Episode Eight

Dalyon tracked along the passage between the surface and the cave many times, taking care each time he reached the bottom to avert his eyes from the gaze of the forward-looking dog. Sometimes he took a peek from the corner of his eye, but the dog never stopped looking at him. He learnt to close his eyes so that the dog could not see him, and he found that he learnt the indentations and position of the steps more clearly this way. He felt the dimming of light as he moved away from the cave room, felt it by the way the steps were placed and dented as well as by the changing colours inside his eyelids, then sensed the lifting of darkness through another series of steps and opened his eyes there to see what was coming towards him. He felt the emptiness of the cave when it was just him walking through the passageway, and he felt Jilda’s presence, and Lucan’s different presence, even when they were standing still and holding their breath. The darkness helped him. Once he sensed a small animal in the darkness, that froze until he passed by. It scurried out of the way as soon as he had passed.

At first Dalyon thought of returning home, but Ma was close and willed him away.  It was too late to go back. He knew that she was gone from there, and so was the cat.

Four - Mountains

Ma’s body may or may not have been breathing.  If they’d cared to do so, Terry and Bob would have needed a mirror to find if her breath would leave a mist. Her heart was so quiet that it would have taken someone with better ears than Bob and Terry to find it. To their eyes it looked as if she was lying heavily in her bed, unaware that the cat was crying with hunger, and the boy was gone.

They were wrong. Ma was aware of everything all at once. She was aware that Terry and Bob’s story had already been written and that all that was left was the telling. She was aware that Bob would kill the cat now that the boy was gone and she was aware that to their eyes, she was lying in her bed, unable to rouse herself. She was aware that when Bob killed the cat that Terry would turn his face away from its struggling, but that he would take its flaccid body and drop it into the flowery pillowcase afterwards. She knew that Terry and Bob would get the short-handled shovels that they carried in the saddle-bags on the back of their bikes, and that they would dig a narrow hole into which they would drop her body, throw the pillowcase with the dead cat, and cover them both with the earth. Terry would place a cloth over her face to avoid its immediate contact with the dirt, because he considered himself to be a decent man. He would stand and say some words involving an ancient deity, while Bob looked around the house for things that he could steal. She knew that before they could do all that, they would have trouble with the network of tree roots that ran beneath the earth, less than a meter down. After they had buried her and the cat in their shallow grave, Terry and Bob would wash, take a long drink, eat, and when they could wait no longer, begin their long journey back. She saw that they had been in contact with the home compound which knew, and was monitoring, Dalyon’s whereabouts. She knew that they would do nothing about him at this time. She knew that her boy was travelling with two companions who would guide him, that there would be one who would actively pursue them, and that Dalyon and his companions would be each other’s strength.

None of this held any importance at all. Things would come to pass. Things had come to pass. Ma was flying far, far north, over a cold country that she knew well. The destiny of Bob and Terry was already written. Dalyon’s destiny was already written, as were those of the other children. So was her own. There was someone, or something, else of importance. It was all woven together to create what no-one, not even Terry and Bob, could foresee.

 

 

 

Booklength Project Group timetable for the year

Stairway to the moon without a tripod

I have cut and pasted the meeting timetable (posted last year) for the Book Length Project Group, for your convenience. We are a networking group for people working on a large writing project such as a novel, collection of poems or short stories, novella or non-fiction work. A couple of people are doing a Ph.D. at the moment too. We motivate and help each other out with information and suggestions. We have just started to swap large amounts of work with other 'friendly readers' in the group, although this is not obligatory if people don't wish to do so. Our members range from new writers to experienced writers. We have been going for twelve months.

We start at 10am(ish) and finish at 12.30(ish) and the cost per meeting is $5 for FAWWA members, and $10 for non-members. We meet at Mattie's House at the FAWWA premises in Swanbourne. There is no expectation that people attend every meeting - the group is for meeting with like minded individuals, and people come along when they can make it. Sometimes the groups are large, and sometimes not so large. If you are interested in attending contact FAWWA.

To be more specific, dates for 2013 are as follows, all being well (any unexpected changes will be notified by email and on this blog site, so it might be worth checking the day before)

20 January 2013

17 February 2013

17 March 2013

21 April 2013

19 May 2013

16 June 2013

21 July 2013

18 August 2013

15 September 2013

20 October 2013

17 November 2013

15 December 2013

Songwriting workshop with Kristina Olsen at the Fairbridge Festival Western Australia

The Fairbridge Music Festival on this weekend is about two hours (of a conservative drive) outside of Perth. This Festival is held every year and features local and international musicians mainly from the off-centre acoustic traditions: Folk, World Music, Bluegrass, all the permutations between, and Singer/Songwriters. The appeal crosses the age range, and the environment is family-friendly. Along with all the performances held in the many venues on site, it includes art and craft stalls, a good range of musical and artistic activities for kids, workshops, and a one ticket entrance covers all activities for the day, or the long weekend if you buy the weekend pass. Camping is available on site.

I had a day pass this year and this forces attention to detail in choosing to attend this, that, or the other simultaneously scheduled event. It was good luck more than good judgement that directed me to attend an excellent song writing workshop with the lovely singer/songwriter Kristina Olsen yesterday, although The Retreat took its name a little too literally, and required some finding, especially for a couple of map-reading challenged individuals. We sneaked in late, but the ever gracious Ms Olsen welcomed us all, as people squeezed closer together on the floor, stood around the walls, sat on the chairs along the edge of the room, and peered in through the windows.

The workshop spoke to so many techniques of value to writers in the broader context that, with Kristina Olsen’s agreement, I felt it would be worth sharing a few of the ideas from the ensuing discussion, and to point you towards her website. A more comprehensive copy of Kristina Olsen's songwriting tips is found on the link provided here, and has some great ideas for those who are serious about their writing, whatever the genre.

As a taster, here are some of the things covered in the discussion yesterday:

Get together with a small group of writers on a regular basis - weekly - optimal group size is about five people, and set yourself the task of having a new piece of writing to workshop within the group each week.

Don't wait for the muse to visit - if you are working at the writing, she will come at some stage, and you will be ready, tools sharpened.

Embody your writing in the senses. Did you know that the predominant sense for love is the sense of smell? Physicality is the doorway to memorable writing.

Length doesn't matter. Artistic integrity does.

Separate your creative brain from your editing brain - both are necessary to the process but work at different times. If you edit as you are trying to create, you will effectively turn off your creative flow.

Be prepared to write bad stuff. The good stuff will often be embedded in this and can be found and worked on later.

I'm paraphrasing of course, so to get the words straight from the source, take a look at the section of Kristina Olsen's website (bottom of the page). And if you are a muso and aspiring songwriter you will gain even more!

Thanks Fairbridge for inviting Kristina and all the other great musicians to a festival that goes from strength to strength.

 

 

 

ANZAC Day 2013 - Remembering all those who were hurt and who died in wars. Peace be with you, and with us all.

Trees holding hands

Perth, Western Australia.

Check out the thoughtful blog on Lest we Forget by blogger Louise Allan

Episode Seven

The girl had been watching him for a long time and was hiding from him. He was coming, ready or not. This time he saw her. She was crouched down with little him and they were both dressed in leaves and feathers. When her tree-feathers blew out he saw her arm underneath. Dalyon edged his way around so that he could see more of her.

Like him, she was small, or a bit bigger. Her hair was the colour of the sky at night. It hung over her arms nearly to the elbows, and twisted around and around itself like a wound-up swing stopped at the point where it is ready to unwind. She made a smile showing her teeth with her eyes down, looking at the ground. She was holding little him’s hand. Little him was staring straight at Dalyon’s face, learning him. The girl showed him that she wanted to learn him too. Her eyes flicked up to look at his face and back to the ground.

She began to sing, ‘Why do you sit? Why do you go? Why do you sit and go, why sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree?’ Her voice was clear and green like Ma’s very special glass flower jar.

Little him joined in. He had a lower voice that changed the sound she made in the most beautiful way that Dalyon had ever heard. He wanted the song to go on and on, but they stopped it all at once, still as a rock. Now she looked at him, straight in the face, just like little him. They were waiting for him to answer. Dalyon put a song-join into the sound-space that they had left.

‘Why do you sit and go, sit and go, sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree, that tree, you sit and go and look at me in that tree,’ he sang. They joined him and all three found the most beautiful song Dalyon had ever sang-heard. She and little him and Dalyon were flying in the song that they were making, high above the forest. All the other birds around them stopped to listen. The tree birds stopped to listen. The feather birds stopped to listen. In her long sleep, Ma listened and saw him flying with his little flock. 

Far off at the other end of the forest, even the tracking animal stopped to listen.

*

Dalyon was staring at a picture of a dog with three heads. One head was looking to where he had come from, one was looking to where he was going and the other head was staring straight back at him. The dog-picture had been drawn in the rock with a sharp knife and filled up with red. There were two words written underneath, one beginning with the letter ‘C’ and the other with the letter ‘H’.  Ma once tried to show him how to read words but Dalyon had not wanted to read words because he liked Ma to sit with him and show him the story, so they could live in it together. Now with Ma away from him, he would have liked to be able to read the words about the dog with three heads.

Little dishes of water had been put in front of the the dogs to drink, but the dogs were not drinking. One was looking back, one was looking forward, and one was looking straight at him. He didn’t like this one that stared and stared at him. He edged past it, watching it the whole time.  It looked back.

Past the dogs was a cave room, which was the house where she and little him lived. Dalyon knew this because it was where they had brought him, and because it was here that they moved about without having to look at what was there. Dalyon did not live here so he looked at everything, picking up what he could, biting on it to test its usefulness, placing it against his cheek to feel its texture, turning it over, putting it back to pick up something else.

It was very light inside the cave room, even though they had walked down and down and down in the dark on bumpy steps, holding each other’s hands, and leaning against the cold walls. They had walked into a blackness so thick that they could only move blindly as a line joined at the hands, but the black got thinner, and now they could see everything quite clearly. The sun seemed to have been caught and pulled inside for them to see by. Dalyon thought that this is what had happened because just inside the cave room there was another picture painted on a plate of tin - a man on a horse that was trying to stand up on its back legs. Dalyon knew it was a horse with a cowboy, from a book about horses and cowboys that Ma had. The cowboy was hanging onto a rope that was tied around the sun. The man was pulling on the rope. Next to this was another picture that had lines and circles and numbers, more words, and not a very good picture of the sun shining on some glass plates with a line joining the pictures of glass plates to pictures of lights that were the lights inside the cave room.

Inside the cave room, past the dog with three heads was the place where she and little him had their beds and some boxes for their tables, and some smaller boxes for their chairs. On the floor was some old carpet with a pattern of double black triangles. Dalyon saw that the pattern on the carpet was just like the triangles inside the glass ball that Terry and Bob gave him to play with sometimes, except that it was bigger.

Later they would all be able to talk in their language and say that their names were Jilda and Lucan and Dalyon, and show each other things in the forest to play with, and things they had brought back here to use, and things that were good to eat and bad to eat. Jilda and Lucan would hold hands and show Dalyon the place where they had pushed away the tables that were already there, but felt scary and brought in the ghosts. Jilda and Lucan would be able to show Dalyon that they had dragged them further into the tunnel that led on from the cave room, and they would be able to tell him that sometimes the ghosts woke up and moved about in there, but that they never came into the cave room. Nobody else ever came to the cave room either, not even a fire that passed over them last summer. Not even the tracking animals. This was a secret place.

But now they were all hungry and thirsty. There was another cave in the wall of the cave room where Jilda kept food and water that she had collected from the forest. She took some out to prepare a meal for all of them.

Art Exhibition

A weekend of learning to negotiate the online and off-line world as an author

Taking a break from blogging, or checking p-mail?

For me, it's been a full-on weekend with a workshop on Saturday for Authors conducted by the ASA about the ways in which we can use social media to enable people to find our work. Amanda Kendle ran the workshop and probably changed a few lives in the process. There'll be a few more blogs, tweets and web pages popping up as a result.

On Sunday we had our monthly meeting of the Book Length Project Group. Rosemary Sayer came along and guided us through some exercises on how to talk about our work. A generalisation perhaps, but it seems to ring true that authors tend to be fairly solitary creatures when they are working, and find it hard to put into a few succinct words what it is that they are working on - or have worked on, for that matter. I can't tell you how useful it is to actually practice these skills, and we all had a great session with a lot of laughs. Thank you to the wonderful Rosemary Sayer, for so generously giving up her time to work with the group!

Self Publishing - Hugh Howie interviewed on Radio National's Books and Arts Daily

If you want to hear a great interview on the current debate about the future of the novel and all things self-publishing (or independent publishing as Hugh Howie describes it) go to the Radio National Books and Arts Daily site here where you can download the audio or the transcript to see the whole discussion.

Congratulations to Carrie Tiffany - Inaugural Stella Prize

Books and Arts Daily is a wonderful program hosted by Michael Cathcart on the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 8.10 AM band. You can find your way from this link to other discussions, including information on the inaugural winner of the Stella Prize, Carrie Tiffany for her novel, Mateship with Birds. Congratulations to Carrie Tiffany, and to all those great writers who were in the running for this prize which honours outstanding work by contemporary female writers!

Episode Six

 

He was on the fence, climbing with the package tied to his waist.  The hardness and sharpness hurt his hands, and his hands and feet bent to the wire and stone that was the fence. More trees appeared as he climbed, and he noticed again that tree tops were joined to thick posts pushed deep into the ground. He knew that stars under the ground held them up. The picture was clear, and he could see right through to where the arms of the stars reached under the house, and joined with those that came from the other side.

This would guide him back, the trees holding hands under the ground, and if Ma listened to the ground she would hear his footsteps as he passed from one star to the next.

Three - Secrets

Dalyon was in the forest, the path that Ma had taken on the day of the tracking animal and the trampoline. The rain had been. The damp climbed up into his shoes and socks and he would have taken them off but Ma had told him to keep them on. He walked with a travelling song, his feet pressing into the floor of dying leaves. He kept on walking into a brown puddle that soon rose to his ankles, and he stopped to watch the water as it met his legs, moving softly. The water was warm and a small black beetle was struggling on its surface. Dalyon bent down and scooped up the beetle. He let the water drain through his fingers so that the little animal could find a dry place to land. It stretched its wings to dry, then tickled across his hand and up onto the inside of his arm. He let it crawl under and up onto his shirt, to his shoulder. Dalyon looked down again and noticed that instead of feet, a wobbly disc of puddle joined to the bottom of his legs. He was stuck there with this new foot so he twisted to see what else was around. A crow called to him, ‘Get going, Dahl-y-on. Dahl-y-on, get going, caw, caw, caw!’ It was laughing at him.

He dragged his old feet through the disc, leaving a water channel that closed over behind, reached dry land at the edge of the little lake and jumped out. Jump, jump, jump! Sqwelchsqwelch. He was hopping along the path like a crow. The crow called out, ‘Stop, stop, stop that!’

He didn’t want to be a crow so he turned back into a boy and walked on. Each step made a scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, beating out a new travelling song. His hand felt the heart that lived inside his chest. It was singing along with a pom, pom, pom, pom. He stopped his foot-song and the heart went on singing.

Dalyon did a jumping turn to see where he had been. When he landed he noticed how a picture of his foot-song had been left with every scrunch-squelch, and how even as he turned and moved on, and turned back again, that there was a drawing left in the ground from every move. The drawings were made of broken sticks and leaves, and some bent-over grasses and bushes. He wondered if this music would be played by others who would weave their own song into his.

Before him were clues to the comings and goings of kangaroos, and some round droppings, big and small, which he stopped to examine. He squatted down. Something smaller than a kangaroo had made the little marbles of poo. He picked up one of the marbles and rolled it around in the palm of his hand, then let it drop down onto the ground. It fell in a new place. He stood up.

He stood quite still, listening, his head tilted to one side, a smile in his head. He had stopped and everything else had too. There was waiting that made a gap in the music. The gap ended. A bird spoke behind him, and the crickets started up again. The bird was a whispering bird that told its secret and waited for another to tell it a secret in return. Nobody replied, but they were listening. The bird whispered its scratchy secret again. A warbler answered, telling everyone, ‘Dalyon is coming with a scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch, scrunch-squelch. Dalyon is at the sleeping tree.’

He had reached the sleeping tree and stopped to examine its surface. Now that he was close he could see more than he had on the day Ma had passed it by. A soft shiny green blanket had been caught falling from its side. Its head was at one end, with a pillow of dirt, and thick hard hair that stuck out in all directions. There was dirt stuck to its hair, and a scurry of black beetles playing there. Hide and seek, seek and hide, hide and seek, seek and hide.

He and Ma would play that game. Dalyon smiled to himself as he saw the picture of them playing together. Ma was counting to twenty, slowing down or speeding up at the end. He found a good place to hide in the time that twenty took. Behind the sleeping tree. Ma took a long time to find him. His whole body started to giggle as she came close, and that was when she found him. She faded away, back to the house, to the bed where she lay so still.

He felt sad when he thought of Ma alone in the house without him, and so did the heart. Was she counting to twenty as she slept? He was finding a very good hiding place this time. They would laugh when she found him, but for now she was still sleeping, like this sleeping tree. He was thinking about Ma as he ran his hand along its length, walking along, almost falling over the big rock that was nestled up against it, but he kept his hand on the sleeping tree all the while.

Along its top was a smooth place where animals have played. He saw that there was a long crack in the surface, the doorway to a place where the smallest creatures had their houses, where they lived and ate and played hide and seek. Dalyon’s thoughts told him that when the sun was hot a brown snake slept by the sleeping tree, but she was dreaming now beneath the ground, far below the rock. Small silvery-white things, little shelters on stalks grew along the bottom where the tree lay along the ground, and orange and white discs clung to its side.

Dalyon looked to where he would go. Ahead the path was clear as it curved towards the bowing tree of the pink and greys. Beyond that he had a picture of the path changing from the thin line to a circle of clearing, with trees bending in on every side, and a moving patch of sunlight. He hugged the sleeping tree goodbye and scrunch-squelched on.

Along the way birds had left some of their feathers behind. Dalyon found one with a rainbow drawn above a soft grey and white puff. It was painted yellow and pink, yellow again. It ended in green. This feather was a baby. He placed it on the flat of his hand so that a breeze caught and floated it away. He tried to see where it had landed and found instead a feather from a warbler, long and tough. The stick that went through the middle was bare at the bottom. This was a good place to hold. He twisted it this way, and that. The stick started off thick and blotchy white. The bottom was sharp. As itpassed through the white part of the feather which travelled most of the way to the top it changed from white to black, until the feather itself became black and pointy at the top, separated from the white by a crooked line. He ran his fingers down and found that the feathery bit stuck together. He did it again, and the stuck-together feather tore and separated. A warbler sang an angry song when it saw him do that, so he stopped and put the feather behind his ear. He turned his head to show the warbler. The warbler sang a happy song now, someone else answered, and they went on like this, singing and answering, singing and answering.

Dalyon sought more feathers and found one left by a pink and grey. It was pink and white, soft as the rainbow feather that flew away. He pressed it between his fingers and it stuck there. He found another grey, green, black and blue that changed in the light as he moved it around. He stuck this one into his hair.

Dalyon was a feather finder. If he found enough he would dress all in feathers and turn into a bird. He looked, gathered, dressed. He saw that each leaf was a feather too, long with a stick along the middle and pointed at the end. He saw that the trees were giant birds stuck to the ground by one big leg. He dressed himself all in leaves and feathers. The forest was happier with him now and it breathed softly, blowing on the bird feathers and leaf feathers. Dalyon was a birdboy. He belonged to the forest.

The ground here was soft and damp, and his shoes left shoe shadows behind to say that a boy had walked this way. Ahead were tree feathers all stuck to a thin stick. A vine had wound around them and there were purple flowers growing on the vine. Dalyon sat by the tree feathers, pulled them from the stick and tied them as foot feathers all around his shoes, winding the vine round and round his foot as he went. He stood and walked a little way then looked back to see what sort of shoe shadows he had left. They were the shoe shadows of a Dalyon bird, not a Dalyon Boy.

The forest was happy with him. The warblers were warbling and even the crows were cawing softly. The whispering birds joined in, and the tree birds whispered too. Dalyon began to sing. The forest music was good that day, good for a travelling one.

Oral History workshops and performance of Dear Heart at the Alexander Library - Perth, Western Australia April 2013

Free Oral History Workshops

in association with the Battye Library

This workshop runs on Saturday April 20th and Tuesday April 23rd from 9.30 am - 10.45 am in the Great Southern Room, 4th Floor, State Library of WA, Perth Cultural Centre. The idea is to share stories and listen to the stories of others, or simply to come along and become inspired to gather your own family's recollections. Includes recollections from AIF and RAAF.

Admission is free but there are limited places so registration is essential. Phone (08) 9384 8158. Light refreshments will be served.

Dear Heart

Agelink Theatre Inc's 20th anniversary event

by Jenny Davis

based on her aunt's letters and diaries from WWII

Don't miss it! Four performances April - Fri 19, Sat 20, Tues 23at 11am, Wed 24 at 10.30am. (Duration of show approx 70 mins)

Alexander Library Theatre

Ticket prices: $20 (full); $15 (concession)

Bookings: Online at trybooking.com or phone (08) 9384 8158

Uneven Floor: Another great site for poetry - currently seeking submissions

impression of an uneven floor?

If you are a fan of good, gritty, thoughtful poetry, take a look at uneven floor an independent poetry magazine. In the "About" section, the publisher's mission is described as:

Mission

• To use the power and simplicity of blogging to get more readers, viewers and listeners for a wide range of awesome new poems and poets from Western Australia and beyond.
• To encourage readers to support poets, and poets to support one another.

Guest speaker at BLPG April 21 - Rosemary Sayer

Rosemary Sayer

Rosemary Sayer has generously agreed to attend as guest speaker at the next meeting of the Book Length Project Group. We met a few days ago for a coffee and chat, and it was a delight to meet a fellow writer with the passion that we all share for this particular art form. Rosemary's discussion will focus on ways in which authors can present themselves to enable their work to have the best chance of success, and promises to be informal, interactive and allow plenty of time to get to know Rosemary a little better and to ask questions. She is a lovely, approachable person (notwithstanding the impressive Bio that follows!) and the session promises to be a real treat.

 

Rosemary Sayer - BIO

Rosemary Sayer is an experienced international business communications consultant and author.

Rosemary has written two biographies - The CEO, the Chairman and the Board about the former Chairman and CEO of Wesfarmers Limited, Trevor Eastwood, and The Man who Turned the Lights On about Asian entrepreneur, Sir Gordon Wu, the Chairman of Hopewell Holdings. This book was subsequently translated into Chinese. Rosemary is currently working on her third book whilst consulting in the mining and art sectors.

She has held senior executive positions in Australia and Asia for Wesfarmers Limited, Lion Nathan and Standard Chartered Bank where she managed all corporate communications and investor relations in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan.

Rosemary is passionate about the promotion of literature and the importance of reading.  She served as a director of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival for four years and has served as a director of writingWA, the peak body for writing, publishing and associated activities, in Western Australia for over three years. 

She began her career as a journalist and worked in both newspapers and radio which gave her broad media experience.  Rosemary currently writes a regular business column for the West Australian newspaper and lectures at Curtin University in professional writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode Five

Flight

One day there was the distinct sound of children playing across the trees. The sound was caught and dropped by the wind, and picked up again. Dalyon heard it many times and calculated the direction of the sound in relation to the position of the sun at various times of the day. The children moved around but they moved around in a particular area that ended some distance from the yard. Night came and went and now that Dalyon knew how to listen, he heard the children many times.

Then came the day when he sensed that he was being watched. He saw nothing but a movement in the top of the closest tree that had peered at him over the fence every day for as long as he could remember. Before the big fence was built there used to be more of it. Now, just its top appeared over the line. It was a good place for a person to sit. This person in the tree might have been a crow, but it felt bigger, softer and more curious.

‘Why do you sit in that tree looking at me’, he asked? ‘Why do you sit, why do you go, why do you sit and go?’

 No-one and nothing responded and his question became a song that he sung on the swing for days afterward. ‘Why sit and go, why sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree?’

Today the air was as clear and sharp as a pin. It was morning, and the crows had started up again. There was something else warbling away, creating a kind of music that Dalyon memorised for future songs. And then he heard it, the child’s voice. She was singing in his language, but with a sound that rang out across the sky like a calling bird.

‘Why sit and go, why sit and go, why are you looking at me in that tree?’

 There was no mistaking the sounds of the words, the rising and falling of notes, the hesitation, the start again, the repetition. She sounded quite close. She was singing to him. A mixture of fright and excitement rose in him. Frightcitement. He bolted to the house. The sound followed for a moment then stopped, then started, then stopped again.

Dalyon went to the side door and peered into the darkness. The shape of his mother was lying stretched out on the bed. With his help, she had dragged the mattress down the stairs to lie along the wall opposite the table, straight after Bob and Terry had left the last time they came. After they got it down there, she went straight to bed and fell into a long sleep. In the days that followed she had spent more time lying on the mattress than walking around. Now she lay there breathing heavily, as she did when she was in a long sleep, although today the music was different. She was stopping and starting, stopping and starting. Sometimes she stopped for a long time, before starting up again, and at other times, like now, the breathing was noisy, noisy, noisy, stop, noisy, noisy, noisy, stop.

Dalyon strained to hear through Ma’s breathing whether the outside singing had followed him right to the door, but it seemed to have stopped and not started up again this time. He listened hard. Had the child gone?

He ran to the fence and looked up and up, climbing in his head, marking every toehold. This fence was far bigger than the time he scaled it before, where he stood in the insect world. On the Wednesday afterwards Ma told Terry and Bob that he had left the yard.

*

Ma had to tell Terry and Bob everything that was new. She would write it down in a little book that they gave her, with a pen that they gave her.  That was when they sent the others to build the fence higher, to keep them both in. There was no need to keep Ma locked in. As long as Dalyon was there, she said she would stay.

Ma told him that they knew this. Ma seemed to be able to see right into people’s minds. She said that this was why they spoke to him and not to her.

‘Stay’, Bob said. ‘You stay. Understand. You stay, or she will die. See this.’

Bob had spotted a beetle scuttling across the floor by his chair. He put his foot down on it hard and when he lifted his foot up the beetle was partly flattened with one leg still waving.

‘That is what it is to die.’

Dalyon watched the beetle with its one leg waving goodbye, and that was when Dalyon knew Bob was the tracking animal that had found its way right inside the yard.

Terry smiled at Dalyon and said, ‘What Bob is saying, is that your Ma needs you here with her or she will feel very sad. Also, we want to keep you safe. The forest is a dangerous place for small boys. You must promise to never, ever, ever go there.’

Dalyon didn’t understand why Ma and he must stay in the yard with the tracking animal sitting right there, but he did understand that Terry and Bob wanted them to stay, because of what they said and because of how Ma told him what they were thinking, and of how she knew.

She said that a person’s body and face moved in a kind of language that told you what they were thinking and feeling. Bob and Terry’s bodies and faces did not move into softness. Their song was ugly and tuneless, the creaking door of the old shed. That door won’t be still in an ugly hot wind. Bob and Terry could made that hot wind blow on and on and on. Creak, creak, creak went the door. Ma sat with her eyes looking at their shoes, which were dusty and scratched, from the way that they had ridden a long way through the dirt. Ma later told him she looked at their shoes because she didn’t want them to know from her eyes what she was thinking.

 After they left, Ma held him for a long time. She laid her soft cheek on his head. He felt caught like an animal waiting to be set free, but he did not struggle. Even so, she held him tight to make him hear what she wanted to say.

‘Please Dalyon’, she said. ‘Please. I know it’s hard. We must do as they say. It is the only way. Be a good boy for Ma. One day you will see something new’.

It was a sad and tired song that Ma sang to him that day.

*

 Now Dalyon ran back and peered into the dark house where Ma’s shape was stretched out on the bed. He could no longer hear her heavy breathing. She lay quiet.  He forgot when she last stopped. He crept up to the bed and stood by her head.

‘Ma?’ he said,’ but she did not move. He patted her head. ‘Ma?’

He pushed her arm then, and it fell and hung with the back of its hand resting on the floor. He patted Ma’s shoulder, as she had often done to him. ‘Be a good boy,’ he said.

There again, beyond the perimeter, was the drifting sound of a child singing. Dalyon realized with a feeling that the child had moved further away. It was as if he had dropped something that would roll away and be lost forever if he didn’t move quickly. He went to the door and looked out and up into the tree, and saw nothing but the leaves moving softly.

‘Don’t go,’ he whispered to the child.

She must have felt his will. She stopped moving and sang a little song in one place, and now Dalyon felt shock and surprise as another voice joined hers, taking the low part. The two singers were like the crows and the warblers, creating a sound that prickled and drew him even more.  Their song was long and beautiful, looping around and around and around.

When at length it ended, Dalyon turned back to look at Ma. She was paler than he had ever seen her, and very still except for her hair which moved slightly in the breeze that came from the open door. She may have been lying that way for a long time as he had listened to the sounds outside with his head tipped towards his shoulder so that his main listening ear could catch each nuance.  Her arm hung down from the bed with its hand resting on the floor. He went to her side, picked it up and put it gently beside her under the covers. Her skin was cool. Her eyes were a little open and she seemed to smile at him. He closed his eyes and felt felt her standing beside him. ‘Take the package from the flour drum and go,’ she told him. ‘I will come a little way with you.’

Prose poetry

I was checking out the new writing prompt for Poetsonline a couple of days ago, and the task was to write a prose poem. It's a nice idea, this intensified, poetic language that can be employed in prose format. I suppose with all the news of troubles in the world at the moment, and along the lines of the post-apocalyptic theme which preempts the first draft manuscript I have been posting on a weekly basis on this blog, I came up with the following attempt at a prose poem. I'll try another for submission to Poetsonline - maybe - but check out their site if you're interested in having a go at a prose poem yourself. They have a blog and instructions on how to submit a poem.

 

 

Reflections

Some things don’t bear thinking on, like are we on the brink and do you ever imagine yourself on the losing side, confused and defenceless, human, a biological speck on a ball of dirt spinning through an endless universe? Thinking post-apocalyptic is more satisfying when you live in hope, picturing an afterwards with you at the centre, hyper-inflated, selectively-connected, this-not-that, taken up, saved, loftily pitying or condemning all others who didn’t hedge their bets, who didn’t see things in quite the particular way that mapped the precise contours of your mind, who didn't form those filial affiliations, expectations, invocations, dedications, or follow the orders of the man poised over that button, those buttons, your buttons, who sees himself privileged, supreme, flying, untouchable, unharmed and unharm-able, on the side against Evil (though he looks into the other rooms, this room repeated, and repeated, and repeated, until he sees it is just a mirror after all, in which is reflected him, self, in all those reflected mirrors, his own eyes, again and again, his own windows to the soul, his own darkness, where he, himself is so lost that he recoils and retreats to the comfort of his own illusion where he's the one that calls the shots, and) looking down on the destruction he has wrought, wants still to wring, pretending he is God, or the Devil, then says that he is ready to be taken up or down into the arms of, because he has been caught fast in the idea that he is the extra-special one.

Satire, humour, tongue in cheek... some thoughts

Is that a bunch of lemons I see through a tangled text? Or are you having a laugh?

The thing most of the books and plays that I seek out and have enjoyed over the years have in common, is that they almost all fall under the category of satire, the absurd, or humour, more generally. Not all, but there is a strong element of satire in most of the books I have read, and the entertainment I have enjoyed. Why? It's fun. It feels good to have a laugh. I think it provides alternative ways of seeing the familiar.

Hard to pull off though, and I don't know, but maybe when I look back, things aren't as funny as they used to be. The assumptions upon which the humour depended have changed - a shared understanding of the conventional, and the absurd. Or my assumptions have changed. Humour, as an element of the writing (as opposed to its central premise) is something that seems to get lost these days, unless the reader's attention is specifically directed towards it.

And I'm not sure that yesterday's humour has travelled all that well through time, culture, or geography - even very obvious comedy. Humour is largely dependent on the society from which it springs, and its foibles. Nowadays the society from which it springs tends to be less local, more global. To be successful at getting a laugh, the modern comedian needs to become an observant citizen of the world, and to get a handle on mainstream assumptions in order to challenge them.  But as societies become less homogeneous, yet more interconnected, the mainstream (if such a thing continues to exist) becomes increasingly difficult to identify. For the comedian who wants to reach global audiences s/he needs to understand the nuances not only of language but also of socio-political- religious acculturation right down to the level of the multifaceted family in a cosmopolitan society - ok? Now I've probably lost you, as well as myself. Seems that being a comedian is a serious business.

Then again, are we all becoming a little too serious? These days when we read books that contain both comedy and tragedy, I wonder whether drama trumps humour. It seems to me that there is often a privileging of seriousness, even when it seems obvious that amongst all the bleakness and the underlying serious intent, a writing style is satirical. The link between humour, and what is otherwise too much for human beings to bear, is well-established. It is the reason that people in the medical professions, in the police forces, in the defence forces, in politics - and in books that deal with these subjects - have to lighten the mood with some laughter, no matter how black the humour. It might be the only thing that keeps them on this side of sanity.

Another difficulty for some writers, such as (but not exclusively) women, is that satirical humour has not historically been assumed to be their domain. Typically satire has been harshly applied at the expense of those in power, but I think it is often applied by those with an expectation of usurping and replacing the status quo (and thereby becoming the status quo). If a traditionally powerless group applies that particularly biting form of satirical humour, there seems to be some difficulty with the laugh. Is this because this type of humour has usually been applied to particular types of political concerns? War. Power struggles in the public domain. Large 'P' politics. Or is it because satire in those different hands implicitly sidelines the assumed up-and-coming?

Of course things have changed over the years for female comedians and others who had previously been the butt of jokes, rather than their conveyors. Female comedians are staking a claim in the situational comedy and in stand-up. A random (far from comprehensive) review - maybe it started with Lucille Ball. More recently, Roseanne Barr.  Miranda. Kath and Kim. Dawn French. The Ab Fab duo Saunders and Lumley. The 53 women comedians featured in the Huffington Post a couple of years back.  Even so, much of female humour tends to be self deprecating, inward, rather than outward looking. Roseanne Barr might be an exception here.

Satirical female writers seem thinner on the ground, or is it just that they are not typically recognised as such? Margaret Atwood is surely a satirist. If you're not sure, you just have to listen to her speak. Kathy Lette. Susan Maushart certainly. Playwright Caryl Churchill is, in the main, or at least straddling that and the absurdest school. I'm sure there are many more, but not so they stand out. Maybe they are not all that readily picked up for publication.

Or the humour might be hidden in books masquerading as something else. It is subversive, after all. The problem with that is that we see what we expect to see. Humour sometimes gets missed because if we don't expect it to be there, and our focus is on something else.  This can be disastrous to the intention of the text, because it can look like the sentiments expressed are either mean-spirited, or just plain weird. The difficulty is that while some vehicles of humour, such as cartoons - especially Family Guy, American Dad, The Simpsons and South Park, have a big arrow pointing to them (music, sound effects, the traditional funny role of cartoons itself) to prime us not to take them seriously, often literature is assumed to be intimate, private, hard work, and therefore, serious, unless it has a sticker on it saying 'hilarious'.

Compliments DW

If something seems a little bit over the top, I always entertain the possibility that it might have been intended. Whether it comes off or not is another thing. Humour, after all, tends to be enjoyed in social situations (even text - bits of funny articles or books are often read out and shared with friends) and social situations are diverse, and always changing. A few drinks and some laughing gas can change everything. Cold, stone sober, how much is too little? Too much? Exaggeration, excess, self-deprecation, understatement, playing opposite to the conventional wisdom are just some of the tools employed.

Getting a laugh is the province of ordinary people too.  How easy it is for the regular-person-would-be-comedian to be misunderstood. As in social media, it seems we must increasingly employ :) lol ;-) !!! to ensure that our good intentions are made clear. Their absence when irony or satire is applied always risks misinterpretation and a break down of the social relationships we work so hard to maintain.

Bottom line - as so beautifully portrayed in one of Caryl Churchill's television plays The Judge's Wife we don't always get the joke that was intended. In this teleplay, the judge deliberately becomes more and more extreme and reactionary in the hope that people will see how absurd that position is, but he simply attracts more and more people to the cause he is attempting to ridicule. They think he is what he is lampooning. And maybe, in a twist of Orwellian double-think, he was, and his wife is posthumously reinterpreting his life! It's worth reading the text if you can't track down the performance itself.

BLPG Member Profile Louise Allan

When I read about the Book Length Project Group, I thought it was exactly what I was looking for, and joined up. I’m so glad I did. I can’t believe the expertise and experience within the group. Not to mention the talent! The discussions, encouragement and support really help when tackling a lengthy and complex project.

Currently, I’m nearing completion of a first draft of my first novel. It has the working title 'Ida's Children', and grew out of a short story I wrote in 2010. In 2011, I homeschooled my boys and looked after sick parents, but I returned to writing the novel in 2012.

The story centres around two sisters: one who is childless, while the other conceives easily, bearing child after child. The novel touches on issues of child abuse, what is a good mother, the expected roles of women, and the impact of giving up one's dreams. It is set in rural Tasmania from the 1920s up to the present day.

At school, I found English and creative writing difficult, so I stuck with Maths and Science. I found them more straightforward: you were either right or wrong. No articulating of opinions and backing them up with quotes from the text. I pursued the scientific pathway and became a doctor. I loved that world: where decisions can mean life or death, literally; where you witness life beginning, and where you see it end; where people tell you things they’ve told no other person. I will never regret choosing Medicine as my career.

I married and had four children and eventually found myself torn between work and family. Our hectic life was unsustainable and I quit work. It wasn’t an easy decision, but family life is much smoother and happier now.

As soon as I knew I was stopping work, I enrolled in an online writing course (less intimidating than face-to-face). A couple of my children had won writing awards and I wondered if perhaps I could write, too. It was so pleasurable to unleash my creative side. It had waited for over four decades to emerge, and towards the end, it was banging against my skull, begging for release. Now it’s out, its relishing its freedom like an unbridled horse.

Apart from my family and writing, I also love classical music, the ocean and the Australian bush. I walk every day through the bushland around Allen Park, making sure I at least glimpse the sea. For me, it is ‘nature’s antidepressant’.

I have recently started a blog, which you can find at: louise-allan.com. Feel free to slip over and take a look.

Episode Four

Fences

 

 

There is a time to hang on and a time to let go. This is a rule that the boy Dalyon learnt with regard to his fences. He climbed to the top and balanced there, swaying a little. The small hand that grew from the end of the arm, attached to the shoulder that was Dalyon’s body, loosened, and he toppled to the grass. Pressure. A small cut. He climbed again and again. Swayed. Toppled. Don’t do that, do that, don’t do that do that, don’t do that, do that. This and that. At the end, at the shift part, he stood up and leant against the fence. The fence was hot from the sun shining on it. He walked along the fence that formed the boundary to his world, dragging a stick over its undulating surface.  At the end was a high gate that could not be opened. He touched the gate, swiveled around and walked back around the fence. At the other end was another gate that could be opened. He climbed up and undid the latch that had been made to keep him in.

Beyond the fence a struggling forest stretched out in every direction, dry trees above dry ground made worse by the long summer. In the strings of shade cast from sickly branches overhead, red winged insects moved about, piling sand around the edges of deep dark holes in hard ground. Dalyon watched two fighting, pulling, or helping, each other down below the ground.  He stood amidst the swirling lines of insects as he stared into the narrow channel of darkness that led to their world. At some stage he became aware of a stinging sensation. He looked down to see the creatures crawling all over his feet. He began to brush at his feet frantically.

‘Get away, you! Get away!’ He let out a scream to bring Ma. ‘Get away! Mama!’

She came running from the house with a jug of water.   ‘What are you doing boy? Get back. Get back inside. Quickly. Wait!’ She washed his legs and all the insects on the ground. ‘Now go. Go! They’ll have you soon enough if you stray.’

‘Ma?’

Ma didn’t answer for a moment.

‘What Ma?’

 She said, ‘there are monsters in the forest that still haven’t been caught. Big, hungry, hairy monsters. Grrr!’ She made her hands into scary claws. ‘They will kill you, and eat you all up. Gobble, gobble, gobble. And me too. Do you want that? No, no you don’t, you don’t at all. Come. You can’t have your water now. You can have some of mine. I’ve made ice. You’ve been outside enough today. Inside time now. Time to rest.  We’ll come outside again at dusk.’ She took his arm to bring him back.

‘Hungry monsters eat Bob-and-Terry?’ Dalyon asked as she dragged his resisting body after her.

‘No, they’ve got big guns. Like magic sticks – very loud. Bang!’ she said. ‘Bang, bang! No more monsters.’

‘Bang,’ he whispered.

The sound of the crows carried across the sky. Dalyon copied their cries. He was speaking to them in their language, echoing the cadence of their sound perfectly. The sounds fell away at the end. All crows were old and cross. They stopped to listen to his taunts, then started up again. Watch it, they said! Watch it or you’ll be sorry. Watch it meant, ‘be careful’. It was how people used to speak in this country when there were many people on the earth.

‘Crows, you watch it or you’ll be sorry,’ he said. ‘You watch it! Caw gaw gra-aaaw. You, you watch it crows.’ They flew off at that.

Dalyon had worked out a way to scale the fence. Tucked into his pocket he now kept a magic stick that he could make go ‘bang’. His stick would frighten the monsters away so that he and Ma could go into the forest whenever they wanted. Ma would say,‘no Dalyon,’ when he told her this, so he said no more about it.

He would need to scout ahead. He had a plan that took Ma into account. She had a certain routine that gave him time to do what he could do. She felt now that she didn’t need to watch him all the time because of the outside fence that Bob and Terry had caused. Others had come to build it – big, wordless men and women who sang nothing and went away. Dalyon swung and bounced all day, watching them as they worked, assessing the weaknesses and exit points that they were building into the barrier. When the workers had gone, Dalyon and Ma stood together for a long time looking up at it. Ma did not sing that night.

After that day she spent much of her time sitting inside. One day when Dalyon looked inside to see what she was doing, he noticed how she sat staring into the bowl from which she had hardly eaten since he left her at the table. Soon she made odd, gulping sounds, half way between laughing and speaking. Water streamed from her eyes, trickled over parts of her face and joined in a drop at the bottom of her chin. Dalyon saw that she was crying.

Dalyon had never cried. It was one of the things that Ma said he didn’t seem to do. It wasn’t either good or bad. It just was. In the story about Hansel, Gretel and the witch, Gretel cried when she was lost in the woods, and Hansel told her not to worry. Perhaps Dalyon should say this to Ma. From his quiet place just near the side door, Dalyon looked to her face for more clues. Ma said that a person’s face could show if they were happy or sad, and of other things they were thinking and feeling too. Everyone had their own thoughts, different from Dalyon.

Dalyon tried to see Ma’s thoughts in her face. Her face was a changing thing. It changed shape and it changed colour. It became dark, and then as pale as flour so that she almost disappeared into the walls. Dalyon danced from one foot to the other as he hovered by the door, watching her, unsure of what he should do. It was too difficult. He closed his eyes, and listened until she stopped her strange noises. Perhaps she knew he was there. Perhaps this is what she was thinking. Perhaps she didn’t like him looking at her crying.

He moved away, back to his business, ashamed of being there. He shook his head, shaking away his discomfort, and flapped his hands like small rags in a strong wind. He went like that until something entered his field of vision and called him away to play.

These objects in this yard spoke to him. Perhaps they, too, had their own thoughts. This chair was heavy and claimed it didn’t want to be moved. The swing was playful and always teasing him with its little movements. Come and play with me, it said. The trampoline liked being jumped on. It laughed and giggled with every spring and hop. When he ran fast, it laughed fast and high. When he jumped slowly, it laughed slowly like a goofy storybook horse.

Dalyon was flying on the swing. He was bouncing on the trampoline. He was checking his chair fence for gaps. The cat was lying there, old and tired. It got up, stretched its opposite side front and back legs way out, brought them back to stand beneath its body, and slunk away. It looked over its shoulder, not knowing what to do, or whether Dalyon would run to catch it this time, or not.