Birds and Words and Writers Festivals

 

Taiaroa Head Lighthouse

Anyone on the fence about attending the Auckland Readers and Writers Festival this weekend, listen up. Your JOMO may very soon to FOMO if you stay on the couch.

It was wall to wall, who’s-who of kiwi literati at the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival last weekend. From Ockham winner and Burns Fellow, Becky M. To Ockham 2021 finalists Catherine C and Vincent O. Top crime writers Steve B and J Savage. To late-career maestros Witi and Brian. Along with children’s writers, emerging talents, slam poets, and two steampunk fanatics.

Keep the borders closed I say. Keep this reverence of Aotearoa’s literary genii going.  

I divided my time over the weekend between my son, 18, a first-year at Otago Uni, and the DRF. More than once, I wished I could have been in several places at once. There were so many overlapping events going down. My Friday started buying threads at a skater shop, sushi at Hikari, and then hostel vitals at Spotlight. Later I attended Nalini Singh’s Romance Workshop, at the curiously titled Otago Pioneer Women’s Hall. The hall is more a green-carpeted room with a very large and handy kitchen and a smell of old. I kept wondering what those pioneer women did there as Nalini (disappointingly for this writer) explained that sex scenes should take the story forward, like any scene. I’m currently writing a popular fiction. I thought sex scenes were just a hot-interlude. I imagined those pioneer women made a lot of hot tea and scones in that kitchen.

On Saturday morning, I swapped birds for words, roused the son, and we set off for the Royal Albatross Colony at Taiaroa heads. A mist hung over the Otago peninsula. It lifted now and then revealing the most incredible golden sweeping bays and rolling tides to the east. Stands of gnarly macrocarpas clung to the verge on the narrow twisty road. A plump kereru sat on a powerline in the otherwise unnoteworthy Portobello. 

We’d booked the 11am tour and arrived at ten to. Albatrosses have a three metre wingspan. One percent of their entire population returns to Taiaroa to breed annually (99% head for The Chathams.) Six Albatross chicks, hatched in January, sat a few metres apart on the cliff face below the observation hut. Stationary balls of white floof. A hefty seven kgs of it. A mum returned from sea. She landed, folded her wings origami style and ignored her chick, which was now snapping its long pink beak at her. The chick then became a mini Sesame St Big Bird as its oversized, grey webbed feet waddled toward her. Mum was clearly exhausted or had no tucker in her gullet. She vamoosed.

A teenage Albatross bombed the hut in air-show-fashion during our entire forty-five-minute visit. People hogged the front window and the binoculars. A smooth-faced couple in shiny, thin puffa coats hung back. They asked lots of questions but did not smile. I could not stop. Son and I felt as though we were in our very own Cirque-du-seabird-spectac!

I made it back to the Octagon (via an independent vape shop in St Kilda) with seconds to spare before my next literary sessions. 

At the wrap party that night, Brian Turner said, as a boy of about 15 he and his mates used to go out to the Taiaroa heads and watch the Albatrosses fly. I could only spout the facts I’d retained from our one-hour tour. Brian was probably putting his historical observations into eloquent stanzas. Albatrosses are gliders. They cover 1,000 kilometres a day! They can lay eggs until the age of seventy! They don't touch land for a year!

We were back in the Otago Pioneer Women’s Hall. I was a gate-crasher of sorts. I wasn’t a presenter but a participant. I was with my publisher, Steve B. We’d chatted through the rain and ended up outside the ODT office and had to backtrack. The room was wall-to-wall smiles. Pretty much how I suspect the opening of the Auckland Writer’s Festival will be this evening. 

Gareth Ward won best shoe. Later on, I thought he might fire up the jetpacks on those red patent leather babies and hover above the snack table still laden with hummus. Lou his better half won best true story about Neil Gaiman. Talia Marshall won most fun person to go to a party with, in the half-sentence I spoke with her. Becky Manawatu won best reading at a literary festival (I’m still having visions of that dimpling temple and that flying can opener.) Vanda, Rose, Catherine, and Elizabeth won best hair.

Sunday was Mother’s Day. The tide was full and the surf was pumping at St Clair. Son and I had our last supper at Starfish. 

My car smelt sweetly of lucerne chaff on the way back to Queenstown. A trip, I realised I’ve been doing for twenty-three years since I moved to the SI, and still can’t get the towns in correct order. A three and half hour journey mostly made for momentous events. The births of my three children. My waters broke spectacularly in the far unit of the St Clair beach motel back in 1998. A tsunami of amniotic fluid complete with entire mucus plug on white towels. I left my second daughter’s placenta in the fridge in another motel on George Street, in 2000. It was an odd sort of payback as the motel had hurried me along into an induction. I was five days overdue. They had a booking for a rugby game at Carisbrooke. The placenta won itself a bus trip to Queenstown. I didn’t chance it with my son in 2003. I had a caesarean. Then I enjoyed a five-night holiday in Queen Mary high, yet nauseous on morphine.

Medical events aside, there have also been good times. School trips. Concerts. Pink. ID Fashion Show. A highlight was taking my mum to Fleetwood Mac in 2015. And there have been literary events. I got stalked by a tall, bald man at the first one I nervously attended alone, back in 1994 at the town hall. When I ignored his advances he took to sitting directly behind me at each session. So I brought a brown velvet hat from a hat shop on Princess Street and wore it with its brim down. The incident no doubt gave me material for the feeble short stories I was writing at the time. But it also killed my vibe.

Right now, I’m having major FOMO that I won’t be at the AWF this weekend. Catching up with writing buddies (mostly) and celebrating words. Especially Kyle Mewburn's memoir session Family Dynamics with Charlotte Grimshawe and Lil O'Brien.

If you haven’t already made bookings - grab a friend, or your best hat and get thee along!

Me and Mum in the mosh at Fleetwood Mac + a visitor from Hawkes Bay

True Confessions of a Writer's Residency

 

by Frank Bramley, England, 1891

A three-week writer’s residency is a bit of a fairy tale time for a writer. Well, it was for this middle-aged, mother of three. My youngest was setting off to his first year at uni. My husband was looking after the ranch. I was obligation-less. I’ve got three children’s novels under my belt. Followed by a three-year publication drought. But from the time you send in your residency application and receive your acceptance, a magnitude of only-author-dreams unfold. A beautiful hardback book in your hand. Gloss-embossed title in gold lettering on an eye-catching cover. Inside - delightful illustrations, exquisitely detailed chapter headings, and ellipses. An international publication contract in duplicate. An excited publisher. A dedicated PR department. A happy agent. Congratulatory (quietly envious) writing friends. Jumping to at least 1.5K Twitter followers. Dreams.

I was 923 words into my project, a new children’s novel, when I arrived at the Signalman’s House, Mt Victoria. My protagonist Pearl has been percolating steadily for the last two years. But I’d forgotten what colour her hair was. 

The H and I had just hosted a three-day-event. His 60^th birthday. I joked with one guest, ‘I’ll need to get my chakras realigned the minute I arrive in Devonport on Sunday.’ She told me to see Leah at Universal matters.

On Monday, at the MK Centre when Tania showed me my room off the corridor wallpapered with headshots of previous alumni, I commented, “There are all the famous writers!”

“You’ll be there soon!” she replied.

Me? No! Surely, they’ll realise I’m an imposter.

Eleanor Catton finished the first draft of her Booker Prize winner, The Luminaries during her three-month stint here! Don McGlashan was on the wall for heaven’s sake! He was often spied in New World, buying potatoes. I’m told.

I spent a bit of time in NW. There’s always a difference between yearning for solitude, alone time to fully immerse yourself, selfishly, luxuriously in writing to being handed-it-on-a-plate. Along with a healthy chunk of taxpayer money. I found myself befriending the banana singles in the vegetable section. They were always so nicely arranged. And blemish-free. I sought to meet another buying them. Not in a Blendr kind of way. Just. Where were all the lonely people?

Catherine Chidgey, Ockham Fiction Finalist said recently: “Every time I start a new book, I can’t remember how to do it. A strange amnesia sets in. I think the euphoria of finishing a novel, for me, obliterates the memory of the sheer difficulty of the task, along with the memory of how I came up with solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems.”

I didn’t achieve much on my first day, aside from eating a packet of Arnott’s Mint Slices and rearranging the writer’s hut. It’s a converted washhouse. The Signalman’s House was built in 1898. It’s a grand old wooden villa and now well-appointed. I couldn’t help but think of the women who’d toiled in that washhouse. Boiling up the coppers on sheet-day. Hands red raw. Backs aching. I wondered what other writers had done on the brown, faux suede sofa behind the desk. Napped? ‘My mind is blank distracted, but absorbing the spirits’ of writers past and some really potent deodorizer sticks.’

The hut is afforded a lot of whiteboard space. I didn’t really know what to do with it all. By late afternoon it was tattooed with my black swirly scrawl. I wrote character bios. Back cover blurbology. Pacey plot points. New characters appeared from nowhere. I brainstormed names. I love names! The sky was still full of wet. The terracotta birdbath threatened to overflow. I still hadn’t started to write Chapter Two. Oddly, I’d written the final paragraph a while back but ‘The End’ was a Mars-sized distance away. The enormity of the situation had me shouting at Siri. I realised this was the wrong approach. We later became firm friends.

Aside from the first night, I had the large villa to myself for three weeks. I found myself re-snibbing the locks at night. Experimenting with my night-lighting. It was hot but I was too nervous to have the sash window by my bed opened a crack. The front bedroom is quite stately. I really wanted to move into it. Instead, in a rather juvenile statement I pinched coat hangers from it. Needs musts. I’d brought my entire collection of floaty summer dresses with me.

My state of mind dipped and sprung depending on my flow of words. I became fixated with my daily wordcount. I slept badly. Not unusual. But suddenly I was putting together months of thinking into scenes/action/dialogue/narrative. I realised if someone annoys you IRL they’re very like to end up as an antagonist in your WIP. More and more characters appeared. Where did you come from, I kept asking them?! 

Meal prep was a distraction. I ate so many pita bread meals I wanted to toast those that remained and frisbee them over the back fence into the long grass. But the dude who tried to weedblow the entire maunga on Mondays would have found them.

My project is set in early Victorian times. My daily walks around the twee (in a good way) colonial village of Devonport with its beautifully restored white villas always provided ideas. Details. Sometimes I admired the cats of strangers. The cheery man, scraping paint off his window frames in Kerr Street, with his pair of Burmese sunbathing on the footpath. They came from a breeder in Rongapoi. He kept them in at night. But yes, by day, they were hunters.

I chatted with David Slack via Twitter. I’d inadvertently taken a pic of his roof, while taking my daily trot around the maunga. I said I’d like to come and borrow a cup of sugar. But level three lockdown. We could only tweet. 

One super sunny day I met my daughter Lily for a swim in a lovely Pohutukawa lined bay on the Rangitoto side of North Head. I recalled what Rachel King had said during her residency, ‘Anything apart from going straight to my desk was fatal.’ I could have easily become a beach bum. I was born in Takapuna. I’m a shore girl stuck in the mountains. I held fast. Even though Kyle Mewburn reminded me, ‘It’s a writer’s residency, not a penal colony.’ I’d already set myself a goal of getting 2/3rds of a book written. 30,000 words. The tide was low and I swam out towards the channel. Only to auger in on top of a wide oyster-clad rock scraping my knees bloody.

When Covid allowed I frequented The Vic. The cinema. I learned to turn on all the villa’s outside lights or prepare myself for the 200m walk up the hill in the pitch black. Sometimes I’d ring to check the start time of the main feature. Then bowl down the hill five minutes later. This evening’s viewing was period drama Ammonite. A love story of sorts. Saoirse Ronan sat on Kate Winslet’s face! It was pretty impressive sexinematography. You got to give it to the Brits with their intimacy coaches.

The next day. ‘How you feeling, Siri?’ 

I’m happy to be here, she chirped.

‘You’re a GB, Siri.’ 

Mmm is there something else I can help with? 

‘Siri did you know that Saoirse sits on Kate’s face in the movie?’ 

Sorry, I can’t search what something is about but I can search title, actors, directors and categories like horror or action.

Siri’s tone had changed. She was on to me. No flies on Siri.

I booked into Leah the crystal healer. Practitioners of crystal healing believe they can boost low energy, release blocked energy, and transform a body's aura. I don’t know much about this process, I told Leah when I arrived. But I’ve come with an open mind. Good. That’s all we need. Leah soon found an aura-of-a-deep-sadness within me. She worked had to banish it. A lot of breathing is involved over the hour session. It’s a certain form of meditation, blanketed in rocks. (Crystals placed over your seven chakra points.) My stomach gurgled. I cried. My heart literally ached. I opened my eyes occasionally to see Leah’s hands sweeping over my body as she chanted. At one point her phone rang. She answered it!

Afterwards, I sat on a bench by the wharf and wrote a bunch of nonsense in my journal. The air smelt salty but the light was not brighter. I was not lighter. I felt knackered actually. ‘Avoid negative people,’ Leah had said. I went to take a photo of a couple and their dog in a baby’s pram. Surreptitiously, of course. I can’t have been the first person to do this because the lady snarled fuck off. Hang on. I was riding the cosmic crystal zone, impervious to the bad vibes of others. The photo was blurry.

The next day was a trip. I was the fitsbo, MA woman in lycra doing triceps dips on the benches on Mt Vic. After sprinting up the grassy summit tracks over and over. Back at the villa’s library, I planked, I crunched, I did push-ups. The next few days I was in agony. My obliques a fresh new hell. I’d also fallen into a major plot crater. The penny had dropped the night before over dinner. I'd been telling my writer friends about my crystal healing revelations, as their eyes glazed over.

However, the brain works in mysterious ways and twelve agonising hours later it was fixed.

My word count picked up. I reached my target. Probably in part thanks to my final week coinciding with a 7 day, #Level3 lockdown. As well as a batty group chat that spurred me on no end with writer friends Sue Copsey and Melinda Szymanik. And the nourishment of sharing takeaways from the exotic restaurants of Victoria road each evening with Lily. My pita bread fast swiftly rectified. 

When I packed my bags to leave, my brain felt like a cotton wool fro. My new and ambitious project (for me) now well underway. I felt elated, and at the same time deflated. A finished book is so much more than its first draft. It’s writing and rewriting. Taking on feedback and reworking. Writers do not read their work, as their readers do. It’s a certain blindness.

When I wrote ‘The End’ approximately two months and a total of 51,000 later, I knew parts of my work sings. I knew my three girl characters are bomb. I had a lot of fun with the magic and the other worldness. But I cannot decide if its total-ness, its intended theme, its plot arc, action and pacing are perfectly, perfectly formed. I just lose sight and self-doubt takes over. I think for many writers that is a pretty normal thing. 

However, one thing I do know is that I’m prepared to work my butt flat until they do. Gotta keep the dream of that attractive hardcover alive! 

ps. Without the luxury of being awarded the Michael King Writers Centre Residency, none of the above would have been possible. Cheers!