The Books of Pellinor

And some sample chapters

2011-09-20T23:01:00.003+10:00

You can read a sample of Jimmy Wonderspoon here.

Jimmy Wonderspoon

2011-09-20T17:25:00.001+10:00

I know, I know, I haven't posted here in ages. Part of the problem has been that, although I've been very busy, there hasn't been much to tell you. Black Spring, which I told you about months ago, is now in the publishing tunnel, but it won't be out until Christmas 2012. That's ages and ages away, and excited as I am about it - and I am - it's a long time to wait.

However, I have idly published a book over the past couple of days. Years ago, when my daughter was around 11, I wrote a book for her called Jimmy Wonderspoon. I wrote a chapter every day and read it to her every night. It's an absurd adventure that begins in a suburb very like the one we lived in at the time, before it heads off into another world, and it featured all the cats we knew. I started writing it after a very vivid dream in which I was flying in a blue shoe over a strange, purple land full of wonky houses.

Nobody has much been interested in the manuscript, and so it's been languishing in my drawer - or, more accurately, in the bowels of my computer - ever since. But then I read about an author who put her unpublished books on Amazon Kindle, and thought, well, why not? The worst that can happen is that nobody takes any notice. So I made it into an e-book, and now you can buy it on Amazon.

It's been very satisfying. I like publishing things, and have often published magazines (not to mention blogs), but I have never published a book before. I hope the cover is not too naff. It's the best I could do with my limited talents. I am still rather fond of the story, and my kids enjoyed it, so maybe others will too. Blurb below, with handy links for anyone who knows any young readers.

JIMMY WONDERSPOON

For Ages 9-12

An adventure story in sixteen chapters and eight cats.

Sam Gorey knew that she had an odd family, because other people said so. She lived with her mother Elena in a little house by the sea, and her uncle Jimmy Wonderspoon, who most people thought was even stranger than Elena, lived around the corner. Her father, David Gorey, had disappeared two years before. It wasn’t that unusual not to have a Dad, but it was unusual to have a father who had literally vanished in a puff of blue smoke at the supermarket while he was buying toothpaste. Just after her tenth birthday, Sam discovered her father was not only a wizard, but a spy, and not only a spy, but had been thrown into prison in another world peopled by cats and rats. And that was only the beginning of her accidental quest to rescue her missing father from the evil Ingkor of Wat...

A book for younger readers from the author of the best-selling fantasy series, The Books of Pellinor.

Sample chapters

Buy at Amazon Kindle on the links below

Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.de

Appearances at AussieCon 4

2010-08-30T08:28:00.006+10:00

I am excitedly gearing up for the 68th World Science Fiction Convention, AussieCon 4, which very conveniently is on in Melbourne this year. And which will be my first World Con! I am so on the quivive you can barely see my limbs for the blur.

Below, for any of you who will be there and interested, are my panel appearances, where I will be chatting with some awesome colleagues, as well as a Kaffeeklatsche - a casual hour where I and anyone else interested get to hang out with caffeine - a signing, and a reading. I can't help wondering if anyone will turn up, since it's such a huge event, so if you can, do come!

The whole program for AussieCon4 is available here.

Thursday September 2, 5pm: Signing, Room 201;
Friday September 3, 3pm: : Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings, Rm 219;
Saturday September 4, 10am: Science fiction and the theatre, Rm 217;
4pm: Micro-audience and the online critic, Rm 219
Sunday September 5, 10am: The eternal stories: myths and legends in YA spec fic, Room 213;
2pm: The fantasy plays of William Shakespeare, Rm 217;
3pm: Reading, Rm 207;
4pm: Let’s get lyrical: poetry in YA spec fic, Rm 211;
5pm: Mary Poppins: from the Outback to Cherry Tree Lane, Rm 219;
Monday September 6, 11am: Kaffeeklatsche, Rm 201.

Myths and Emily Brontë

2010-05-22T15:45:00.008+10:00

The lovely children's author Lucy Coates - with whom I spent a most pleasant summer afternoon in London a couple of years ago - has recently been running a weekly series of interviews on her blog Scribble City Central, in which she asked different writers about what myths mean to them. They're all worth reading, but I'm rather egotistically posting about it, because this week's instalment is with me. They were fun questions to answer, and interesting to think about.

On another note, a couple of weeks ago I finished the first draft of Black Spring, the novel on which I've been working since last year. That's kind of Wuthering Heights, set somewhere in an alternative 19th century Eastern Europe, with vendetta and wizards... It turned out a bit stranger than I thought, and the last month of writing was really difficult because, well, difficult things happen to the characters, as you'd know if you've read Emily Brontë's book. In a way, the book is for Emily, for whom I've always had a strong fellow feeling. One of my earliest poems, written when I was 16, is about her. Here it is:

Emily Brontë

The bell of my loneliness
Is a note so high and pure
It leaves you breathless.

These windy slopes are shorn
of the things that make life comfortable:
broad trees, broken bread, the swell

and supple curve of a lover's back.
These come only in dreams,
fade achingly before the besom dawn

sweeps away sleep's comfort. I
can sit here in my window, catch
the rough sweet scent of heather in my nostrils

and write of death and love entwined
like adders together. The poetry
lies wild in my veins, the poetry

of windy slopes stabbed by rocky outcrops,
the giving spring of turf, the taste
of solitude like aloes on my tongue,

the bare, unchanging moors, which take
my sisters and myself with mute indifference
and conquer under soil all our passion.

(From The Common Flesh, New and Selected Poems, Arc Books UK).

The novel manuscript has now been sent to my agent, which means that it's dropped out of my head. Until I have to start work again on editing, of course; but I like editing.

Right after finishing the novel, I also finished a music theatre script for young adults, Night Songs, that I've been co-writing with my husband Daniel Keene for the Bell Shakespeare Company. And after that, I had unusually busy couple of weeks of journalism - four theatre reviews and a couple of big articles for the Australian. And I've driven myself straight into the ground.

As a result, I've caught a bad cold and have been feeling a bit sorry for myself, which is never a good look. And the problem is that I can't blame anybody - it's all my own fault, dammit!

2010 - already!

2010-01-03T15:19:00.003+11:00

Oh, I am a bad Pellinor blogger. Keeping up two blogs is more than my capacities allow. Even one blog is more than I can deal with, frankly. Apologies to all...

You'll be glad to know - I hope - that 2010 is Croggon's Year of the Novel. I am now around half way into Black Spring, a kind of Wuthering Heights-with-evil-shepherd-wizards and vendetta (but no vampires of any description). I love you, speculative fiction, for permitting me to pretend that I am the bastard child of Emily Bronte and Ismail Kadare. My present ambition is to finish this ms to first draft by the end of February. Wish me luck.

After that, I'll be working on a number of other things. Too many, really. Ambitions include three pieces of theatre, including an opera on the poet Mayakovsky, and three unfinished novels. We'll see how that all rounds out at the end of the year.

In Pellinor news, the US paperback edition of The Singing will be out in spring with Candlewick. It seems strange that it is still evolving there! There are other English language editions proposed, including audio books for the Australian/New Zealand and US markets. I'll be fascinated to see who will be reading them. I guess Cate Blanchett is too busy...

Meanwhile, I wish you all a Happy New Year, and the best of luck in all your own activities!

Maerad as a red head!

2009-07-16T10:08:00.006+10:00

And now, Portugal! I thought I had mixed up Spain and Portugal (for which neither nation would ever forgive me). But no, the Pellinor books are coming out in both places. Thanks to the Google ego alert, I stumbled across the cover for the Portuguese edition of The Gift - which translates into O Dom - and it looks pretty groovy. In one of the mysteries of cover art, Maerad has transformed into a rather pretty redhead, but she certainly has a Bardic eye.

Babelfish translating service also serves up some wondrous translatorese. "The Bertrand goes to edit “the Dom”, of Alison Croggon, Australian writer who already gained diverse prémios with its poetical workmanship, beyond being finalista of two Aurealis Awards," says the web page. "The first book of Alison Croggon published in Portugal, intitled the Dom, counts the history of a child who loses the parents in the war of Pellinor. Maerad, the child, comes to discover that it has one I astonish Dom, but does not know what to make with it. When it is only discovered by Cadvan, one of the great bards of lirigion, the truth of its inheritance is disclosed and Maerad will know that it has to survive to the forces of the darknesses. On this book it wrote the Bookseller that is “… a magical history that in remembers Tolkien to them. It is a full adventure of passion, cativantes personages and scenes of enormous beauty. The Dom is a powerful history and marks the beginning of a magnificent Saga fantástica."

I also does not know what to make with it, but those cativantes personages are Go!

Oh my - time to do some catching up

2009-06-19T09:47:00.007+10:00

I've been bad on this blog. This is partly because I've been so busy on my other blog, Theatre Notes (for which I recently won a big prize, the biggest - and in fact, the only - prize for critical writing in Australia). But a side effect is that I've dropped the ball on my own writing lately. Ridiculous, I hear you cry! And I agree with you. So this is an attempt to catch up on some things.

Anyway, I do have some news. One is that The Gift (The Naming for any Americans reading) has just been bought by Poland. I am looking forward to seeing what it looks like in Polish! And yesterday I received copies of the Spanish edition, El Don, which is published by Ediciones Ambar. It is a gorgeously designed book - a hardback, in fact - with an eyecatching cover that is, for anyone who knows the story, rather mystifying - Maerad in woad? bows and arrows? ...and isn't that wolf from The Riddle? But no matter, the book really is very beautiful and lovely to hold, and I hope it entices a lot of Spanish readers to pick it up and read it!

And now, a bunch of YouTube Pellinor stuff. One of the great (and for me, wholly unexpected) pleasures of writing this series has been the creativity it sparks, not only among book designers, but among its fans. I've just spent a little time on YouTube, where to my astonishment I have found some fans have set some of my poems to music.

Here you can listen to Passionblack's version of the poem at the beginning of The Riddle, which is not exactly simple to set to music: I think it's glorious.

And behind this link is her lovely setting of a verse from my poem on Ardina and Ardhor.

Meanwhile, Littlelyric has made an exquisite song from The Lay of Adomian and Beruldh, which features in a charged moment at the beginning of The Gift. What can I say? I'm knocked out.

And if that's too much beauty for you, you can always contemplate Irc singing Evanescance's song Lithium. Which is a trailer for something called Pellinor The Musical. My goodness!!!

And with a merry disregard for copyright, here is another hopeful trailer for the upcoming (fictional) movie: I rather liked the pace of this.

And I also discovered ME, talking about the books. This was something I did for Penguin Books Australia a while back, and had forgotten about:

Sorry again for so neglecting this blog. I am, you will be glad to know, halfway through my next book: its working title is The River and the Book, a short (and very different) book with a heroine called Sim whom I am already very fond of. And a very opinionated cat called Mely whom I can't seem to prevent from wanting to take over the story. The bad news is that I've been stuck for the past three months. But fingers crossed, it will begin to move again soon.

Parallel importation: a disaster for Australian writers

2009-04-15T09:15:00.003+10:00

Update: The Australian Publishers Association, the Printing Industry Association of Australia, the Australian Literary Agents’ Association and the Australian Society of Authors have banded together to form Australians for Australian Books. Those concerned at the proposed changes can sign their petition online, which is a counter to Dymock's aggressive campaign which misleadingly claims to be about cheaper books for consumers. I urge everyone interested in Australian literature to do so, and before this Friday, the deadline for responses to the Draft Proposal.

Below is a slightly extended version of my submission to the Productivity Commission, which is presently conducting a study on the copyright restrictions on the parallel importation of books. Parallel importation is the practice of importing overseas editions of books which are already available here through Australian publishers. The recommendation in the present draft report is that copyright restrictions are dropped after 12 months. The commission claims, on its own admission on slender or non-existent evidence, that this will make books cheaper for consumers.

By effectively removing ownership of the copyright of a book in a writer's home country, this would have a devastating effect on Australian publishers. And also on Australian writers. Publishers, agents, authors, unions, many readers and most booksellers are overwhelmingly against changing the present situation (their submissions can be read online here and here).

I would like to register my opposition to the proposal to lift restrictions on the parallel importation of books. Such a move would have a significant impact on my ability to earn an income as a writer.

I make my living from the sales of my popular fantasy books, and am now - for the first time in two decades of writing - earning an independent income. This means I no longer apply for grants from the Australia Council to support the production of my poetry and prose. The income from my fantasy books subsidises my poetry (I am a prize-winning and internationally published poet) and the theatre criticism I write on my blog Theatre Notes, both time-consuming activities I pursue for reasons other than financial reward.

My fantasy books are published first in Australia, by Penguin Books Australia, and overseas publication follows in the UK, the US and Europe. This means that there are at least two English language editions of my books sold overseas, as well as the Penguin editions.

There is a small but significant fact that is being glossed by booksellers’ blithe claims that authors “still earn their royalties”. I earn a significantly higher percentage of royalties from books sold in Australia than from those sold overseas. Books that are published and sold here earn me the full 10 per cent royalty of the cover price. Books that are sold in overseas markets often have a smaller royalty – ranging from 6 to 8 per cent – and after that, under the agreements from my original publisher, I lose from 25 to 50 per cent of the gross royalty to the original publisher. This is a standard agreement which publishers all over the world use to ensure that their initial investment in an author is financially recognised.

This means that for every book sold in Australia that is NOT published by Penguin, I could lose up to half – or more – of the income I would earn if it were published by the local publisher. Worse, if a foreign publisher decided to dump remaindered copies on the Australian market, I would earn precisely nothing.

The Australian market is a significant proportion of the income that I generate as an author. And this is why territorial copyright is important to my financial independence.

Territorial copyright is a right for all authors in the United Kingdom and America. Neither of those countries, for good reason, is considering abolishing this protection for their own authors. Under the Productivity Commission’s suggested changes to the copyright law, Australian writers will no longer be able to compete on the same terms with writers in these countries.

My books are selling much more strongly now, seven years after they were first released, than when they were first published. The 12 month rule would only punish their further success, and would provide no protection for years of hard labour to writers like myself, who depend on a book’s steady longevity rather than a burst of sales.

The argument as presented by those who seek to lift restrictions is that it would make books cheaper for the consumer, and that those who oppose it are greedy corporate publishers. This is a populist argument with little regard for facts: the relative expensiveness of Australian books is far from proven, and it is less than certain that removing restrictions of parallel importation would make books any cheaper. And it certainly ignores the potential impact on authors.

The best way to make books cheaper for consumers would be to make them exempt from the GST. It was always a scandal that books were included in the first place.

This proposal would have a devastating impact on the local publishing industry – it certainly had negative effects when it was introduced in New Zealand, where the publishing industry now struggles to survive – which, on top of cutting my income, would have indirect effects as well on my ability to continue to write and publish in this country.

The only benefits that seem likely are increased profits for some retailers, from being able to import cheap or remaindered copies of books. This limited benefit would come at a heavy price to our presently healthy and competitive publishing culture, and would significantly affect the diversity of the books available to consumers.

My situation is far from singular. Artists are routinely urged to become self-sufficient, but parallel importation would make this goal even more difficult than it already is. If the Rudd Government claims to be backing a Creative Australia, why is it entertaining a proposal which would make it much harder for authors to earn a living, in a profession in which earning a decent living is already a rarity?

April 9, 2009

Alison Croggon is a poet, novelist and theatre critic based in Melbourne. As a poet, she won the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes, and has been shortlisted for several Premier’s Poetry Awards. Her critically acclaimed fantasy quartet The Books of Pellinor is a popular success in Europe, England and the US and was shortlisted in three categories in the Aurealis Awards, as well as being a Children’s Book Council recommended book. She is Melbourne theatre critic for the Australian newspaper and runs the theatre blog, Theatre Notes.

Competition!

2009-03-13T11:20:00.008+11:00

We all love a competition, don't we? And now there's a special Pellinor comp, to celebrate the US release of The Singing, in which you can win a copy of the rather smart galleys Candlewick distributes before the books are printed in their final form. All you have to do is to visit the updated (and rather beautiful) Candlewick website for the books. (Afternote: Actually, they've done alot to the website, and there are all sorts of unexpected goodies there - it's well worth a browse!)

Not to mention - which I only just noticed - the chance to download an exclusive short story, The Friendship, in which you can get a glimpse of what happened when Cadvan met Saliman.

So here goes, hot off the press from Candlewick Books:

You can win an advance reader's copy of The Singing!

Please visit the newly updated series website, www.booksofpellinor.com. The first ten people to respond correctly to the following Pellinor trivia question based on new content on the website will receive one galley each, courtesy of Candlewick Press. The publisher will contact you individually via the email address you supply for your mailing/shipping information if you are a winner. Post your answers in the comments below - and don't forget to include an email address so Candlewick can contact you.

QUESTION: How many times does author Alison Croggon say she drafted the final book in the series?

Please note: No purchase necessary. All entrants must be at least 14 years of age. Entries must be posted/received no later than April 1, 2009. Galleys will be shipped to the winners no later than April 15, 2009.

"Oh, what have I done?"

2008-12-26T17:21:00.003+11:00

Shadowhunter asked me a few questions in the comments below:

I'm wondering if you have any tips or advice for aspiring Australian authors - or international for that matter - when writing and publishing a manuscript. How do you cope with writing and then sticking to that writing? Were there times when you were writing the Pellinor series that you thought: 'Oh, what have I done?'

And so I sit here in poses of thought. The truth is that every writer's experience is individual, and doesn't apply to everyone else. And I'm not at all sure that my experience would be very useful to aspiring writers, since as an author I have been, well, vague and feckless in the matter of my so-called "career". (The word "career" in connection with the word "writing" makes me think of a horse bolting, completely out of control, downhill).

For example, I sometimes feel embarrassed when people ask me about how to get published. I have never done the kinds of things that agents and "industry experts" advise you to do, and it all just seems to have happened anyway. For example, a poet is supposed to regularly send out work to magazines, in order to build up a "reputation" that then will attract a publisher. I haven't done that for about two decades, largely out of laziness and for other less admirable reasons, and for years have only sent poetry to those editors who ask for it. Nor have I ever sent a manuscript to a publisher. Publishers just seem to turn up when I've written enough poems.

Similarly with the Pellinor books, I never hunted for a publisher. Penguin Australia contracted me on spec, when I asked for some advice on what to do with this book I had just started... (But I could ask them to do that because they published my first book of poetry, and that came out of the blue too). I was very surprised, but the contract did mean that I was motivated to finish The Gift, which might otherwise have languished unwritten in a file marked "good idea". Deadlines are wonderfully motivating.

I have one piece of good practical advice. If you have a contract with a publisher, get a good agent. I have a wonderful agent who is worth her weight in gumdrops, and I couldn't manage without her. My business nous is about equal with that of Bernard in Black Books (look for the scene when he's doing his tax return). I can't even understand my royalty statements, except for the figure at the bottom. My agent takes care of all the stuff that makes my head spin. And negotiates better deals for me, of course. She is a Good Woman.

As for the actual writing... yes, I often clutched my forehead and thought, "Oh God, what have I done?" I was never sure until I actually typed THE END that I would ever reach the end of the story. (I can admit that now, since if my publishers read this, they won't have a fit. Having typed THE END four times, I feel a bit more confident these days).

The odd thing about writing is that once you finish, you forget how painful it was. (People say this about childbirth, but believe me, I remember that was painful - but I truly don't remember with the books, although I know it was very hard labour with all of them). There were, to balance out the days when writing every sentence felt like pulling a tooth out, also moments of exhilaration, and days when I emerged from the haze of creativity to tell my sceptical family that I was a GENIUS. But the best day of all was when I finished the series. I didn't get off that high for about a month. I suspect that might be the real addiction of writing novels: that wonderful feeling you get when you actually find out what happens in the story. Because you don't really know until you've written it.

I found that the main thing I needed to be was patient. Very patient. I spend a lot of time thinking about the shape of a novel before I write it. (Not the plot, the shape, which is a different thing altogether). When I did get around to writing, I never looked ahead, past the page I was actually writing, because if I did all I saw was the 60,000 words I hadn't written, and it made me panicky. By the time I got to The Singing, I was also aware of the weight of expectation from the fans who had read the other books. That made approaching that novel very intimidating indeed. Before I could write it, I had to forget about all that and try to write the book that I wanted to write. I figured if I did that, I had the best chance of (a) pleasing myself and therefore (b) pleasing others.

My only trick was to write down how many words I had written every night. That was the measure that helped me know that, despite how it felt, I was actually getting somewhere.

The other thing I needed was trust, a faith that I wasn't wasting my and everyone else's time. This is wholly unsupported by anything, because you won't know whether the writing has worked until you have finished it. This is why writers often appear a bit foolish. You have to believe that, as William Blake said, if a fool persists in his folly, he will become wise.

In Virginia Woolf's book To The Lighthouse, she has a character who is a painter. During the course of the book, she completes a painting of the lighthouse that features in the novel. There's a passage where she describes the process of creation, and it has stuck with me for years. At first, she says, you have the vision - you can see the whole thing, the landscape, the sea, the lighthouse, all in one complete picture. But painting it is like going over there in a boat. You can't see anything except the waves around you, and the wind keeps buffeting you in unexpected directions, and the spray gets in your eyes. You often feel lost. Completing the painting is like arriving at the lighthouse, and at last you can see what you've done.

That's certainly what writing is like for me. I just keep rowing that boat, until I get there.

News from Holiday-land

2008-12-20T19:58:00.007+11:00

Last week, we went for a family holiday. This event, by no means unusual in most families, last occurred in ours nine years ago. (That's the downside of having writers for parents. Of course, as we keep reminding the beloved offspring, there are lots of upsides...)

However, when we do go on holidays, we have good ones. As we did nine years ago, on that other legendary occasion, we went to Queenscliff, an old-fashioned and very pretty seaside resort on the Bellarine Peninsula, a shortish train trip from where we live. It's notable for its food and its spectacular Victorian hotels, all of which escaped the evils of "development" and then were restored when Victorian splendour became fashionable again.

There we rented a townhouse with a giant tv (and other more modest ones distributed about the house), and plenty of room for the six of us to read, or play games, or hit each other with cushions, or snooze. (It wasn't the building above glimpsed through the cypresses, which is one of those towered hotels, but it was right next door to the famous Queenscliff Hotel, where we had a most memorable lunch). We took up a bunch of books, dvds and games, and spent the week in glorious idleness.

The most important decision each day was where we should eat. If you like eating, Queenscliff is a good place to be. It's a bit of a foodie's paradise, bristling with specialist delis selling exquisite concoctions bewitched from the excellent local produce, and, of course, restaurants. As you might surmise, I'm not the action-holiday type, so it was a week short on thrilling narrative and very long on leisurely pleasures. And all of us agreed that the only criticism to be made of our holiday was that it was too short, and that we shouldn't wait nine years before we tried it again. I certainly feel more relaxed than I have for, oh, nine years...

Sadly, I am not a very good photographer. The picture above is of a beautiful sunset behind the Queenscliff lighthouse. Just looking at it makes me feel good, because I have the memory to fill it out, but I'm certain it won't have the same effect on you. But you can see, I hope, something of the charm of the place.

But anyway, to get to the point: while I was away, the news came through of an offer for the Pellinor books from Spain. They plan to publish all four through 2009/10, which is quick work! So the Pellinor Plot to Rule The World (very quietly) still proceeds apace...

Which seems a very good omen at this year's end. Prost!

Checking in

2008-12-13T17:53:00.006+11:00

Hello, Pellinorites. I see that I haven't written anything here, except answers to comments, for far too long. But now it's getting near to Christmas, I'm going on an actual holiday next week, and I've shut up shop on my theatre blog, which gobbles up all my blogging time. And I thought I should wave a hand and sprinkle some Christmas dust for my faithful readers.

Life has been jogging along quite undramatically. The US edition of The Singing is getting closer and closer, and the odd proofing query is still dribbling in (amazing, really, by the time the books get to the States, I calculate they've been proofed by about 10 people, including me...and there are still tiny corrections...) I keep getting boxes of German books, which are piling up in the garage. I don't know any German fantasy readers, so I'm not sure what to do with them. But what each box means, when it arrives, is that another print-run of the book has been released in Germany. Judging by the boxes, Pellinor readers in Germany are beginning to add up. As they are elsewhere. The Gift is now on its 12th reprint in the UK - I've lost count here. And apparently it's been sold to Portugal, with things in the works in France. So Alison's Plans to Take Over The World continue to move. Bwahahaha...

It's all very cheering, and it's all because of you readers. I am very grateful. Because the Pellinor books aren't a big advance, glamorously hyped series. These sales haven't been driven by publicity, but by word of mouth. Your mouths. I'm grateful to all of you.

So may you all have a brilliant Christmas/Solstice/Hanukkah/Muharram/holiday/Bardic festival of your choice. And I'll be back in the New Year, hopefully with a new book. Not a Pellinor book. Just another one. That's the plan, anyway. It's about time I wrote something else. Wish me luck!

Checking the books

2008-09-12T10:19:00.005+10:00

My rather unscientific mode of tracking how my books are going no doubt leaves a lot to be desired. I get reports (and sometimes photographs) from family and friends who lurk in bookshops, turning the books cover out when the shop assistants aren't looking (they're a loyal bunch, and I guess the family has a material interest). Anyway, I heard two bookshop reports which pleased me very much this week.

I was totally delighted when I heard that my new collection of poems, Theatre, was in the front window of the Paperback Bookshop in Bourke St, Melbourne. Poems? In the window? Now that is cool, even if poetry is never going to pay the rent. And then I heard that The Singing was spotted in the Best Seller shelves at Borders. That must mean I can officially call myself a Best Selling Author. I've ordered the badge...

Life otherwise has been, to say the least, chaotic. I feel like I'm running like a loon just to stay in the same spot. Despite this, I really have started a new novel. It's a fantasy novel, but it's very different from the Pellinor books. Shorter, for a start. It's written in the first person, which I am enjoying, and it's set in a world and time very like ours. It's not quite what I expected I would be doing, which I take as a good sign, and I have no idea if those who like the Pellinor books would go for this one. But this character has taken hold and is demanding to be written. It's coming slowly but steadily. Writing is very mysterious sometimes...

Bestseller at last?

2008-08-27T17:17:00.010+10:00

I've always been a little confused as to what constitutes "best seller" status. Aside from phenomena like Dan Brown and JK Rowling, I mean. How do you tell? When people say "best seller", does it mean the top ten of all books? Or just some top tens? Or what?

Anyway, now I might be able to claim that I am an international best seller author. The Singing has made it to No 2 in the fantasy and science fiction categories on amazon.co.uk, and is also No 2 on children's SFF. And is at No. 31 overall. I've no idea how amazon reflects general book sales, but in this list I'm currently beating Pratchett, Rowling and Pullman, with only Christopher Paolini beating me to No. 1. (So not quite a No. 1 Bestseller! But I'll settle for No.2.) I doubt this will ever happen again, so I might as well enjoy it. Just to prove it, I took a screen shot (click the image for a clearer version):

Author! Author!

2008-08-16T14:35:00.008+10:00

Just to prove I really am an Author - moreover, an Author Of The Month - a friend of my son's (thanks, Mel!) sent me this picture of a display in Borders.

Meanwhile, I've finished my first week travelling around with the Books Alive! campaign. Except for Tuesday, I've been in tandem with the charming Toni Jordan, and it's been a hoot (Tuesday was a hard gig, and I am very grateful to Pellinor enthusiast Ann for providing a friendly face in the audience, lugging 15 kilos of books into Fitzroy for me to sign, and for laughing at my jokes...) I met another fan, Patrick, on Wednesday, and that was charming too. The real pleasure of this is the chance to meet readers.

Last night we were in Warrnambool, at the local library, and that was enormous fun. Despite Penguin sending the bookshop 15 copies of Book 3 - instead of the more immediately useful Book 1 - people bought it and asked me to sign it, promising they would buy the first two books. They even (yes) laughed at my jokes, and paid attention, and were all-round a friendly and warm audience. Toni has been on the author trail since February, and is a trooper - two weeks is, I suspect, my personal limit. I must be a delicate flower: it's very hard work doing this stuff! But the Books Alive people - on the Warnambool trip it was Fiona Lange - make sure we're well looked after and very well fed. Last night's treat was a dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant, just down the road from the Warnambool Library. I consumed with great pleasure a chicken breast stuffed with chestnut and a rocket and pear salad, rounded off with some roquefort washed down with a botrytis wine. If being an Author means this kind of thing, I'm all for it...

Update: the Sydney date on Monday night has been cancelled (see comments) - my apologies to those Sydney readers who might have been there - maybe we'll catch up next time!

Tour dates

2008-07-23T18:48:00.003+10:00

August is going to be a very busy month for one Ms Croggon. This is because The Gift has been chosen as one of the Books Alive 50 Books You Can't Put Down. Which is very cool. Books Alive is a huge annual reading campaign involving lots of authors, and which is launched officially this Sunday; but I'll wickedly leak some details here, exclusively for Pellinor readers. Especially because I hope people turn up. You can catch me being a fantasy author here:

August 11, 6.30pm: Diamond Valley Library, Civic Drive, Greensborough, VIC FREE

August 12, 1.30pm: Fitzroy Library, 128 Moor Street, Fitzroy, VIC FREE

August 13, 1.30pm: Lilydale Library Anderson St, Lilydale, VIC FREE

August 14, 6.30pm: Brunswick Library, cnr Sydney Rd and Dawson St, Brunswick, VIC FREE

August 15, 6pm: Warrnambool Library, 25 Liebig St, Warrnambool, VIC FREE

August 25, 7pm: Mosman Library, Reference Library, 605 Military Road, Mosman, NSW $8.80/$6.60 conc

August 27, 6.30pm: East Melbourne Library, 122 George Street, East Melbourne FREE

It seems a bit hard that Sydneysiders have to pay... Meanwhile, my Melbourne Writers Festival sessions, which cover some other writerly hats, are threaded sometimes rather hectically through these ones...I'll certainly be running from Federation Square to the East Melbourne Library one busy Friday. For the record, diehard Croggon fans can also catch me at these sessions, at Federation Square in Melbourne:

August 28, 5.30pm: ACMI 2 - Poetry now
Where are we? What’s the next big thing? Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Justin Clemens, Alison Croggon and Robert Gray will name check the movers and the stayers in Australian poetry.

August 29, 2.30pm: ACMI 1 - Legacy or burden?
Melbourne's APG and Sydney's Nimrod were the hippest places to be in the ‘70s. Their impact on future theatre generations is discussed by Gabrielle Wolf, Julian Meyrick and Alison Croggon.

August 29, 4pm: BMW Edge - One not used to happiness – Anna Akhmatova
Before the Soviet nightmare changed her song, Anna Akhmatova wrote some of Russia’s finest love poetry. Orlando Figes, Alison Croggon and Ellen Koshland discuss the life and work of the magnificient Anna Akhmatova.

And who is that bearded bloke?

2008-07-20T12:01:00.005+10:00

Amazon Germany tells me that the Pellinor books are doing nicely over there (many thanks, Bastei-Lübbe: you've done me proud). They've just bought The Singing, which is apparently due out there in March next year, hot on the heels of the US edition. No one can say the Germans are not efficient.

But the cover image suggests that the designer is yet to read the book. At least, who is that bearded Bard looking all, well, wizardly on the cover of Das Baumlied? Any suggestions gratefully received...

Meanwhile, Pellinor's plot to take over the world continues with the purchase by a Portuguese publisher of The Gift and The Riddle...

Who says fantasy is mediaeval?

2008-07-11T09:06:00.004+10:00

I have always said my characters have a life of their own. And they just proved it - they have their own Facebook pages! Imagine my surprise when one Cadvan Lirigon, looking rather more ruggedly handsome than I anticipated, asked to be my friend. He's a "Dark ass-kicker" who enjoys "a good game of pool". Hem and Dernhil (who seems to have generated his own little fanclub) have their own pages too. They're all loyal viewers of a tv show called Days of Our Bards (wot, no Dr Who?) Wow. I look forward keenly to further revelations...

Back home

2008-07-10T08:00:00.002+10:00

...after a month long trip to England, where I was mostly being a poet and sometimes having a holiday. It was a totally brilliant time, and I've come back to the chaos of my desk deeply refreshed, if also deeply jetlagged - for those who haven't done it, Melbourne is a very long way away from Europe, and you never feel it more than when the plane seems to be poised endlessly over Central Asia... There's no getting away from the fact that it's a horror flight.

I had lunch with Walker, my English publishers, always a pleasant thing to do, and kept bumping into Pellinor fans even though I wasn't doing Pellinorish things, including the enterprising Lsle (did I get that right?) in Norwich, who hunted me down at the New Writing Worlds festival, even though I wasn't reading, with a much-thumbed copy of The Gift. That was lovely, and also unexpected. My editor wants me to write a book of short stories, along the lines of Ursula Le Guin's Tales of Earthsea, and I have to say that idea has its charm - I reread the short story I wrote last year, Two Friends, while I was away (my editor also, oh horror, made me do some work and edit it) and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'll keep you updated on when that will appear... I couldn't face writing another novel of Edil-Amarandh, but some short tales might be a really fun thing to do.

Also, (I confess, to my considerable astonishment), Penguin is organising an Australian tour. The initial dates unfortunately clashed with some dates I already have at the Melbourne Writers Festival, but they are on the case with Books Alive! and if they can reschedule I'll be popping up in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and... Warnambool. So any Warnambool fans take note. Are there any? Please come if there are.

And a story that warmed the cockles of my heart. My son Josh was book browsing in town yesterday, checking out The Singing and loyally contemplating turning the covers face-out (all my family and friends seem to do this), when an excited young man with a back pack rushed up behind him, grabbed The Singing with a whoop, and rushed off to the counter. Now, that makes an author excited!

Pirene's Fountain

2008-05-23T13:21:00.001+10:00

For the poetry lovers among you - the lovely Ami Kaye from the poetry ezine Pirene's Fountain showcases my work - in a rare combo, both fantasy and poetry! - in the new issue, which has been released today. And there are a few poems, including recent ones from my upcoming book, in the current issue.

I guess it had to happen

2008-05-14T11:44:00.004+10:00

That is, if I'm going to running around like a headless chook* (as we so gracefully say in the Antipodes) at some point I'm going to fall over. This happened last week. I cancelled everything and stayed home wondering if someone had pinched some of my nailclippings and was shoving a red-hot needle through the head of a voodoo doll that looked just like me. Not a sensation I enjoyed particularly, I have to admit. In any case, the culprit was isolated yesterday: an infected tooth, which has been summarily removed by a very nice dentist. The relief is beyond words, and all I can say is that, for all its disadvantages, I'm very glad I live in the 21st century...

Apparently this tooth has been infected for a long time, and I suspect it might have been making me feel unwell for a while. With any luck my general health with be less dodgy after this. In any case, I'm officially convalescing, and thinking that I might be able to tidy my desk, catch up on some correspondence and maybe even instil some order into my life... though that might be a little ambitious.

The new Australian releases of the first three books are now out in the shops, and in some cases, in large numbers... Borders seems to be giving them a huge push, with a three-for-two offer on the first three books. Which is actually a bit exciting. And I believe the Australian pub date for The Singing is now July. Pub dates seem to be changing all over the place, so when I have straightened my desk (a massive job) I will send a few emails to publishers to get the latest news.

But I agree: The Singing is taking too long! One fan is so impatient she's written her own version, which is presently running to seven chapters. In the meantime, Walker Books has put a teaser - the new first chapter - up on their website as a downloadable pdf. I actually can't wait until it's out, it never feels finished until you can hold the book in your hot little hand...

* Australian for "chicken"

The insanity continues...

2008-04-22T16:32:00.004+10:00

This is one of those holding-type posts. I am having a really insanely ridiculously (insert further suitable adjective) over-the-top couple of weeks - of which the most insane bit was the last weekend's Australia 2020 Summit - but there's some Pellinor news just prodding to be communicated.

Anyone feeling a bit short of Pellinor books can go to Between the Lines and enter a competition to win one of 10 sets (my, a set! that sounds brilliant) of the Pellinor series. It simply requires you to explain, in 25 words or less, why you are the biggest fantasy fan. I'm sure that you superlative Pellinor fans can manage that! And meanwhile, some excellent news - The Gift has been chosen as one of 50 "Books You Can't Put Down", that will be part of this year's Books Alive promotion later this year. Do I think that's cool? You bet!

Oh my

2008-04-09T18:43:00.009+10:00

I'm turning into one of those terrible bloggers who only turn up to apologise for not blogging. So I'll get the apologies out of the way. Sorry for the long absence... Life has truly been bonkers. Perhaps the most bonkers thing about it is that I have been invited to the Australia 2020 Summit - a gathering in Canberra in which 1000 Australians are supposed to debate future policy. I'm in the Creative Australia stream, as they call it, under the leadership of the Elven Princess herself, Cate Blanchett. Which is at once daunting and exciting. Though who knows if the government will take any notice?

Meanwhile, the big fat proofs of the Australian edition of The Singing are on my dining room table. (And they are big - Penguin is releasing this one in the double size C-format). They look very handsome, and I can't wait to actually have the book in my hand - not long now! And in the past couple of days boxes have been arriving of the new Penguin Australia releases of the Pellinor books (right). They're pretty cool actually - based on the lovely English titles, only with my name in raised silver lettering, like proper airport novels. I think they hit the shops in May. (PS: The only downside is that I feel for those Australian readers who have been buying the books from when they were first released - now there will never be a matching set. Which seems a bit unfair...)

I'm having trouble keeping up (I know that other authors are out in many more countries, but the maths of four books in four countries is already beginning to confuse me). The Riddle is released in Germany on Friday. And then the paperback version of The Crow is out in August ... and I just found the cover online. I think it's gorgeous. And Irc looks more like a crow than on the hardback. On the hardback he looked rather like a seagull.

Meanwhile, I am planning to be in the UK in June, specifically in Norwich, with readings in Cambridge and London, and a few days in Cork in Ireland in early July. I'll be wearing my poetry hat, since I have a new book of poems coming out this year as well, but anyone nearby is welcome to turn up and surprise the poets by asking me to sign a fantasy book (I would quite enjoy that, actually). I'll let you know the dates closer to the day.

I'm beginning to think it's about time I started writing something new. But not another series. I keep returning to Wuthering Heights, one of my favourite books. (Emily Bronte is also one of my favourite poets, and I feel close to poet/novelists these days...) How would it be if I wrote something like that? I have an Idea...

Being an Author

2008-02-01T18:45:00.000+11:00

Some people become writers because it's a nice private job where no one can look at you. I'm that sort of writer. I hide from cameras of any kind. Radio is a medium I approve of heartily. Deep inside, I superstitiously believe that each photograph steals a little bit of your soul.

Video, of course, is even worse.

So I spent this afternoon with some lovely people from Penguin Books Australia, trying to pretend that none of the above is true and that I wasn't agonisingly self conscious. Oh, I might be a writer, but being an Author is all a bit, well, traumatic. I am very happy for people to read what I write, but I'd rather they didn't look at me. On the other hand, in order to read what I write, they usually have to buy the book first; and in this modern world, away from the goose quills and smudgy type of Grubb St, that means Sales and Marketing.

Some videoed bits are for an upcoming Australian-based website that Penguin is making for the Pellinor books. Another bit was for the sales team at Penguin. I did my best: I tried to pretend that I'm the sort of person for whom the camera is a friend. But I'm just not.

The lovely people who coached me through it all with great charm and patience said I did fine. I hope they're right. I am now conceiving a plan: I have to become so famous that I need never stand in front of a camera again. Then I can just be a "famously reclusive" author, rather than just unknown. Or promising. Or whatever I am at present.

In the meantime, I'll let you all know about the website once it appears, no doubt when the new editions of the Pellinor books come out in Australia. One of the things I videoed was a reading of an extract from the new opening of The Singing, which might interest some of you...

Bizarre translating adventures

2008-01-15T10:45:00.000+11:00

A wonderful review (insofar as I can make it out through the gobblydegook of amazonian babelfish) of The Gift in Germany, from the German site Fantasy News (Phantastik News). Carsten Kuhr (may the Light ever shine on his path) calls The Gift a "rare gem" that stands out among the hyped Tolkien imitators. As he says in amazonian, which is worth quoting for its sheer oddness:

In almost lyrical about nennender shaping describes forests and meadows, marshes and mountains, and in this way creates an atmosphere felt very intensely the reader to draw their world. Additionally, we are drawn interesting people, and to doubt their mission, which is to develop and understandable feelings reveal. It's about betrayal and trust, love and fear, envy and friendship, and not least to loss and grief - deep feelings in a world in which feelings of great importance.

Well, you get the picture. What makes me want to kiss Kuhr, however, is this: he understands that the Pellinor books are epic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien, with everything that implies: but he also understands that this doesn't mean that they are "derivative". In other words, he reads the book as much for its writing and characterisation, and in particular, for its emotional power, as for its story. And it seems the word is spreading - German fantasy blog Wetterspitze Info goes so far to call the Pellinor books a "great highlight of the coming year".

It sounds, too, as if Michael Krug's translation of The Gift is pretty marvellous. How cool is that? Berlin, here I come...

Happy New Year!

2008-01-14T10:44:00.000+11:00

Yes, I'm still here, and gearing up to the challenges of 2008, which look - from this end, anyway - as demanding as 2007. There's a long list of tasks on my desk at present, and I doubt it is going to get any shorter. Not that I'm complaining! I'm in the very fortunate position of loving what I do.

One thing I did on my Christmas break was to make a much-needed overhaul of my home page. Which was fun - I like mucking around with web pages almost as much as I like playing video games. Some of you might be interested in an essay on fantasy I wrote a couple of years ago, just after I finished The Riddle. It's longish, but it explores some of the reasons why I like writing fantasy, and why I think it matters.

Die Pellinor-Saga

2007-12-22T16:28:00.000+11:00

I don't know. I'm always the last to know...

I just found out, via German Amazon, that The Gift came out there this month! Gasp! And the two others won't be far behind.

But better still, I found the covers. I love them!

Pub dates

2007-12-21T11:37:00.000+11:00

No, this doesn't mean that I'm going on a pub crawl. I have investigated the publication dates for the The Singing (which comes out next year, as any good Pellinorite knows).

The Singing will come out in Australia first, in June 2008. And then the UK and the US will both publish it in September.

Meanwhile, the Australian re-release of the Pellinor series (in those gorgeous UK covers) will happen in May, with all three books in the Story So Far. The US paperback edition of The Crow is due out August 2008.

2008 is also my debut in Germany, where Verlagsgruppe Lübbe is bringing out The Gift (Die Gabe) and The Riddle (Das Rätsel) in the northern spring. They also publish JRR Tolkien, Tamora Pierce, Mary Gentle, Robin Hobb and Marion Zimmer Bradley, so I'm in good company.

Wish fulfilment

2007-12-16T13:15:00.000+11:00

Another post! Well, I'm spending today catching up on Pellinor stuff. One of the things I didn't expect when I wrote these books was the creativity of the readers - they've generated some gorgeous fan act and fan fiction (and some frankly bizarre fantasies, as well!) And now they're moving into videos.

Anyway, today, courtesy of a reader called Icelands on my sffworld forum, I post for your amusement a fake trailer for The Riddle. (A harbinger, perhaps, of Things to Come - one of the questions I am most often asked is when the movie is going to be made, so maybe in the next five decades...) I hate to think how many copyrights the video contravenes - it clips from practically every fantasy movie ever made - but Icelands has nicely put a copyright notice at the end. And I rather like it!

Oh, and while I'm at it - Walker Books has put The Singing in its catalogue, with Patrick Insole's wonderful cover. So I thought I'd post that too. Sharp-eyed Bardic experts will notice the map behind the image, which gives some hints on where the story is, as it were, going...

The post long promised, plus some poetry

2007-12-16T08:49:00.000+11:00

I keep saying it's been a crazy year, and it has. And I'm a bit tired. When you get to my age (about a hundred and forty two, Bard years, of course) the end of every year is when it all catches up.

But yes, my life as a theatre critic was demanding in '07. It even began to look suspiciously like what other people call a career, when I was appointed Melbourne reviewer for the national daily newspaper, the Australian. (I'm not very good at careers, which is partly how I ended up writing fantasy novels). I finished another book of poems, which will be published next year by Salt Publishing. And - of course - I finished The Singing.

In fact, I'm still finishing The Singing. I'll be finishing it for some time yet - there's copyediting and proofing to go yet, it goes on and on! Sometimes I think anyone who writes a novel ought to have their head read, it is such a lot of labour - and not just for the author, but for the editors, the designers, the illustrators, the typesetters, all the other people who work so hard making the book.

The first and major edit will be completed before Christmas, and I am just now doing the final pieces of writing, including the poems I put before each section. The good news is I am proud of it - I do think it's the best book yet, which is as it should be. The bad news - yes, I fear there is some - is that its UK publication has been put back to September 2008 - I still don't know publication dates for Australia or the US, although it will be out first here and I expect them all in 2008 - so the wait will be a little longer. But the delay takes a little pressure off, which is a relief.

Anyway, a couple of readers have been asking if I will be writing more about Edil-Amarandh. There's a little story which Walker will be publishing as a separate book next year (called The Friends) but, aside from that, I think I'm all spent on that world. I would be very surprised if I did. I have lots of ideas for other stories, and once I fully recover from the shock of actually finishing a quartet, I will probably start one of them. I can only write stories if they grab hold of me by the throat: if I wrote more stories about Edil-Amarandh just because it was expected, I think they would be disappointing.

To be honest, I have made a solemn and dreadful vow that I will never write another series. It takes a lot out of you, you know. But it's a bit dangerous for writers to say things like that. Until last week I was also saying that I had probably finished with poetry, too. And then I started doing a version of Beowulf, an Old English poem that is the beginning of English literature. (Why? I don't know! Writing is like that...) You probably all know that a movie has been made of it. I've been debating whether to see it, even though it's written by Neil Gaiman: the trailers put me off a bit. I just can't quite get my head around Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother. I might catch it on DVD, out of curiosity, and find I'm wrong.

Beowulf is one of the major inspirations behind The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, who was an expert on Beowulf and, indeed, wrote a deeply influential lecture about it (Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics) that is still routinely referred to by scholars, basically took the Geats and Scyldings and added horses to make the Rohirrim. Want to know where he got the names "Middle Earth" or Eomer? Read Beowulf.

It's a terrific poem, although it's all very, well, manly. (In The Gift, the men at Gilman's Cot whom Maerad escapes at the beginning of the story are a rather sardonic version of the men in Beowulf - they like drinking, boasting and fighting, more or less in that order). It's written in 43 fitts, or parts, and it's more than 3000 lines long, and I am trying to write a translation that reads like a poem, with poetry's beauty and skill, but which is plain and strong, like a good sword. Because that's what I think the Old English is like.

Anyway, I thought I'd post a little of the poem, because it might interest some of you. This bit occurs when Beowulf arrives at the hall of the Danish King, Hrothgar, claiming he will kill the monster Grendel. Heorot is the name of the hall, and for 12 years Grendel has been terrorising the Danes, attacking the hall and eating Hrothgar's thanes. One of Hrothgar's men, Unferth, is jealous and taunts Beowulf. It's a fine piece of manly boasting!

Unferth spoke, Edgelaf’s son,
from the feet of the Scylding king.
Irked by Beowulf’s brave adventure,
he let loose his hidden thoughts,
vexed that any stood before him
to be praised in middle earth.
“Are you the Beowulf who took on Breca
daring to swim the open seas,
risking your lives for a foolish boast?
No man, friend or foe, could stop you
from that sorry venture. You both rowed out
into the strait and embraced the currents,
weaving the water with your hands,
gliding over the winter swells.
For seven nights you fought the sea
but he got the better of you,
being stronger. In the morning
he was cast up on Heatho-Ream’s shore
and from there sought his own homeland,
dear to his people, the Bronding’s land,
where he was rich in land and rings.
The son of Beanstan fulfilled his boast.
And so I expect the worst for you,
however you prevail in war,
if you wait at night for Grendel.”

Beowulf answered him, son of Ecgetheow:
“Listen well, my friend Unferth.
In your cups you boast of Breca,
but the truth is, I am stronger.
I had it harder than he did
out in the ocean. Young and reckless,
we agreed to risk our lives.
We rowed out into the sound
with naked swords hard in our hands
to keep the whales off.
He could go no faster than I,
not a hand’s breadth came between us.
Neck and neck we swam together
for five nights, until the waves
drove us apart. The water surged
in the bitter weather, and night came dark
as the north wind whipped the wild waves.
Then a fish of the deep ocean
wrathfully struck me. My hand-linked mailshirt
helped me then, my braided armour
covered my breast. The monster pulled me
down to the sea-bed, it held me fast
in its cruel grip, but I stabbed hard
with my edged sword. I destroyed
that mighty sea-beast.

“Again and again savage assailants
pressed me sorely, but I served them
proper justice. Those wicked monsters
held no feast on my dead flesh.
In the morning their slashed corpses
littered the shore, and never since
have they hindered unwary travellers
on that sea-road. God’s bright beacon
rose in the east, the wild sea stilled
and at last I saw the headlands.
If courage endures, fate will spare
a hero from death. It was my good fortune
to kill nine monsters with my sword.
I have not heard of more grievous battle
waged at night under heaven’s vault,
nor of a man more wretched than I was
adrift on the sea. Yet I survived.
Weary from battle, the sea-flood bore me
off to Finn land. I have not heard
such stories of you, nor of Breca,
that either of you made such bright terror
in your swordplay. I do not boast of it.
But you have only killed your brother,
saving your sword for your own kinsman,
and you are damned for it. Sharp as you are,
I say to you truly, son of Edgelaf,
that if your heart were as battle-fierce
as your talk is, Grendel would never
have humbled Heorot. There’s no fight,
no storm of blades from the Victory-Scyldings
to spoil his pleasures.
He takes his toll, sparing no one.
I’ll show Grendel the might of the Geats,
I’ll bring him war now, and when the sun
brings the new day clad in radiance,
men will be able to drink in peace.”

Yes, yes, I know...

2007-11-20T12:12:00.000+11:00

I'm afraid I've been a very delinquent blogger here. My apologies all, but it has been a crazy time. A crazy year, in fact, and I'm really rather tired. October was a huge feast of theatre - the Melbourne Festival was on and I was wearing my critic's hat and obviously had to see as much as I could... (as a critic, I get free tickets, and it's a little difficult to hold back sometimes). Not that I am complaining, it was indeed a wonderful time. As soon as I discharged my onerous duties there - this no doubt will interest you more - I finished the rewrite of The Singing, working with my marvellous editor, Chris Kloet, so I can report that it moves ever closer to being an actual book. The UK (and consequently Australian) cover design is well in hand and I think the idea is brilliant. I hope you'll forgive me for saying that I think this book is the best yet (I also hope that you think so too, when you get to read it). In the course of the four books, I think I've become a much better writer. Nothing like a 2000 page epic to make you watch your adverbs...

All that's left to do is the final appendices and some poems. And the copy-edit and the proofs and... really, sometimes when I think of all the work a book is, especially when you take into account the labour of other people besides the writer, it's amazing so many get written and published. But they do.

Books, books, books

2007-09-20T10:45:00.000+10:00

One of the fringe benefits of being a writer is that I seem to get constant deliveries of books. Not just the books we buy and read, but mysterious parcels that arrive in the post. Sometimes they're books by friends, usually poets; sometimes they're my own books (I have a shelf full of Pellinors!) and sometimes they're books to which I've contributed in some way.

In the past couple of days I've had two of those. One of them is an handsome orange paperback called Contemporary Australian Poetry, in which I have a poem. I'm not sure which poem it is - I contributed it along time ago - because I can't read a word of it: it's all in Chinese. It's edited by John Kinsella and Chinese-Australian poet Ooyang Yu, and translated by Ooyang. Translation is a mysterious business. In European languages, you might not understand the words, but you can still see the shape of the poem. In Chinese, I can't even see that - I just stare at the page in baffled admiration!

I can read the other book, though. This one is called The World of the Golden Compass, and it's a collection of essays on Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, written by young adult authors (including not a few Australians, such as Juliet Marillier and Sophie Masson). It's edited by Scott Westerfield and put out by Ben Bella Books as a Borders exclusive. For that one, I wrote about the poetry Pullman used - there's a lot of it - thus combining two of my passions, poetry and fantasy. I loved writing that essay. The whole thing is a great read, so look out for it. (I think, though, that it's only available in the US).

Repackaging

2007-09-14T09:11:00.000+10:00

Brilliant news from Penguin Books Australia, who are my home publishers. They're planning to repackage the Pellinor books, relaunching the whole series a few months before The Singing is released mid-next year. And they're planning to use the Walker Books covers (right), which will be familiar to UK readers.

I'm very fond of these covers, which are designed by Patrick Insole. Assiduous Pellinor readers will be familiar with Patrick as Professor of Ancient Languages of the University of Leeds - when I asked him to help me out, he also designed the Treesong runes for me. (This might surprise some of you, but I have absolutely no visual imagination.)

As for The Singing, Draft 2 is now in hand. As usual, there is an extra chapter to write (this has happened three times now: it's always either at the beginning or the end. In this case, it's at the beginning). I always enjoy editing and rewriting: I get the buzz of writing the book without the panicky feeling that I might never finish it!

Launch of The Crow and The Website

2007-09-12T07:50:00.000+10:00

The Crow is launched in the US today, woohoo! And to mark its launch, my publishers Candlewick have created a wonderful website for The Books of Pellinor. It has all sorts of bells and whistles - author interviews, descriptions of the characters, maps, poems and lovely graphics. I am thrilled.

(And now I have to make the official weasely blogger apology for neglecting this blog. I'll be in more often, I swear, but maybe after October, which is the Melbourne Festival, one of my favourite but most exhausting times of the year. If you want to see how tired I've been, check out the rather wan author photo on the site!)

The boring bits

2007-08-20T09:13:00.000+10:00

One of the most illuminating and helpful things I ever read about writing novels was a comment by Patrick White, Australian Nobel Prize winner and novelist extraordinaire. Writing a novel, he said (I recall approximately), is a matter of writing one sentence after another, until they build up into a book.

Sometimes encountering the blindingly obvious can have a revelatory effect. The thought has comforted me ever since. Especially in the middle of a book, when it seems to me that actually finishing this benighted piece of prose - which I began in an idle and perhaps slightly insane fit of thoughtlessness in some previous life - is utterly unimaginable. If I keep writing those sentences, stubbornly placing one foot in front of the other, I will eventually reach the end. It stands to reason.

Hand in hand with this blindingly obvious discovery was another: that each one of those sentences has to be as right as you can get it. And this brings you into intimate contact with GRAMMAR and SPELLING. One of the most important - maybe the most important - aspects of writing is making sure that your grammar and syntax are working for you and not against you. It's the difference between a good book and a bad book, and quite possibly between a good book and a great book. Genius, as Gertrude Stein once said, is "the infinite capacity for taking pains".

There is, it must be said, nothing exciting about this aspect of writing. It is simply essential. And after 25 years of writing for a living, I am still learning. I still make mistakes. I am still a little unsure of the difference between "that" and "which", and sometimes my verbs disagree, and I have to check three times before I spell "weird" correctly.

The people who have taught me most about grammar have been my very patient editors and copy-editors, a saintly group who shall be annointed in heaven. They carefully underline my grammatical and stylistic sins in red pen. They have made me a much better writer, because I figure that the more right I get it the first time through, the less work I'll have to do afterwards. This is a very attractive thought, because on the tenth proofread, you can get very tired of your own book, and would rather read something else.

I have never done anything sensible like go out and buy The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, which is the classic advisory on writing clear English, and which, despite my own delinquency, I advise all young writers to purchase. If you do not possess this book, you could do worse than peruse this advice from extremelysmart.com, How To Write Good. The first ten rules (of a very long and funny list) are:

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Avoid clichés like the plague. (They're old hat.)
3. Also, always avoid awkward, affected, and annoying alliteration, which is almost always alienating.
4. Don't use no double negatives.
5. Avoid excessive use of ampersands & abbrevs., etc.
6. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
7. No sentence fragments.
8. Be more or less specific.
9. Being a careful writer, dangling modifiers are always avoided.
10. Foreign words and phrases are not invariably à propos.

Once you understand all these precepts - and only then, really - you can get to the fun part, which is breaking the rules. An obedient writer is an oxymoron, and no really exciting writer ever sticks to a style guide. I break quite a lot of rules, especially when I'm writing poems; but if I have learned anything over the past two decades, it's that it's no use breaking a rule until you first understand what it is. If you don't, you'll just be making mistakes.

This is the hard labour part of writing. Sadly, the more you write, the more you understand that there is always more to learn. All the same, I swear on my heart that it's absolutely fascinating. Really. And when you begin to understand how English works, then you can use the language, instead of the language using you.

Is Irc a New Caledonian Crow?

2007-08-17T07:57:00.001+10:00

As Hem's constant companion Irc keeps saying (with some justification) in The Crow: "I am a clever crow". And today there's a BBC story that suggests that perhaps he was the ancestor of New Caledonian crows, which showed marked intelligence in a test posed to them by scientists. It seems they are especially ingenious tool-makers.

Irc himself is actually based on some pet magpies I had as a child, which we rescued from certain death when they fell out of their nests onto the roadside. We never clipped their wings, and they'd stay for a year or so before flapping off to start their magpie lives. Australian magpies, unlike the European versions, are members of the crow family. They make charming, intelligent and funny pets, and are brilliant mimics.

Time. Don't Waste It.

2007-08-07T20:42:00.000+10:00

I often remember that Albert Camus had a sign on his desk saying: "Time. Don't waste it". I am looking at my diary and I am out for the next four nights seeing plays. I will be reviewing everything I see (two for the newspaper, all of them for my blog) and I want to see all of them. (Well, maybe I want to see three of them, and am hoping to enjoy the other one.) And I have a meeting on Saturday afternoon, talking with a dance company, who are all brilliant people, which is why I said yes. I still have to write that review of Le Guin's Voices. (I said "yes" to that because I love Le Guin's work).

I spent this morning having a fun time writing background stuff about the Pellinor books for the Candlewick web page, doing small rewrites for the Oz on a review of a wonderful film of Hamlet I saw on Sunday night at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and walking around in circles in my kitchen, sneezing. (This is true). I am not at all sure if this is normal behaviour. Any of it.

Ok, this is a busy week. But I'm getting a little edgy. I think I have to write something. I mean, something that isn't a review. One thing I have to do is work on my next book of poems, which is supposed to come out next year. I'll have to stop being wimpy soon and get down to it. At the moment I'm feeling a little squeeeeezed. I'm not complaining; not only is it all my fault, I'm having the most wonderfully interesting time. But I am wondering how I wrote The Singing, because I didn't seem much less busy then. How do you tell if you're wasting time?

Excuses, excuses

2007-08-03T11:26:00.000+10:00

The moment I get some free time, what happens? I catch a cold, that's what happens, and instead of cheerfully checking off my "to do" list, I hang around in my attractive dalmation dressing gown (yes, white with black spots, stop laughing) and grizzle at my family. I've had to cancel several outings this week so I can huddle by the heater and feel sorry for myself. I feel like a hypochondriac old lady, and although my kids will confirm this description with interest, they've been as ill as I have, so they're on shaky ground. So this is why my promised post on writing hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, in between blowing my nose and grumbling, I've been doing various things (Top Secret Things To Be Revealed In Due Course) for the upcoming Books of Pellinor website that Candlewick Books is now putting together to coincide with the US release of The Crow in September. It's all very exciting and I can't wait to see what they do with it. And my editor has given The Singing the thumbs up (the quote is "come up trumps"), which is excellent news. She is a great editor and I trust her instincts. Of course, after that she tells me there is more to do, but I know that already...

Busy!!

2007-07-29T10:07:00.000+10:00

Great to see readers here, and welcome! In particular, thanks for liking the books so much. One reason I wrote them was because I remembered how much some books mattered to me when I was young (actually, books still matter enormously to me: but there's something about the books you read when you're younger, they stay with you) and I hoped that the Pellinor books might be like that for others. So you don't know how wonderful it is to hear from readers who love the books.

Quite a few of you have been asking some interesting questions about how the books were written (ah, that past tense is so wonderful!) and I'm revolving a post in my head which I'll put up sometime next week. At the moment I'm flat out with theatre - four shows in three days! I put on my favourite dress to see the Royal Shakespeare Company do King Lear last night (disappointing) and am off to see whether they make a better fist of Chekhov's The Seagull tonight. I hope so. And I'm also reviewing Ursula Le Guin's wonderful book Voices for ABC Radio... Once I've done my reviews - I review some shows twice, once for the newspaper and once for the theatre blog - I'll have a bit of a rest and talk about me.

Pellinor web page

2007-07-25T13:50:00.000+10:00

Exciting news from my US publishers Candlewick, who are putting together a special Pellinor website. (This is thrilling for me: a website designed by proper designers? Wow! I can't wait!) They're planning to include audio interviews, Q&As, fan features and other goodies. I expect it will be launched to coincide with the release of the gorgeous hardback edition of The Crow this September. I'll keep you posted.

On why procrastination is important

2007-07-20T17:11:00.000+10:00

One of the commonest questions I am asked by readers is: do you have any writing tips? And it usually reduces me to silence: I never quite know where to begin. Worse, some of the most sensible things I have to say about writing are really boring. However, I have been promising for years that I would write something about writing and, now The Singing is finished, I no longer have any excuses.

So I thought I'd start an irregular series of reflections on the process of writing, as I've experienced it, anyway. In any case, today I am supposed to be reviewing a very thick, very complicated book for The Book Show on ABC Radio (it's not the kind of book you can read in bed, because if you fell asleep reading it, it would knock you out). And I suddenly thought I'd like to do something else.

Which leads me to my first observation: writers are, without exception, huge procrastinators. I have never known a writer - and in my time I've met a few - who wasn't. A writer with a deadline tends to be a writer with well-ironed clothes, or with a sudden strange desire to evict the spiders who have been living peaceably in the hall cupboard for years. One of the most frustrating things about writing - for the writer, at least - can be a weird allergy that develops towards the activity that, supposedly, you love most of all in the world.

There is a good reason for this. A lot of the most important work you do occurs when you're not actually writing, or even thinking about writing. Somewhere at the back of your mind something is going on: wheels are whirring, cogs are clicking, feelings are being felt. The annoying thing is that it's impossible to know what that work is until it appears on the page. The only thing experience teaches you is how to tell when it's ready, when it's "cooked" - and even experience doesn't mean that you're certain. Once it's "cooked", the hard work starts. I'll talk about the hard work in another post.

If that "underneath" work has happened, then what you write down will surprise you: things will occur that you don't expect, people will turn up whom you don't know. (This has always struck me as one of the most mysterious things about writing a story: where does it come from? The author doesn't necessarily know, you know.)

This is why I don't believe in writer's block. If you can't write - really can't, no matter how hard you try - it's because the writing isn't ready. Do something else. Your brain is cooking. And yes, sometimes this cooking takes a very long time. Sometimes it can take years.

Did I say that being a writer requires patience?

But - I hear you ask - if you can't control this "underneath" work, how do you get anything done? And how do you know what you want to do?

Sometimes you don't know, and sometimes you do. You can get glimpses of what's going on - feelings and desires, an image maybe, or a person saying something - enough to give you some idea of what it is you want to make. You might even sketch out a plan. But unless the "underneath" work does its job, what you write will feel empty. It's like the difference between joining the dots and making a beautiful painting. You can plan all you like, but what makes something seem real and full is the unexpected things that happen as you discover what it is that you're making. And you only discover that when you make it.

So, the best thing to do is to feed that hidden part of your mind. Go for a walk. Read a book. Watch people on the street, notice how they walk or speak to each other. Read a poem. Go to the art gallery and find a painting you really like and really, really look at it. Think about your writing, and then put it out of your mind. Read some more. Read all kinds of things: fiction and non-fiction, poetry and plays, comic books and visual novels. Make sure that you read things you really enjoy. Put on your favourite CD and listen to it over and over again. Talk to the cat.

If people accuse you of being lazy, tell them that you're working really, really hard. Tell them that you're feeding the book that is growing in the dark part of your mind. They probably won't believe you, but it will be true.

Newsy bits

2007-07-18T21:56:00.000+10:00

The big news is that I have finished The Singing. Or at least, I have written to the end of it (there will be editing to come - not much, I hope!) So, at last, the story of Maerad and Cadvan and Hem and Saliman and all the others, has come to an end. The book is due out in Australia and the UK in 2008 (no US pub date yet). I'm certain none of you wanted me to finish it more than I did! And yes, I'm very pleased. I won't know until it actually gets into the hands of readers, but I don't think it's an anti-climax. I have a feeling it's the best written of the lot.

I spent two weeks delirious with disbelief and relief, and have come back down to earth with a bad cold. And realising now that I have to do all the work that fell behind while I was writing The Singing. No rest for the wicked...

In the meantime, the largest independent German publisher Verlagsgruppe Luebbe (who also, I notice, publish Dan Brown) has bought the Pellinor books for release in Germany. I found out today that they have bought The Riddle and The Crow as well as The Gift - wow! That's demonstrating some faith in the series - the first one isn't even out yet! The Gift is due out some time later this year, with The Riddle due out early next year. Which seems very quick to me!

First post

2007-07-18T20:19:00.001+10:00

I've decided to start this blog for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that I don't have batallions of secretaries (ok, one would do) who can answer my mail for me and - pathetic though it sounds - I'm getting very behind on answering my fanmail. I can't even keep up with my SFFWorld discussion forum. And I'm beginning to feel very guilty.

This is partly disorganisation, and partly that I'm incredibly busy. I have too many lives: I don't just write fantasy books, I also write poetry (I ought to be working on my next collection right now), edit an online magazine called Masthead (which I'm also feeling guilty about) and spend a lot of my time at the theatre - a passion of mine - which I review for the Australian newspaper and my review blog Theatre Notes. And sometimes my family likes to see me, too.

Meanwhile, lots of things are happening with the books. And my webpage is getting more and more out of date. A blog seemed to be the answer for all these problems. So here it is.