Writer in Residence

Hi there everyone.

I’m Mo Johnson and I’m your April Fool.

Oh I hear you thinking, you’re just saying that, but I can assure you if there is a foot to be stuck in a mouth I’ll be the one hopping around on one leg.

In a second I will give you a vintage Johnson ‘Custard Pie’ story.

The Custard Pie theory was given to me many years ago by my mate, Brian. It basically means that just when you think the world is going your way and you are feeling very smug about it, someone will hit you on the face with a custard pie and spoil everything. Usually that someone is yourself. It happens to me all the time.

Anyway, here’s one such incident that happened a several years back:

Does anyone do that still or am I just being very dorky and showing my age? We used to tweek each other on the arm and give each other a tap and say the above every time it came around to the 1^st of each month. There weren’t Gameboys ^[TM] back then so we had to do something to pass the time…

In the comments of the post entitled Here I am… (or Technology 2 / DM 0) Joanna made an interesting observation “…The map reminds me somehow of my part of the world – Victoria. Look, there’s Cape Otway, hey there’s Wilson’s Prom and even Croajingalong. Just coinkidenk?”
Well she would actually be right, in a kind of a way. I grew up in South Australia and had dear dear friends who moved to Melbourne when I was still small. This became an occasion for my family and I to make many holiday journeys over to “Melly” – or “Malbun”, as the locals seem to call it, to my South Aussie ears anyway…;) Such journeys were always a mystery explored, the dream of the mystic east entered and experienced; rich childhood memories redolent with all kinds of wondrous mystic emotion. It is these very feelings, this child’s perception of the possibility of adventure and my association of all these sensations with the south eastern coast of Australia that powerfully motivates me. To locate my old, mystic dream – evolved and discovered now I am older, in the Half-Continent and MBT – in lands that have the appearance and pointings of the compass so much like the “South-East” is natural to me. Such a place in reality was once the source of strong imaginings, and translating these to something fictional, where the threats and adventures I felt could surely be possible can actually happen is the very energy at the core of my desire to start the Half-Continent and to continue it.
So in answer to your observation, Joanna, it is no “coinkidenk” at all. Though I have not necessarily simply transposed such places as Cape Otway (such a beautiful spot!) one for one, the ‘vibe’ of such locations and the feel of the shape of the landscape are very much there. What I mean is I did not sit down with a map of the southeast of Oz and trace it out, but knowing from here (Adelaide) to there (Melbourne) so well the shape of the Gottlands just came out naturally. So that part of the Half-Continent is a bit like the south-east of South Oz and Victoria but with more steep cliffy places, many many more pine trees and old cities of stone with high walls built upon steep and craggy sites… and of course with lots and lots of monsters.
You could say that some parts of the Half-Continent are a kind of weird Anglo-European dreaming of Australia, a confusion of the native and the introduced, a tension of gum trees growing next to pines, sheoaks alongside plane trees, sparrows and magpies sitting on the same branches, foxes and possums, tennis played in the scrub – the blend of an Australian suburban childhood. I have to confess to not being over fond of ‘Australiana’ but I was still born here, raised here, live here, its still in my blood, my soul, my expression – just not in the typical way.
An excellent observation, Joanna. Thank you.

I meant to write much earlier than this (ack!)

I have been talking once more with my publisher upon the dread topic of editing and have maintained my enthusiasm about the possible (and necessary) improvements and cuts – all the massaging, the re-writing required to make worth the read. In the editing of Book 1 I was astounded how much the removal of a sentence (or paragraph or page), the addition of a word or a line of dialogue, the revisiting of an idea that occurred at the front of the story again at the end – all this – could make for such a better story, tighter, more compelling. People who have read the un-edited 1^st draft and the actual finished book will tell you that it is the same story just “smoother”, “better”. That is what a good editor can do for a text – point you in the right direction and leave it up to you to make the new ideas work (or not…)

So after all the angst of earlier posts, here I am on the flip side, all excitement and eagerness. It that old creative rollercoaster. Still the actual labours of rewriting Book 2 have yet to begin – tears shall flow again, perchance. I’ll keep you posted…

In the meantime I have begun the illustrations for another Fantastica series for Omnibus & Scholastic, where I get to do 4 full-colour covers and about 50-odd b&w drawings, and it has actually felt like a holiday. It has been a goodly while since I have just illustrated without it being attached to my writing and, as much as I like writing, the hiatus is very welcome. A chance to “recharge” perhaps. Along with this I have completed a painting – a long overdue wedding gift for my cousins up in Brisvegas (read: Brisbane). It has been a delight (!) to get back into painting after such a lengthy break – nice to know I have not forgotten how to push a brush about a canvas..

I am sometimes torn as to whether I am more a painter or writer. Once I would have said the former without hesitation, but now I am not so sure: drawing certainly comes a little easier than writing, though I look forward to what I hope will be an increasing facility with words. Writing is new and exciting, hard and stretching, drawing is familiar and relaxing, still hard but comfortable too. I just might be both at once. *shrug*

On a genuinely personal note: my father’s birthday has just been and gone, a birthday (with party included) of particular numerical significance; though in respect I shall not declare his newly achieved age. I might, however, just say that if I look as good as he at his age I’ll be a happy chappy. Happy N^th Birthday, Dad! (I am glad to have inherited his genes…)

Thank you to Master Lethcoe for continuing support, look forward to a continuing correspondence beyond Inside A Dog (please refer comments to prev. post). Once again, thanks to you Laura for encouragements.

Finally … a down side of the weekend has been that I have not done so well in the listen first/speak second department: more like lots of mouth flapping and little ear usage. Ah well, there is always tomorrow and another chance to get it right – working new and better habits is not always as straightforward as I would like. ‘They’ say it takes 6 weeks to form a habit – I think the idea of breaking an old habit is not so much to resist it but to form a better one in its place. Hmm, more pithiness … how did I get on to this anyway..?

As the sub-title of this entry might indicate, my computer is still a giver-of-much-grief and this message gets to you via a jury-rig. Regardless, work must go on!

After an excellent pow-wow with my publisher last Friday (her name being Dyan Blacklock – said like “Ian” but with a ‘d’ on the front) my attitude to editing and the necessary changes to the text has improved greatly. What a fickle fellow am I – now I am excited by the changes, the new directions and most of all by the way all these will “tighten up” the story and bring a much better result to you all who persist with me long enough to read it. All of this work will be delaying Book 2’s release I am so so sorry to say, but better quality late than mediocrity early (“quality” and “mediocrity” are of course, relative terms…)

Thank you to those who commented, love has been felt, spirits lifted. It sure would be nice to make a perfect book, Swelly, impossible as that is; yet I wonder if it isn’t the idiosyncrasies – things that for some are mistakes and for others pure gold – that actually make for lasting appeal. It seems in the history of literature it is those books who tread well the line between oddity and accessibility. I’m glad you liked Book 1 Laura, my absolute pleasure – I truly hope the wait for Lamplighter is worth the wait (that certainly is my intention.) Thank you Stella and Mister Lethcoe for you well-wishes and prayer for my friend – divine intervention is most certainly required. My friend has improved some but it is very dicey at the moment. Pray on. I am glad too Mister Lethcoe that you enjoyed MBT – is it just me or is your own work now a film?

In the end I have to say that editors are a boon, no matter how hard their input can be to hear at first. Of course, I knew this already. The process of Book 1 was well worth the reworking and the bruised ego; and though there is a whole lot to be done on Book 2 this too will be worth it… though ask me again how I’m feeling in a couple of weeks.

And I finish now with something very pertinent to me from the last 4 or 5 days (and very pithy too): ignorance turns to fear all too easily – I’ve got to listen more before I speak, and know more before I act. Hmm, stay tuned to see if I can learn to live by this…

Well it must first be said that the comments appending my last dour post were thoroughly encouraging. Thank you each one for a “leg-up” and a reality check: to Joanna - I hope you like the “darn book”; Swelly - bless you, ma’am, perhaps I should send you an advance copy for criticism? Yes? No?; to Barry - I’m right there with you brother-in-words, thanks for the call to duty; & Damien - I hope you enjoy the ride, the baring of the creative process might not be that spectacular after all. We shall see …

As to the editing - let us just say that the brain tumour rebelliously festering in the skull of my friend from church is the best reality check of all. True perspective is a powerful thing - it suddenly turns out I am not the centre of the cosmos. Whoddathunkit? Yes it is “ferusteratin’” to have someone editing your book suggest things that I seriously disagree with and reworking is very much like tearing a new whole in your soul, but given my friend and his head, it is a slight thing indeed.

And even if my friend was well - which we surely hope he shall be - the reminder from Barry of the duty to “get it right” was excellently salutary. I so want to get MBT 2 right, oh! but the labours involved to do so – such a tall mountain to climb. I look at the manuscript I have to go through now, that ream of printout paper, and terror sits in my gut – my milt as they would say in the Half-Continent. What if the story is junk? What if I hate it and discover so much that is wrong? I don’t have time to totally redo it! Ah, the secrets thought: perhaps it should remain that way, quietly ignored, as I make a show of aspiring to greater things.

… and then perhaps I should just get on with it, yes? The journey of a thousand steps and all that…

Having computer “issues” at the moment, which makes blogging a difficult undertaking, but alternative methods have been found. I am not sure how frank I can be here, but quite frankly I am feeling an anxious ache in my sternum at the moment and about how much work will be needed to edit the new book into a readable shape. Preliminary noises from editors, whilst powerfully constructive, is none-the-less painful - as only constructive criticism can be: that smarting sense of “Ah…I didn’t get it right the first time!”. Since I have started in this honest manner I shall go on to admit that I find reworking things very hard, and since it is confession time, I freely admit too that I am a very poor speller. There, the secret is out.

As to editing, I have only done it once before, and more than anything I actually love how much the whole process improves and tightens a saggy baggy waffly first draft. Oh, would it not be great to do things perfectly first time! That has only happened to me once (a perfect burp back last century sometime: 10/10 for volume, 10/10 for length, 10/10 for resonance - no need to rework that one!) Other than that it’s the terror of the blank page and the risk of getting it wrong every day. I deeply dig it when people enjoy and enthuse over a picture I have drawn (an upside of being an author/illustrator I must admit) but what people don’t often see is the duds: those mistakes, wrong directions and just plain bad drawing. All that is usually on display is my best work, the result of a lot of errors and corrections. Perhaps one day I should have an exhibition of the drawings and half-drawings that never made it – not sure many people would turn up for that.

This all probably sounds rather bleak. You would not think I had won an Aurealis Award recently would you. I will snap out of it soon, honest – it’s the funk I get into when editing. I do however have a wife who loves me, and friends too, and a publisher who believes in the work, so chin up, young fella…

…may be there should be rules limiting blogging on a bad day.

I encountered a very pleasant thing this morning: bright and early a fine old fellow from Australia Post delivered a package. It is always a Christmas-like delight to receive a mystery box in the mail. In this one I found two copies of Bolinda’s audio book of Monster Blood Tattoo and also a copy of the German edition of MBT, all bound in printed cloth like the ANZ version and looking fine. With wonder and delight I read how the German publishers, Hanser, changed the names of things to fit their language, “Vieracker” = Fouracres, Der Missratene Kluge = “The Misbegotten Schrewd”; indeed, even translated to maps (!) calling Proud Sulking “Schmollen Stolz” – which incidentally is its Gottish name in the Half-Continent. (And if none of this means anything to you, I apologise.)

As for the rest of today, other than paying rent, I have the Explicarium of Book 2 (called Lamplighter) to work on with only a week left to go. Today I shall count the entries I have left to do and divide by 7 to give me a daily work target. Ahhh, self-motivation can be a tricksy thing sometimes. On occasions writing can be like having homework – ever-present, urgent, pressing; other times it is like the best job I have ever had and I feel like I am home.
… and I would just like to thank Jools for her enthusiasm for MBT – I agree, it does start a little slowly: we agonised over those first couple of chapters for the entire duration of writing and editing Book 1. They were the very first chapters I had ever written for a book and the early ones that never made it to print where what is commonly term “a bit of a dogs breakfast”. I do however think it is necessary to take a little time to develop the sense of place and setting, to dwell a little in the details (like Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette). How succesful I have been at this I am not sure…
And to Laura, I very much appreciate your complimentary terms. Cheers!
All-in-all, that package and a bit of a blog are a very fine way to start the day, I reckon.

This is a quick post from DM Cornish to say hello to all those who pass through here. I am looking forward to being the next Writer in Residence - I hope I do okay stomping about in the big boots left by those before me.