Promotional stuff
December 6, 2009 at 11:24 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentIt’s Torquere author chat day at the Talking Two Lips yahoo group today. You have to join the group to see the messages, unfortunately, but membership is open so at least you don’t have to wait to be approved.
I’m involved in an interesting discussion there about writing a character with a specific sense of place about them rather than the Every(wo)man character which we often see, who might be nominally American or Australian or British, but could really be from anywhere. Obviously I’m still obsessed with the issues that I brought up in my last post, but I’m still mindful of the fact that where they were brought up influences a person just as much as how they were brought up, and how to bring that to a character in a way that will allow readers of a similar background to recognise them and identify with them. It’s not very easy.
There have been two more review of the Care and Feeding of Demons anthology where nice things have been said about Reasonable Force, so that’s a fabulous thing. The first one is at Reviews by Jessewave, and said (in part, at least):
I very much liked the character of Daniel and empathised greatly with his grief and how he used his aggressive behaviour to deal with that. I also liked that the relationship between Daniel and Karim wasn’t something that was wrapped up in a neat bow, but we are left with the promise of things to come – an ideal ending for such a short story, especially one packed with so much detail as this.
The second review is at Coffee Time Romance, and said (in part):
Daniel is a protector on the edge since losing his best friend and partner. He is unsure how to handle the new demon; kiss him or kill him (To which I say, bwahahaha!! That is so true!)
It also said:
….I loved how despite all that, Korim is unable to stop following Daniel in order to just be near him. Meredith Shayne expertly drew the reader to the demon and made us root for him.
How lovely it is to get reviews like that. I am thrilled that people are taking the time to read my work and write these reviews, and that they like what I’ve done.
Tags: twitter
I have succumbed to Twitter. I’m not entirely sure why, because God knows I do not need another tool for procrastination, but there you have it.
I know that some of you also have Twitter accounts, so if you could tell me what names those are under so I can find you, that would be fab. Mine is under my author pen name, and is here.
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
December 2, 2009 at 10:29 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: australia, real life
I was going to write tonight, and I haven’t. So in the absence of one type of writing, I’ll do another.
I’ve been in a very Australian mood lately, so much so that I’ve been really noticing it. I mean, I’m downloading Australian Crawl, Icehouse and Cold Chisel songs off iTunes, for God’s sake. That is really taking it quite far in the scheme of things, I reckon, to have Khe Sanh in my iTunes library. I was wondering why I was in such a mood, but today it occurred to me that what it actually is is shared experience, or rather, the lack of shared experience that exists for someone who doesn’t live in the place where they grew up.
A friend of mine is Scottish, but has been in NZ for ten years. He was telling me today that he met a couple of people from Glasgow over the weekend, and he had a great time talking with them about places in Glasgow where they all used to go, pubs and clubs and cafes, etc. My friend and these people didn’t grow up together, but the experiences of their youth and early adulthood were very similar, and he said he was struck by how much he enjoyed talking about all these old haunts. It doesn’t really surprise me though, because I find that too. There aren’t many Australians here, and I often find myself explaining things to people here that I wouldn’t have to explain if I was in Australia. I’ve even stopped using certain expressions, because if I say them then I have to explain what they mean, and getting blank looks about things you say gets old after a while. Obviously when I go back to Australia this doesn’t happen to me, and I do notice the difference. So I completely understand the relief that comes with being able to say anything you like and be instantly understood, or to talk about a place without needing to describe what it’s like.
What’s compounding these issues for me at the moment is that I’m reading a fantastically entertaining book set in Australia (Sean Kennedy’s Tigers and Devils, and it is so good I can’t even find the words to express it), and I’m really noticing that the characters are Australian, and not in a bad way – I said to another friend when I was telling her about how much I liked the book that “they speak how I speak”, and that’s true, and it’s something that you don’t often see, or I don’t anyway, not in the stories I read. And since I don’t get that in real life either, there’s an almost continuous ‘shock of recognition’ feeling associated with it.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this, and I don’t mean to imply that this lack of ‘Australian-ness’ upsets me in any way – I love living in NZ, and I have no plans to move back to Australia any time soon, if ever. Most of the time Australia doesn’t even feel like home anymore, to be honest. I don’t even really notice the lack of shared experience in NZ for the most part, except when something reminds me, like the book, or stories of Scottish lads and their old hangouts. It’s just funny that these things have conspired all at once to make me think about it.
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
Meredith Shayne 