The Recipient - Update No. 2: Revision 6.

After a while, it becomes apparent how treacherous revising and editing can be for an author. Looking at the same words on the same page in the same document over and over again can lead one towards losing perspective. The words blur into one another - as does the plot, the characters and their motivations - and you can't look at the document objectively anymore. And yet, as I've said before, this is the one part of the writing process that I profess to enjoying the most.

Draft 5 of The Recipient - the draft that went into my publisher - was returned to me a little over a fortnight ago, and I was excited (I know, right!) to see digital "sticky notes" plastered all over it from my Vancouver based publisher, Central Avenue. In short, while there was a lot of work to do on the manuscript structurally, the core story was sound and the characters were well cast. 

Over a couple of video conferences, Michelle and I discussed the notes, numerous minor tweaks to the manuscript and a couple of more significant ones and in the course of those discussions, she really helped to defragment my objective software and reboot my system. The subsequent round of revisions - which I've dubbed Revision 6 - allowed me to approach the manuscript with fresh eyes.

image credit alittlepieceofeverything.

So often, we write in isolation, without anyone to bounce ideas off. The first stage of my edits involving my beta readers was a great first step in getting a feel from a set of readers who came to the story cold. Their individual suggestions and comments helped me to refine the story, address glaring plot holes and gauge their reaction. But it was only the first step in the journey. Before long, I found myself back in the place where I was struggling with my objectivity. The process I am in now with my publisher Michelle has been my savior. With Michelle's astute eye for both the technical and literary aspects of story telling, I am in a space that is much more focused and I am relishing it. 

Late last week, Revision 6 went in for review by Michelle and the editing team. I feel confident that the story is pretty much perfect. Now, the polishing process begins. We'll go line by line, ensuring that we've eliminated any and all grammatical errors and we'll review the document after that to make sure that there isn't anything else to add or subtract. 

We've also begun to discuss the cover art for the novel. While these discussions are at their very early stages, we've already hit upon some ideas that really excite us. The eventual design will help guide the marketing effort we plan for the book.

So there is a lot happening, even if it doesn't seem like a lot is happening.

Stay tuned. 

DFA.

Hammering A Nail Into The Setting - Conversations With Molly Ringle.

Through my association with Central Avenue Publishing, I have had the opportunity to meet and befriend a number of really talented people - both staff who work behind the scenes and bring our books to gorgeous life in the world and fellow authors who are resplendent with talent and and great stories to tell. One of those colleagues who I have really enjoyed working along side (as well as with) is Molly Ringle, the Seattle based author of the titles "The Ghost Downstairs", "What Scotland Taught Me" and "Relatively Honest". 

Molly has been one of the wisest people I've encountered and also one of the most hilarious and I have to admit here to having a significant amount of affection for her. Not only does she write truly wonderful stories, Molly is about the only person I know who loves the soundtrack to the early nineties movie "Singles" as much as I do. More recently, I discovered that she is a huge fan of Dead Can Dance, a group whose principal member, Lisa Gerrard, I have met personally on a couple of occasions. For those of you who are scratching your heads right now (*who the heck is Lisa Gerrard???*), think the "Gladiator" soundtrack - specifically the track "Now We Are Free" upon which Lisa Gerrard's voice can be heard.

Molly has racked up two decades worth of writing smarts and several best selling titles and she divides her time between her family, her writing and blogging where she's become renowned at the art of 'reworking' such classics as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter into hilarious parodies. Molly was also a critical sounding board for me on my new novel "Gifts of the Peramangk" and she really helped me shape the story into the final product. Over several months I was sending her the disparate parts of the whole to her and she would review them and get back to me with the most amazing advice and suggestions. Her help was a diamond. 

Today, I've invited Molly along to discuss the importance of setting in writing and how critical the element is in crafting a good and convincing story.

I started by asking Molly about how she learned about the importance of setting as a cornerstone to writing.

Ah, setting. I love setting almost as much as if it were one of the characters. And in a good novel it nearly is. What would Les Miserables be without the magnificence and squalor of Paris? What would the Harry Potter series be without smoggy London and the mystical Hogwarts castle grounds, complete with Whomping Willow and Shrieking Shack?

In my own novels I've learned the hard way that I must use a setting I can connect with, one that has its own form of beauty. Pathetic but true story: while living in the dull, flat, boring Sacramento Valley for grad school, I tried writing a novel that was set there. The whole novel failed; it lacked emotional connection throughout. There may be many reasons for this, but I blame the fact that I hated the setting. (I plan to rewrite that story someday, moving it several miles east to the much prettier Sierra Nevada foothills. Maybe that'll work.)

A setting can be fairly small. In my novel The Ghost Downstairs, nearly the whole book takes place within one house in Seattle. But it's a large, old, elegant, haunted house, so it gave me a lot of room (or rather, rooms) to explore. In What Scotland Taught Me, the setting encompasses the whole city of Edinburgh and, briefly, other cities and villages in the UK as my protagonist travels through them by train.

The genius of Molly's story telling is through her remarkable skill of describing setting - almost as a character in and of itself. She explains that this skill has been informed in part through her passion for travel. 

I'm a serious Anglophile--or rather, entire-British-Isles-o-phile--and I spent a few months in Edinburgh myself on a work-abroad program in my youth. I was smitten with it. The city is beautiful, with medieval architecture and gardens and a gigantic castle on a crag right in the middle of town; but it also has a brutal and fascinating history of murders, witch-burnings, plagues, and other harrowing deaths. So naturally I had to include a ghost-hunter among my characters, and freak her out by sending her to some of the world's most notoriously scary cemeteries. Viewing the city through the eyes of newcomers--American work-abroad kids, like I used to be--turned out to be a handy way to showcase Scotland's attractions.

Where travel was not readily available to Molly, she resorted to more creative and research based methods for building setting and layering it into her work.

I went the other direction for my novel Relatively Honest: I had a London lad move to Oregon (which is where I grew up) for university, and undergo his own bit of culture shock. Since I have plenty of love for London too, I did take the opportunity to use it as a setting for some chapters of Relatively Honest. Thousand-year-old Westminster Abbey, in the summer rain, at night--how could I resist that as a romantic setting?

For both Relatively Honest and What Scotland Taught Me, I was writing from way over here in Seattle, and couldn't (alas) take the time and expense to visit the UK and verify my facts about Edinburgh, London, and stops in between. Google Maps and Street View are fabulous tools (and fabulous distractions) for checking details, but even those websites have their limits. Therefore, not wishing to get anything wrong, I sent my manuscripts to British friends and got myself a proper Britpicking--dialect, setting details, and all. Any remaining mistakes, as I say in the acknowledgements, are my own fault.

In crafting setting and populating her resultant worlds with her pivotal characters Molly sums up her passion for this aspect of the craft by contrasting the reading experience with travel it self.

Novels are a form of escape, and in that sense they're a kind of mini-travel. I hope through reading my novels, you get to see, smell, hear, taste, and feel some of the settings I've loved.

Connect with Molly Ringle here.

Tweet with Molly here. 

Facebook Molly here.

Purchase Molly's books here.

DFA.

Secrets of the Peramangk - Cover Art Revealed.

During the planning stages for the cover art for "Gifts of the Peramangk", I had a vision of what I wanted for the cover and, uncannily, my publisher had a very similar vision - that was, we both saw an image of a violin being held in an embrace by two delicate arms representing the dual protagonists of Virginia Crammond and her granddaughter Ruby Delfey.

Cover design is perhaps the most important aspect of the writing process for me after the actual writing itself and I firmly believe that nailing a good cover is important to the success of the project. They say that one should never judge a book by it's cover but I personally don't buy that maxim. Without a well thought out and eye catching cover design, your book might sink before it gets the opportunity to swim.

I had wanted to achieve this image by returning to the skills of my good friend and Hambledown photographer, Melissa Alexander, and we talked about the possibility of photographing a young Aboriginal girl whom Melissa knew. Unfortunately, time constraints and the eventual unavailability of the girl meant we had to abandon the idea but the vision remained. 

So I turned to the web and spent, literally, hours scouring the various stock photography websites looking for an appropriate image that the art department at Central Avenue Publishing could use. But, I just wasn't finding anything that came close to what I wanted. There were some close calls and I short listed about a dozen images of both girls and women holding the violin - but none of them really had the requisite passion that I envisioned. Stock photography is a curious beast. Depending upon what you're after, it can either be a feast or a famine...and in this case, it was definitely a famine. 

Weeks rolled by and I agonized over the images I had available to me. I grew increasingly dissatisfied with them and of course, I ended up abandoning my entire short list completely. Late one night, while everyone was asleep, I tossed and turned in bed ruminating over my dilemma and eventually I got up. I tip-toed down to my study and flipped on the laptop and in the darkness, I began a bleary eyed Google search at 2 in the morning.

I was just searching for the most random things surrounding the violin and still, I wasn't coming up with anything. Frustrated and sleep deprived, I got to the point where I gritted my teeth and typed angrily into the keyboard 

"Show me a picture of a woman holding a violin!!!"

The result began as a predictable miasma of unrelated images and close but no cigar images. 

But then...

About half way down the page, my eyes focused upon this image...

I blinked right away and clicked through to bring up the bigger version...

Right away, I knew there was something special about this image. The hands and the violin, the embrace that I was looking for...it was all there in this wonderful moment. 

Clicking through to the source page for the image, I discovered I was looking at celebrated violinist Anne Akiko-Meyers.

Anne Akiko-Meyers is an American concert violinist. Meyers has toured and collaborated with a number of symphony orchestras, Il Divo, Chris Botti, and Wynton Marsalis. Meyers tours with a 1730 Stradivarius violin called the "Royal Spanish". She is also the owner of a 1697 Stradivarius called the "Molitor", which is purported to have been owned by Napoleon Bonaparte. She purchased the 'Molitor' from Tarisio Auctions on October 14, 2010 for US$3,600,000, the highest recorded auction price for any musical instrument in history  until the Lady Blunt was sold on June 20, 2011. Meyers was featured on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann on October 26, 2010.

From the profile information on Anne, I discovered the photographer for this image was Lisa-Marie Mazzucco. Based in New York, Lisa has become renowned as the photographer of choice for many musicians and artists and has amassed a catalogue of well over 100 album covers to her name. Born in Canada, Mazzucco originally trained as a classical ballet dancer and figure skated competitively before transitioning into photography. She has traveled widely as a make up artist, collaborating with her husband, Raphael Mazzucco, himself a photographer and they work together frequently on various projects. 

So, bleary eyed at 2 in the morning, I grabbed as much information as I could on both Meyers and Mazzucco and quickly tapped of an email to my publisher, Michelle Halket, up in Vancouver. This was the image I wanted to use. With a little re-touching, I was confident we could make this work. However the catch would be whether we could actually use the image. 

Michelle, as equally excited as I was, immediately went to work and got in touch with Lisa-Marie Mazzucco herself. After discussing our project with her, Lisa was both intrigued and a little excited by what I was doing. The only catch was putting the idea to Anne Akiko-Meyers herself. A week or two went by from there as we waited patiently to see if the celebrated artist would agree to our using the image for the cover. We were not to be disappointed. 

Michelle received word back from both Anne and Lisa that they would be thrilled to have the image used for the cover and they were excited to see what we would do. 

The image was then put into the hands of Central Avenue Publishing's art department who set about re-imagining the photo to mine and Michelle's wishes. We wanted the attention placed on the hands and arms embracing the violin - a representation of both Virginia Crammond-Delfey and her granddaughter Ruby. 

Obviously, this required a darkening of the skin tone to reflect the Aboriginal heritage of the two main protagonists as well as removing Akiko-Meyers face. In our discussions, Michelle and I agreed that the face wasn't a necessary image to have in the cover as the focus was less about the face of the character but rather, the character of the violin and how it influences both protagonists. 

Once we were satisfied with the final image, we talked about the text and how it should be portrayed. A classical look was sought for the font, something that would imply dignity and hint at the classical nature of the music that would feature in the novel. 

While this first iteration came very close to being the final, after a few days getting used to it, Michelle began to question whether the text was too dominating on the plate. It seemed to drown out the beautiful imagery we had achieved underneath. So we toned it down somewhat and reduced the size of both the font and my name in order to highlight the beauty of the image itself.

The addition of the patterning complimented the image after a suggestion by me that we should try and source some Peramangk iconography from actual Peramangk artwork. I made inquiries to see whether this would be possible and I came close to being able to secure some art but the costs involved in being able to use it were too prohibitive and ultimately I abandoned it. The patterning we adopted still hints at the indigenous character of the novel and works well in the final design. After sharing this iteration of the cover around among a circle of friends closely associated with the project, I received some feed back from good friend and author Nichole Chase, who suggested that we should dial up the prominence of my name. She said "You put yourself into this thing, don't be afraid to show it" - or something like that. After a little retooling, trying different coloring in the font for my name, we arrived at the final cover art for "Gifts of the Peramangk".

The essential ingredients of this final cover include the prominence of the image in portraying the dual protagonists of the story and their connections to their indigenous, Peramangk, heritage. It also gives prominence to my name and the title over the story without over powering the image and of course, the violin is easily recognizable as a "character". 

There is no denying that the cover art for a novel can have a powerful effect on a potential reader. In itself, it tells the story, hinting at what the reader can expect by delving into the heart of the literary journey contained within. Careful consideration must be given to cover design and it should be a collaborative effort with a group of people who are acquainted with your project and can contribute many ideas that can benefit. 

DFA. 

Gifts of the Peramangk - No Words, Just Pictures.

DFA.

Delving Into Destiny - Carlyle Labuschagne & The Broken Series.

I've been keen to feature South African native, Carlyle Labuschagne for a while now and, with the international release this past week, of her début novel in what is to become a three part cycle called "The Broken Series", I really wanted to help create a buzz around this exciting new talent.

Carlyle first came to my attention via author Lisette Brodey, who featured her at The Swansea Herald last month and I was immediately struck, not only by Carlyle's enthusiasm and drive, but also by the visual style that she incorporates into her writing. Carlyle shared some beautiful photographic examples, taken by her, which were resplendent with colour and life and I connected with the similar process that I have employed to imbue my own writing with a visual quality. I think that giving to the reader, something that will touch off intense visual cues readily, is an important skill that is a key quality in good writing.

So to Carlyle herself.  Born and raised in South Africa, Carlyle discovered her love of words early and describes writing a poem at aged 12 that was the catalyst for a life long commitment to writing. Through college, where she received a Diploma in Novel Writing and into adulthood, Carlyle continued to hone her craft, cognisant of her dream to develop a significant project that would allow her to achieve her dream of publishing.

That project, The Broken Series, has now come to fruition. Carlyle's first book "The Broken Destiny" was released internationally this month and both she and her novel - described as a rich, dystopian sci-fi fantasy - have been making a big impression. 

Ava is the great granddaughter of the founder of their kind: The Broken were genetically enhanced to survive evolution during the last years on earth, after which their experiments were abandoned and they moved to a distant star, Poseidon. Ava carries a secret journal that one belonged to her mother, which leads her to believe that her people are not what they seem. 

Ava has to decipher her mother's rantings in the journal, differentiating truth from madness to determine The Broken's true identities and origins. A few of The Broken will soon experience a "change," and each generation's change differs from the previous. (Ava's generation has been labelled the make it or break it generation.) Weeks before Ava's seventeenth birthday, an attempted kidnapping by Zulu warriors changes her destiny forever. Saved by a Minoan boy, she is taken back to his village where all the lies about her kind's existence (and how they came to be exiled to planet Poseidon) are brought to light. The Minoans are an ancient race that carries a secret tying in with Ava's prophesied destiny. Her destiny is to rise above the fall, to become what she hates to save them all.

"The Broken Destiny" is a richly constructed tale, brimming with detail and narrative that draws upon classic elements of fantasy, which Carlyle has skilfully re-imagined into her own signature brand. Her characters display a dynamism and voice that are accessible and visual. They are easy to invest in and one can really foster a relationship with them - which is important as the trilogy advances. Their individual arcs are established very well and they feed from the protagonist, Ava, effortlessly. Added to the characters are the cross currents of dystopian, fantasy and science fiction genres which Carlyle manages with a deft hand. Blurring the genre lines can be quite challenging and not always successful. It requires patience and balance. That Carlyle succeeds generously here, is testament to her skill as a word smith and stylist. 

The visual qualities of the narrative are inescapable here and it is to Carlyle herself that I refer via an informal email chat about her use of imagery, among other things, in her writing.

I use many tools to stimulate the creative process. My number one is of course music. Images are a necessity. One picture can spawn an entire novel on its own. A world lies within one moment captured in that image. 

My writing process centers and unfold around three things. One the book title or title chapter - I write around that and try to keep to the theme. Two the feel of the music kind of juices the mood of the scene out for me. Three and image - draws out the creativity and focus towards where I am going, what I am feeling, there are details in images, music and words that bring my writing to life in ways other things cant.

On it's own "The Broken Destiny" stands as a compelling piece of dystopian literature that carries quality, drama and adventure effortlessly across the pages. As the first instalment of the eventual three book cycle, it leaves the reader excited for more from this universe. It is a considerable achievement.

"The Broken Destiny" can be purchased right now from Amazon.

Readers can connect with Carlyle Labuschagne at her Official Site.

Carlyle's Facebook Portal can be clicked to here.  

DFA. 

Music The Peramangk Brought To Me.

Imagine...a young girl, born of poverty, of sorrow. Her life is one of struggle, of pain. She lives with little thought to tomorrow. Yet she smiles - for she has a gift. A special gift. And on a cold and wintry night, she will raise up her violin and look out from a stage and she will play this hymn. 

Will this gift set her free?

Close your eyes...

DFA.

Sketching "The Gift" - Part Four.

As I approach completion on the draft of my new novel "Gifts Of The Peramangk", I'm finding myself wielding my camera a lot more in an image gathering mission of sorts. It's designed to help me visualize certain scenes and settings in the novel and it brings me closer to the words I am penning on the page. Imagery forms a large conceptual part of the new novel - how imagery can fire the imagination to deliver a musical performance. 


Imagery is no less important in the performance of writing. 


The Orphanage, is where the final scenes of the young Virginia's journey plays out and it is a scene that hints at years of heartache after she is rejected from the Penschey farm. As it stands now, the scene is a small one but it carries a lot of weight in terms of the transitioning of the young Virginia and the old Virginia we follow as a grand mother to Ruby. Virginia is to spend 5 years in The Orphanage, after which she is released as a 21 year old to make her own way in life. As a young Aboriginal woman in 1964 Australia, the prospects for Virginia in a country that doesn't even recognize her as a human being, seem bleak. Added to this is the fact that she has been rendered crippled, which will only add to the difficulty of finding her way. Standing on the steps of the Orphanage, a single suitcase in her hand, Virginia fears for her future by confiding in a young nun who has returned to Virginia, the single most important possession she owns that was taken from her once she entered the Orphanage - her violin.


The actual Orphanage, here in Adelaide, no longer serves in the role that it was originally built for, but it stands as a monument to the many lives that passed through it's doors over a century. Built in the 1890's, the Orphanage was run by a Catholic Order of Nuns known as The Sisters Of Mercy, receiving countless children into their care from many varied backgrounds up until 1975.


Walking around the building as I did a couple of weeks ago, I reflected on the experiences of those children and, knowing some of what they experienced through my research, I found myself both moved and ashamed.

The buildings of The Orphanage definitely carry an aura about them. They are very tall, dark and carry with them a sense of foreboding, which is what I sought to translate into the novel. Standing before them, one feels very small. For a young child of 15 or 16, the effect of these buildings  would surely be frightening in the immediate term and depressing damaging in the longer term.

I updated elsewhere this past weekend that I have about four chapters left to write and I will have a completed draft manuscript. Once I have it bedded down, the editing process will begin. I've actually started the process already and have had some wonderful help from a couple of people whose advice has been exquisite.

In the meantime, I apologize in advance if posts become a little sporadic around here. My focus needs to be on the manuscript and getting the novel ready for release. But feel free to poke me if you need a little more DFA conversation.

DFA.

Sketching The Gift - Part Three.

Yesterday, I achieved a small-ish milestone when, having used Scrivener for about a month now, I was able to compile a huge mess of documents, disparate notes, random passages of text and completed Chapters into one entire, coherent document. The process took me the better part of about 6 hours but it was totally worth it.

I now have a manuscript comprising a total of 19 chapters, with some additional material that I hope to compile this week which will add another 3 completed chapters to the manuscript. I've set a target of 30 chapters for the final manuscript so, you can understand that I'm a little excited that the finish line on this phase of the project at least, is in view. 

Looking at the overall project in it's current state, I can identify a number of additions I need to make which aren't huge additions, but they will give additional flesh to both the characters and the story. And I've gotta say, Scrivener is one of the coolest tools I've ever used to put together a project. Even though my user level is pretty basic, I've been able to learn a great deal about the project and I'm able to see things much more clearly.

My output has increased exponentially over the past couple of weeks and I am certainly feeling a whole lot better than I was a month ago. 

Anyway, I couldn't resist taking a screen shot of where I am at. Apparently, having pictures on your blog is a good thing.

DFA.

Sketching "The Gift" - Part Two.

It's often the case that inspiration will come at you from out of no where.


As I continue to work on my latest writing project, I remain a "bower bird" - a collector of minutiae. It may be the most esoteric 'thing' - like a lollie wrapper or a flower from a particular place, a shard of an old house brick that has a certain smell. I collect these things because they fire off something in my imagination. Sometimes that "something" is completely unknown to me but I take and I add to my collection basket because I know that it will come in handy at some point. Sometimes, the 'thing' that I am looking for is a lot more obvious to me and it carries much more significance. When I do happen upon it, it opens the flood gates.


A couple of weekends ago, I helped my brother in law move some furniture to his new home just outside of a little town in South Australia's mid north called Orooroo. He's just been employed by a resources board up there working with water management and the environment and was able to rent a farm house on a sprawling thousand acres of grazing country - not quite the true outback of Australia, but pretty damned close to it. 


Anyway, he and I and my other brother in law convoyed it up there, with three cars and two trailers on a fairly balmy Saturday afternoon. The journey took around three and a half hours. Now, once you hit the outskirts of Adelaide's north, you pretty quickly enter into a rural heartland that is as far removed from the city as you can get. The architecture changes too, and at various points along the way, you pass farming country that is dotted with examples of stone construction from a seriously bygone era. Home steads, cottages, stables, sheds - all in various states of disrepair. Some of them are crumbling to the earth, while others standing silent in remarkably good condition. 


As I'm driving along, I'm thinking about the novel that I am writing and in particular, I'm thinking about the portion of the novel that takes place in the rural Australia of the 1950's. This is the farm where my young protagonist, Virginia Crammond is taken after having been forcibly removed from her mother by the Aborigines Protectorate Officers. I'm starting to see comparisons to the image I've built up in my head of the farm that features in the story but as I pass by these random places, nothing is jumping out at me that is particularly inspiring.


Then, after several hours, we arrive at the farm where my brother in law will be living and I am quite literally floored. There is a farm house there that stands derelict but still intact, old stone buildings and sheds that are in various states of disrepair. The surrounding country side is vast, barren and totally isolating but beautiful at the same time. 


This isn't just a farm. It is the farm. It is My farm. 


This is the place I have pictured in my mind's eye for so long and I could not believe that I was actually in this place, a place I have written so vividly about for so many months now. 


Suffice to say, I got my cell phone camera out and began snapping in earnest. 


Now, I know that these images will be a little difficult for you to get your mind around in terms of how they fit into the story. But they speak to a place that - in my story at least - is harsh, unforgiving and, for an 8 year old Aboriginal girl who has been removed from everything she knows and placed here, crushingly isolating. I should add a disclaimer here too and say that the setting for the farm as depicted in the novel is not actually specific to a particular place. The farm's location will remain ambiguous in the novel and be described only as being somewhere in the rural regions of South Australia. 


To give you an idea of the tone and the story of my new work, do check out my work in progress preview pieces here at my site.


It's a visual epiphany that has totally fired my imagination.


DFA.

It is at once a harsh and unforgiving landscape and yet incredibly beautiful.

The summer storm hung around for several hours and put on a magnificent show. 

This farmhouse, long since deserted is in surprisingly good shape and is now the focal point for many of the critical scenes in my new work "Gifts Of The Peramangk"

Close up of the stone construction employed in these beautiful buildings.

The old homestead that has now become "The Penschey Homestead" (Note - there is a beautiful old cast iron wood burning stove in the kitchen that I would give my left kidney for).

An old Bedford truck that I'd like to use in the novel - if I can confirm it's circa 1950's. (My brother in law is seeing if he can pop the hood).

Movement from the past.

A stone building that I have claimed as "Virginia's Outhouse". It's a rather cosy little dwelling inside, which at one time had power to it. (My brother in law Dan stands in the foreground).

"Gifts of the Peramangk" is Copyright © 2011 Dean Mayes & Hambledown Road Imprints. 

Gifts Of The Peramangk - WIP Preview No. 4.

I've entered 2012 with a substantial amount of work under my belt on my new project 'Gifts Of The Peramangk' and, though it is well advanced, it is far from complete. I wish I could give you a more definite time frame as to when it will be finished, but I am doing as best I can given the crazy life I have.

In this, my fourth  work in progress preview, I am introducing - for the first time - the character of Ruby Delfey, who is the modern day protagonist of second novel "Gifts Of The Peramangk" and the grand daughter of Virginia Crammond - who I've featured in my previous WIP previews. 

Ruby is an eight year old Aboriginal girl, who lives in abject poverty in Adelaide's Northern Suburbs with her grandmother, her Aunt and Uncle and their three children Jeremy, Asher and Minty. She lives under the cloud of domestic violence, crushing poverty and ingrained racism. But Ruby's gift - passed on to her from her grandmother Virginia - has just been discovered by an elderly but formidable Professor of music. He is not yet convinced of Ruby's prodigious talent but, in the following piece, he challenges her with a piece of music she has never encountered before. What follows is major turning point in the story that will bring two worlds together - the ramifications of which will either give Ruby the opportunity to shine or crush her gift forever.

This piece came to me almost by accident, when I was trying to come up with a new way of portraying music in a literary sense. It was difficult because, whereas before - in Hambledown - I'd developed a method of visualizing the music of the guitar and translating that onto the page. I have some familiarity with the instrument. The violin on the other hand, is a much different proposition entirely. I wasn't  as familiar with it's sound, the way it is meant to be played. So, I had to take a slightly different approach.

The result is an impassioned visual, which has a particular significance for one of the central characters - which will be borne out as the story progresses.

Again, this is raw, unpolished and probably grammatically incorrect. But this comes from my soul. I would love to get your feedback...

Reading the composition before her, Ruby began to hear their music in her mind. She saw within the notes on the page, a stark emotion underlying them - a darkness that unnerved her and intrigued her simultaneously. Her uncanny ability - that which had been drawn from her by her grandmother - switched on like a light bulb and she closed her eyes. She breathed softly.

Ruby positioned herself as Khalili had shown her just a few minutes before and she raised the violin to her chin.

She drew her bow across the strings as lightly as a feather, eliciting a long and plaintive note with just enough quiver on it to give it a satisfying vibrato. She knew she had attained the note perfectly. A familiar feeling, akin to a buzz, rippled in her temples and slowly she opened her eyes.

In her mind's eye, the darkness and the dank cold of a cramped bunk house coalesced, filled with the sad faces of people. They were huddled together for warmth around a pair of candles that were seated in the middle of the room. They were prisoners in the bunk house. A large and heavy steel door at one end of the building was fastened shut. In the flickering light that played upon their anguished features, Ruby could see them clearly. Their sunken eyes. Their prominent cheek bones. Their lips, chapped and cracked from the cold. Their faces pocked with sores. All of them - Men, women and children - coughed and spluttered under the weight of chronic illness. They wore tattered clothing over emaciated frames. Ruby played their circumstance upon her violin.

Creeping tendrils of fear weaved their way through the group as they sat on the earthen floor, each of them afraid to move, afraid to speak. Outside the brick walls of the bunk house, guttural sounds, inhuman sounds swirled all around, taunting them. The sounds of machinery, of belching smoke and fire melded with anguished human voices - voices that cried out in fear and pain. Ruby's violin traversed the huddle of people, translating these sounds with a chaotic progression of notes on the violin, signifying a chilling representation of dread. That sense of dread germinated in the pit of her stomach as she played which, in turn fed through her fingers onto the strings. The piece returned to those poor souls trapped in the bunk house and Ruby descended into ominous plucking of low notes. Something was happening that changed the dynamic of the piece. Ruby was heralding the arrival of a foreboding presence somewhere nearby - a presence that was coming.

Several in the group began crying, weeping; their tear filled eyes were filled with long suffering fear - as though they had been crying for all of their lives. Ruby played long, lingering high notes, suggestive of their grief, suggestive of their wearied panic before she plunged back down into the lower registers again as the unseen presence outside grew closer and more threatening. It amplified their fear, causing many of them to scramble backwards across the floor to the corner of the room that was farthest from the direction of presence.

The room was suddenly rocked by powerful explosion which seemed to strike just outside the bunk house. Like an earthquake, the explosion caused the entire bunk house to shake. The flickering light from the candle flame threatened to extinguish. The panic that surged through everyone was all consuming. They were paralysed where they sat or stood.

A second explosion, even louder and closer than the first struck with a deafening boom, causing the brick wall at one end of the bunk house to visibly move and shake. Mortar dust collapsed from the spaces between the brick work. The prisoners huddled closer. Ruby translated their terror with rapid, punctuated strokes of her bow across the violin's bridge.

And then, from the centre of the huddle, a lone figure stands. A child, a boy wearing a moth eaten woollen pull over and tattered shorts, steps forth and peers through the darkness towards the precarious brickwork. Men, women and children gasp in horror and desperately try to coax him back to the safety of the group, but he ignores them. Something has piqued his curiosity. He shuffles cautiously across the earthen floor on shoeless feet, that are hardened and calloused.

A third explosion rocks the bunk house with such force that the brick wall and part of the roof crumbles and collapses inward with a cacophony of noise and dust and iron. A gaping hole is revealed through which, the boy gazed up onto a night sky that was ablaze with fire.

A monstrous shadow falls across the gaping maw of the ruined building. It's form is suggestive of a beast like figure with huge hands and a powerful jaw, but there is no physical accompaniment to it. It exists - wraith-like in the darkness. Two great limbs plant their extremities upon the ragged edges of the hole and the presence glares down into the bunk house. The boy stands solitary, returning the glare of the presence with an innocent curiosity. He has no fear, despite the violence that rages all around.

And with that innocence, the boy reaches up with an outstretched hand towards the presence and he smiles warmly.

There is surprise. There is confusion. There is hesitation.

The presence reaches down into the ruined building and takes the boy's hand gently in it's own. All at once, the violence, the chaos and the terror fall away. The screams subside. The machinery throttles down to a low thrum. Ruby's own strokes slow as she holds several high notes with a delicate hand.

His hand still entwined in that of the presence's, the boy gingerly steps forward and over the pile of ruined bricks, lead by the shadow, out and away from the bunk house.

The boy turns back to his companions inside, as the burning sky begins to break overhead. The presence too, has dissipated with the violence and, with a warm glow of dawn playing across the boy's dirty face, he smiles, urging them to follow him.

Through the gap they file. Slowly. Hesitantly. None of them are sure of what to expect. But, as a dawning sun rises to meet them, they step out of the bunk house. Each and every one of the prisoners are touched by a comforting warmth that splashes across their faces. A light that has eluded them for what seems like a life time.

The concentration camp crumbles all around them. Buildings collapse inwards. Other gaunt, emaciated prisoners file out of similar structures.

The boy leads the way towards a brilliant green meadow, beyond a ruined barbed wire fence. Wild flowers bloom into life as the prisoners cross over from the coarse, grey stone of the prison to the soft, lush pasture of the field beyond.

Some fall to their knees in gratitude of the splendour to which they have been delivered. Others just stand, unsure of what to make of their circumstance now. But in time, they look around at each other and, slowly, they greet each other with beatific smiles.

In the centre of the meadow, stands the boy, free of the shackles that has been his bondage. His eyes meet those of an elderly woman who kneels on the ground nearby, unable to support her own frame. In that moment, her eyes are as vibrant and alive as his very own.

In that final moment, Ruby drew the bow away from the violin, allowing the last note to trail away. Then she lowered her instrument and gingerly looked up at Khalili. She was surprised to find him sitting there, his eyes redenned with evidence of tears having stained them.

Ruby shifted uncomfortably in her chair and fidgeted with her violin.

"W...was that okay?" she asked hesitantly.

Khalili nodded slowly and gestured silently to the auditorium behind Ruby.

Slowly, she turned to see a number of people who'd been watching her. They appeared visibly moved. Some of them, like Khalili himself, were wiping away tears.

DFA.

Gifts Of The Peramangk is copyright © 2011 Dean Mayes & Hambledown Road Imprints.

What Do I Do Now? The Darker Side of An Author

The art of writing...the joy of words...of putting them together...the satisfaction of typing the final page of a manuscript...the excitement of being publisher...the pride of holding the first copy of the book that you wrote in your hand...


It's all bullshit.


Wait. No. Scratch that...


It's only all bullshit when what comes afterwards turns to poo and sullies all those positive feelings that a writer and author should feel on the journey towards becoming a published author. 


When my novel was published in 2010 through the wonderful ireadiwrite Publishing house, I was - as you can imagine - understandably ecstatic. It was the culmination of a life long dream to become a published author and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity Michelle Halket and the team in Vancouver gave.


When it became apparent that my novel would be going into print, we discussed how we would get the book down to Australia and we were able to set up quite a good mechanism for achieving that. I set up my own distribution company, Hambledown Road Imprints, and I became the distribution executive for the Asia/Pacific region. 


This is just a fancy way of saying that I took up the responsibility of pounding the pavement, taking my book to book stores as far and as wide as I could to garner interest, form relationships and, ultimately, get the book on to the shelves. This is the ultimate prestige for an author - one that we spend most of our life dreaming of.  


But, make no mistake, this was hard work. 


I had to become a salesman, become articulate in-so-far as learning the language of the book trade as well as develop a professional 'persona' that would allow me to 'sell' my book. I had to become an astute business person in order to strike agreements and arrange promotional events. I also had to set up a business operation that would allow me to track stock, keep in touch with book stores who had agreed to take on my novel, prepare invoices and send them out as the sales reports came in. 


Initially, I enjoyed all this very much and I felt that I was making much of this new enterprise. I was, in my view, yielding success. 


Along the way, however, I began to encounter a darker side to the whole business of selling books. 


I would send invoices out to stores based on their sales reports back to me and ask for a 30 day turn around which, to my mind and my observations of business operations, seemed entirely appropriate. I'd set up reminders on my calendar in order to remind myself when invoices were due to be paid and I ticked them off one by one as transactions were completed. 


I recounted an experience last year in a previous blog post where a particular store I had struck an agreement with avoided paying an significant account after several friendly reminders, a couple of phone calls from myself and a visit in person to the store. They threw up all sorts of excuses to me as to why they hadn't paid the account on time and engaged in serial avoidance in order to delay the account even further. 


That experience degenerated into my having to threaten legal action, if the store did not pay the account within 7 days and I had to terminate my relationship with that store. That whole experience heralded my entry into the darker side. I lost a lot of sleep over it. It affected my relationships with my family and it soured all of those good feelings I described at the top of the page. 


I am now experiencing similar difficulties with two more stores who, as I write this, have not paid accounts I sent out to them in May this year. We are now at the end of July. Letters I've sent are not being responded to, emails I send go unanswered, phone calls I make are either blown off or given the "I'll get back to you on that" 


I don't understand how it is that these book stores - in fact any business - can operate like this. The two book stores are stores that I have previously held in high regard. I have visited them many times over the years and I've bought books from them. They have good reputations. I approached these book stores on that basis because they are stores I wanted to see my book in. 


They are fucking with me and I know they are fucking with me. 


There are certain mannerisms that you can pick up in phone conversations that scream obfuscation. Non committal answers to simple questions like - "When can I expect you to pay the account sir?", "Will you confirm you've received the account by telephone with me?"


My bullshit-ometer has turned way up to 10 now and my tolerance for these people is stretching to breaking point. It is also spoiling my pride in being a published author. 


But it is also making one other thing clear to me. 


Throughout this year, news services have run with stories of the collapse of big book stores like Borders both in America and Australia. This has been blamed in part on the rise of on line retailers like Amazon and the advent of the ebook. I think it has more to do with the failure of supposedly sound corporate entities and their shitful business practices. I know this from experience. I struggled for nearly a year to receive payment from the parent company of Borders Australia who again, sold a significant number of my novel from their shelves. As a lone Australian author and CEO of a start-up book distribution house, there was little hope of me extracting monies from them any sooner than I eventually did. Again, the experience left me frustrated and discouraged.


But it has also lead me to question the need for me to continue forming the kinds of bricks and mortar relationships with entities that are, from my vantage point, in trouble. If book stores enter into formal arrangements with authors that include signed documentary agreements and then they fail to live up to the spirit of those original agreements, then what the fuck am I doing with my time? I think my future as an author will ultimately be determined in a greater marketplace anyway - where the most important relationship will be that between the author and the reader directly. Frankly, the middleman sucks. 


There is no real moral to this story. I think I've given you an insight for you to determine your own moral here. 


I would just say that if you are in business, the one piece of advice I would impart to you as a fellow businessman...


Pay your fucking bills.

DFA.