Tagged: Fiction
Pitching Your Novel is the Worst
One thing all writers hate is the pitch. You have to do it – you mention that you’ve written a book and people are going to ask what it’s about. But it’s not an easy thing to answer. This is something you’ve spent months, even years with, characters you know inside and out, created lives you’ve lived. How do you summarize all those story intricacies into one sentence?
When I’d finished my first novel, I submitted it for consideration for an Emerging Writers Festival event called ‘Literary Speed Dating’. The concept was that five unpublished writers would sit across the table from five publishing industry types and get a chance to pitch their novel. This was in a crowded room, on the opening night of the festival. Oh, and also, my novel is about a group of young guys who drug and rape girls (it’s totally not about that, but that’s the standout plot point and… see, the pitch – painful). This wasn’t going to go well.
I remember the night, Christos Tsiolkas did the opening speech. Christos, it goes without saying, was amazing – he ‘s one of the best I’ve seen at capturing emotion in his talks, and his timing is always perfect, elevating the passion as he moves through his words. The crowd were cheering wildly and he came down and walked through, like a rock star, and he saw me and gave me a hug – and I felt like the belle of the ball – ‘he chose me’. Then everyone was looking at me like I was somebody they should be paying attention to, then they went back to what they were doing and I went back to staring at those five empty seats at the front of the stage, one of which I was about to be taking up to pitch my controversial novel at five unsuspecting professionals.
It was nerve wracking.
I kinda’ switched to auto-pilot – you know how sometimes you can be talking but not actually listening to anything you’re saying? It was like that, I was sitting across from these sceptical looking important folk, yelling to be heard over the noise of the room, with random passers-by leaning down to eavesdrop on the conversation, pitching my difficult-to-pitch master work. Honestly, how do you pitch a novel like that? Rohypnol is about a group of guys who drug and rape girls, but it’s a social commentary, it questions modern privilege and the factors that lead people to do horrible things. It’s not, I wouldn’t say, about drugs and/or rape. But how do you pitch it any other way? It was tough.
But something happened.
I was speaking to Michael Williams who, at that time, was a publisher at Text Publishing. Michael listened to what I was saying, my voice raspy from yelling, my mind worn out from trying to think of clever angles to describe the book. Michael leaned forward, his hand over his mouth, and he listened.
‘Do you have any sample chapters?’ He asked.
My God. He was asking to see my work. A real life publisher wanted to see what I’d written. I did have sample chapters that I’d printed off at the local Officeworks, but I also had a complete version with me. I asked Michael if he’d prefer the whole thing or the sample.
‘Give me the whole thing.’ Michael said.
My God. I just handed my book to a publisher. This was happening. I gave it over, I watched him put it in his bag, then our time was up. I think I pitched to two more people, but Michael was the big fish that night, he worked for the most reputable publisher. And he’d taken my book. I was excited. I kept my phone on me at all times.
I never got a call.
Much later, after the book had been published, I spoke to Michael at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. As much as I was intimidated by him at the speed dating event, he’s actually a really easygoing, friendly guy. I told him how we met at the event, how he might not remember me but…
‘No, I remember you.’ He said. He told me how they wanted to publish the book (they did actually offer me a contract just after I signed with Random House) and that he was disappointed he didn’t get to take it on. I was so glad to know that, such a great compliment – and, also, good to know I didn’t come across as a total idiot at that speed dating event.
This is the story that comes to mind whenever I think about the pitch – but there were plenty more times where I had to try and give a short description of the book and I just couldn’t. Admittedly, my book is probably one of the more difficult titles to pitch, but all writers hate it. The pitch is the worst. My best advice – think of the three key themes of the book, then try to distil those key elements down into one inclusive sentence. So, for Rohypnol it would be:
‘It’s about the influencing factors that can lead a person to becoming the worst kind of criminal’
That might not be quite right, but it gets the message across clearer than: ‘It’s about a group of guys who drug and rape girls’. It’s hard to get it to a one-liner that doesn’t sound too high-brow whilst captures the essence of your work. And ideally, you want it to be a conversation starter, you want people to want to know more. I think this sentence does that.
But ultimately I guess that’s the message of this post – it’s not about how you can do it better, not about the best process to use. The message of this post is more simply empathetic – yeah, I know, you hate trying to do your pitch. Everyone does.
You, my friend, are not alone.
What Writers Can Learn from Game of Thrones
As many would be aware, the teaser trailers for Season 4 of Game of Thrones have started coming through. It’s exciting to have the show return, but the pending disappointment of having to wait so long when the season ends always lingers, bittersweet. As I was watching the latest teaser, I tried to think over what makes Game of Thrones so good. Sure, the acting, the sets, there are a lot of factors involved in making the show what it is, but it started from a book series – it’s core strength is in it’s writing. So here are five elements that I think are George R.R. Martin’s greatest storytelling cornerstones in Game of Thrones – the keys to it’s success, and the lessons writers, can take from them.
1. It constantly subverts expectations. The most refreshing thing about Game of Thrones is that it doesn’t go where you expect. I remember the first season, with Sean Bean up on the platform about to be killed. I remember his daughter weaving through the crowd, the tension rising. And I remember thinking ‘Sean Bean’s the biggest star on the show, they’re not going to kill him off’. But they did. It was so great, so amazing to have my expectation smashed, and I’ve found this over and over again with GOT – as soon as you think you’ve got it worked out, that this person or that one is going to come out on top, they’re gone. Killed, maimed, chained up and mutilated. There’s a whole science to why police procedurals are so popular, that it makes people feel more intelligent when they can work out the details of each case. GOT is almost the complete opposite, and it succeeds by switching up on you every chance it gets. It’s exciting storytelling, and hard to do in the modern era, where everyone has theoretically seen every story before in some form. GOT does this better than any other show I’ve seen. The takeaway for writers: Subvert expectation, don’t go down the well-worn path. Think about what you can do that will surprise and excite your readers.
2. It’s honest to the reality in which the characters live. As a writer, you’re only true obligation is to be honest to the story and world you’ve created. You can do whatever you want, so long as the actions and consequences are honest to the rules you’ve established for the world you’re writing about. GOT does this really well – if there were a medieval type world where the strongest ruled, generally by brute force, then there wouldn’t be the usual fairytale romances and maidens in towers. The key to success in that world would essentially be a willingness to do what others would not. Backstabbers and liars would rise, those willing to kill would seize power – it would be a pretty unpleasant place where you’d have to constantly watch your back (or resign to the life of a peasant). It somewhat aligns with the first point, but in GOT, the bad guys, more often that not, win. Because they don’t have the morals, the ethics of the hero. They’ll do what they need to take and maintain power. In the reality of that world, that’s how it would be. It’s that authenticity, that conceptual depth, that Martin has harnessed so well. The key note for writers is to stay honest to the reality you’ve created. Think through the impacts to ensure things don’t jar or stand out as obvious plot devices which don’t fit into that world.
3. The story develops organically. Or more accurately, the story feels like it develops organically. Martin has created such deep, true to life characters that every action has a reaction, every step resonates with someone else. And you pretty much know how each of the characters is going to respond. There’s a real logic and humanity to each of these interactions and no one ever gets away with anything, nothing is ever confined to one plotline. The characters respond as you’d expect real people to, and that changes their story arc. Someone who was once hell bent on one course of action can be swayed by emotion, and that change shifts the entire scene. It doesn’t feel like anything is planned or set in stone, which again, adds to that unpredictability. As a storyteller, the note to take away is to consider every action, not only from a core storyline standpoint, but for how it will ripple through to the rest of your fictional world. This attention to detail will add an important layer of authenticity to your work.
4. The characters are deep. I noted this in the previous point, but it’s a key one to highlight. The characters in Game of Thrones all feel like they could have a mini-series of their own to explain their back story. Martin knows each one very well, has got into tune with who they are and what they want. All of them have a level of humanity that is tangible, allowing the audience to be taken in by them. Well, except Joffrey, I guess. The key point – you need to know you’re characters. Not just ‘he was sixteen with brown hair…’ you need to know them, know where they’ve come from, what they’ve experienced, how those things have affected their world view. Once you do, once you can conceptualize a character to this level, the writing gets a heap easier. Because you know how they’ll react, what they’ll do in response to any action. Knowing your characters is key to writing great stories – research them, understand them. Even if you do all that work and a lot of it never makes it to the page, you’ll know it and your writing will be better for it.
5. Very little of Game of Thrones is revealed in exposition. I’m talking about the TV show here, not the books (which I haven’t read) but on the show, there’s very few sections of blatant exposition – characters delivering monologues on the reasons why things have come to be in this world. This is pretty rare, particularly for these fantasy realm stories, where you need to set up the parameters. GOT pretty much throws you into the politics and lets you work it out. And it’s much better for it. I liken this to something like ‘The Wire’ – when I first started watching The Wire I had to re-check I started on episode one, cause I had no idea what was going on. But four episodes in, I was totally immersed by it. Not knowing the detail made me concentrate harder and take in more to catch up. Of course, you don’t want to make it so complex that the audience doesn’t understand, but there’s definitely something to be said about writing a story that’s lived in, where things are how they are. Your characters wouldn’t, in their reality, sit down and go over the details of why things are how they are, and often you don’t need to, and shouldn’t, do this in your writing. People are smart, they’ll work it out, just give them what they need to make them want to turn the page and you’ll have them. It’s the old ‘show don’t tell’ principle – don’t spell it out, allow your readers into it, let them see it with the characters, engage with the story in a more organic way.
Game of Thrones is an excellent example of storytelling, and there’s a heap for writers to learn from it. Keep these elements in mind as you watch, try to work out how they utilise storytelling elements – and more importantly, how you can use the same tricks in your own work.
Author Stereotypes – And What to do When You Meet Them
Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to meet many writers – from really famous types to amazingly talented unknowns. The thing that has always stood out to me is that most writers are totally normal. You get an idea, an image in your head as to what this writer will be like in real life, how they might talk and act. That image is almost universally incorrect, most of them are the most normal, down-to-earth types you’re ever gonna’ meet. Award-winners to day-dreamers, the majority of writers I’ve met have been open, friendly and utterly normal folk.
But there have been some exceptions.
I have noted a few ‘types’ in my travels, a couple of categories of writers, stereotypical personalities that have been replicated amongst the storytellers I’ve met. There are a few, you’ve probably met them yourself. Some of the stereotype writers I’ve met along my journey are:
Super Normal, Super Controversial Content
I’ve met a few writers that have written, or do write, hard core sex and/or violence, and, surprisingly, they were totally normal. Almost uncomfortably so. Like, that dark element must be hiding someplace, you start to wonder when it’s going to come out. I met a female writer once who was totally normal, easy to talk to, funny. She wrote hardcore erotica, like, full-on stuff. I’ve also met super opinionated writers who seem almost intimidating in print form. But in real-life – normal. You’d never even know of their extreme stances if you hadn’t read their work. Everyone has layers and you can never judge a book by its cover, but this one is definitely a common stereotype. They’re actually pretty fun, you should hang with them, but maybe don’t go back to their place. At least not on the first date.
Super Quiet, Super Talented
I’ve met quite a few of these, those quiet bookish types who take everything in, listen to the world around them. They often have an acute understanding of what it takes to be great. They are their own strongest critics, which makes them more resilient to the harsh realities of the writing world, and they are constantly reading and researching, adapting their style. Sonya Hartnett is a bit like this – fairly quiet, fairly reserved, not interested in the hype of promotion and literary fame. Just loves writing great stories. And she’s super good at what she does. Not all the quiet ones are super talented, but often, if you get to see their work, they’re way better than they’d project. It’s worth getting to know them, understanding their perspective on the world. It might change your own viewpoint.
Super Confident, Super Sensitive
You know the ones. They’ve been told all their lives that their writing is amazing. All the way through primary school and high school – ‘amazing’. Nothing else. This is the only feedback they’ve ever had, and they come out self-assured, convinced they’ll be the next literary luminary, destined for greatness. And then comes the pain. They’ve never experienced criticism before, everyone told them they were great. No-one’s ever picked out an error or suggested a possible issue. It hurts – you can see it dragging down their face. I feel for these guys – they’ve not been hardened enough in the developmental stages and, unfortunately, many of them fade away. It’s a shame, alot of them are good writers, but you’ll never advance if you can’t absorb criticism and translate it into improvement. Tread carefully, hope they don’t ask for feedback, and make sure you tell them about any criticism you’ve received (at first, they’ll nod, thinking you are different from them, but in time they’ll understand – everyone cops a critical beating every now and then).
Super Serious, Super Pretentious Content
These ones are the worst. There are some people who adopt a persona when they are publicising their work, a way of supporting their message, communicating in a certain way. Then there are others who just are that way. Everything is super-serious, you can’t have a conversation that doesn’t have geo-political implications and headache inducing verbosity. When they do a reading it gets worse, as you’re subjected to a sort of self-gratification through language. It’s like seeing someone do a strip show for themself in front of a full length mirror. These ones usually write for the social status it gives them, being a writer is critically engrained into who they perceive themself to be. I try to steer clear of these types – whatever makes them happy is fine, but I’ll just be over here, minding my own business. You have fun.
Super Confident, Super Talented
And then there’s these. The best writers I’ve ever met are super talented, of course, but also super fascinating in real life. They are so open to the world, so fascinated by everyday life that they absorb all these amazing stories and experiences. Most of them aren’t especially confident types, but they’re so into what they’re doing that they can talk about it with no ego or self-conscious restriction. Writing is their passion, and they love nothing more than absorbing themselves in it, discussing it. And it’s totally fascinating. Maybe it’s because I love to see them express their passion, maybe it’s because I would love to imagine I’m somehow like them, but the greatest writers have always been able to hold my attention. Even writers I’ve never heard of, if I’ve heard them talking passionately, telling stories that drag me in – nine times out of ten I’ll love their writing. That correlation probably makes perfect sense, but there’s something infectious about the greats. They can talk in a way that makes you tune in to every word – not because it’s part of a show, not because they’ve learned to engage an audience. But because they love what they do. Actually love it. If you ever get a chance to catch a talk by a great writer, I highly recommend you take it.
As I say, most writers are totally normal, but these are the most common stereotypes I’ve come across. What about you, what types of writers have you met along your own writing path?
The Importance of Self Confidence in Writing
As with most things in life, your level of self confidence will dictate your success in writing. The difficult thing about that is, your mind is something that’s very difficult to change. Tony Robbins-type motivation will only go so far, and even then, only for certain people. For others, re-configuring the way you perceive yourself is an incredibly large hill to climb.
We’ve all seen people struggle with depression and anxiety – if changing their perception was easy, they’d be doing it. I’ve seen and heard of horrific stories of people who just couldn’t change the way they saw things, no matter how much logic was presented to the contrary. It’s heartbreaking. Changing your thinking is hard to do. Some find it impossible.
But as with most things, how confident you are in your work, how much you can make yourself believe in what you’re doing, will play the most significant part in your success. If you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t send your work out, you’ll second guess everything, you’ll think you’re not good enough. If you think that, that will most likely come across in what you do. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re already making it difficult for anyone else to do so. So what do you do?
If you believe in something, if you feel in your heart that what you are working on is the thing that fulfils and sustain you, the thing that you could do forever and be happy, then you have to work at it. If this is the thing that you can get lost in, that you can be doing for hours on end and not even notice till you look down at the clock, the thing you feel more at home doing than anything else, then you have to go for it. A lot of people never get the chance to find that thing, that perfect merging of elements that can make them feel that this is it for them, this is what makes them happy. Not everyone finds their thing., so if you do find it, you need to explore it, you need to work at it. You need to do it.
It’s not easy. It’s not easy to push yourself, particularly when you don’t have the self confidence to maintain motivation. People are going to tell you that you can’t do it, that you’re not good enough, people are not going to be universally supportive. You can’t expect them to. The supporter you need is you. It involves taking risks, putting yourself on the line, taking the hits. You’re going to feel lost, you’re going to feel down, you’re going to make mistakes and embarrass yourself (oh, the mistakes). But you take it, you learn from it, and you move forward. As soon as you stop taking risks, you stop, period – you have to put yourself on the line, put your heart into what you do. Only you put everything in can you produce something truly great, something resonant. When you can find that plain where you’re sharing emotion, not just words, where you can feel the tension within each breath of each character and every moment in the scene. When it feels as real as anything you’ve lived. Then you know, you know in your heart that this is it for you, this is where you should be. Then you owe it to yourself to push, to keep putting in the work. The more work you do, the better you get.
Self confidence is a key element of success. Believing in yourself will sustain you when nothing else is left. You have to have the strength and courage to follow your heart, and hope that your heart leads you in the right direction. You have to believe that you can, always.
Take risks, send things out, take in the negative. Make it all part of what you do.
You have to believe, you have to work, and you have to make it happen.
You. No one else.
He Who Must Not Be Named
One time, Christos Tsiolkas told me how he dealt with blocks, passages he’s having trouble with. He walks. He told me how he used to go out and smoke cigarette after cigarette till the sentences became clear through the smoke haze, but then he quit smoking. So now he walks. He walks all over the suburbs where he lives, just taking everything in, observing, thinking things through.
Everyone has their own way of dealing with writer’s block, or not even ‘blocks’ so much (because ‘writer’s block’ is like ‘Voldemort’ to writers – we just don’t mention it), but those points where the sentences don’t flow. When everything’s working, the words flow into each other like drops of water, washing through your head, and it’s beautiful, but with everything I work on there is at least one point where I need to re-think it. Usually I write something, then I leave it for 24 hours (if not more), then I’ll go over it with fresh eyes, see it much more like a reader would come to it, then I’ll move things around, sort out what’s not working, tighten the sentences. And in that stage there’s always a few things that I need to go over – words that don’t feel right in the sentence flow, ideas that aren’t incorporated properly. Those bits that you know don’t quite work.
When I need to think, I go out and shoot baskets in my backyard. I can sit out there for an hour, not really thinking about what I’m doing mechanically, but going over sentences, rolling them over in my mind, even speaking them out loud (not too loud), working out what fits best. I do the dishes, the washing, mundane tasks that require no real engagement from my brain, things that will just occupy me and allow me space to clarify my thoughts and get the ideas to magnetise.
The worst is when I can’t stop thinking about it. If you don’t already have one, you need a notepad or some way to note things down at all times because it’s a killer if you forget that perfect sentence. I’ve had so many great sentences and paragraphs come together in my head just before I’ve fallen asleep (interestingly, studies have shown that you’re more creative in those moments before you fall asleep, where you’re slipping between reality and dream) then I’ve totally forgotten them when I’ve woken up in the morning. Even ideas that I’ve thought were so perfect, fit so well into the piece that there’s no way I could forget them – gone. You need to keep a notepad, or your phone, nearby so you can write a note. I’ve got heaps of barely legible scribbles, hand written in darkness. They’re normally enough to recall the idea, at the least.
It’s really important that writers be out in the world. You can’t create without ideas and inspiration to mould into stories, and the best place to get them is outside of your study. Reading, too, is crucial, but you need to get out and see things, feel things. So if you’re ever feeling blocked, ever re-reading and getting to that point where it feels like it’s all cardboard and the words barely seem to link up at all, just turn off your monitor. Get out of the house. Even if it’s the middle of the night. You need to get out, get away for a moment, think it through from a distance. And you need to experience life, feel it flowing against your skin.
Are You a Writer?
Why are we afraid to call ourselves writers? This often comes up if you’re in a writing course or at a writing event, if you were to ask the room ‘who here would identify themselves as a writer?’ you’ll see a lot of hesitancy. People aren’t sure they have the right to take that label. It’s as if saying you’re a writer is aggrandising yourself, as if, by owning it, you’re immediately putting yourself up alongside Hemmingway and Tolstoy and writers you’ve idolised your whole life. ‘What right do you have to such a title? Because you ‘try’ to write?’
Why are we afraid to say ‘I’m a writer’?
Here’s a couple of things to consider:
There are billions of great stories in the world, more than could ever be told in the history of time. There are not billions of great storytellers. That’s the way it is, not everyone’s a great writer destined to produce works of literary brilliance. Almost everyone has at least one great story to tell, but for the majority of us, that story will never be heard or written. For every great film or book you read, there are probably thousands more you’ll never experience, because they simply don’t exist.
There are billions of writing tips and strategies and people who’ll tell you what, in their experience, is the best way to go about creating stories. But they’re not all right. There is no ‘right’ way to go about producing literature. There are certain things that you should do – like writing everyday, reading everything you can, learning and taking on feedback – but no one can say ‘you do these things and you’ll become a published author’. Because there is no one way to go about it. If there were, everyone would do it. It always reminds me of Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’, a novel which includes pictures as part of the text. Next time you go to your writing class or group, you put your hand up and ask whether you should put images in as part of the text in your novel. No doubt you’ll hear scoffs and someone will tell you ‘no, absolutely not’, which makes sense, you would advise against it. But that book sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. There are no definitive rules on how to write great literature. You can make anything work, within reason.
The thing is, if people are afraid to own the label ‘writer’, people are at least somewhat afraid to write. At the least, people are afraid to show their work to people, because ‘it’s just something silly I’ve been working on, nothing really, forget about it’. If people are afraid to be writers, we’re missing out on great stories. You need to do it, you need to put your words down, do what you feel. You need to get it out there – yeah, you might get criticised, but that’s part of the process. Every author gets rejected and trashed and hurt. You take on what you can while staying true to yourself, want to achieve. What you think makes your work great. You only have to answer to yourself, know that you’re doing the best you can to achieve what you want.
We need people to own that label, to stand up and say ‘I’m a writer’, because we don’t want to miss out on great stories. It’s quite possible that the greatest novels of all time have never been put to paper, and that’s a massive shame. And maybe your stuff isn’t going to change the literary landscape, sell millions of copies, affect the lives of people in generations to come. But it might. Why not you? Kurt Vonnegut sold cars before he became ‘Kurt Vonnegut’. JK Rowling was a secretary. Great writers are people, just like you, doing the same things you are. Why can’t you succeed like them?
And that’s the one thing to keep in mind.
There are billions of people in the world. But there is only one you. No one else can write what’s in your head. And if you write, you are a writer. So be it.
I am a writer.
Maybe one day, you’ll read my stuff.
How to be a Better Writer
Sometimes people will ask how they can get better at writing. What do you do? How do you come up with ideas? How do you start on something? The answer to all these questions is: you write. I have been writing for as long as I can remember – I was writing hand written, 20 page horror stories in grade four. I was writing a novel when I was 15 (by page 54 I was at the end, so not really long enough). I have always been writing.
I write 1000 words, every day. Not all of it is good, quite a lot of it will never see the outside of my hard drive, but I do write, every day. It’s like when you get to that tipping point when you’re doing a regular exercise routine, where you feel guilty if you take a day off. That’s how I feel about writing, I can’t stand not doing it.
It’s one of the hard things to explain to people – the ability to write well is not something you can pick up and start straight away. Everyone can write, but not everyone can communicate through words, and even fewer can convey emotion or feeling through language. To be able to find the emotional centre of what you’re writing about and re-create those feelings in the body of the reader is incredibly difficult. Only the best can do it consistently, and that’s after years and years of work. It’s hard to explain that I can write well, because I’ve spent years doing it. And even then, I’m still working everyday to get anywhere close to that next level.
How you get better at writing is you write. And you research. You read everything you need to form an entire city of ideas inside your head, till the story flows through your fingers and daydreams come to you in complete sentences. I research everything, from the specific sound of a punch, to the smell of the inside of a jail cell. I recently wrote a piece where I light-heartedly used Shakespearean language – no one would have noticed, but I researched the differences between ‘thy’, ‘thee’ and ‘thine’ for authenticity’s sake. I love the research, I love getting to know the world I’m working in. And I love to read. And I guess that’s the key point of the whole thing.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research. And you love it. You don’t love it and your readers will know. You’re not passionate about it, your writing will be flat. You might write something quite good, but the key to great writing is that you have to love it. You have to love sentences and paragraphs and the feeling that can be captured in the smallest details. How one line can break your heart or make your day. You have to love the content, find the heart of it and bring it out. If you’re not real, if you’re not able to put humanity into what you do, you’re never going to reach that next level. It’s hard to do, and it’s difficult to open yourself up to readers and put yourself on the line. But that’s what you have to do.
How you get better at writing is you write, you research and you love it. And you make it your own.
And the key to getting better is you have to do it. Every day.
Undeniable
I was watching the 30 Seconds to Mars documentary ‘Artifact’ recently when lead singer Jared Leto said something that really stuck with me. The documentary, for those who haven’t seen it, is about how 30 Seconds to Mars had been signed to some ridiculous contract whereby despite their global success, the band members were not actually making any money at all. The band then sought to change the terms of their contract and were subsequently sued by the label for $30 million. The film looks at the challenges of the modern music industry and the issues faced by artists in trying to make money from their work, and it’s a really well made film. Their music doesn’t do it for me (though I’m not the target demographic) but the film was compelling and definitely made me empathise with the situation.
So there’s one scene where Jared Leto is talking to one of the other band members – they’re lamenting their position and debating whether they even go on as a band. They’re facing building legal costs in a battle they aren’t likely to win, things are not looking great. Then Leto says this:
‘Don’t you wanna’ make something that lives forever? That’s phenomenal. That’s great. That’s undeniable.’
For some time in writing my second novel I’ve been trying to think of a way to describe what’s been the problem with it. I’ve written several drafts, and at least one of them was okay. But it wasn’t brilliant. I’ve been working and re-working and trying to get it on track – my view is that it’s alright, but it’s just slightly off target, like a train running with its wheels off the tracks. If it were on the tracks, it would be smooth, it would flow and it would be not good, not great, but perfect. It would be undeniable. When Jared Leto said this I was like ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s what I’ve been aiming for’.
I imagine this is both the strength and weakness of writers – you want something to be great, so you do all you can and the more work you do, the better it gets, but as your own worst critic, you’re also thinking ‘is it that good? Could it be better?’ I don’t ever want to read great literature and think to myself ‘I’d be happy if I could write something close to this’, because I wouldn’t. My work should hold up when compared to other great work, that’s the way I view it. And of course, brilliance is in the eye of the beholder, one man’s genius is another man’s trash. But I know my ‘brilliant’, and I know I haven’t hit it yet with that book. I remain ever confident that I will. .
Maybe it won’t be a literary classic known the world over and held up as an example for decades to come, but as long as it is, in my eyes, something that I can honestly say ‘that is the absolute best book it could be’, that is what I aim to achieve.
The aim is to create work that is undeniable.
Jared Leto gave me to words to express that desire. Who’d have thought the drug addict from ‘Requiem for a Dream’ would serve as a source of wisdom?
That Time I Tried to win a Logie Award
Yes, one time I tried to win a Logie Award. I was not on TV at the time, I had no right or reason to win a Logie Award. But I did it anyway. It went like this.
One day I wrote a fictional article about my attempts to win a Logie Award. The article was about Day One of a campaign I was going to run:
‘My name is Andrew Hutchinson. I want to win a Logie Award. I have no television experience or actual acting ability. I have however, discovered a loop hole in the Logie Awards process which stipulates that they are based on public opinion, not ability (like we didn’t know that already), so my plan is to campaign for a Logie election-style, get the people behind me and triumph over the well and not so well known names of the Australian small screen. “But Andrew”, I hear you say, “why would people vote for you? How will you garner these pledges, get people to join your cause? How do you have the time to waste on this?”
Everyone has a dream, and I believe the people of Australia want a real person to win, a genuine no-namer. An underdog. And I plan to do ANYTHING for the votes.‘
You can read the whole article here.
I sent this article to a website I’d come across called Work in Progress, which was run by two creative types looking to publish new work. This fitted into what they were after – a work in progress, so I sent it through. The detail I didn’t clarify, I didn’t note this was fiction. The guys loved it, but they were under the impression that it was real and when they asked me if this really happened, what could I say? ‘Of course it did’.
This lead to more articles (Day Two, Day Three), and, in a pretty big surprise, media coverage – below from The Sydney Morning Herald, including TV Week’s response, published the next day and, bottom right, a piece from MX:
So it got pretty big, pretty quick and I started to get nervous, because none of this stuff was actually happening. The website set up a contact form where people could put down a challenge for me to do to win their Logie votes and we had a heap of people sign up. I was interviewed on several radio shows, I got onto the Logies ‘Black List’ (after the newspaper article in the SMH, TV Week contacted them (in image above) and told them I didn’t have an ice cube’s chance in hell of winning and were, apparently, pretty annoyed that I was making a mockery of their Awards – see ‘Conversations with TV Week’), things were all moving quick. Then the TV guys started calling.
We got a call from a TV producer who wanted to make a comedy show. He said he had a few known comedians keen and wanted to add the Logie Quest, and other comedy work of mine, to the show. This was pretty amazing, and of course, I was down for anything. Then ABC TV called, leading to the above video. The main issue with this one was now I would actually have to do all these things, for real. I was extremely nervious, a camera crew followed me around Federation Square for hours to get this footage, but it turned out okay. They then took me to the Logie Awards (‘How I Walked the Red Carpet at the TV Week Logie Awards’) – which was hilarious. Because I was on the ‘Black List’, they couldn’t list me as the talent, so I had to be listed as part of the crew, and one of the ABC TV chiefs at the time really didn’t want to upset TV Week, so he was totally against them taking me, so we were on some covert mission, very funny. Very nerve wracking also, but the people I worked with were excellent, Shelley Horton and Edwina Throsby were both great.
After the TV show, I kept going back and forth with the producer about the comedy show for a while, then he moved to the US to work on a kids show and by that time it was a few months later and the initial buzz was gone. I also wanted to write serious fiction and was concerned that if I kept doing this it might hurt my reputation and work against that, so I just stopped. The website closed down about a year later, I never heard anything else from the producer. Then it was a just a cool story about that time I went to the Logie Awards and got on TV for being an idiot. And this picture of me standing outside Flinder’s Street Station in my underpants.
That Time When My Book Nearly Got Made Into a Movie
It’s the dream of almost every writer to have a book published. But close behind that is the dream of having your book turned into a Hollywood movie. I got somewhat close to having this, sort of. Here’s what happened:
When my novel ‘Rohypnol’ was published in 2007 we were contacted by a couple of groups interested in the film rights. I had no idea about this stuff, I still had stars in my eyes about having my book in Borders, so I took the advice of my publishers on what to do, who to listen to, etc. There were four groups trying to buy the rights to ‘Rohypnol’, which was awesome, and in my head, it meant it was definitely getting made. But the film world is incredibly complex, there are so many variables when seeking film funding – you’re asking investors (producers) to put up millions of dollars on the promise of a return, I can understand why there are many hoops to jump through.
I met with one producer and director combo in Melbourne. The director was Amiel Courtin-Wilson, who has gone on to do some fantastic short and feature film work in recent years. Amiel was a really cool guy and seemed really into the project, had a good vision, I liked everything about him. But there was one other group who had got in contact with us late in the piece which were pretty much the winner as soon as we heard them mentioned. The group was Seed Productions. Seed Productions was owned by Hugh Jackman, his wife, Deborah Lee Furness and their business partner John Palermo. They were working on a a couple of major films (Deception and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) so they had the contacts – and it was Hugh Jackman, of course he knew people who knew how to get a film made. Seed were the safest bet to go with – they had a clear funding plan, they wanted to get moving on the project straight away. They were the ones. So I signed the film rights over to them.
I started working with John, who had asked me to take a shot at writing the screenplay. I hadn’t written a screenplay before, but I’d read all the books and who’s going to say no to having at writing a Hollywood screenplay? We went through a few drafts, with John giving me regular feedback and sending me reference books and DVDs to help get the story down. By the end of that process I was reasonably happy with the screenplay. I was pretty sure it needed work, but it felt okay as a starting point – it didn’t feel way off. Seed then signed up a director for the project, Kris Moyes. Kris was best known for his music video work, but he’s always working on major art projects, amazing stuff. I was a big fan of his video for ‘Are You The One?’ by The Presets. In fact, when I saw that video had won the ARIA award for best video I thought it would be awesome to get that guy as the director of ‘Rohypnol’. And there he was. Kris is one of those guys who’s way cooler than you. Not in a bad way, he’s one the most down to earth, easy going guys you’ll ever meet, and I really liked him, but he’s cool in that he can, say, wear some outlandish kaftan in public and totally pull it off without looking like a douche. The sort of guy who you’ll run into in the strangest of places and it’ll seem completely normal that he’d be there. ‘Cause he’s cool, he can just do whatever and make it cool. His ideas were great, he was keen, everything was moving in the right direction.
Of course, this is over the course of a year or so by now. John was based in LA wo we’d go back and forth via e-mail and I’d write and re-write and wait for his feedback, like everything in publishing, things take time. After probably a year and a half we got to a point where we needed to get an expert to go over the screenplay and fix it up. Andrew Bovell was one of the names put up as someone who might be able to go over it, which was great – Andrew wrote the screenplay for Christos Tsiolkas’ book ‘Loaded’ (the film was called ‘Head On’) and ‘Lantana’ which was a great film. But that never came about, Andrew was working on something else and wasn’t able to do it. I met with Kris and John at Seed’s offices in Fox Studios in Sydney and we went over where everything was at then things got real quiet for a long time. ‘Wolverine’ was getting close to release so I figured they had a heap on, so no problem. Both Kris and I got VIP tickets to the cast and crew screening of ‘Wolverine’, which was pretty cool then after that nothing. For ages and ages.
Kris and I stayed in contact for a little bit, but he had other projects overseas so that sort of faded out and I’d heard nothing from Seed for months and months. Then one day I read on a news website that Seed Productions had shut down. The guys had decided to part ways, with Wolverine being their only major production credit. After I read this, I sent an e-mail to the Seed guys saying I guess this means the film is no go, and thanking them for their time and efforts and for giving me a chance to be a part of the process. Hugh sent me a polite e-mail back, wishing me all the best and that was it. By now the book was a few years old, no longer in stores – the ‘heat’ of the book was gone and the film offers had died down. It’s been under offer a few times since, but it’s never gone any further. It’s disappointing, but that’s how it is with film stuff, so I’m told. A whole lot of things have to align for you to get the green light, even if you are working with a major company or a company with major contacts. I still hold onto the dream that it might one day get made, but it’s pretty unlikely now. I never met Hugh Jackman. People always ask this, but no, I never met him. I think one time I was in the Seed offices just after he’d left, that’s the closest I got, other than via e-mail.
So despite the disappoinment, I really did enjoy the process. Being able to work with John and Kris and just the excitement of working on the possible film adaptation was amazing. John went on to produce the excellent ‘Drive’ with Ryan Gosling – which was interesting to see because after reading the book of ‘Drive’ I could relate the transition from book to screenplay to some of the advice John had given me as we went through ‘Rohypnol’. Kris is always working on something ridiculously amazing, living a life of creativity we can only dream of – you can see his stuff here. And Hugh Jackman is doing something, somewhere, I don’t know, he faded out a little bit after that.
And that’s the story of how my book nearly, almost got made into a real movie. I’d already imagined myself in a tux on opening night too. That’s how it goes.
twenty six 