A Separation

 I saw a movie last night that I recommend — an Iranian film called A Separation.

It's about a woman who wanted to leave Iran to get a better future for her daughter, and the husband who cannot leave because he cares for his elderly father, who has Alzheimers, and the consequences that arise from the stress this puts them under. 

 It was a wonderful movie — intense, subtle and complex, with no easy resolutions. I felt for every one of the characters. The acting was excellent, even by the children. The daughter, torn between her parents, was superb in her restrained desperation. No teen histrionics here.

 And the little girl whose pregnant mother came to take care of the elderly father — both were excellent.

It was also a fascinating glimpse into another culture. 

 No wonder it won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Well worth seeing if you can manage it.

When words fail...

I've been pondering on the failure of words to convey what you intend. Partly it's because I'm ditching a big chunk of the beginning of my current book, and starting again from scratch. Partly it's because a friend is currently ill, and a group of us sent her flowers and a simple message.

 Or so we thought.
Today she wrote to us and, to her thanks, added this:

Card read ‘think  of this as super placement’.  Now, I had enough functioning brain cells to realise something had been lost in translation, but what?  3am it struck me – super placement, soup replacement.

It gave us all a giggle, and I was reminded of some other failures of the "Chinese whispers" variety -- you know the old game, where one person passes on a whispered message, and they pass it on... and by the time you get to the end of the line the message bears no resemblance to the original.

These are of the cake decorating variety -- cakes ordered over the phone, and then... words fail. Or maybe ears fail.

I love this one, picturing the bride and groom (clearly keen gardeners) in green... and not a drop of green icing in sight.

But I don't think this was what was ordered, either.

And you know exactly what was ordered here:

Anyway, these gave me a laugh, and put me in a better frame of mind for restarting the book. There are plenty more of these cake disasters on the web — just google cake wrecks.

Winter Writing Workshops, Trinity College, Melbourne Uni

I've been working on a new project, lately. Last year I attended the Summer Film School at Trinity College, Melbourne University, and enjoyed it so much I went back again this summer.

That first year I met Sharon Peers who runs it, and also a lecturer at Melb Uni, Bryony Cosgrave and we got talking about putting together a writing workshop for popular fiction.

I'm glad to say it's become a reality. The workshops will take place over the weekend of June 15-17, 2012, starting with a Friday evening session, and then all day Saturday and Sunday.

We've lined up some wonderful authors — crime writer, Shane Maloney, and fantasy, YA, children's writer and historical novelist Kate Forsyth. And of course, I'm taking some sessions, too. I think it's going to be a wonderful weekend.

If you've ever wanted to get started on a novel, or just hone your writing skills, all in the gorgeous surroundings of Melbourne University, this is your opportunity.

I've put together a website with the basic information — the details are on a downloadable pdf file.

Poster Magic

I'm doing a talk — a Girls Night Out, with sparkling wine and chocolates — at Preston Library in Melbourne on the 14th March, and they've made the cutest manga-ish poster to advertise it, using a photo I'd sent them.

The photo was taken by a couple of wonderful friends who were visiting Melbourne, and when I said I had to get a photo — I am so not good with photos — they whipped out the makeup and the camera and posed me in their hotel room. This is the photo I sent to the library.

And then a genius called Dean turned it into this cute, slightly manga-style poster.

Nice eh?

Hope you can come on the night.

And by the way, I have real Japanese Mangas of my books. I wrote a post about them here.

Naming Characters

One of my characters in the current wip (work in progress) keeps insisting I've named him wrongly, so yesterday I went on a search to see if some other name clicked. The trouble is, it has to be a name right for the Regency era (1811-1820)

I found a baby name site that tells you how popular a name was in any decade. It doesn't go back as far as the regency, but is fun and fascinating, nevertheless. You enter a name and it produces a popularity by year graph.


For instance "Anne" hit a peak in 1905 and has been going steadily downhill since. Am I becoming more exclusive... or just more unfashionable?
http://babynamewizard.com/voyager

How did your name rank?

Screenwriting at Trinity College, Melbourne

Last week I did a number of screenwriting workshops at Trinity College, at Melbourne University. It was part of the excellent Summer Film School that's been running here each summer for the last 17 years. I did some of the writing sessions last year and liked them so much I came back for more.

 It's not that I'm planning to become a screenwriter or anything, just that I like doing different kinds of craft-of-writing courses occasionally. It refreshes my writing. And since it's not far from my home, and in my old stamping ground, it's a pleasure to revisit the area.

The pic below is of Royal Parade, which becomes Sydney Rd. I used to catch the tram from this street to and from high school, which is over the road from Melbourne University. So I got a wee bit nostalgic standing under these beautiful trees.

This is Trinity and the wonderful ancient oak tree in the courtyard.

The weather was roasting, but under these shaded colonnades it was cool and peaceful.

And inside the Junior Common Room it was beautifully cool and air-conditioned and we sat in lovely squishy leather seats and couches. Here is some of the class in the afternoon break. This was writing for children's TV.

I also studied writing for short films with Chris Corbett which was excellent. He talks a lot about the architecture of a script, which I find a very interesting concept. I really like his way of analysing/structuring a script. I did a one day course with him last year on writing for TV and found it eye-opening. 

It seems to me that screen writers' process is quite different from novel writers. Every screen writer I've heard speak pretty much plots the events of the story in detail first — the last part of the script they write is the dialogue. 

For me, and for many of the novelists I know, writing the dialogue is when your characters truly come alive. I can write a really solid plot in advance and plan out characters in detail, knowing all about them and their backstory and their motivation, but as soon as the characters come to life on the page (ie speak), they'll reveal themselves as someone a little bit different and take the story in a different direction. And if I try to stick to the characters I planned, they'll be wooden or lacklustre and unconvincing. Maybe that's because in a novel you have to bring the characters to life on the page, whereas screen writers must rely on actors to bring the characters to life on the screen.

I'm not sure, but it's got me thinking.

One of the short movies we studied was this Oscar nominated Irish movie called CRUSH. If you have 15 minutes to spare, watch it — it's sweet and clever and wonderful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1s_5JDgo4E

Dancing shadows

In one of the rooms of my house there are two large windows with holland blinds as their only covering. The holland blinds are old, a bit worn and tatty and deeply unfashionable, but I love them.

The reason I love them is that every morning they give me wonderful shadow pictures, dancing silhouettes of the leaves outside. It reminds me of a book from my childhood, with wonderful illustrations.

Mine are not quite as decorative, but I think they're beautiful, nevertheless, especially since they dance and move constantly in the breeze.

Gives me a smile every morning.