracts for paid reviews of books, products and services.

There is an obsessive lot of readers who haunt the Amazon forums. They dedicate their lives to trying to 'nail' authors whose books feature obviously fake reviews, and once they smell a rat, they go after it with all the glee of a terrier, hounding Amazon until the fake reviews are removed.

They have a point. Consumers are, after all, being misled. Though it's a long-held tradition; record companies are rumoured to manipulate the record charts by buying up their own product in quantity. Now the great democracy that is the internet allows those without the same resources to achieve the same goal – largely by exploiting the impoverished.

Legally, some of this falls into grey areas. A lot of it doesn't. Recently Elance ran a job ad calling for a contractor to 'scrape' content from three highly successful recipe sites. The ad was very specific, recipes and photos were to be 'scraped', then the recipe titles rebadged to avoid detection. The target sites were even named. All of this was blatantly spelled out.

The respondents to such jobs inevitably seem to be people from the poorest countries; usually

India

and

Bangladesh

, and they are often expected to work for just dollars a day.

While I'm furious at having my work stolen, another part of me can't help but feel compassion for the people doing the rewriting, because we're both being exploited by the same pirates.

Elance, Odesk and their peers are no innocents in all of this. They earn a commission from these contracts and while their terms of service disqualify illegal activity, they continue to run and profit from the very same. That some manual checking of content takes place is demonstrated by the fact that Elance pulls ads which give insufficient detail – and yet, jobs to rework stolen content continue to run.

Internet piracy as an uncontrollable beast is a nonsense. Virtual worker websites could make a huge difference simply by observing their own terms of service. Inroads will never be made until they do.

Meanwhile, in the wee small hours, I'll lie awake wondering how my book looks now, if my Italian mob women are now dhal-swilling call centre workers who instead of whacking their husbands take revenge by putting meat in their vegetarian meals; who perhaps call each other sacred cows when they're pre-menstrual and declare, I've got news for you, Don Apu Mathahododlupon. That itch in your pants isn't chilli-revenge and I was never untouchable.

In my book, a favourite exchange takes place after one of my sassy women, Irish, is surrounded by mobsters who want to take her for the proverbial little ride to meet the Don. She refuses.

Mobster: "When the Don tells you to come, you come."

Irish: "Now there's the poorest excuse for fudging cunnilingus ever I heard."

Sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder how the Indian version sounds.

Never Give Up

2012-02-22T18:03:00.007+11:00

Fortune may favour the brave but that's hard to remember when life is kicking you in the nuts. Here's twenty-one relentlessly optimistic reasons to remember that when you're at rock bottom, the only way is up.

In her youth, J.K. Rowling was a Bay City Rollers' fan, proving that early bad taste is no barrier to subsequent success.
Stephenie Meyer is a bestseller, proving that subsequent bad taste is no barrier to early success.
It only took one cow to burn Chicago down.
John Howard became Prime Minister.
The greatest love songs are inspired by the worst heartbreak.
Pauline Hanson's parents didn't drown her at birth.
When baby Jessica McLure fell down a 22ft well, it took rescue workers fifty-eight hours to free her. If they didn't give up, why should you?
Despite the common knowledge that they go swimmingly with mint sauce and roast vegetables, spring lambs continue to gambol and frolic like there's no tomorrow.
Elton John once married a woman. Now there's optimism with a capital O.
Male black widow spiders know they're going to be eaten (and not in a good way) straight after doing the wild thing. Still, they do it.
Beethoven was completely deaf.
Van Gogh was bat shit crazy.
Salman Rushdie started out as a copywriter and he's still around to talk about it. (That counts as two.)
The Ayatollah bit it first.
Rainbows.
Before he became a household name, Jesus was a carpenter, as was Harrison Ford, although the latter wasn't formally qualified. Now that I think about it, it's highly unlikely that Jesus' apprenticeship papers were ever checked.
Dave Allen died in his sleep, proving once and for all that God has a sense of humour.
Salmon swim incredible distances upstream, inviting death by hungry bear just to spawn. I mean, not even to have sex, but just to spawn.
Lightning misses most of the time (although one American was hit seven times. Having survived them all, he shot himself. Try to pull some optimism out of that.)
Sometimes glasses bounce.
Madonna was once so poor she had to pose nude for money. It must have grown on her because when she was rich she kept doing it.
Tom Cruise became a movie star despite being dyslexic.
Nicole Kidman became a movie star despite being Nicole Kidman.
Dan Brown calls himself a writer and hasn't been sued for libel yet.
Innumeracy is no barrier to being a writer.
Keith Richards is still breathing. If that isn't testament to optimism, I don't know what is.

Yazz - The Only Way Is Up

PMS: You've Gone Too Far If He Needs CPR

2012-02-10T19:30:00.007+11:00

While research indicates that 75% of women experience PMS, it is listed as a 'rare disease' by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The Victorian Government's Better Health Channel suggests that most women suffer from PMS, and advises that the best way to manage PMS is to keep a diary and cut back on caffeine and alcohol in the two weeks prior to menstruation.

Further, Research shows that women who are in a relationship with men experience worse PMS than lesbians[1] and that most men are indifferent to their partner's suffering, preferring to treat PMS as a big joke.

The Better Health Channel advises: Manage your stress in whatever way works for you,

so here's a list of essentials to help you do just that.

Chamomile tea is a very effective calmative. Keep a boiling cup on hand to catapult at the bastard in your life. Alternatively, fill a cauldron and ask him to get in (NB You might have to promise him sex afterwards to achieve this.)

Lavender oil can be wonderfully soothing if you break the bottle and hold it to his throat.

Tampons: Used to write PMS IS A RECOGNISED MURDER DEFENCE, ARSEHOLE on the wall. Just see if the fucking dishes don't get done.

Megaphone: Why confine the creative glory that it is your screaming bitchiness to your own home when you can surprise and delight the whole neighbourhood with the inspired witticisms, Arsehole; Bastard; Die arsehole fucking die; Frankly my dear, I've had better carrots; I'm gonna shoot you fucking dead; Crying only makes it worse; Begging makes me angry and the always classic, The Vienna Boy's Choir is looking for eunuchs; Hide my Uzi, would you? Oh I'll teach you how to play hide the Uzi; and You're awfully chatty for a dead bastard etc etc.

Water cannon: You'll need this to hold off police after you've used the megaphone. Don't worry about taking up police time – they like to practise their training. Besides, they're not allowed to shoot their own wives.

Flamethrower: Nothing says Make me breakfast dickhead quite like roasted nuts. Then he can add them to your muesli. Make sure he dips them in honey first.

Chainsaw: in case you forget your house keys.

Pen and paper: Write down the number for directory assistance, tie it to a brick then beat him around the head chanting, Book a fucking restaurant, dickhead, book a fucking restaurant over and over again.

Hand grenades: To celebrate any non-changing of the toilet roll.

M16: Perchance the seat be left up.

Rocket Launcher: In case he tries to run.

Now, let's explore some of the Better Health Channel's stellar suggestions to the pre-menstrual woman further – specifically their interpretation by the PMS brain.

Boost your dairy food intake, but switch to reduced fat or no fat versions.

Translation: eat your own babies. As well as being milk-rich and low fat, the little vealers are probably tender as buggery too.

Make sure you have tasty and healthy snack alternatives on hand.

You can use them in a slingshot.

Reduce your alcohol intake for two weeks before your period.

It's not alcohol abuse unless the alcohol said no.

Keep a diary of your symptoms.

WHAT THE FUCK FOR? How will reliving my misery help? Besides, I could use the time for drinking.

Record your food choices in your PMS diary – charting your food intake may help you become more aware of high fat and high sugar snacking.
Yes, it will. It really fucking will, and nothing's going to depress me more than irrefutable proof of the crap my psychotic hormones make me eat. But before we take to the PMS diary idea with our flamethrower, consider this:

Twenty-nine-year-old barmaid Sandie Craddock got off a murder charge after stabbing another worker to death when she pleaded diminished responsibility because of PMS.

The judge accepted that PMS was a mitigating factor because it turned Craddock "into a raging animal each month". Craddock's diaries revealed that each of her past 30 convictions occurred around the same point of her menstrual cycle.

You magnificent bitch, I salute you. Thirty – count `em – THIRTY convictions and still she got off.

Some more fun facts:

"Wanting to be alone" is a PMS symptom experienced by 80% of Australian women[2].

This means you're allergic to arseholes.

Radical treatments include hormone therapy, anti-depressants and, in severe cases, surgery[3].

It's official: you're allowed to cut his doodle off.

Finally, to demonstrate just how well understood PMS is, please visit this link; specifically the section titled PMS Facts and Statistics – featuring a photograph of a pregnant woman.

75% of women experience PMS. Fuck it – we can't all be wrong. Train your bastard up now or he'll never be ready for menopause.

[1] Do men cause PMS? by Judy Skatssoon

[2] As for 1.

[3] As for 1 & 2.

Julia Gillard vs Mike Willesee

2012-02-07T15:35:00.003+11:00

Last Sunday 'veteran' journalist Mike Willesee asked Prime Minister Julia Gillard whether she cried much. I'm soooooo disappointed The Big J didn't grab his scrotum, give it a good squeeze and say, "No. How about you, Chuckles? Hey? How about you?"

A question better suited to Bob Hawke, methinks.

.

March Sale & Royal Doulton Giveaway!

2012-02-01T19:23:00.004+11:00

Yippee, we're having a sale! Buy your copy of the one and only all-in-one cook's organiser, The Cook's Toolkit by Clever Pumpkin for 25% off - that's $48.75 with free postage! AND, we're having a Royal Doulton giveaway! Every purchase of The Cook's Toolkit during March will go in the draw to win a Royal Doulton crystal wine goblet set (R.R.P. $160.00) or a Midnight Country Rose serving dish (R.R.P. $359.00). We have two glass sets and two serving dishes to give away, so organise your food life with The Cook's Toolkit by Clever Pumpkin today! Winners will be chosen by Random.org.

Visit the Clever Pumpkin website.

Nomination: Book of the Year

2012-01-23T14:24:00.001+11:00

Out now on Smashwords: Men's Guide To Trouble Pussy

The blurb: 'Since the beginning of time, there has been man and woman. All women came with pussy. Its official name is “Vagina” and its purpose range from sexual activity, child birthing, and uterine secretions (that time of the month). Its power is almost limitless. It has shaped world politics, literature, music, and mental illness.'
_______________________________________________________________________________

Yes, well. Mine's also a Certified Practising Accountant.

.

Cocky In A Glass

2012-01-21T13:07:00.066+11:00

Many years past, I had an old cat named Ali-Tut. "Love" doesn't begin to describe what I felt for that old cat. The word hasn't been invented to describe what I felt for that old cat. I raised her from a baby kitten, feeding her and her sister Speedie from an eyedropper. She was with me from before I was a teenager, and she lived to be almost twenty-one.

Old Tuts had her own sheepskin on the couch, but being a cat, of course she slept anywhere she pleased, frequently taking up more of my single bed than I did. More accurate than a heat-seeking missile, she always knew where her best bet was between the sheepskin and my bed. This she would ascertain by inserting one paw beneath the doona to see if the electric blanket was on. Thus we passed many happy years, until I awoke early one morning to a tutt tutt tutt tutt tutt tutt sound, when I rolled over to see Ali-Tut contentedly lapping from my glass of water. Three things immediately filled my mind:

An image of Ali-Tut with a bird in her mouth.
An image of Ali-Tut cleaning herself most fastidiously, paying particular attention to her arse.
The question of just how many years she had been drinking from my glass of water as I slept.

Well I might have loved that old cat more than life itself, but I stil didn't want the tongue that licked her arse lapping from my glass of water.

It had been many years since I've thought of the incident - that was until yesterday,

when undertaking my usual morning ritual of removing my empty chamomile cup and (usually untouched) overnight glass of water to the kitchen, I discovered this:

A cockroach floating in my glass of water

A cockroach floating in my glass of water. Please observe that the glass is one-third empty.

As you can imagine, my thoughts were of a most alactritous nature;

How long had cocky been in the glass?
In the dark, did I drink from the glass before or after cocky got in?
Where had cocky been before he got into my water? Did he perchance take a leisurely stroll around the toilet first?
How did cocky come to be in the glass? Was he attempting a midnight swim after drinking too much wine with dinner? Or was it something more sinister? Could cocky have been pushed? Or... did he jump? Somewhere out there is the Cocky Coroner investigating? A note left behind? What sort of things do cockroaches say in suicide notes? I'm sick of eating shit, perhaps?

A close up of cocky in the glass

An aerial view of cocky in the glass

Perhaps that last image may provide a clue. Observe how cocky has brought his hands together in a diving posture. So it would seem cocky dived in then. But why?

I look at that top photo now and marvel at a time in life when I was young enough to think of twenty-nine as 'old'. Surely that was never I.

Postcript: Several days of thinking on the incident have led me to the conclusion that cocky probably sipped my chamomile tea. If one cup of chamomile can put a whole human to sleep, imagine what it can do to a compartively small cockroach. What happened next will always be a matter of speculation - whether cocky in desperation tried to drink water as an antidote or whether instead he thought that going for a swim while high on chamomile sounded like jolly good fun, we will never know. One thing is for certain though: it's another sad case of a cockroach who couldn't handle their chamomile tea.
.

The Romance is Over: Edward & Bella Twenty Years On

2012-01-14T20:14:00.008+11:00

Daylight is now available as a free download.
~Contains gratuitous swearing, violence and one offensively small appendage. Not suitable for Twilight fans. Not suitable for children under 40~

Download as a PDF (for PC) or, for a book-type view in the absence of an e-reader, Adobe Digital Editions can be downloaded free.

Download

Clever Pumpkin's Lime Maple Summer Berry Puddings

2012-01-07T17:25:00.002+11:00

Recipe here

2012: Lock and Load, Bitch.

2012-01-07T17:16:00.003+11:00

Q. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Just one – but the light bulb has got to WANT to change.

With that in mind, I have made only one New Year's resolution, and that is to be brutally honest with myself.

This means acknowledging that my deep and abiding love of chocolate will never change; because – hell's bells – I don't want it to. This new honesty compels me to admit that my love of ice-cream verges on the erotic, as does my deep salivating desire for summer berry puddings, beer-battered fish and chips (served with ice-cold beer) deep-fried arancini with fresh lemon, baked stuffed potatoes, snow-white chevre cheese, Italian fennel sausage, sauteed rosemary potatoes, lemon curd and chocolate coconut pudding.

In my heart of hearts I know my love of fresh fruit is owed only to its relationship to cheese and wine, as I know that the best way to serve healthy guacamole is with a side of Mexican banquet dripping in cheese, sour cream, and overflowing with tequila and lime laden margaritas. Sniff all you want – at least the lime is good for me.

On that subject, I resolve not to fall off the wagon. This I will achieve by not climbing on the damned thing in the first place. Truthfully, I'd sell my mother down the river for a pina colada – and on Mother's Day, to boot.

I resolve not to be stressed by the barrage of advertisements threatening me with cancer at every turn. (Memo health authorities: if you're wondering why more people suffer from anxiety than ever before, perhaps it's because we can't get through an episode of The Simpsons without being reminded at least twice that half of us will get cancer. If you're going to shove something down my throat, make it chocolate, or better still, chocolate ice-cream. Two birds with one stone, baby.)

In my heart of hearts I know that the best way to wipe the smirky little self-righteous heart tick from a virginal chicken breast is to wrap it around a wad of garlic butter, smother it in breadcrumbs then fry it to buggery.

And so, God help me, as the butter from a thousand baked potatoes marches steadily toward my aorta, I will admit to myself two important truths: in all likelihood, I will always be just a little bit fat, and, if I'm to be honest, that is no bad thing if not being able to see over my stomach means I don't have to see my nether region turning grey.

Now, because you can't spell svelte with crème fraiche, I'll ask myself the same question and this time I'll answer it honestly.

Q. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

A. None. The light bulb will change itself when it's good and ready.

Or not. The human beast is a complicated beast. I resolve not to resolve the wonderfully complicated unresolvable human beast that is me, and yes, that means ice-cream.

2012, lock and load, bitch.

* Excerpt from this post to appear on From the TBR pile.

Bad Books Blow Up The Brain

2012-01-03T17:37:00.008+11:00

A most interesting article penned by Random House CEO Gail Rebuck charts the effect of reading on the brain:

'Psychologists from Washington University used brain scans to see what happens inside our heads when we read stories. They found that "readers mentally simulate each new situation encountered in a narrative". The brain weaves these situations together with experiences from its own life to create a new mental synthesis. Reading a book leaves us with new neural pathways.

'The discovery that our brains are physically changed by the experience of reading is something many of us will understand instinctively, as we think back to the way an extraordinary book had a transformative effect on the way we view the world. This transformation only takes place when we lose ourselves in a book, abandoning the emotional and mental chatter of the real world. That's why studies have found this kind of deep reading makes us more empathetic, or, as Nicholas Carr puts it in his essay The Dreams of Readers, "more alert to the inner lives of others"

Okay, so what happens to the brain if the book is as badly edited as Twilight or The Da Vinci Code? Britain's Institute for Bibliophilic Brain Studies found the effect of bad writing and editing on the brain to be equally dramatic:

'Exposed to half an hour of The Da Vinci Code, brains were seen to shrink dramatically. In an attempt to escape further reading, several brains liquified and exited the skull by way of the ear canal. One brain pulled a gun it had concealed behind its left frontal lob, blew a hole in the book (via the host's left eye) then put itself out its misery. In the case of Twilight, all brains followed a uniform pattern: each formed new neural paths which flashed the words Good God, where was your editor, woman? over and over again. Remarkably, the words show up on the MRI film.'

Back to Rebuck's article: '… recent scientific research has also found a dramatic fall in empathy among teenagers in advanced Western cultures. We can't yet be sure why this is happening, but the best hypothesis is that it is the result of their immersion in the internet and the quick-fire virtual world it offers. So technology reveals that our brains are being changed by technology, and then offers a potential solution - the book.'

It also means that books as badly edited as Twilight directed at young adults are potentially disastrous.

'The research shows that if we stop reading, we will be different people: less intricate, less empathetic, less interesting.'

Also true if the subject of our reading is formulaic, superficial and unimaginative. I'm not referring to Twilight there but the tendency of big publishing to seek out and reproduce the same books over and over again. It is more than a little cheeky for a major publisher to use this research in an attempt to sell books while big publishing habitually shows such contempt for readers through minimal and sub-standard editing. What's that doing to our neural pathways, hey?

Literary Journals vs The Homeless

2012-01-02T19:49:00.002+11:00

It never ceases to amaze me: the number of people who wouldn't piss on the homeless if they were on fire who suddenly find their social conscience when writers' grants are announced. Wouldn't that money be better directed elsewhere? they sniff. Like, to the homeless?[1]

My former other-half one night proposed this analogy: Well I like to throw stones. Should I be paid to throw stones?

Suffice it to say, the evening did not end well for him.

That literature is not popular is the reason it requires funding. As to why it should survive, the answers are manifold: all human endeavour deserves its chance at life. Some would argue that a painstaking endeavour undertaken with so little commensurate reward is more deserving, not less. We all benefit from a culture where diversity is both tolerated and encouraged, whether we appreciate directly the subject of that diversity or not. The world would be a far poorer place if only the most popular pursuits survived. Further, esoteric pursuits can sometimes blossom into the wider world. If Steve Jobs had not acted on curiosity and intuition pursuing an obscure interest in calligraphy which had no practical application in his life, then the revolution that is desktop publishing would never have been born.

But here's where the litmags get it wrong and Jobs got it right: he understood that taking calligraphy to a wider market would not destroy it.

So many litmags are filled with writing by writers for writers, with no discernible consciousness of the reader at all, no reflected understanding that readers expect to be entertained – and I use the word in the broadest sense; even the loftiest literature can and should be entertaining. Readers are not merely ears for our voices. They have no obligation to appreciate or be as fascinated with our voices as we are; they are entitled to expect some bang for their buck without every hairy-arsed writer within cooee bemoaning the commodification of their art. Writing about writing does not a story make, nor do poems about poetry satisfy anyone other than the poet. Maybe that's a luxury we can't expect funding for.

Recently, the word went around that a major litmag which had enjoyed funding for decades had just had its funding pulled, supposedly due to a politician's misguided belief that these e-publishing times render a print edition redundant.

Protests were called for, letters to the minister. Very tiredly, I, with better things to worry about, took the time to sit down and write to this undoubted dolt of a politician to inform her of the error of her ways.

That her answer surprised me is an understatement.

The situation, according to the minister, was not as had been represented by the litmag at all and had very little to do with e-publishing. With an annual subsidy of $88,000.00, the litmag's circulation had been under one thousand for the year (and get this – its funding submission wasn't up to scratch. Heh heh heh heh.) Funding had not been cut, but rather allocated elsewhere.

And therein lies the problem of writing by writers for writers. Few others want to read it. It is an indulgence that neither writers or litmags can afford. Writers are a famously impoverished lot, unable to support the luxury of their own coterie market. If litmags insist on catering to such a small, niche market, wouldn't it make sense to at least appeal to a wider range of writers by including a greater variety of writing within their pages – dare I even suggest the inclusion of genre writers who might attract a general readership?

Supposedly litmags exist to support writing not embraced by mainstream publishing, and yet they operate in the same way as commercial publishers: once a writer is well-known they'll publish almost anything they write. Certainly litmags are content to fill their limited space with essays by established writers which would never make it in if penned by an emerging writer. Sadly, they are of no more interest for coming from someone famous. There is nothing interesting in reading of a famous writer's holiday – unless they lost a leg to a shark – and while all writers seem to be fascinated by music, it's a fascination best kept to ourselves, for it's as boring as shit to readers. As that prolific author someone once said, writing about music is like singing about architecture.

I still believe the world is a richer place for someone taking the time and trouble to write an essay on the importance of vowel sounds in poetry, but the question is, does esoteric – in the sense of for the initiated – necessarily have to be to the exclusion of all others?

If litmags are intent on acting as a club for the very few, can they reasonably expect public funding for the purpose?

I recently heard a writer of the hard left persuasion describe the current state of art-funding as disgusting; apparently with no sense of irony in demanding public monies for the privilege of writing about the disenfranchised and the homeless. Presumably the most vulnerable members of our society should be content to fill their stomachs with his words.

But that's me. Half of me wants to join the movement and the other half wants to heckle it.

[1] One notes that the same murmurings are not directed toward the gold-medal Olympic athletes who received 50K tax free from the government. While they doubtlessly earned it, and even more doubtlessly deserved it, given their endorsement capacity, it made little sense for them to have it.

On Writing "Grace"

2011-11-23T20:54:00.014+11:00

Buy or sample

Four women are about to start a mob war – and nails WILL be broken.

Some epiphanies looks like diamonds. Isabella Albrici's diamond shaped epiphany begins when her womanising husband, Domenic, frames her and her best friend Teresa for his diamond smuggling operation to save himself from jail. Prime targets for the prison's resident psychopath, they'll be lucky to survive jail, even luckier to survive if they get out – thanks to Domenic, 'the family' thinks Isabella is an FBI informant. The big house ain't no fun house, but for Isabella and Teresa, it's the safest house there is – until the evidence keeping them there suddenly goes missing.

Ladies, you are free to go.
Ah, if it's all the same to you, maybe we'll just stay where we are.
No chance. Close the door on your way out.
Ah shit. Thanks very much.

Some epiphanies are shaped like diamonds – others like bullets. Sometimes grace is received; sometimes grace has to be earned. For years, these mob wives have lived off the wages of sin, now the path to redemption is clear: they gotta whack their old men.

Welcome to the inaugural general metting of the first chapter of the New Jersey Mob Suffragette's Whack Club.

Salut.

On writing 'Grace'

Two years ago I was stair-training when Pink's song So What (I'm Still A Rock Star) came on the radio, and suddenly my head filled with images of The Sopranos' women whacking their men.

By the time I came off the stairs half an hour later, I had the story, the ending, the title and several scenes for Grace. It was a gift, but at the time, one I wasn't sure I wanted, for all sorts of complicated reasons.

Dripping sweat I went downstairs to my study (which doubled as the laundry) and sat down to make notes, all the while asking myself whether there was any point.

I had just spent eighteen months miserably wrestling with writer's block penning a book I couldn't place with a publisher.

There would be no point in writing Grace. I wanted to let it go. The women who would grace its pages would not be publisher-friendly. Anything but stereotypical, they would be… exceptional.

There was no point in writing it. I wanted to let it go.

I had no idea that it wouldn't be letting go of me.

Over the next few weeks the ideas came so thick and fast, often during my stair-training or walking (and sometimes in my dreams) that by the end of the session I'd be struggling to remember everything I had to write down.

Okay, I decided, I'll give it a week, during which, I fully expected to smack into a wall. Nothing could have been further from the truth. I couldn't stop writing. The feeling of for the first time writing something I wanted to write was indescribable.

I laughed myself stupid writing Grace, then, for the final week, I cried myself senseless. I just didn't want to let these women go.

The first draft was written in seven and a half weeks.

I was disappointed. I'd thought I'd do it in six.

J.K. Rowling vs Literary Agent Christopher Little

2011-11-22T21:49:00.040+11:00

After years of dealing with literary agents and publishers (or as I think of them, the agent slash publisher – a single beast with two heads and one heart, or at least a place where the heart should be) it's nice to know I'm still not so inured to their bullshit as not to be able to feel chagrin, indeed, ire. Thus, I was forcibly reminded recently on reading this article on the subject of J.K. Rowling's parting from her agent, Christopher Little, described as the man who had stood fiercely and loyally by Rowling for years.

It is indeed news that Rowling had at any stage been under siege requiring the fiercely and loyally standing by thereto, or that Little's reaping fifteen per cent off the back of Rowling's charmed life – charmed by her own talented hand – could possibly be seen as wading into battle. It wouldn't be thus interpreted by most – outside of publishing. Ah, but then I'm reminded we are dealing here with a creature that inhabits a rarefied world, much like the richly imagined world of Rowling's childish characters. It doesn't take long before we get to the agent slash publisher's well-worn conceit, the old I made you what you are. Here we go:

Many credit Little as the one who spotted her potential, and:

…Rowling's early manuscript for her now extremely profitable novels ended up in the reject basket until someone rescued it and handed it to Little.

A blind, deaf, decapitated and well-salted zombie could not fail to recognise Rowling's 'potential'. That the manuscript ended up in the bin at all is a damning indictment of publishing's indifference to a work that enriched the lives of so many. Its subsequent 'rescue' is no claim to heroism; merely a belated and rather slow demonstration of the same level of acumen that millions of six-year-olds over the world demonstrated effortlessly and without prompting, with no need of anyone to tell them how to think.

Little is described as the true mastermind of Rowling's career (not unless you wrote the damned books, baby) who believed in her work so much (no hardship there and again, something that millions of six-year-olds achieved all on their own) and the man who took Rowling to (sic) a road to fame and fortune.

Ahem. There's only one way to say this: YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING, MATE. That's like the cowboy claiming he carried the horse.

More than once the article refers to Rowling and Little's business relationship as a partnership.

Nooooooo, (she said slowly and carefully, as though to a small child,) Little worked for Rowling. Literary Agents, are, in fact, the employees of writers, although one does appreciate many do struggle to understand that. Why, some even like to brand writers as chattels. The now defunct Firebrand Agency was fond of referring to the writers it represented as Firebranders, with the postscript, As they like to call themselves. Yeah, right. Writers truly spend years of their life at the kitchen table slogging their guts out after working all day dreaming of the time they will give up their day jobs to be treated as the employee of the people they keep in business. Maybe that's why Firebrand went belly up. But perhaps I digress, methinks.

Little is described as a brilliant deal maker after he got his client amazing returns on international rights. Okay, I know this is a big leap, but bear with me. Conceivably that could have something to do with the collateral he had to bargain with and the fact that Rowling's books were bestsellers.

Of interest is Rowling's statement to the Leveson enquiry, wherein she avers that she was "completely lacking in anyone to help or guide me through the media minefield (I had no public relations support until I hired some myself much later.)"

Only J.K. Rowling and her readers can lay claim to making Rowling what she is.

Publishing is a business. That dog-eared credo has been shoved down many a writer's constricting throat for more years than I care to remember. The problem now seems to be that publishing itself seems to understand that least of all. Big publishing offers ever diminishing services in exchange for the books that are the basis of their business. Writers are expected to find the means to market their books with little or no support from the publisher; many literary agents won't attempt to sell books to publishers, preferring writers who have already found a publisher for themselves, in which case you should get in touch immediately (yessss, and I'll be kicking 15% back to you why, exactly?) while readers are shown habitual contempt by the major houses who provide next to no editing, particularly on big name writers with well-established markets – often producing ever worsening, nearly unreadable work – books which would never make it into print if submitted by an emerging writer, and rightly so.

Perhaps the agent slash publisher is just so accustomed to writers coming to them cap in hand that they don't understand the e-times are a changing, and in contributing so little, agents and publishers are effectively pricing themselves out of the market.

Agent David Black once described himself as someone who walks through walls, (oh I'd love to be around to see you try it, buddy. Smack!) while the former agent of Janet Evanovich asserted that she was merely a genre writer before he came along to make her what she is.

Not unless you wrote the books for her, buddy. Not by a bloody long shot, mate.

Rowling's agent Christopher Little was reportedly upset to have been dismissed by email. Yes, well. We will only be getting back to you if we're interested in your work...

Pumpkin Arancini & Best Ever Pumpkin Risotto

2011-11-18T14:30:00.000+11:00

Find the recipe here.

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Cheryl's Blueberry Slice

2011-11-14T18:42:00.001+11:00

Recipe here.

Rosemary Sauteed Potatoes

2011-11-13T16:43:00.000+11:00

Ah Christmas. You spend a week in the kitchen preparing for it only to have everyone start whingeing about eating leftovers from Boxing Day. The trick to using up all of those beautiful meats ~ ham, turkey, chicken, pork ~ is to mix things up a little bit but with a minimum of effort. Everyone likes cold meat with hot potatoes, so coming up to Christmas we'll be featuring some simple yet winning ways with spuds to help you out.

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Curried Rice Salad

2011-11-05T12:37:00.006+11:00

This curried rice salad tastes every bit as good as it looks. Don't be alarmed by the amount of curry that goes into the rice cooking water. The resultant curry flavour is surprisingly mild and is balanced beautifully by the orange rind, which is simmered in boiling water to bring out the flavour. You can use any seasonal vegetables (snow peas or sugar snap peas are wonderful additions) and you can substitute the mixed dried fruit with sultanas, but please try it with the mixed dried fruit at least once. It adds some gorgeously nuanced flavours. Don't be tempted to omit the orange rind, that's what makes this so special. This salad is a perfect addition to your Christmas table.

Curried Orange Rice Salad

1 cup of long grain rice
1 tablespoon quality curry powder
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 cup frozen corn kernels, cooked
1/2 cup frozen peas, cooked
5 shallot (spring onion) stems, bottom part only, sliced
1 carrot, grated
1 small red capsicum, chopped
1 small tin pineapple in juice, RESERVE JUICE FOR DRESSING
1/2 cup mixed dried fruit

Dressing
1/4 cup French dressing
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 cup reserved pineapple juice
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Rind of one orange

Cook rice in boiling water, to which curry turmeric and salt has been added, until tender. Drain and rinse BRIEFLY with cool water. Set aside to cool a little.

Bring a small pot of water to the boil. Using a zester, peel long strips of rind from orange and add to boiling water. Simmer for at least five minutes. Drain.

Whisk dressing ingredients together. Combine all salad ingredients with the cooled rice, stir through orange rind and dressing. Refrigerate for a few hours to allow the flavours to combine.

For more recipes go to the Clever Pumpkin website.

George Clooney & Me

2011-10-22T15:09:00.006+11:00

What happened was this: I was walking down the street when I saw George in his backyard, looking for his cat. Puss, in the way of cats, was in the front yard, completely ignoring George's calls. So I called out to George, letting him know that puss was round the front.

He came through the house and out the front door, smiling broadly, and took puss and me inside.

George and I stood in the kitchen, shooting the breeze, neither of us acknowledging the fact I was buck naked. George kept his eyes trained on mine, as I did his, even though my boobs were looming large on my horizon.

I lay down on the floor to give puss a pat. George lay down behind me and gave me a cuddle (no euphemism.) For those of you who are curious, George Clooney does not give particularly good cuddles. He was enthusiastic enough but lacked finesse. Maybe it was me. Maybe I couldn't relax enough to enjoy it because I was too busy worrying whether George was noticed my unshaved legs. It had, in fact, been a very long and hairy winter for my legs.

George had an appointment to go to, so it was time for me to leave. He saw me to the front door and handed me into my robe – and it was my robe – the pink summer robe given to me by my former mother-in-law.

George complimented me on its prettiness. I noted that he had not complimented me when I was naked.

He saw me out the front door, and as I descended the steps (which weren't there on the way in) he grabbed the belt of my robe and started using me as a yo-yo, up and down the steps he pulled me over and over again.

George, baby, said I, I'm no lightweight. Keep doing that and you'll give yourself a brain haemorrhage, mate.

There endeth the dream.

I woke with many, many questions:

Why, when my sleeping mind could have worked on something wonderful like inventing a new penicillin, solving world hunger or achieving world peace, did it choose to dream so futilely about George Clooney instead? I mean, how come Martin Luther King got to dream grandly about equality for all men and I got George Clooney (no offence, George.)
Why was I naked?
Why were my legs unshaved?
What was my robe doing in George Clooney's house? Does it mean my former mother-in-law was there before me?

I don't know. I really don't know.

Thought Of The Day: People

2011-10-18T15:57:00.002+11:00

There's two kinds of people in this world: those who think there's two kinds of people in this world, and those who beg to differ.

Spring Babies

2011-10-04T23:01:00.024+11:00

Man oh man. Turns out baby ducks are as belligerent as swans when you're trying to take a
shot of them.

Get them in focus and they'll turn their fluffy little backs and swim away from you as fast as they can.

Fortunately, I was faster.

Hand me the triple sec, baby. Heh heh heh heh.
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Out Of The Closet

2011-10-03T18:17:00.005+11:00

I've decided life's too short to hide your spices in a cupboard, even if that does make them last longer. They're far too pretty. Maybe that means I'll never get a gig on Master Chef, and maybe I don't care. I like my spices where I can see them.

Swans: Flipping The Bird

2011-08-29T19:30:00.071+10:00

Last week at Lakes Entrance I discovered that swans make for thoroughly belligerent photographic subjects. They'll swan around in front of you quite happily, looking ever so pretty and graceful ~ picture perfect, in fact ~ for hours, but the moment you produce a camera they'll go all celebrity-on-crack staggering out of a nightclub confronted by the paparazzi ape shit on you. The sight of a camera is to swans what the word "gun" is to the US President's CIA protection detail. Actually, I think swans probably move faster.

Frank! Frank! Someone's trying to take your photo mate! Turn `round quick and swim out of shot! Heh heh heh that'll stuff `em.

There she is again! Quick Frank ~ stick your head under water, mate!

And come up again with snot running from your nose to stuff up the shot! Who's a pretty boy, now, hey? Ha ha ha, you're a bloody riot, Frank!

The only reason this guy stayed put was because he was on a nest. Where he built it ~ just feet from the esplanade with all of its pedestrian and dog traffic, made no sense to me, but apparently it did to him. You can see by the dark sand behind him how close the water came to his nest when the tide came in. It seemed dangerously close to me, and the local seagulls agreed one evening when an easterly wind blew up and the sky threatened one hell of a storm. Dozens of them surrounded this poor guy, apparently as convinced as I was that the nest was about to be inundated and he would be forced to abandon it. I had no idea seagulls behaved like that (unless around chips). It was quite distressing to see them menacing poor Mister Swan. He stood his ground, extending his neck and opening his beak at any and every seagull that breached the perimeter. I stood there helplessly, wishing there was something I could do. In the end, as darkness fell, the impending storm drove me away and I had to hustle it up the road back to my motel. The next morning I went back, my heart in my throat. It looked to me that the nest had been abandoned, but because of my less than stellar eyesight, I couldn't decide quite what I was seeing. Heartbroken, I looked on, becoming more and more convinced that I was looking at a piece of driftwood the tide had landed on top of Mister Swan's nest. But next thing he uncurled his neck from where he had his head tucked, and even half-blind me could see I was looking at a live swan! I was one happy camper, until the next time I tried to take a photo of another swan, and then I remembered what petulant shits they are.

This guy just went nuts at me, flipping me the bird and carrying on. I wasn't anywhere near him; I was using the zoom, so I don't know what he was on about. Maybe he knew something I didn't about why he wouldn't want his photo taken right then; maybe some swan equivalent of Britney Spears being caught without knickers on.

By contrast, these birds were spectacularly co-operative, so, thus heartened, I went back to trying to get a decent shot of a swan.

Yep. Beautifully focussed. Beautifully framed. Then the guy stuck his head out of shot.

And again.

By now, if I'd had a gun, I would have used it.

That's it son ~ we'll turn our backs and you dribble snot from your nose, just like daddy taught you.

Everyone moon her! Let's see how keen she is on a photo of our feathered arses.

This was a beautiful scene of a swan family all together, until I lifted my camera, then they went their separate ways, just to spoil the shot. I heard them talking about it.

And again. On the fourth day, I went on a river cruise to Metung. The skipper announced that we should look out for swans with their cygnets. If we wanted to take a photo, he would stop the boat. Yeah, right, good luck with that, thought I grumpily. Sure enough, near a river bank, we encountered two swans paddling about in the dappled sunlight with eight fluffy babies, so young they weren't black like their parents yet, but were still yellow and downy. Ooohing and aahing all but me raced over to take photos, crying, oh how cute! Oh how gorgeous! I knew the truth: the moment I raised my camera the parents would eat their own babies rather than let me get a decent photo. The bastards.

Day five. I have given up. My camera is locked away in my suitcase which I have with me, having checked out of my motel. I forgo breakfast to spend as much time as I can sitting on a bench by the riverbank before my bus comes. There I am thinking my own thoughts when this guy wanders out of the water, and for no apparent reason, across the little sandbank right in front of me, where the day before I had scattered my father's ashes. Bastard, thought I. Both you know and I know what'll happen the minute I go for that camera in my suitcase. But I go for it anyway, find I have forgotten to secure the locks. In a heartbeat I hold my camera in my hands, the low battery light flashing. Mister Swan stands perfectly still until I take his photo, then he waddles off the sandbank and paddles away.

R.I.P. John William Bennett ~ also known as Dad ~ that place in my heart where a smile used to be.
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New Advice Column from Clever Pumpkin

2011-08-17T16:58:00.007+10:00

Due to popular demand, Clever Pumpkin is launching a new advice column, covering everything from personal dilemmas to household advice. Our first letter comes from Rebecca South, of Toorak, Victoria.

Dear Clever Pumpkin,

Lately my husband's eye has begun to stray. Whenever we're out, I catch him looking at other women, usually much younger and more attractive than me. I'm planning on rekindling his interest with an overhaul – Botox, laser treatment, boob lift, vaginoplasty, collagen lip injections, anal bleaching, liposuction – the lot. I'll be launching the new me with a romantic dinner at home. I've already bought the racy lingerie, candles, etc. Now all that remains is to cook him a special meal. What would you recommend?

Something small calibre with a bloody big silencer. Why would you go to the effort of cooking for the bastard when it's easier to pop him? Hey, here's an idea: if you shoot him straight through that wandering eye of his, he might just get the message. And geez, you live in Toorak so if you bump him off it seems to me you have everything to gain and nothing to lose – and, as an added bonus, you won't have to wash the dishes afterward. A word of warning though, in the event you decide against hitting him yourself: DO NOT be tempted to hire a hit man from the pub – they invariably turn out to be undercover policemen. At least, that's always been my experience. Oh and I almost forgot: eucalyptus oil is a wonderful stain remover. It takes out just about any damned thing.

Dear Clever Pumpkin,

There's a mouldy smell in my bathroom which I can't seem to get rid of. I've tried everything – Jif, eucalyptus oil, bicarbonate of soda. How can I get rid of it?

~ Anonymous, Toorak.

In my experience there's only one thing for that: get rid of the body in the bath.

Dear Clever Pumpkin,

What's the correct etiquette for disposing of a large volume of organic material?

~ Anonymous, Toorak.

I– is that you Rebecca? Look, you've pretty much answered your own question. As you say, the material is organic, so really, there's no right or wrong way to go about. As it will break down quickly, you can toss it into landfill with a clear conscience, although technically I suppose it should go in the green waste bin. If, for obvious reasons, you'd prefer not to pop hi– ah, it in the bin, there is of course the option of your own backyard, provided you're not fussy about council permits, which I would very much recommend against, in the circumstances. Any way you choose, you can proceed with a clear environmental conscience. If yours was a particularly bilious bastard, I'd recommend against planting him under the tomatoes, as he may make them unpalatably acidic. On the up side though, you could use him to influence the colour of your hydrangeas.

Okay, now, Susan, stop buggering around and get back to editing Grace.

Italian Special

2011-07-30T18:47:00.002+10:00

Click here for my Italian Special Recipe

This is one of those incredibly simple, incredibly good recipes. Don't be fooled by its simplicity; try it once and you'll be hooked. Its 'proper' name is Italian Beef Noodle Bake, but in my family we always called it Italian Special. I've been eating this since I was a kid, so it's officially an antique. Last night when I was making it, I got to thinking about how things have changed. The first time my mother made chicken cacciatore, she had a devil of a time finding a supermarket that stocked canned tomatoes. Back then, the more a recipe claimed to be Genuine Chinese Style Chicken or Authentic Chinese Style, the more likely it was to call for something like Vegemite. And spice equalled salt. Want more genuine? Add more salt. Want more authentic? Yep. More salt.

Twenty odd years ago I was put on an elimination diet for allergies which called for pure olive oil. I couldn't find it anywhere. The supermarket had olive oil blends, but nothing pure. It was only through a Greek friend of the family whose cousin had a market stall that I got it, and even then my Greek friend (who was not known to be tight with money) brought the smallest bottle home because it was just so expensive. Not knowing what I was doing, I tried to use it to make chips, deep frying sweet potato (I wasn't allowed to have potato) which promptly disintegrated. I wasted my precious cache of olive oil and went hungry.

And back then, my family would sometimes refer to this dish as Itai Special. Yep, things change all right, and we can be grateful for that, even if one has to get old in the process.

For more recipes go to the Clever Pumpkin website.
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This Country Life: Unrequited Lizard Love

2011-07-27T18:31:00.005+10:00

It started with a bath. More accurately, it started in the bath.

Bleary of eye and sleepy of head, I wandered into the bathroom early one morning to undertake some secret women's business when the periphery of my unfocussed eyeball perceived a dark out-of-place shape in the white enamel bath. There was a lizard in my bath. So, being a card-carrying, died-in-the-wool, rusty-razor-blade toting feminist, naturally I shrieked and ran away. Mr. Lizard did the lizard equivalent of shrieking and running away by sticking out his tongue and disappearing down the plug hole.

That pretty much set the pattern for the next three weeks. He'd come out at night, disappear down the plug hole whenever I came into the bathroom (and every time I shrieked.) After three weeks, during which I couldn't take a bath or clean the bath for fear of drowning the little bugger, it became apparent that the problem refused to be resolved by my shrieking. Action, I admitted to myself with a sliding stomach, would have to be taken.

Now, there are many things I miss about my former partner. His loving heart. His voice. The laugh lines around his grey-blue eyes. His sensitivity. His gentleness. But what I missed most around about now was his lizard-booting-out abilities; that he could pick a lizard up completely fearless of it dropping its tail.

Such is the price of relationship break down: light globes, rubbish bins and lizards have to be tackled by oneself.

I resolved to take action, and take action I did. I spent the next week talking to Mr. Lizard, (who obligingly stayed above ground to listen), asking him how he saw the situation being resolved. He stuck his tongue out but nothing else happened. After a week of reasoning with him, Mr. Lizard was still living in my bath.

I began to worry that Mr. Lizard might not be able to get out of bath on his own. I thought he had lost a little weight, that he was starting to show signs of wear. He looked to me to be a little pale.

There was only one thing for it: Dutch courage. So after a couple of glasses of bravery one Saturday night, I headed into the bathroom, mightily resolved, bucket in hand. Mr. Lizard was in the bath. I threw a plug in the hole and encouraged him into the bucket. Pleading with him not to drop his tail, I took him out the back door and released him into the wilds of my potted pineapple sage, lemon thyme and mint, wherein I had seen a spider that looked good enough to eat.

Problem solved. Or so methinks. I realised I couldn't water my herbs for fear of drowning the little bugger.

A few days later I sighted a dark out-of-place shape on the carpet. (My eyesight is less than stellar.) A familiar face emerged before my squinting eyes. Oh for the love of... yep, Mr. Lizard. Okay. The front and back doors to my house are directly opposite each other. I opened them both and starting lizard herding. Mr. Lizard got to the hall, looked at the open front door, looked at the open back door, and headed for the spare bedroom instead. Okay. I got the brush and shovel and convinced him to jump on board. Out the back door we went again. He didn't want to get into the pineapple sage, so I left the brush and shovel on the verandah. A little while later I walked past the back door, saw that he was off it. The minute he saw me he dived under the pot plant to hide. Okay. All's well and good methinks. I go back to my desk to work and five minutes later my city-girl eyes open wide, and how. There is something distinctly reptilian feeling on my naked foot. Yep. It's Mr. Lizard. I shriek: he runs. I go and get the brush and shovel, but oh no, not this time, he turns his back on me, refusing point blank to co-operate. The lizard foot has come down. I begin to wonder if lizards imprint on people, think that maybe all those nights of talking to him in the bathroom may have led to lizard love. I say to him, Look, this can't work out. We're just too different. He disappears into a crack in the skirting board. Right. So now I have to inspect the floor around me for fear of running over him every time I push my chair back.

After two weeks, when I hadn't seen him, I concluded he must have decided to head back outside on his own. I was wrong.

I was bringing in the shopping through the back door when Mr. Lizard emerged from the house, in full daylight, in plain view, suddenly completely unafraid to be seen. He marched through the back door and across the verandah - frankly, I had never seen a lizard so huffy - and disappeared into a board at the side of the house.

Great, methinks. Now I can go back to rolling my chair back without fear of squashing him.

Next Saturday I sight an out-of-place dark shape outside my study door. This time it's unfamiliar. I can make out a long tail. And frantic up and down movement. Oh my God. I decide I've probably run over a mouse with the clothes airer, that what I'm seeing is a half squashed mouse in its death throes, its poor little heart beating frantically through fear and distress, making its crushed chest rise and fall rapidly. (To explain my eyesight, the first time I saw a duck in the park here in Warragul, I thought it was a snake. That lets you know how good my sight is.) I put on my glasses. Nope. All I can see is the movement and the long tail. Maybe if I ignore whatever the hell it is, it might just go away. No. I can't do that. What if I have squashed a mouse? I can't just leave the poor little thing there to die an agonising death. I'll have to put it out of its misery. I take a mighty deep breath. Am I capable of such a thing? I feel sick. Oh I feel so very sick. And what if it's a snake? I can't just ignore that and hope it'll go away. Okay. There's only one thing for it. I'm going to have to get close enough to see what this thing is. Willing my glasses to magically amp up their magnification x 100, I edge closer, closer, staring at the long tail, closer and closer until I can finally see what it is: Mr. Lizard has brought a girl home to have sex in front of me. Apparently he wanted to show me what I was missing out on by rejecting him, and now he has brought a girl home and is doing the wild lizard rumpy pumpy right outside my study door.

I blink, midly affronted, and begrudgingly observe that the little bloke has stamina. He has a lot of stamina. In fact, I have to admit, he's already lasted longer than some of the bastards I've known. And so there he is madly doing the wild thing, going at it hammer and tongs out in the open for me to see, a shameless exhibitionist until he finishes and then he and she crawl into a crack in the skirting board, presumably to smoke a cigarette, poking their heads out every few minutes only to pull them in again Oh no! She's seen us! like they weren't just going at it hammer and tongs before my very eyes five minutes ago.

And that would be the last time I saw Mr. Lizard. He brought a girl home to have sex in front of me, then I never saw him again.

Book Cover: Trial Of The Romance Novelist

2011-07-06T17:37:00.001+10:00

I've been messing around trying to create a cover for my upcoming book, Trial Of The Romance Novelist. I can't decide which image to use. Comments and suggestions would be most welcome.

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Celebrity Chefs: A Coup de Wank

2011-06-29T18:08:00.006+10:00

You gotta hand it to celebrity chefs. They're absolutely passionate about fresh food until someone offers them a bucketload of cash. Then they'll sell their mother down the river and scramble over her bloated corpse in their haste to get their hands on the dough.

This week's miraculous conversion from suffering-for-my-art-food-is-my-life to oh-processed-food-is-delightful goes to Marco Pierre White, who is trying to flog us commercially prepared, packaged stock. Judging by the ad, dear Marco's message seems to be that packet stock is good enough for home cooks.

Marco, I wouldn't use packet stock for an enema, much less in my cooking.

If it's so natural, how come it stinks like a chemical factory?

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Insert Scathing Headline Here

2011-05-28T13:34:00.004+10:00

Why is it exactly that the likes of A Current Affair and Today Tonight insist on describing businesswomen as "mums" while describing businessmen according to their worth? ie "Mum Janine Allis" as opposed to "Billionaire James Packer"? Why not "Dad James Packer today announced a million dollar profit?" It wouldn't be tolerated.

And on that subject, why precisely does every story on breast cancer aired on commercial news stations feature a picture of a woman's naked breast? We are not *treated* to pictures of men's testes during stories on testicular cancer. Surely sexualising breast cancer, that most dread of diseases, is a violation like no other.

There may come a time when referring to a woman as a well-rounded individual will mean something other than her body shape, but we're not there yet.

Thought Of The Day – Celebrity Chefs: Chewy

2011-05-08T17:52:00.002+10:00

Calling it a "campaign", celebrity chefs – with much ado, pretension and melodrama – manage to make a meal out of what our mothers calmy, quietly and without fuss simply cooked and called "dinner".

Tontine: The New Eco Facism

2011-04-30T19:53:00.005+10:00

Okay, there we all were minding our own business when someone from Corporate `R We decided the world doesn't have enough to worry about, between earthquakes, floods and everything else, and that we should all be made to feel bad about our pillows.

Tontine's latest ad claims that after a couple of years, your pillow has an entire ecosystem all of its own, feeding on your skin cells and… multiplying! I have to admit, I felt an omnipotent rush at the news, a la Lisa Simpson, I thought, My God! I've created life. I had visions of the little bits of me, happily living their own life, catching up with each other on the way to work, wearing little hats and carrying tiny lunch pails.

Frank.

Joe.

How they hanging, mate?

Yeah, not bad, not bad at all mate. Ecosystem's getting a bit crowded.

Maaate. There you go with that xenophobia again, mate.

I don't appreciate being called racist, mate, particularly not by a bloke wearing a dress.

I told you, mate, it's my right to freedom of expression, mate.

Since when is cross-dressing a religion, mate?

I wonder if all dandruff is as political as mine. Anyway, apparently that's not the reaction we're supposed to have to this news, if the expressions of the people in the ad are anything to go by, who are, one and all, horrified. The one that gets me most is the elderly couple. Cup of tea half way to her lips, the lady freezes at hearing this ecosystem news from the television and turns to cast a meaningfully horrified look at her husband. Right. Let's get this straight. These are people who have a spent a lifetime sticking their tongues down each others' throats and exchanging bodily fluids on a regular basis. I mean, someone has to be sleeping in the wet spot, don't they? But they're supposedly horrified that their pillow has a life of its own, feeding on their skin cells and… multiplying!

Me, I'm just happy that someone's getting laid.

Then there's the radio ad: Did you know that eighty-five per cent of all pillows have stains from… age and sweat!

Only if you're really really boring, otherwise, they've got stains a whole lot more interesting than that.

But according to Tontine, we should be throwing these pillows, all covered with exactly the same thing our heads are covered with, out. I've got visions of the destruction, the heartache of my little mates as they hit the landfill, with chaos and smoke erupting all over the pillow ecosystem, and that music they always play in the movies post-conflict, while the camera pans over the bodies on the battlefield.

Frank!

Joe!

I can't believe… (breaking down) I can't believe she'd do this to us, mate!

Me neither! I mean, (great heaving sob) I mean… oh our own mother! Our own mother has done this to us! As though we're nothing, nothing at all to her!

Now why would I do that, Tontine, you great big nasty eco-facist thug? Whatever's living on my pillow has its own cares and worries, its own hopes and dreams, family and friends it holds dear. If it wants to toss another skin cell on the barbie, then live and let live, I say.

But there's a serious point here. At least I hope there is. Ah there it is. It has become a very popular tool of the advertising trade to rely on making people feel bad to spur them into the desired action. The charities, or at least the ad agencies they employ, have used that tactic for way too long, and I say in doing so they contribute to the very problem they're trying to solve. To propound such an inherently cynical belief of the human race – that people will not act out of generosity, empathy or compassion, but only if made to feel bad – is to abuse the very good nature we rely on to care. The advertising agencies who employ that tactic have a lot to answer for, the impact of which reaches far beyond pillow turnover. For life to be worthwhile, we have to have faith in each other, faith that we care about one another, faith in our goodwill and willingness to help victims of earthquakes, floods, poverty, or whatever else life throws our way. The ad men aren't doing anyone any favours by damaging that faith.

As far as Tontine is concerned, that they have resorted to health scare-mongering says to me they don't have a lot of faith in their product. So if they don't, why should I?

I did buy a new pillow. A locally made, wool filled pillow; one that's not going to make me feel bad about myself, and I haven't slept this well in years.

Thanks, Tontine.

Thought Of The Day: Justin Bieber

2011-04-29T18:39:00.002+10:00

Tomorrow's "Where Are They Now?" in progress.

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Thought Of The Day

2011-04-28T11:22:00.001+10:00

The problem with the human race is that it's not an organization you can resign from.
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Photo Shoot with Rebecca Van Dyk

2011-04-19T20:07:00.020+10:00

Here's a few favourites from my recent photo shoot with the inimical Rebecca Van Dyk. Bec's website can be found at http://www.vandykimages.com.au/. It's my great pleasure to recommend her.

This wonderful silk vest was designed by the immensely talented Dianne Hoft. You can find her unique works at http://www.diannehoft.com.au/.

Thought Of The Day: The Meaning Of Life

2011-04-15T13:54:00.000+10:00

Empty calories.

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E=mc2 Around The House

2011-04-09T17:34:00.004+10:00

The extent to which a cleaning product will streak is directly proportionate to the number of times the label says 'streak-free'.

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James Packer's Lolly Bag

2011-03-29T15:43:00.147+11:00

James Packer's Lolly Bag

James Packer, this bag of lollies could be yours – if you’ll let me give you a cooking lesson.

We'd like to see the man who’s made a fortune from the Women’s Weekly cookbooks step into a kitchen and try his hand at cooking.

As an act of good faith, to show you I’m serious and that I appreciate your time is valuable, I'm offering you a bag of lollies in return. I’m posting photos of your promised lolly bag here so you can see for yourself that it really exists.

In turn, I’m asking for your word that if something happens in the kitchen, like if you burn your finger, that ten armed bodyguards won’t appear out of nowhere and blow my head off. I’m sort of presuming a friendly towel flick to your rump will be pretty much out of the question – at least if I want to live.

This lolly bag, James – yours for the taking. Just one cooking lesson, and it can be yours.

Rear view of James Packer's Lolly Bag

James Packer's Lolly Bag in situ. The large orbs at the front are as a result of product settling and should in no way be seen as a metaphor.

James Packer's Lolly Bag in profile

Close up of James Packer's Lolly Bag

James Packer's Lolly Bag in a romantic mood, with candles

Another shameless promotional photo, again with no metaphor intended.

Top Secret Security Facility where James Packer's Lolly Bag is kept under lock and key

James Packer's Lolly Bag under lock and key

Cleverly disguised as a fridge, this safe holding James Packer's Lolly Bag features high tech security - if anyone touches it I'll throw an iPad at their head.

Decoy lolly bag to be sacrificed in event of kidnap attempt on James Packer's Lolly Bag. Careful observers will note this lolly bag includes a sherbert bomb and redskin where the genuine James Packer Lolly Bag does not.

Armed security guard ingeniously concealed in stage trap, wearing pineapple sage as hat.

James Packer's Lolly Bag caught spying on me in the shower

Immediately following the incident

An introspective moment

James Packer's Lolly Bag finishes reading The Second Sex

All is forgiven: Watching New Tricks

Who is this woman? And why is she wearing my glasses?

An unfortunate incident with a competitor: James Packer's Lolly Bag attacks a Murdoch cookbook

The incident as captured by the papparazi

James Packer's Lolly Bag on a conference call - apologizing to Rupert

Stand-off: James Packer's Lolly Bag and I disagree during a marketing meeting. Later, I would be taken aside by an armed bodyguard and cautioned as to the imprudence of pointing my finger at James Packer's Lolly Bag.

And yes, I really am serious about that cooking lesson. I promise to be gentle with you.

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Cyclones & Floods – A Religious Epiphany

2011-03-21T17:42:00.001+11:00

God must have something against bananas.