Sydney Morning Herald Young Writer of the Year 2009

1. I met Markus Zusak. Win.

2. I didn’t realise I’d been talking to Markus Zusak for 10 minutes until I was signing him a copy of Loathing Lola, and he said he spelt Markus with a ‘K’. Fail.

3. Olivia Coleman of All Saints College Bathurst won. Her story, The Final Game, will be in the Spectrum section of tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald. Ending gave my table chills.

4. Markus freakin’ Zusak.

5. I gave a speech:

Stories are everywhere. They’re happening all the time. Some are grand; others, insignificant. Some are tragic, some are comic and some are somewhere in between. These stories aren’t self-contained – they overlap, they interact, and they affect each other. Right now, in this room, there’s what? Around a hundred stories each chugging along – the stories of proud mothers, of waiters, of slightly tipsy English teachers, and they’re all great and interesting in their own rights, but for the purpose of this speech, I’d like to focus on 12 stories, those that belong to storytellers themselves, our finalists.

Now, could they just stick their hands up and give us a wave? Okay, awesome… Hi. 11 of you will not win today. It’s the reality of competition. But what does not winning mean for you? Well, you could shrug off being finalists, you could put down your pens because you don’t win, you could go to university, study and become the doctor your mother always wanted, and file this – this luncheon, your writing – all into your mind as a fond memory you can look back on, a relatively inconsequential chapter in the greater story of your life.

But please, for the love of all that is good in this world, don’t.

Being in the industry, I’ve encountered books. Lots of them. All stories. Some are grand; others insignificant. Some are tragic, some are comic and some are somewhere in between. And then, some are crap. There’s one that’s burnt itself into my memory forever, a book for preteens about a 12-year-old who discovers she has a twin sister who is half-vampire. How you can have a twin sister who’s half-something you’re not is completely beyond me, but that glaring fault of logic aside, there are vampires, and it has a shiny cover, so I predict a bestseller.

Cue me slamming my head against my desk and sobbing uncontrollably.

Poorly written, popular stories about vampires, and I’m not naming names, remind us just how much we need good storytellers, young storytellers. Storytellers who aren’t writing about dreamy vampiric leads, but who are telling quality stories, with Australian voices, with a certain creative flair and… well, correct grammar. You 12 finalists, winners or not, you have each been selected because your work is outstanding. So, forget who wins, think about what comes next, after today. Think about the rest of your story as a writer.

Take your experiences, take your talents, and turn them into something spectacular. Stories are everywhere. They’re happening all the time. And we need people to record them, be that as journalists, poets, short story writers, novelists, playwrights, lyricists, scriptwriters, or bloggers. If you win, and if you don’t, keep your pens in your hands.

Now, I’m not saying the life of the writer is an easy one. Standing here today, I can quite confidently tell you all that in the year since its release, my novel, Loathing Lola, has sold close to 13 copies, including the 7 my grandmother bought for herself. I visit schools and my most frequently asked questions are if I know Stephenie Meyer and if I’m on Team Edward or Jacob. I resort to giving speeches at luncheons for the promise of a free feed, and I spend my weekends visiting bookstores and taking my book off a shelf in the back and putting it smack bang in the middle of a Twilight display up the front.

It is a life of absolute desperation, and I’ve spent a whole year contemplating whether it is really worth it, and whether I should, come the next Young Writer Luncheon, recommend it. But you know what? I’m an author, and there’s nothing else I think I’d rather be. Sure, being a rich, successful author would be nice ahem Markus – but my book is being read… by people I don’t even know. While it might not have a profound impact on the story of their lives, I can influence where their minds go for a couple of hours. Sure, it might be insignificant, but the sheer possibility that something I write can affect even a small portion of someone else’s life – that’s worth writing for.

And that’s something I’d love for all 12 of you finalists to feel in your lifetime. There’s nothing quite like it. The winner will get a taste of it this weekend, but really, when you leave today as either a winner or a finalist, this is still just a beginning. It’s what you do after today that is important. I speak for everyone in this room when I say that I can’t wait to see how you and your stories mark this world.

Congratulations and good luck.

I love forums

I was just called a ‘pretentious noob’ by a 17-yr-old boy claiming to be from ‘The Island of Orgasms’.

That is all.

The HSC

I was saving up a rant about university for this week’s long blog post, but then the SMH story broke about bright students being “betrayed” by the HSC (here). For those that aren’t local, the HSC is NSW’s final high school tests that are used to come up with your university entrance mark, that was, when I did the HSC, called your UAI (University Admissions Index). It was a score out of 100 that measured your rank in the state (100 is the 1st percentile, then 99.95 etc etc). This mark is used as the cut-off point of university subjects.

Now, I’m in a weird position in that while I believe that the HSC does reward effort, and if you put in the hard yards, you’ll get the result you want, or close to it, I don’t believe it should be the only thing that’s taken into account for university admissions.

I’ve been relatively open about the fact that I didn’t get the mark I needed to get into my course. I scored 96.4, I needed 98.6 or something ridiculous like that to get into Media at Sydney. I got in because of ’special considerations’. I honestly don’t think anything about my situation in my senior years required special consideration, or really affected my marks a great deal, but the reality is, the HSC is a system, and you have to work within the constraints of that system to get the best possible mark. If you’re eligible for special considerations, whether you think your marks have been negatively affected or not, you take them, because that’s better taking advantage of the system.

And that’s screwed up.

Call me idealistic, but high school students should be tested on skills that can’t be measured in a standardised test, they should be interviewed, they should have their passions assessed, their social skills given a grade, and their life goals taken into account - I want to work in creative industries for the rest of my life. Creative writing accounted for 50% of 2 units’ mark, and about 10% of another’s – ultimately, 9% of my HSC mark was career-relevant. And, not to sound like a self-aggrandising prick (we’ll come to Student B in a short while), I did pretty darn well in that 9%, but once you piled on the French, the Religious Studies, and the other stuff I totally use all the time, my total mark became less and less impressive… and relevant.

Now, on to university. I hate it. It’s taken any love of learning, any love of the challenge of bettering my mind, and beaten it to a pulp. Why? Well… I’m not going to pretend this rant is anything but a disorganised mess, so read the following and take whatever from it that you will:

I’m supposed to be doing a pretty challenging course. I’m in my third year, and the UAI cut-off was in the high-nineties, so logic dictates that if you’re in my course, odds are, even with special considerations, you’re pretty darn smart. Right?

… Right?

Let me introduce you to Student A, who I have had the absolute pleasure of sharing tutorials with for the past couple of years. She never ceases to amaze me. A true testament to the effectiveness of the HSC, and the corresponding UAI, as a measure of student talents. Take the amazing speech she gave on the ethics of reporting the Iraq war, which began with:

“The academic thing about the Iraq War is…”

Yes, the academic thing about the Iraq War. The facts that what followed was neither academic, nor a thing, nor particularly related to the journalistic coverage of the Iraq War aside… well, no, not aside, they’re exactly what pisses me off about what she said, and the speech that followed. This wasn’t off-the-cuff either, she was READING.

Before you think I’m picking on her for one really clumsily worded intro, she then began talking about “unpatriarchal America”… It took me a couple of minutes to realise she meant unpatriotic America, but by then, I’d lost the will to live. I know this because, on my notepad (we were supposed to be taking notes and reflecting on each other’s speeches), I had written:

I CANS HAS DEATH NOW? KTHXBAI.

Halfway through the speech, my friend starts transcribing the speech on my notepad. Here’s her speech’s awe-inspiring conclusion, and note, the elipses indicate her natural pauses:

“So… yes… ummm… tut… and… in… sort of conclusion… I guess, yeah, some ethicists think… that yeah, that’s it. Thanks for listening.”

Head Vs. Desk.

But to be fair to Student A, she knows she’s the Miss Teen South Carolina of the pageant (lol @ context). She is out of place in the course, like her friend, Student A-2, who always gives her speeches on ‘celebrity’ and fans herself with TV Week and quotes Perez Hilton like they’re scholarly sources. Honestly, the UAI got it wrong. So very, very wrong.

Worse than students like Student A, who are just out of their depth, are students like Student B, the smug, self-aggrandising sort of student you only find in English tutorials. Students like Student B not only regurgitate what the tutor says right back to the tutor, and expect pats on the back, they make shit up, and claim that it is the author’s intent.

I’m sorry, but no, you’re a third-year Arts student at Sydney University, you don’t know shit about what Shakespeare intended. Why? Because he didn’t keep a fucking journal, or at least, we haven’t discovered one, and he never stated that Measure for Measure was an exploration of ‘manhood’ in a feminising society. You know what? That was Fight Club, dipshit. But hey, I’m not Shakespeare. Maybe there’s some truth in that reading, but then, what had a slight possibility of being an accurate reading became a huge fucking shitstorm of absolutely glorified, 100% studentfail. Student B said it was a “homoerotic discourse”, and that all the female characters on stage were played by men, THEREFORE, it’s queer theory and about Shakespeare’s own struggle with his homosexual desires. Sure, his sonnets allude to a sexual… “wishywashyness” as Student A would put it, but come on, at the time, men played female roles on the stage. That’s all there is to it. If he had bothered to research the play’s context, he’d see that Measure for Measure is more than likely just a reflection on the new leadership of King James I, but of course, I can’t be 100% certain. Why? Because, believe it or not, I’m not fucking Shakespeare.

So, midway through his rant in the last tutorial, I ask dipshit Student B how he can be so certain.

“Simple,” he replies, “I consider myself a writer, and I feel that, in approaching the text as a writer, I can see where Shakespeare is coming from.”

“A writer?” I ask. “Have you had anything published?”

“No… well, at the moment, it’s more of a hobby.”

“Oh,” I say, tempted to slap him across the face with one of thousands of the remaindered copies of Loathing Lola.

So, there you have it. The hobbyist, ie. the kid who writes emo poetry in his attic after dark, knows what Shakespeare was thinking, because he can relate to Shakespeare, as a writer. I’m sorry, but YOU’RE not even in you’re mid-twenties, you’re not published (that’s not to say you’re not good, but hey, it’s not looking likely…), and you’re a pretentious douchebag. I’m sure, if Shakespeare had met you, he’d have made fun of you, tirelessly, thou loggerheaded bat-fowling miscreant!

Instead of the tutor pointing out that Student B has, indeed, drawn an insanely illogical reading from the text and claimed it as the author’s true intent, the tutor congratulates him on his “radical” perspective. And you know what, Student A, didn’t only pass with her wonderful exploration of “and… um… or… unpatriarchal America… the importance of… in post-September 11″, she passed quite comfortably. While universities can point the finger at the HSC and say “you’re giving us the wrong students”, it’s obvious that the way that they interact with these “wrong” students isn’t working.

I mean, there was nothing more frightening (and exhiliarating) as almost failing my first university English assessment. It was horrible, and me, so used to topping classes, sat there as a first-year, clutching a 55%. I was mortified, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I had really let myself down. But you know what I did? I didn’t say, “I have a contract with Pan Macmillan, ergo, I know the author’s intent, and you’re all just WRONG”, I worked hard, I took the marker’s criticisms on board, and am now on the (bumpy) road toward becoming an English Honours student. And my marks have gotten pretty darn good, too. Slowly, sure. But they’ve gotten good.

University isn’t about telling people who are already good, just how good they are. University is about scaring the crap out of them, challenging them, and making them better.

So, kindly, stop blaming the entry system (homigod, do I sense some sort of structure returning to tie this mess together?). Do the best you can with the students you’ve got, stop rewarding people who try to look smart and begin their sentences with, “And I believe, therefore, it is thus true, however, one can, conversely, consider, if only for a brief moment, the perspective of that which one has not previously considered at an alternate juncture” (I’m looking at you, Student B), and stop telling us how you never fail people because the paperwork is too complicated.

Fail us, or else you’re failing us.

*cue patriarchal (lol) music in the background*

Shakespearean insult courtesy of The Shakespearean Insulter.

It’s flyer time!

Click here to book.

Pullitzer for worst essay pun…

‘This monologue divides the scene precisely in half. One could say the concerns raised are *central* to the scene.’

Consider it won.

I want to keep it in there, just because it’s so lolarious.

Someone just Googled…

‘How is Loathing Lola satirical?’

This means someone bought the book. $ucce$$.

This means someone could’ve been set an essay question on it = class set sales = $ucce$$.

This could mean someone heard me speak, has heard me call it satirical, read it, doesn’t think it’s satirical and is questioning my claim to the Interwebz at large. Authorfail.

Feedback

I have this ritual when it comes to getting feedback about my work. No matter how positively-slanted a feedback email might be, the second I read it and see two negative (but constructive) words, I get indignant, feel heartbroken, have a minaturely epic nervous breakdown, and descend into hate-filled rants about the world. But by the next morning, I’ve ditched victim act, seen it isn’t as bad as I thought it was, and am practically bursting with creativity. Even the stuff people didn’t have a problem with – I have a solution for it. Everything’s going to be BIGGER, BETTER, BOLDER,  and altogether more B-ier. All because of an epiphany.

It was an epiphany that made me go with first-person present ten months before the release date with Loathing Lola. An epiphany that made Lucy a bad guy, Tim not a love interest and Lola not an object of loathing. Many of these little epiphanies shaped Loathing Lola, and all of them came about after feedback.

Feedback keeps writers on their toes. The second writers aren’t on their toes, and are too comfortable with their own brilliance (real or imagined), is the second they come up with the Matrix sequels. Feedback is good. Heartache is good. Epiphanies are great. They’re all part of the process.

Now, context: A few months ago, I mentioned prepping MAGNUM OPUS for the publisher. I sent off a three-chapter teaser, just as I did with Loathing Lola. I heard back on Friday. They liked, but they were teased, not sold, it still needed more development. There were some questions raised about its intended audience. Cue small nervous breakdown. Cue epiphany.

I don’t think I’m writing for kids anymore.

Random lolarity

Those who have me on Twitter or Facebook already know about this, but after the epiphany, I was walking to my Friday night shift at the stadium. Coming down Oxford St mall in Bondi Junction, I’m thinking happy thoughts, you know, eminating positivity and all that junk – it’s a new beginning after all – and bam, smacked right in the head by a suicidal Kamakazee pigeon flying in the opposite direction.

Thank you, universe.

New blog layout… what do people think?