Giving it away

I am now officially enrolled in a beginners drawing class. The shopping list just arrived in the mail, with lovely things on it like "willow charcoal" and "putty rubber".  I barely know what they are, to be honest, but they sound nice. The confirmation e-mail is very reassuring in stating that you don't have to know what you are doing. That's good, because it would be embarassing to be expelled from a course that is only five days long.

So, further to my previous about soul-selling, in the absence of a buyer for my artistic soul, I have just decided to go and give it away. Fans of Adam Smith out there may well conclude that this is a perfectly demonstrates the demand curve in action. Hence, I have started another blog. Well, less of a blog really than an on-line drawing diary. I don't actually expect anyone to look at it, but I probably will, occasionally, and you are welcome to if you would like. Its listed at the blog-list side thingy on the left here.

Its mostly so I can track what happens next. Having started at the absolute bottom with no knowledge or experience whatsoever, the improvement curve is still feeling steep, which feels good.  This is in stark contrast to the whole Writing Thing, where the law of diminishing returns has cut in to a truly alarming degree. Drawing, I have no expectations whatsoever of producing anything of any value at all (again, unlike The Writing Thing) so its absolutely impossible for me to be disappointed by the outcome. I don't even care whether or not its original, so I can draw little pictures of Batman to my hearts content, if I like. So there.

More importantly, as my recent personal history has demonstrated, sooner or later all one's belongings end up in a mini-skip far away, so cyberspace seems a pretty good place to stow them. And you don't have to pay excess baggage.

P.S. Adam Smith is, by the by, another of Scotland's many contributions to the world. 

Hackpacker's End of Melbourne Writer's Festival

I think this means I have lost the duel: Hackpacker's already outnumbering me on the blog front. Muskets at the ready for his latest cross-post from the Melbourne Writer's Festival.... As well as a beguiling name, Wells Tower has one of those author photos that promise much. It has the look of someone who is either hurt or about to throw a punch. His Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned is a blistering collection of short stories where you want to hear precisely what inflection the author puts on every word. His Friday free session was packed with folks who couldn't get one of the limited places in his Sunday workshop and although he spoke quietly he didn't disappoint. He was most interesting on his writing method citing the internet as 'lethal to writing and reading', because of its distracting power. He described his ideal writing day as working on creative fiction first thing in the morning when he was fresh, then giving the afternoon over to journalism then in the evening working on his screenwriting which he reckons comes easy to him. Sleep wasn't part of the equation. He emphaised the importance of revision by talking about the need the 'grad school' wisdom that that you begin thinking revision "is like cleaning up after the party, but you learn that revision is the party". Except for Wells there is no party. His hard work ethic and dazzling writing made me put a small note over my desk: WWWD (What would Wells do?) to stop me from goofing off on the web instead of writing. On Sunday there was a late (but free) addition to the program in the form of a chat with US editors hastily named "Are you a writer interested in submitting work to American magazines?". It just so happened I was, so I found myself in an audience of 50-odd other "interested" folks. Jessa Crispin characterised her Bookslut as for intelligent people "who won't be adjusting their monocle or putting on a faux British accent" while reading. She was intersted in writers with enthusiam and sincerity to write about books. McSweeney's publisher Eli Horowitz and The Believer editor Heidi Julavits talked enthusiastically about their publications. They found it difficult to characterise the kinds of writing they were after (Eli was influenced by some crocodile jerky he'd just been given and said he'd accept anything to do with crocodiles right now), but welcomed submissions. The Believer has 'a pathetically long lead time' of six months which means timely articles require a lot of organisation. Julavits pointed to the themed issues (around art, music and film) as good targets for publication and talked about her bias against the first person pronoun especially when the author intervenes in the story needlessly. A useful side point for publishers was that both areas had a good base of subscribers (Eli estimated that McSweeney's Quarterly had "about 8,000 subscribers" and "around 5,000" sales through bookstores). It means they know they're going to sell enough to pay the printer so they can swerve clear of advertising and can concentrate on content. As the festival rolls up its banner for another year, it's exciting to think of next year's fest with new director Steve Grimwade at the helm.

Melbourne Writer's Festival: Future of the Book

Today we are most honoured to be joined by Hackpacker, who sends us this missive fresh from the Melbourne Book Festival, as part of our duelling blogs series. Thursday the MWF got all digital. There were sessions dedicated to marketing in the info age and showing off the latest e-readers. I got along to three sessions but the whole day proved too much of a test of stamina and battery life. The opening was called the State of Digital Publishing. Victoria Nash and Elizabeth Weiss grappled with the huge subject from the publisher point of view. They were concerned about the rise of the $9.99 e-book and how it had pushed them into what Elizabeth refererred to as "Get all out books out there and have them competing" mentality. Victoria mentioned piracy and how they saw it as "protecting our authors' copyright and obviously our revenues". It all looked very industry-focussed and I felt like the author was out of the picture. Thirty minutes in Bob Stein got a word in about the future. He pointed out that more than a million books are available on public domain and that the book industry was facing the same challenges that video and music had online. He characterised it as seeing the book as something unique that allowed it "a free pass - I actually think it's going to be worse". It wasn't all grim as cloud computing would change the way we read and Bob pointed to newer shorter forms of writing that would thrive in this environment. Get your flash fiction ready now. The marketing session was interesting - apparently it's all about community and SEO. But no-one really had a good way to monetise community. Lonely Planet pointed to blogsherpa (sharing traffic with bloggers rather than pays them) and their new groups. While Brett Osmond pointed to sucesses they'd had like a Where the Wild Things Are Facebook page which offered fans (more than 40,000 of them last look) of the book new content. I couldn't help but thinking that a major movie might have pushed up the fan numbers a tad. The AirBourne project Random House conducted looked amazing with 28 chapters contributed by users and the whole manuscript bookended by thriller writer James Patterson. But again it was called "a marketing exercise" rather than a big moneyspinner. Thank god for Liner Notes' Thriller edition which ended the day on a high. Nick Earls mashed up Beat It with Masterchef while managing to sidestep Weird Al Yankovic's Eat It. But Melbourne's own shone out with Emily Zoey Baker doing a Jeff Goldblum impersonation, Sean M Whelan working his poetic alchemy on "Ma ma se mama sa ma ma coo sa" until the phrase had a new meaning and Ben Pobje told us how long lost twins getting it on was all part of Human Nature. A fitting tribute to the King of Pop that brought tears to the eye.

The Saturation Point of Bells

I probably owe you an explanation. But you're not going to get one.


There are some blog names that are so self-evidently right that not an iota of explanation is necessary. Take Hackpacker, for example. Now there you have a name that is neat and taut and witty and completely fit for purpose. I have but mentioned the word and off you go positively tingling with a soon-to-be-fulfilled expectation of the pleasures you will find when you mosey on by (which you should, by the way).


Alas, I can offer nothing so deftly apt.


At this moment, though, I would like to tell you that the storm clouds are getting angry behind the bridge and turning the harbour a shiny electric grey, boding well for a spectacular sunset. The sun still shines, though, making the little row of pink, purple, white and red spinnakers that are sailing past my borrowed window glow like birthday balloons.


It is beatiful here, and you gotta love a desk that requires sunglasses.