http://blog.taramoss.com/ A writers blog about writing by Tara Moss en-us Nucleus CMS v3.41 � Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://blog.taramoss.com//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://blog.taramoss.com/ http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=493 Blood_Countess_front_coversm.jpg

The Blood Countess

I’ll admit that back in Gretchenville I dreamed I might one day ride in a real limousine. I never imagined, however, that my new boss would be in the trunk, or that I would be sitting in the back with a four hundred year old murderess….

Meet Pandora English. She's an unusual girl with some unique challenges, especially now that she's left small town Gretchenville to live with her mysterious Great-Aunt Celia in a haunted Victorian-era mansion in the heart of Spektor, a suburb of Manhattan that doesn't exist on maps. This Halloween (my favourite day of the year) Pandora comes to life in a new series that mixes my lifelong love of the paranormal and obsession with the macabre, and sets it against high fashion fantasy New York, with a twist. Hold on to your fascinator and keep your collar close, The Blood Countess is coming...

Happy reading,
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PS The Blood Countess hits stores this Halloween, October 31, 2010. You can pre-order at your local bookshop. Click here for more info.

PPS Don't worry crime fans, Mak's next adventure is set to hit stores in 2011.]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=493 Wed, 4 Aug 2010 13:04:49 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=489 133867712_41ead44c88616aed8bba93a78cd39a56.4c51f9e0_full.png

This is not my dinkus.

Above is a picture of a rather fancy dinkus. (See, dinkus does not mean what you think it means, Urban Dictionary.) This is not my dinkus, but it is a dinkus. After some back-and-forthing with my publisher we found an excellent dinkus for my new novel. A dinkus I am happy with. The devil is in the detail, as they say, and with the kinds of books I write, I need that devil to be just right.

Posterior to the aforementioned dinkus shopping the proof pages of my new novel are due to arrive today. I am woman enough to admit I am vibrating with excitement in anticipation of their arrival. Technically, these proof pages are 'first pages', and there may be 'second pages' before any unwanted typesetting mutations are slain, typo anomalies are corrected and all is found exacting and ready to be sent to the printers for production into (shudder. sigh.) real books. As readers of The Book Post know, I get awfully excited about proof pages every single time. Proof pages mean that after thousands of hours, the novel is almost real.

Are you a writer? Do proof pages get you all hot and bothered? Do tell.

(Also, is there a plural for dinkus? I'd hate to get that wrong in casual publishing-type conversation.)

Happy proof reading,
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PS Check out my post the last time I had some sexy proof pages arrive on the my doorstep - The Pleasures of the Page.

PPS Or for more on writing, and what gets some other authors going, check out my televised interviews with bestselling crime authors Michael Robotham and Kathryn Fox online at Tara In Conversation 13thSTREET VIDEO. We writers get excited about the strangest things...
]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=489 Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:40:53 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=486 JohnWaters.jpg

'It wasn't until I started reading and found books they wouldn't let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.'

'Without obsession, life is nothing.'

'We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f*** them... Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.'

— John Waters, author of Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste, Role Models, and Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters.

Good advice. Thank you Mr. Waters.

Happy reading,
tara_signature_trans.gif]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=486 Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:45:37 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=480 children_of_men_416x300.jpg

Literary Salon 6 - It's a post-apocalyptic world...

As readers of The Book Post will know, I hold informal quarterly 'Literary Salons' ('Reviving the great tradition, only with more Nin, Vonnegut and gin', etc), and post many of the resulting essays, stories and reviews on this blog, where author's permission is possible. Each salon focuses on 2 books by different authors, sharing some common theme of interest. We discuss the works themselves, present related essays or stories, and basically get our read on. Highlights thus far have included Lee Tulloch's reading of “The Basque and Bijou” from Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin (brilliant and awkwardly steamy), Emma Tom's Eulogy for Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Heath's hilarious 'Right Angles and Hair', and Astrid Lorange's bewildering, brilliant essay, Quantum Suicide...We are holding the sixth salon in August, and as readers of The Book Post I hope you will join in by reading one or both of the recommended books and taking part in the discussion and debate. In this salon we look at two potential dystopias - The ageing, childless world of The Children of Men by P.D. James, and the post-apocalypic terror of The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I am currently absorbed in the final pages of The Children of Men, and I earmarked this excerpt from 'BOOK ONE. Omega. January-March 2021'. Here retired academic Jasper Palmer-Smith explains his bleak/realistic outlook:

'This planet is doomed anyway. Eventually the sun will explode or cool and one small insignificant particle of the universe will disappear with only a tremble. If man is doomed to perish, then universal infertility is as painless a way as any. And there are, after all, personal compensations. For the last sixty years we have sycophantically pandered to the most ignorant, the most criminal, and the most selfish section of society. Now for the rest of our lives we're going to be spared the intrusive barbarism of the young, their noise, their pounding, repetitive, computer-produced so-called music, their violence, their egotism disguised as idealism. My God, we might even succeed in getting rid of Christmas, that annual celebration of parental guilt and juvenile greed. I intend that my life shall be comfortable, and, when it no longer is, then I shall wash down my final pill with a bottle of claret.'

Do we pander to the young? What would happen if the human race could no longer reproduce? Could an ageing population survive their own malaise? Would you want to go out with a suicide pill and a bottle of claret when there are no young left on earth to put out your garbage and push your wheelchair?...

Happy reading (or not so happy, as the case may be),
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(Pictured above, a scene from the 2006 movie adaptation, Children of Men)]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=480 Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:00:24 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=471 Tara_Home_08.jpg

Sweden, once known for its wholesome blondes and Ikea furniture, is now known for the thrilling noir of crime writers like Henning Mankell, psychiatrist and professor Asa Nilsonne, and the man on every crime lover’s lips - the late Steig Larsson. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is my crime recommendation for June at Tara Moss Recommends, my new online book club at 13thSTREET.

Find out more about Steig Larsson, read an excerpt from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, read about why I recommend this book, and let us know what you think. And while you're there, don't forget to VOTE for your favourite Australian crime author. So far, Michael Robotham is in the lead. His novel Bleed For Me is my recommendation for July. There's also a chance to win signed copies of all 5 of my crime novels in the 13thSTREET Tara Moss competition.

And debuting June 25 is Tara Moss In Conversation, my one-on-one interviews with some of the finest crime writers in the world, to give you an intimate look at what makes successful thriller writers tick. (PS It's fascinating and often surprising, even for me...)

Happy reading, crime lovers,
tara_signature_trans.gif]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=471 Tue, 1 Jun 2010 11:32:40 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=465 mine.jpg

In the interests of our voyeuristic writing desk project, 'I've Shown You Mine, Now Show Me Yours', I suppose I really ought to show you my mine. Quid pro quo, allow me to introduce my new, old writing nook, the one I have recently taken to at all hours of the night and day, perched at this Victorian writing desk, surrounded by books, antiques and Memento Mori in a remote corner of the haunted tea room I now call my writing study. The slanted writing top fits a laptop nicely, and flips open (with an impressive rasp) to a delightful storage space, though the locking key is long lost. Some of the stationary shelving divides have also gone missing over the past century, but the little alcoves fit research textbooks perfectly. My salvaged public school system desk still sits in a modern shared study on the other side of the house, opposite my husband's oft-used writing area. I use it daily for editing, work emails or blogging, as I am now. But this old-world nook (above) brings novel inspiration with its walls of peeling paint and outlook through tall trees. And yes, it does feel as sepia as it looks.

I feel some ghost tales coming on...

Happy writing,
tara_signature_trans.gif ]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=465 Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:55:59 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=462 m515560.jpg

Caroline Baum: on doing interviews in pyjamas and in hot air balloons, and why she did not kill Edward de Bono.

"I'm not sure the world needs a book from me," says Caroline Baum, arguably one of Australia's most important author interviewers and commentators.

"I'm very good at titles, though. I have lots of those just waiting to go..."

If Caroline Baum ever chose to write a book about her dealings with authors, it would make riveting reading. In her role as presenter of ABC TV’s book show Between the Lines, and Foxtel's Talking Books, and as facilitator of countless book events, she has dealt with nearly every major author who has graced these shores in recent years. In short, she has seen it all.

Here Caroline shares with me her stories of conducting interviews in hot air balloons, and in pyjamas, and how she avoided killing Edward de Bono. (When I certainly would have)...Since the famous tome that got her hooked as a child, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell ("Such a strong heroine...You could escape into the book and stay there for a good long while") Caroline Baum has been a lover of books, becoming one of Australia's most prolific interviewers of authors and artists of all kinds.

But authors, artists, intellectuals and musicians can be an odd bunch to interview.

German conductor Klaus Tennstedt insisted Caroline Baum conduct her interview with him in a hot air balloon "because he liked the silence up there... " and when she was to interview the elusive and troubled South African writer Rian Malan ( author of My Traitor's Heart, a memoir of guilt and brutality), she had to conduct the interview, "in my pyjamas," Baum says. "Because, having given me the slip in three cities, he finally showed up at my last hotel and called me from the lobby. I didn't have to time to change, in case he did a runner."

I most recently saw Baum in conversation with Edward de Bono at the Opera House. I must admit it was a surprising interview. He made several offensive, off-topic remarks about women throughout his talk, and told a bizarrely inappropriate joke (that I won't bore you with) with the punch-line, "...because women's brains don't stretch that far". At one point the recent divorcee even claimed, "I used to collect islands, but now I collect women. But the resale value on women isn't as good".

Until that moment I had been unaware that one of his Six Thinking Hats was for misogyny.

Caroline Baum sat on stage with the man, restraining herself with superhuman professionalism while the packed auditorium of people watched with their mouths open. Women cursed at him, which he seemed not to notice. Surely such a famous thinker, with all of his many lauded achievements and his extensive experience with public debate, should know better than to spout such sexist nonsense? I wondered how Baum stopped herself from murdering him. Was it the audience of witnesses?

"Whenever I'm in a situation with an author who says awful things to me or the audience," Baum explains, "I just try to rise above it, even when I am fuming inside. I thought I'd expose him (de Bono) more if I remained cool."

And she was right. De Bono later commented - again, rather off-topic - that women no longer knew how take a compliment. He went on to explain something to the effect of wanting to start a school for women to teach them how to learn to take a compliment and better pander to men's needs. He even offered to enroll Baum. I left Edward de Bono's talk wondering how such a great thinker could also be such a silly misogynist.

"I heard women in the audience hiss at him for being so sexist," Baum recalls. "But because he was deaf, he couldn't hear it."

That was hardly Baum's only testing interview experience. UK crime writer Michael Dibdin "was behaving like a total jerk during our TV interview," she explains. "I had my producer in my earpiece saying ' you can stop any time you like, we'll just abandon this, don't put up with it' But I thought, 'No , let's show the audience what he's really like."

The worst, she says, was Zadie Smith. "She picked her toe nails and yawned her answers at me. Not a good look."

Perhaps Smith was the inspiration for actor Joaquin Phoenix's notorious Letterman interview?

Despite these stories, and many more, Baum retains her enthusiasm for books and the people who write them. There are still a few authors she has not had the chance to interview.

"I'd like to ask Gabriel Garcia Marquez...anything."

Between interviews, Baum is now developing a kids TV drama series, and has an idea for a thriller feature she would like to write with her screenwriter husband, David Roach.

"I love collaboration," she says. "...and the way tiny seeds of ideas can grow out of seemingly nothing."

Thanks Caroline.

Baum's events at the 2010 Sydney Writers' Festival in May can be found HERE, HERE and HERE. Check it out.

CAROLINE BAUM
Caroline Baum was the arts editor of Melbourne’s Sunday Herald and the features editor at Vogue Australia. She has presented ABC TV’s book show Between the Lines, and was executive producer of ABC Radio National’s Arts Today. She has also hosted Foxtel’s book show Talking Books. Caroline became the founding editor of Good Reading magazine in 2001. In 2006 she produced and co-wrote her first television documentary, In Search of Bony, for SBS. Her company, Two Heads Media, currently has several TV projects in development. She is a regular contributor to national newspapers and magazines.
CarolineBaum.com.au

Happy reading,
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]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=462 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:11:28 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=458 madame_bovary.jpg

'I'm astounded by people who take eighteen years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write Madame Bovary, and was that ever on the bestseller list?'
- Sylvester Stallone. (as reported in The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said.)

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert's debut novel, is considered a masterpiece. The novel was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors, resulting in a trial in January 1857 that made the story notorious. After the acquittal on February 7, 1857, it became a 'bestseller'. Stallone, an actor, claimed to have written the original script for the successful film 'Rocky' in three days in 1975. ]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=458 Tue, 6 Apr 2010 08:53:48 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=447 letter_writi_24714_md.gif

The Book Is Boss.

If you are writing for money or glory, stop now. The only real reason to write a novel is because you must - because the story demands it.

I wrote the above sentiment on Twitter today, and got one response as follows: ‘Nothing wrong with writing for a living people gotta eat !!!!’ Exclamation marks aside, she is quite right. I write for a living, as do thousands of other people. Not a thing wrong with it. In fact, I reckon I have the best job in the world. However, I hate to bear bad news, but writing a novel largely because you 'gotta eat' would inevitably result in being bony, if not starved. Many people make a living from writing (Including myself, albeit after 11 years and 5 novels) but it normally takes many published novels to arrive at the position of being able to live off the sales of ones novels, and the novels themselves inevitably have to be written because the story wants to be told, not because the author wants to eat.

This is not a high-brow, elitist ideological position on writing. (Least of all coming from this blogger – a writer of crime fiction, confessed fan of B-movies, ‘Monsters and Bloodsuckers’ and all kinds of non-literary fare) It is not an ideological position, but a reality of the industry. Publishing is far too unpredictable to take gambles on your life with. By all means, write that novel, dream that dream, (Personally I recommend writing, even if you never plan on getting published) but don’t quit your day job just yet.

Last year, over coffee with Kathy Charles, author of the wonderfully dark debut Hollywood Ending (to be published in the US as John Belushi is Dead later this year) we got to talking about misconceptions about authors, and in particular, misconceptions about what it means to be published. Kathy commented on how many colleagues at her day job immediately presumed she would quit once she scored her publishing deal. ‘Behind closed doors they still say it, "Well, Kathy's a writer now, wonder how long she's gonna stick around?" Uh, a while guys. I'll be here a while,” she says... Lynn Viehl wrote an interesting blog about what it was like to make it to the top 20 New York Times Bestseller List with her sixth Darkyn novel, Twilight Fall. It is a revealing look at the financial reality of being a (successful) novelist. *Here’s a hint: It doesn’t involve buying any Lamborghinis. In her follow up blog post, she sums up with these words, ‘I know how important writer dreams are — sometimes they’re the only thing that keep us going — but I think they also have to be tempered by facing reality. To me, sharing an uncomfortable truth is better than perpetuating a myth.’ That's right, she's not loaded yet.

This myth about publishing = mega $$$ is doubtless perpetuated by a few well-documented success stories. One response is to assume that writing certain kinds of fiction is now a profitable cash cow, and that there is a formula to do it. 'Just add vampires and sexual tension and Presto!' While highly successful fiction, like that of Dan Brown or Stephanie Meyer, has a rabid fan base and great financial success, it also tends to get ridiculed and put to humiliating tests like ‘Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences'. I don’t particularly care if someone wants to criticize the merit of a successful book (I haven’t yet read any of Brown’s novels, I’ll admit, and I have a few ideological problems with Meyer’s passive Bella) but one thing that does seem important to clarify is that there simply is no formula for a successful novel, no matter how many reviews call a Dan Brown book ‘formulaic’ or how many Internet sites try to sell you a handbook on how to Write a Bestseller!!!!!!! (Oh the exclamation marks. Sigh.) The idea that the author was somehow heartless and mechanical in their writing of said successful book, and that it was even 'easy' to write, simply because it makes easy reading, is total nonsense. Brown himself declares,'Writing a book is incredibly hard. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.' (Well, I wouldn't go that far, but each to their own quotes, Mr. Brown.)

Writing to a formula with the idea of Cashing In is farcical and tends to result in truly unpublishable drivel. And no, I don’t mean hugely popular so-called drivel, I mean drivel so unpopular that it gets thrown in the waste basket by the first person who sets eyes on it. In my experience, a genuine engagement and connection with the subject matter/genre/story is absolutely fundamentally necessary to writing. So is hard work. Life isn’t fair, and neither is publishing, but I can guarantee one thing – Every writer has worked hard to write his or her novel. You may not like their work, but only a fool would deny they worked hard to achieve it.

In reality, anyone writing principally for money or glory would best put those ambitions to use in nearly any other profession. And hungry people ought to look elsewhere for food money before returning to the page and writing the book that is in them, not the book they think will sell.

Stephen King's excellent book On Writing has a thing or two to say on the subject:

'When I’m asked why I decided to write the sort of thing I do write, I always think the question is more revealing than any answer I could possibly give. Wrapped within…is the assumption that the writer controls the material instead of the other way around. The writer who is serious and committed is incapable of sizing up story material the way an investor might size up various stock offerings, picking out the ones which seem likely to provide a good return. If it could indeed be done that way, every novel published would be a best-seller…'

As science fiction writer Alfred Bester used to say, 'The book is boss.'

Indeed. You don’t pick the story, the story picks you.

Happy writing,
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]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=447 Wed, 31 Mar 2010 13:41:08 +1000 http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=443 woman_writing.jpg

National Youth Week - WriteIT competition.

I will be judging the National Talent Competition for writing, as part of Australian National Youth Week this year. Youth Week runs from April 10-18, and the competitions have just opened for entries. There are five categories - RockIT, WriteIT, ShootIT, SnapIT, and DesignIT, and two divisions - junior (12-17 years) and senior (18-25 years). In each category there are two chances to win – the Industry Award and People’s Choice Award.

To enter the 'WriteIT' competition you need to develop a piece of writing with a maximum of 1500 words, in line with the theme National Youth Week has chosen: ‘Look, Listen, Talk and Seek Help!’

Yes, there are writer-appropriate prizes... so get your grey matter in gear, grab your most writerly pen (or feather quill) and start jotting down ideas.

Good luck, young writers. I look forward to judging your entries. ENTER NOW. Go ahead, write it.

Happy writing,
tara_signature_trans.gif]]> General http://blog.taramoss.com/index.php?itemid=443 Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:00:37 +1100