Writer in Residence

Well this will be my last blog for insideadog and my last day in the US. Am off to Budapest Hungary for a couple of days. Just to give a bit of information about Budapest. The Danube runs through it. There are two parts of the city - Buda and Pest (I’m staying on the Buda side). It’s a couple of hours away from Austria. Its famous for its Spas. And it has castles, which I’m excited about. It takes 8 hours to fly from New York City to Budapest.

Today I finally got to meet Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfield (we house swapped). They introduced me to my first great coffee in New York City at a place called Ottos and we discussed what we had broken in each other’s homes.

Had a great experience blogging. It was a good way for my friends to keep updated on what I was doing over here. At times I was very lazy about correspondence and would just tell them to check out the website. Thanks to everyone who left a comment. It gave me a good sense of audience.

Melina Marchetta

Good luck to everyone returning to School (teachers and students). I won’t lie and say I miss it, but I do miss the energy and the bantering and just that excitement of beginnings.

At the moment I’m overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in a Spring Lake New Jersey. This morning I walked the two mile boardwalk listening to Alex Lloyd’s Green, Pete Murray’s Opportunity and some Bernard Fanning, Sarah Blasko and Missy Higgins. I’m being very disciplined and writing like the wind. On Tuesday I leave for Budapest and on Saturday I leave for London and then a week later I head home, hopefully almost with a complete script and a full synopsis for my next novel.

Have just discovered a fantasy writer, Sharon Shinn. Has anyone heard of her? Especially The Twelve Houses series.

I was reading the On the Jellicoe Road reviews posted on insideadog by readers. Indeed humbling and so thoughtful and the soundtrack suggestions made me laugh (especially Sexual Healing).

I will tell you very briefly what goes through the mind of a writer (well me anyway) when their novel is out there in the reading wilderness at the mercy of what other people think.

1. You want to be very cool and say that you love your novel and are very proud of it, and if your readers don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. First big lie. You want everyone to love it.
2. You tell everyone that a bad review doesn’t affect you because you know other people (your mum) loved the story. Second big lie. I received a really bad Jellicoe review and I spoke about the fact that I wasn’t going to speak about it for days and days (but it was a very very mean spirited review).
3. You tell a friend that it’s okay that they’ve never read any of your novels. Third big lie. When they’ve read that mumbo jumbo Ulysees and forced you to read Camus, then the least they can do is get the DVD out and pretend they’ve read one of your novels.

Usually a writer has spent anywhere between 18 months and 10 years writing their novel, so their readers rating it high means so much.

Beware of the mishmash below, there is no one dominant theme.

I have one week left in New York before I head off to the Jersey shore for a couple of days to do some very intense writing (and then off home via Budapest and London). The only good thing about leaving New York is that I think I would go broke here because of the shopping sales. Also, because it’s so cold, all I do is walk into every second shop to warm up. And then I see something I like. And then I tell myself that I really need it. And that I will never find it for that price at home. And the cycle of abuse on my funds continues.

I’m beginning to psych myself up about going home and these are the things I miss most about it.

1. Luca and Daniel Donovan (and obviously the rest of my family and friends but too many to list)

2. Jasper, my dog (dogs are proof that there is a God)

3. The weather Sydney was having a couple of weeks ago (Low 20s - I will stop the weather obsession soon)

4. Surry Hills

5. Good coffee (I know I’ve said it before, but if they’re the leaders of the Western World why haven’t they mastered the espresso?)

I will miss the food here, especially the eggs at Cafe Orlin, anything at Thailand Cafe on Second Avenue and this fantastic chocolate peanut butter cake at Cafe Atlas.

PS. For those interested, I watched an episode of the third season of Veronica Mars the other night. Her hair’s getting very long and Logan has got that dreadful colour out of his hair and looks gorgeous.

I’ve decided that despite telling people I cope well in cold weather, -7 degrees (without snow to soften the blow) is indeed a killer and coming home to the apartment in the afternoon is like the biggest treat in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m turning into my grandfather who was obsessed with watching and listening to weather programs. I have both the Sydney and New York weather for the next four days on my Homepage and I’m frightened that this will become an obsession to replace the one I had when I was renovating, carrying a measuring tape in my bag to measure every fridge or cupboard I came across (there’s also the one where I convert everything into Australian dollars regardless of whether I want to buy it or not).

Back to books and writing. I’ve spoken a bit about YA novels I’ve read over here. I was given a few more the other day. One big recommendation was Bad Kitty which is next on my reading list.

In Sydney, before I left, I tried to read as many Australian YA novels as I could during my term off so below I’ve listed my favourites, but not in any particular order and not for the reasons next to them.

1. Maria Boyd’s Will (she’s also a good friend and Will is such a wonderful character).

2. Margo Lanagan’s Red Spikes (What can I say that hasn’t already been said except I’m jealous, I’m jealous, I’m jealous).

3. Justine Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness (I’m looking after her place here and she’s looking after mine and she mentions Newtown and the East Village and I feel as if I know both areas well).

4. Lisa Shanahan’s My Big Birkett (she’s the aunt of two of my most beloved ex students, one being Max who has a dedication in On the Jellicoe Road).

5. Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does My Head Look Big in This (if you saw Randa on SBS’s Insight you’d want her running the country).

6. Simmone Howell’s Notes from The Teenage Underground (very cool. Made me feel very uncool because I didn’t do anything cutting edge at school).

7. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief which technically I didn’t read in Sydney or New York because I read it on the plane, but I have to include it because there are lines in that novel that just take my breath away.

Am currently reading Garth Nix’s Lirael. It’s my riding-on-the-subway book and sometimes I take the local train rather than the express just so I can read more. When I grow up I want to write a fantasty.

I’m currently working on the script of On the Jellicoe Road. I’m not sure where it’s going to go from here, but getting a solid first draft completed will be the focus of my year. I think it’s important for a scriptwriter to stamp their vision onto the story before it goes to producers, directors and actors. So far I’m happy at the pace I’m working and am just a bit over the first act. It’s strange because you have to get to know your characters again and tell their story in visuals rather than first person narrative (trying very hard not to rely on voice over).

I’m constantly asked what the main difference is between writing a script and a novel. Personally, I think novels are more indulgent. You get away with a whole lot more. You can send your characters away on a road trip (Josie and Michael Andretti’s trip to Adelaide) whereas in a film script you have to be aware of budget and the expense involved in certain scenes. In a novel you can explain what’s going on in someone’s head whereas in a script you have to show it. In a film script you can’t write “Josie sits in a classroom wishing that Sister Louise would stop speaking” because the first question you will be asked by a reader of a script is “How will the audience know what Josie’s thinking?”. So scripts are all about showing. When I wrote Alibrandi I was asked constantly by producers and script assessors why I had included a particular scene. There seemed to have to be more than one reason to include it. Was it giving more of an insight into the character? Was it pushing the story further on rather than repeating something we already know?

Regardless, I’m enjoying it, especially telling the story of the kids in the past.

A road trip to Washington DC on a Greyhound bus was a highlight this week, coming out of New York City, approaching the New Jersey Turnpike, the world hazy from rain, feeling very melancholy, listening to Augie March’s One Crowded Hour. At times it feels as if you are part of a movie or a song and there’s a soundtrack playing in the back of your head. I think it’s because we’ve seen these places in movies so many times and heard references to them in half the song lyrics we’ve listened to. The soundtrack in your head does trigger off such sad and beautiful and funny moments and when you have four and a half hours assigned to thinking and listening to music, it’s kind of therapeutic but emotionally draining at the same time.

So what do you do in Washington DC in two half days?

• Go to the White House and talk to the woman across the road who has protested outside since 1981 against Nuclear Disarmament. Ben remembered her from one of the Mike Moore films. She refers to her dog as her colleague.

• Go to Arlington Cemetary. Very sad to see funeral cars come in with young faces at the window knowing they were probably burying a family member killed in Iraq.

• Visit the Vietnam Memorial where there are some 60,000 names of American soldiers who died. Along the bottom they had flyers with photographs and facts of those who had died 39 years ago this weekend and most of them were aged 21. Some were 18 and they looked so much like my Year 12 boys.

• Go see The Lincoln Memorial, very much modeled on the Partheon in Athens with its columns. I had to go because Josh in The West Wing had a melt down in front of the statue in one of the episodes. (I went through a slight West Wing obsession a while ago so I was probably more interested in finding points of reference from the show than looking out for George W)

When I work out the technology I will respond properly to comments and post photographs.

My top ten experiences so far in New York in no particular order.

• Any walk through Central Park
• The Cloisters in Washington Heights
• Watching F Murray Abraham recite Shylock’s “What is a Jew” speech from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
• Going to the Rufus and Martha Wainwright’s Xmas Show
• Annie Leibovitz photographic exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
• Wearing coats and boots
• Papaya Dogs (yes Jessie, I have had a pretzel and a hotdog and your friend was wrong because the hotdogs are great)
• Being a size 8 (in Sydney I’m a size 12 and it has nothing to do with weight loss but different sizes).
• Hearing statements like the following when you’re sitting in a cafe writing: “Like people must think I was like on crack this morning when I chose this shirt”.
• And definately reading Nick and Norah, Rachel. I had lunch with David and told him how I felt about what you both did with this novel. I just loved it. Was told about Veselkas before I got here. I loved the scene where they both end up there in the wee hours of the morning so imagine my joy when I discovered it was two short blocks away from where I’m staying.

With regards to advise about writing, Jessie, when I was writing “Francesca” in my head I knew what I was wanting to write, but it didn’t seem to work on paper and then I realized that the story in my head was in a completely different tense to the one I was using. Sometimes, for me, it’s all about changing it from third person to first, or past to present and all of a sudden it comes to life for you.

Also, it’s a cliche, but write what you know and that doesn’t mean that you have to write about your life. It’s about knowing what it’s like to be someone’s daughter or someone’s girlfriend and the emotions and tensions that come with that and being able to place them anywhere because your reader will think, I’ve been there. I’ve felt that. Looking For Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road are not stories of my life but I’ve felt what those characters have felt.

Thank you for your feedback about “Jellicoe”, Melissa. It was a hard novel to write because I knew it would be different to “Alibrandi” and “Francesca” and that people would be a bit unforgiving about the differences. It’s like when you go to a concert of your favourite band or singer and they won’t play all the old stuff because they want to focus on the new and you go home disappointed. But for me, it was important that I wasn’t disappointed and I do feel strongly about this novel so I love it when a reader feels the same. It will be published in the US next year and already there is discussion about changes. Some of the suggestions for the title are: The Prayer Tree, Taylor’s War, I Surrender, Remember Love, In the Aftermath. A bit of a worry, but we’ll see how it pans out.Allison, just a bit more about New York City. The way to survive it is to know how to count because most of the streets are numbers, (Corner of 5th Avenue and 67th Street West). Down in the East Village we’re close to New York University, Soho, Grenwich Village and the downtown area (Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, Ground Zero). The closest borough is Brooklyn. Up on the other side of town is Central Park (5th Avenue and 59th to 110 Streets). The closest borough there is the Bronx.

Hope you’re enjoying New York, Patrick. I’m not sure where I would set the book here because the location for me is unique to two NSW rivers. A friend took me to the Riverina and Upper Lachlan area in March 2005 for which I am so grateful because it was there that the story found its soul, so I can’t imagine transporting it to another country or place.

It’s 3.15am in NYC (6.15pm the next day in Sydney) and I can hear traffic, creaking floorboards, a clock ticking,an argument on the street and the rattle of the heating system. I like the soundtrack quality of it all.

Happy New Year to all. This will be a very New York City blog as I am currently staying in the East Village in what I have decided is my all time favourite city in the world.

Thus far, these have been the highlights

* During my jetlag (wide awake at 3 in the morning for at least a week) reading the novel, Nick and Norah by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn (sorry if I spelt names wrong)

* During the same jetlag reading The Thief, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia (in love with the King and Queen)

* During the same jetlag watching Season 1 and 2 of Veronica Mars (fantastic characterisation and dialogue)

Favourite place so far:

* Grand Central Station

* Washington Square Park

* Any subway station with live music

* Walking for hours almost everyday and not getting bored because every street has some kind of fantastic building or personality.

* The smell of roasted nuts and hotdogs and kebabs as you’re walking for hours.

Least favourite thing about New York City:

* I love everything, except the coffee

Based on the fact that I have no idea if this blog has been saved I may just stop here.