Fact-checking
Mix & Mash
For those of you who live in New Zealand, there is a great competition being run by Digital NZ. It’s called ‘Mix & Mash’, and it’s all about taking digital content (stories, photos, video, info) and splicing it together, making something new out of it. My comic, ‘The Novel Beast’ is available to remix, as is the wonderful Dylan Horrocks’ comic, ‘Siso’. We are in the literature section, along with some of my favourite writers, including Helen Lehndorf, Lynn Jenner, Pip Adam and Emily Perkins. There is lots of cash to be won!
And in other news, my apple blog is winding up, but I have a post today that might interest some of my booky-readers, about what Gogol ate.
Green dollar
I won a Modest Mouse ticket off Simon Sweetman’s fantastic music blog by promising to draw him a comic. I have never met Simon Sweetman. I barely know what he looks like, although I did find a few pictures on the internet. So read on…
Oh, and here’s that Float On song if you want to jump around your computer or make a mosh pit in your living room.
Unsolicited advice
This is why I hate shows like ‘Super nanny’ – it gives people the impression that wrangling 2-year-olds is easy if only you set ‘clear boundaries’ and ‘take charge’. The 2-year-olds in question are an abstract notion; the judgers probably haven’t had to deal with them in a long time and don’t remember how relentlessly goblin-like they are. Yesterday, my two-year-old threw tantrums all the way home, then, when I put her down for a nap, she opened up her jar of zinc cream and smeared it all over the floor and furniture and through her hair. She also emptied all the clothes out of her drawers. She was quiet doing so – it was only when I went to check on her that I found her sleeping on the floor, surrounded by carnage.
Getting there is half the fun
I know that I habitually over-disclose on my blog, but I am always taken aback when people on the street tell me their life story. I also wonder if I should stop them and do a writer/cop spiel (You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be incorporated into a novel, short story or comic.) Of course I never do. I just wait until they’ve disappeared and quickly transcribe the conversation into my notebook before I forget it.
Sliver of ice
I had a ha! of recognition when I read this guest post by essayist and poet Ashleigh Young. After watching her father fall through a disintegrating chair, she has to fight the compulsion to immediately write the episode down. So often when something awful or embarrassing happens, part of me is already shaping it into a story, already viewing it as ‘material’. I don’t seem to be able to switch that part of my brain off. Some people are writers because they have an important story to tell; perhaps I am a writer because I can’t help arranging all those little episodes that ought to be forgotten into narrative arcs.
Today I am going to revise my novel
I was handed an article once in a writing class. I can’t remember which class, or who the article was by. It described one’s writing as something liable to go wild if neglected for even a day. I think the author’s writing was personified as a child, but mine is a dreadlocked man, a cousin of the Novel Beast. This metaphor made me think a little of Emma Donoghue’s Room, which was excellent and rather disturbing, but not nearly as harrowing as I thought it might be. I really liked the way Donoghue imagined what it would be like for the boy once he came out of the room – how the light would be too bright, how his brain wouldn’t be wired to gauge distances. How strange he would be in the context of the world. But anyway, enough procrastinating. I must reread my manuscript and figure out what to do with it!!
Oh, and if you want to see a comic about my latest parenting adventures, pop over to my Apples blog.
And the winners are….
Congratulations to you lucky people who won a copy of my 218-page zine! That’s Martha, Tania and Emily, if you can’t read my messy handwriting. Talking of zines, there is a zine fest on in Auckland this weekend where you can buy lots of wonderful comics. Not mine, because I’ve been too busy to organise photocopying (I don’t work in an office, it makes things much more difficult.) If you are really cut up that you didn’t win, email me, sarah at poppyshock dot com, and I can sell you one at the bargain price of $15 plus postage.
Did you like this mega-deep-scroll effect? I was inspired by this post I read on Giovanni Tiso’s Bat, Bean, Beam blog.
Books for the blind, part 2
You can read part 1 here.
Remember how I tried to draw a picture of a jigger in the first part of this comic? Well, Jonathan found a picture of it on flickr last night. You can see the weights his Dad used to smash his thumb in on the left.
The photographer, Tony Foster, took photos of Lane & Sons timber mill, after it closed down. Jonathan used to work in it as a young man. He drove the forklift and shifted loads of timber around. The mill now looks like it hasn’t been in use for a century, but it was functional a decade ago. Jonathan said that it had been in decline since the early 20th century – since they stopped felling kauri for the masts of large ships.
Happy b[log]irthday to me
I’ve been doing this for a year today! What started off as a little side-project while I was writer-in-residence at the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Centre has taken on a life of its own. There have been two writers-in-residence since – the wonderful Sue Orr (if you haven’t read From Under the Overcoat yet you should! It is very good!), and now Mark Broatch has taken up residence.
Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving me comments, or telling me you like it when you see me in person. It gives me such a buzz to get your feedback. And I’ve loved hearing about what books you’ve been reading. At the moment, I’m reading ‘The Crow Road’ by Iain Banks – I know three people who are avid fans of this book.
GIVE-AWAY: I have three copies of Let Me Be Frank, the book, to give away. It’s an A5 stapled 200-page ‘zine of the first five months of this blog, when I used to post every day. I will send it anywhere in the world – just leave your name in the comments and I will draw some lucky winners next Wednesday.
LET ME BE FRANK 