Felicity Banks

“When Good Libraries Go Bad” so far

July 9, 2010 at 10:14 am (Daily Awesomeness)

1

A tentacle circled my neck, squeezing the life out of me with agonizing skill. “Steve!” came Terry’s voice. “Steve! Wake up!”

*

I opened my eyes to Terry, leaning over me. He looked scruffy without his mind-mage robes on. “Your cthulhu nightmares suck.”

“Sorry.”

*

We got up for breakfast. As the mind-mage, Terry got cereal. Phil the muscle-mage got steak. As air-mage, I got zip. And MY robe is puce.

2

“Oi, Steve, stop being nervous,” said Terry.

I said, “Shut up or I’ll CO2 you.”

Phil cracked a smile, exercising at least twenty muscles.

*

We hiked across the desert toward the Forbidden Library. Terry cleared his throat when we were still twenty miles away: “I sense something.”

*

Phil tensed, ready to attack. Terry shook his head: “It’s dead – but still radiating.”

“So. . . ?” I prompted.

Terry said: “It’s a cthulhu.”

3

Five miles away, and I tasted dead cthulhu on the air. Phil was sure he could make the corpse slither away, though, so that was reassuring.

*

At last we reached the three storey iron- and bone-bound doors of the outer library. I sensed breathable air inside. “After you, Phil.”

*

Phil focused, and the great doors cracked open, spraying chunks of blood-stained iron bigger than my house. “And now we wait,” said Terry.

4

We barely slept. I had nightmares, but Terry had his own to distract him. At dawn, we heard the rustling of pages. We waited back to back.

*

A pack of graphic novels emerged and sniffed at my feet. They smelled what I wanted them to smell – a friend. And so they imprinted on me.

*

When I judged my literature army to be big enough, we walked inside. A single giant tentacle lay across the threshold. I removed the stench.

5

More books joined me every hour – everything from gardening to war. I was dizzy with the smell of leather bindings and dust.

*

Phil wanted to move the tentacle, but Terry insisted we climb it. Some mountaineering books made steps for us, and it only took a few hours.

*

“There’s a problem,” Terry whispered.

I said, “What?”

“The cthulhu – it’s either a mother or a daughter. And I can’t tell which is alive.”

6

We ducked into a cobweb-strewn chamber and were attacked by a squad of how-to books. They pounded my head and I wasn’t able to focus.

*

Phil pushed me aside and tore apart the books with his mind. Terry was taken over by empathic rage and he punched me in the gut. I folded.

*

Ten books rushed Phil at once and I reached out with my mind and made him smell of oil just in time. They calmed down, and Terry did too.

7

“It’s Nix,” Terry told us at last.

I said, “The monster mage! No wonder WE were sent. We need to find his spell book – and destroy it.”

*

Phil coughed: “How will we do it?”

“1. Look, and 2. Live,” said Terry.

I said, “You know what a cthulhu’s weakness is? They’re too big.”

*

“How is size a disadvantage?” Phil asked.

I said, “Because hopefully they won’t notice us.”

“Right,” he whispered.

8

Terry shook me awake. “They took Phil!” I stood at once, but all my books were asleep and there were no others to be seen. Terry whimpered.

*

“Is that your fear or his?” I said.

Terry said, “His. Which means he’s still alive.”

“Good.” I sent a shelf of James Bonds to find Phil.

*

I asked, “Do you think it was Nix or the live cthulhu that took Phil?”

“Nix. I can feel him laughing. And he knows I can hear him.”

9

The Bond books returned with an illustrated series on the Moulin Rouge. I altered the air so they fled in disgrace.

[there’s more to come today, but I haven’t written it yet 😦 ]

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Three-Ingredient Thursday: Baked Apple

July 8, 2010 at 10:25 am (Daily Awesomeness)

Does the existence of fruit make a dessert healthy? You decide.

1. Peel and core the apple.

2. Block one end of the hole with butter and put a whole lot of sugar and a bit of cinnamon inside before blocking the other end with more butter.

3. Cook on high in the microwave about three minutes (the apple should look like pie apple when it’s done – yellow instead of white).

4. Forget to take a picture until you’ve eaten most of it.

Every so often, the thought of fruit turns my stomach, especially when I just know that apple lurking in the fridge is going to be sour. This method solves that problem, and is especially delicious in Winter.

Tomorrow: Cook with your home-grown herbs (or in my case, the mint plant I stole from the neighbours).

Coming soon: A linked list to every single awesome thing I’ve done so far.

Throughout July I’ll be posting a picture of either a library or a cthulu (or perhaps, someday, both) as companion to the twittertale “When Good Libraries Go Bad.” Thames&Hudson published a book of library photos taken by Candida Höfer. You can see the details at http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500543146.html. This photo is a reproduction from that collection (pass your mouse over the picture to see which library it is).

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S#71: Fruit and Veg

July 7, 2010 at 10:27 am (Daily Awesomeness)

Today is Friendsday Wednesday – a day to celebrate friends (either by a DIY public holiday, by meeting someone at their work cafe for lunch, or just calling someone you love to like). http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=348494771209&index=1 

I celebrated by buying a ridiculous amount of fruit and vegetables to feed my impoverished associates.

It’s always good being as absent-minded as yours truly, because I get home from shopping and say things like, “Wait a sec. . . is that. . . yes it is! A coconut. Huzzah!”

Yesterday I made hommus (for the first time in my life; I’ll blog about it officially soon). Tomorrow I’ll be making soup for lunch, and serving all these items as snacks during the day, as I desperately try to not eat chocolate or lollies – the fruits and mint here will all go into a mighty delicious drink of awesomeness. I may even let someone else have a sip.

Mmm. . . shiny.

In other news, yesterday I bade a sad farewell to Sherlock, my reticulate cory. He was an impulse purchase (although he DID solve my snail problem) who will grow far too big for my tank – and he’s made Gandalf (my Siamese fighting fish) sick. I have a friend with a 150L tank just for loaches and tetras, so it was perfect. She even has a reticulate cory already (frighteningly large, too). I watched Sherlock in his new tank for a very long time, and he was clearly delighted with his much bigger environment (which has hundreds of hidey-holes to explore). It’s sad to see Sherlock leave, but I know everyone’s better off.

In other other news, I’m now halfway through my four weeks of digestive awesomeness. The lack of chocolate makes me want to punch the universe in the face, and I’m nauseous a lot (less so as time passes, but I think I have some genuine food intolerances to sort out). And, as you probably gathered from the accusations of pregnancy flying about, I’m rather bloated. Only sheer self-righteous determination is keeping me going. I still haven’t re-achieved my 78 kilos (I gained three kilos due to a combination of factors), but I will still probably make 76.5 (actual healthy weight range) by the time the four weeks are up.

Tomorrow: Three-Ingredient Thursday: Baked Apple

And here’s another beautiful thing for you to gaze upon, once again taken by Candida Hofer and published by Thames&Hudson:

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S#27: Love Your Fear

July 6, 2010 at 1:39 pm (Daily Awesomeness)

I hate and fear Winter. More than you’d think.

It’s July now, and I’m already dreading Winter next year. I usually get depressed in March, by horrified anticipation. My face peels off, my skin burns (dermatitis – I’m literally allergic to clothing), and the core of me stays cold until October.

So I’m going to try to love Winter. If I can pull it off, I’ll save myself six months of annual misery.

Here’s what I’ve found to love about Winter:

– I love the smell of wheat packs

– The constant beanie-wearing cleverly conceals bad hair days

– Garlic becomes a food group

– There’s nothing to dread; it gets better from here

– Chocolate becomes a food group (and tastes better, and doesn’t melt)

– Body odour is not an issue like in Summer

– There’s far more sunshine inside

– My cats are MUCH friendlier

– I love making soup, and lasagna (CJ makes the best lasagna ever), and anything containing potatoes.

– I’m safely distanced from Christmas (family events give me panic attacks, and giving presents is a nightmare on my stupid income), and Christmas holidays (when I earn less than $50 a week for six weeks).

Play along at home: What do you like about Winter?

Throughout July I’ll be posting a picture of either a library or a cthulu (or perhaps, someday, both) as companion to the twittertale “When Good Libraries Go Bad.” Thames&Hudson published a book of library photos taken by Candida Höfer. You can see the details at http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500543146.html. This photo is a reproduction from that collection (pass your mouse over the picture to see which library it is).

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#164: Schmoozefest

July 4, 2010 at 12:13 pm (Daily Awesomeness)

How to get published:

1. Write a good book (which should take about 10,000 hours – the “write a book” part only takes 100-500 hours). Enter competitions and submit short stories to magazines in the meantime. Make writer friends and get actual critiques (the ones with real criticism, which should include “start over” at least once).

2. Go to a writing conference/s and make a contact (or twelve) – it really IS a job interview, so clean your teeth (etc), use your manners, and research your market thoroughly before you go (including reading their books and being realistic about whether they’re the right market for you). Never say a bad thing about any publisher – firstly because they work harder and longer than most writers do, and secondly because they’re all friends with each other and astonishingly gracious to newbies. So join the kind culture.

3. Send your book to a name, not a slushpile. Then rewrite and repeat. Hedge your bets, but don’t send to absolutely everyone at once. (And, FYI, send to agents before/instead of publishers – but #2 still applies.)

Today’s entry is all about Number Two (take that however you like). This pic was taken as CJ and I drove home from the NSW Writers’ Centre Children’s and Young Adult writers’ Festival (“Ratatouille” was playing in this Maccers, which amused me very much):

During the sessions I learned:

1. Publisher B (the one who’s had one of my books for fourteen months, and another book for seven months) has their acquisitions meetings on every second Tuesday. One of my goals yesterday was to find out exactly what day those meetings happened, and now I can relax on every other day. I also made sure I shook hands with the head of the relevant department and told her who I was. It sounds like an irrelevant detail, but it isn’t. When my name is mentioned, she can add that, in her experience, I have personal hygiene and a fabulous red dress. Ultimately, publishers contract the author, not the book. Now she’s seen the product behind the book, she will feel more comfortable saying yes.

2. Publisher D said – as a sign of how great their slushpile method is for discovering ever so much new talent – they’d accepted five books from the slushpile in the last two and a half years. That means the average chance of acceptance (and remember, this was MUCH higher than usual) is roughly one in TEN THOUSAND. I knew the chance was small, but I didn’t know it was that small (and they hadn’t discovered a single slushpile gem for the three years preceding that). See why #2 is important? (I have her card, and her permission to submit directly to her. That means I now have solid contacts at three of the biggest Aussie publishers. Yay me.)

During the day, I also spoke to two other publishers (both much smaller, but sometimes that’s a good thing). One of them is probably too small for me (but you never know). The other, who I’ll call Publisher H, was already on my list of places to send “Farting My ABCs” (but they’ve been closed to submissions all this year). She said to up my word count from 7,000 to 10,000 – easy. I’ll continue checking their website for when the doors re-open, and then I’ll make sure to mention our conversation in my cover letter. Again, knowing who I am matters.

Other horrific tales:

1. Moya Simons’ second book was a YA verse book. Her editor had her rewrite it seven times (and do a lot more harrowing holocaust research than she had already). It eventually became a kids’ chapter book (no poetry remains), because that’s what the publisher thought was best (and, in my opinion, they were right).

2. Mo Johnson wrote a book (possibly also a second book) that was 25,000 words long. She was asked to increase the word count to 40,000, which she did. They said she’d done great, and could she actually make it 60,000. She did. Then they said it was REALLY great, but actually could it be 45,000 – and just as poignant, please? And she did. Because that’s what a professional writer does.

I also went through the websites of the guest authors and picked five to read that looked older-reader enough (and either funny enough or fantasy enough) to suit my taste. They were all good, but one of them blew my mind. I’ll tell you which one – and why – tomorrow.

I also made a bunch of new writer friends (didn’t find any from Canberra, sadly, but Wollongong seems to be the writing capital of Australia), and there’s at least one who visits Canberra often – plus of course we have the internet.

From http://bookshelfporn.com/, here’s today’s library picture:

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S#6: Dress Up (part two)

July 3, 2010 at 10:55 pm (Daily Awesomeness)

CJ and I just arrived home from an epic sixteen hour journey. We left Canberra when it was sunless and shrouded in mist, and returned when it was. . . sunless and shrouded in mist.

First, the dress-up dress report: The Dress started conversation, reignited flagging conversation, made friends for me (kudos to Sarah for realising it was based on a Lord of the Rings outfit), kept me warm, announced my fantasy leanings, and made me memorable (a lady called Wendy talked to CJ about his “tall wife in the beautiful dress”). It also played an important role in causing an innocent woman to ask if I was pregnant.

Go ahead, laugh. I did.

*abrupt change of subject*

I hallucinate, sometimes.

A friend with sleep apnoea told me that at a certain stage the brain starts processing visual data as if it’s dreaming. My hallucinations last between one and ten seconds, and are always based on real objects. Since my brain is hard-wired to the absurd, it’s generally easy to tell what’s real and what’s not, even in a split second (although I do slow down for hallucinations, just in case). When I’m not driving, hallucinating is fun.

And so it was that CJ and I found ourselves driving the last leg of our journey in the following fashion: With Maccers slowly disintegrating in our bellies, Barenaked Ladies on the CD player, my face peeling off due to too much artifical heating for too long, and a strange array of night creatures reaching out for us – a balloon man with hooves for hands; an alien foot the size of a car; a shy elephant; and one of the nightmares from the “Where the Wild Things Are” movie.

The conference itself was fabulous. I’ll tell you ALL about it tomorrow.

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S#6: Dress Up

July 3, 2010 at 6:11 am (Daily Awesomeness)

So today I’m heading off to the NSW Writers’ Centre, schmoozing in a manner that could potentially change my fortunes. So what’s a girl to wear?

How about this (minus the snow and with an infinitely more dignified hat):

They may think I’m a refugee from the middle ages, but they’re reasonably likely to remember me (“Louise Curtis? That girl in the huge velvet dress?”)

That’s my theory, anyway!

Play along at home: Wear something awesome, somewhere unexpected.

Throughout July I’ll be posting a picture of either a library or a cthulu (or perhaps, someday, both) as companion to the twittertale “When Good Libraries Go Bad.” Thames&Hudson published a book of library photos taken by Candida Höfer. You can see the details at http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500543146.html. This photo is a reproduction from that collection (pass your mouse over the picture to see which library it is).

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