Urbanmythic is alive!

Hi all,

As many of you know, I've been teaching a writing course lately in Hepburn Springs. It's called The Story Suite (more info at http://www.thestorysuite.com) and it'll all start again in term 1, 2015.

Further to that, there'll be a range of other classes on offer from Jen and myself.

Check back here for more info about what we're teaching and all the other events we're involved with (there's lots of them!)

The Wedding Present in Melbourne

Ah joy. We saw The Wedding Present in Melbourne two nights ago. They played their Hit Parade singles and a few more tracks besides. Here's their set list (wonderfully grasped from the stage by Mrs Seahawkeye):

The great man David Gedge himself:

We were right up the front. Rudely, gloriously front row. Here's my big head in the way, in a state of sublime joy as Mr Gedge waxed eloquent mere metres away:
Toward the end of the gig Dave stopped to pull some lyrics from his back pocket. Seems he just can't always remember all the words for No Christmas. Now this is a track I adore but I've never been able to understand all the words he sings in it so softly. He was extraordinarily obliging after the gig when I asked if I could have a look for myself ...

Thank god they've come to Australia so I can finally see them live. Been a fan for 24 years but after seeing them live the last 2 years I feel like I'm almost family.

Y’know what’s weird? Friends Who Become Successful.

Y’know what’s weird? When you and a bunch of your not-successful old friends get invited to a dinner party by an old friend who’s become famous, and the night is pleasant enough, but as some of your old non-famous friends leave you notice that your now-famous friend is listing their character failings the moment they’re out the door.

And you realise that this pattern is repeating, and the moment you go the remaining guests are going to discover exactly why you’re a failure too.

And you then understand that the dinner party was never about friendship, but rather a chance for your successful friend and the old friends she considers acceptable to define exactly how good they are, using everyone else as a measure of how bad they could be and how far they’ve come.

And you grit your teeth and back away, knowing that even a hint of discontent is going to be read as an inability to cope with the frustration of being around old friends who make it, and are thus perfect, unlike you.

So you wave goodbye and say thanks, thanks because you know you’ve learned something sadly and horribly valuable. You even say cheerio to the wannabes who you know are a whole different kettle of fucked to your famous friend, and being judged inferior by them is beyond anything you can cope with considering you didn’t drink that much cos you’re driving a long long way away.

And as you drive away you don’t look back and you find you can now wretch in a way that produces no bile but feels even worse than puking up your guts.

And you decide then and there to embrace your procrastination and your psychological problems, and you even decide to forgive your friend for telling you that of course she can’t follow you on twitter because people look at that stuff and there are standards to be maintained (srsly).

And it goes well for a couple of months until one day you decide to put this shit on the interwubs in the hope that by neatly pruning the past some new blooms might grow in the future (but you secretly fear you’re lobotomising the past and reducing the future to nothing but drooling obscurity and longwinded dissections of minutia you’re better off putting in a little box labled This Is Why I’m So Fucked).

And what's going to happen next? What do you want to happen next? You don't know, any more than you know how you got here to Nowheresville in the first place. But at least you know that you genuinely like the people you invite into your house, and hey, you can list character failings in loving, pseudo-affectionate terms too.

That's what I find weird anyway.

Testing, 1, 2, 1, 2

Right. Just looking around here again after a bit of a break. Carry on, nothing to see.

And then

I wrote that last piece less than 2 weeks before my mum died. It's from a different universe.

Right now I'm preparing for a long-awaited, long-destined trip to Seattle. Six more sleeps! Can't wait, and also can't quite believe it.

It's been a bizarre, horrible, wonderful, difficult year so far. Much of it's a blur, and yet I feel I'm only truly *here* for the first time in forever.

Now to the next bit.

Taking Ames

So it’s a Monday morning and I’m at work. For me, work is the office, the office is the bank, the bank is my desk, my desk is a ball and chain. If I had my shit together and was writing professionally I suspect my desk would still be a ball and chain. When I wrote for TV my computer didn’t magically transform into a tool of enthusiasm, support, hope, love and empowerment. It still teased and tormented me. So I can survive here at my bank-office-desk because I know all the problems are in my head.

I hope you skipped that paragraph. It was boring. It’s Monday morning!

Here’s a more interesting one. I just did a little tweet about Bored To Death, a clever, amusing but often-frustrating HBO comedy-thingie written by Jonathan Ames. My tweet was critical of the show’s portrayal of women. I wrote:

6 episodes into season 1 of #BoredToDeath and not one realistic, sympathetic woman yet. All clichés. Killing the fun, @JonathanAmes

And a few moments later @JonathanAmes replied:

sorry! i suck. i'll try to do better in the future.

Hmmm. @JonathanAmes is followed by 14,720 people. This is the man.

My first impulse was to feel bad. Writer to writer, nothing sucks like criticism (well, maybe stab wounds).

Now, you might be thinking ‘Even if this IS the real Jonathan Ames, he’s not really sorry! He’s jerking your chain!’ You know, you might be right. But you’re not, you’re wrong. It’s more complicated than that.

Now, of course he’s not really sorry. He’s virtually single-handedly writing a HBO series of his own design and style: HE IS LIVING THE DREAM! He’s not sorry. And the words ‘I suck’ are melodramatic, passive-aggressive and almost twee. He knows he doesn’t suck. He rocks and he knows it.

But he’s a writer - a sensitive human being - and if criticism stings him even 10% as much as it stings me there’s an element of pain in his reply.

As I said, my first impulse was to feel bad. I started to write something consoling, because real professional writers apparently need hugs from aspiring nobody writers when the going gets rough. We all need hugs, dammit.

Then I looked around my desk, my office, my life as a 42-year-old pseudo-writer and realised that *I* need the hug. ME! I need a hug, a huge hug from all the professional writers out there fulfilling themselves at their desks of wonder. And I need a slap, a hard slap. And a good talking-to. Same as him.

So I replied:

@JonathanAmes Yes, do better. You're a great writer. Just disappointing yr women lack the complexity, inner-turmoil & play of the men

Which is the truth. If you’re going to sting someone, you might as well do it as honestly and precisely as you possibly can.

And now the tables turn. I will finish this train of thought and return to office work, bank work, for the rest of the day.

It’s my slap. My daily talking-to. Slap slap slap. Bad writer!

And tonight I’ll watch the Oscars. Slap! Bad!

And tomorrow I’ll be back here. Slap slap!

But somehow I’ll do better in the future.

Found found found

Okay, we were talking about narrative and structure and shit. And then things happened in my personal life and now I suddenly find I’m midway through plotting a cracking yarn which frequently makes me giggle with glee. How did that happen?? Well, the first thing you should know is It Was A Miracle. Ok, no it wasn’t. But it feels like it.

Rummaging through my sick mother’s DVD collection (well she’s not watching ‘em) I found a film on a topic I like. Not a clever film, but relevant to my soul, and also free. So we watch the film and I get inspired, not with a new plot or anything, but inspired to take Christopher Vogler’s screenwriting book off the shelf. That’s a big step right now.

So I read a little Vogler and think “let’s brainstorm something”. It helps that I have a rough outline for a story in the same genre as the movie we watched, so it’s kinda fun to line up the story-beats with his 12 steps. I figure this is a good way to map out some brand new stories to the steps, but it takes so long to get the rough outline written up that there’s no time for anything else. That night. And that’s it for a while.

Then something magickal happens. Now, it’s worth you knowing that my ‘rough outline for a story’ is a true historical tale which I’d researched to death and just couldn’t sort out. So I have a character, this guy, living in my head somewhat but trapped in the sorry prison of his own post-destined life. Hanging out, bored, with about 100 other characters who do little more than punch me from the inside at regular momentary intervals.

Anyway, I’m driving along a highway and a different, younger version of this real historical figure wanders into a room and there’s someone in the room. And she says something - she says three quick sentences. And suddenly I know her like I’ve known her all my life. And he’s free from his history, reborn into a whole new life I see stretching out before us, all three of us. It’s so clear that I can’t unsee it, it’s simply happening everywhere around me.

I get where I’m going and quickly fill eight pages with dialogue, action, other characters and weird, open-ended references I don’t understand. At that point I’m just the scribe, the person nearby with a pen. I’m sure I speak for all writers when I say THIS IS WHY WE DO IT.

That was ten days ago. Since then I’ve recaptured the magick a few times, and also found really satisfying answers when I’ve slept on very precise questions. I didn’t write anything over the last three days – there was nothing new to add. But this morning a whole scene suddenly ended right and then other huge chunks started to make sense.

As you can tell I’m not rushing it. When I rummage around in my subconscious it’s still there, I can feel its pulse. I want to know what happens next but not so desperately I’m going to start just making shit up. I hope, for your sake, you know what I mean.

If not, it’s possibly as simple as this: I’m only writing down words I’ve heard in my head. I think it, then I write it. I don’t let my hand just jot down any old nonsense. I’ve got books full of unthoughtthrough halfideas. No more.

And that’s where I’m going to stop. Stop! Said enough for now. Glean from this what you may, and gather rosebuds, and do what you wilt, and whatever. Love.