i, writer

On a year that's flown by...

2011-10-21T09:51:00.003+11:00

I know. I know it's been a while since I've written anything here... apologies. I guess that's what happens when your life shifts a little. Not that I'm making excuses, but I have been a wee bit busier than usual this year. Going back to full-time work to help support a partner who's gone back to full time study will do that for you.

It's been interesting having the shoe on the other foot. Since the beginning of (our) time - tipping fifteen years now - I have always been the one off chasing shiny new things. First it was the arts degree that took me ten years to finish, which led to the writing caper, then the stand-up caper, then on to the postgrad study. And all the while my engine-house husband kept pumping away quietly in the background, sharing the steam he generated with me so I could keep runing around and letting mine off.

Then was the time of world travel, followed by the time of settling down, of the signing the papers for the pile of bricks, of finally feeling like grownups, and then facing up to grownup bumps in the road. Of happiness and devastation and joy and fun, of yelling and listening and eventually (and surprisingly) getting over it.

Now we're coming to the end of the first year where he is the one doing the dream-chasing. And how proud I am of him. Two more years of this ahead of us, and I can see it already. At the end of it he'll have a uniform and a stethoscope and will be out there with lights and sirens, saving lives. And I will be as I am now - baking, writing, proud.

Progress on the writing since Varuna has been slow, but I've been back at it in recent weeks.

I have a plan for a second YA novel ready to go once I finish this one.

I have been crocheting like a demon.

I have a letter in the upcoming Women of Letters anthology.

We've added asparagus to our courtyard veggie patch, and a pear tree.

I'm turning 38 in two weeks.

I'm really thankful xox

Where did January go?

2011-02-09T09:57:00.002+11:00

Hello there - yes I know it's been a while since we've chatted. Is this year already zipping by, or what? January gone, February not long for this world... well, at least for me, in a way. This week is my last 'normal' week in February, as I am off to Varuna, The Writers' House for the last 2 weeks of the month. I'm looking forward to spending a fortnight with my work-in-progress, and not much else. The weather forecast tells me that there's going to be a lot of rain. What more could a girl ask for?

This will be my first writer's retreat. I will use the time to work on my second novel, which is of the YA genre, set in Melbourne. Four other writers will also be at the writers house at the same time; we'll all be locked away with their own work during daylight hours, and will come together over dinner every night. There is no internet, no TV, and I'm going to try and keep phonecalls to the minimum. This should be an interesting experience.

Anyway, I'll be back in March, and will fill you all in on my experiences. Till then, have a great February!

On acting.

2010-09-24T15:47:00.003+10:00

For the past few weeks, I’ve just not been myself. I’m not talking about feeling out of sorts occasionally, or turning into a dastardly alternate version of myself after imbibing some sort of wicked bubbling potion out of a test-tube. Though I guess some might say the transformation I’ve been going through could sort of be likened to that (minus the potion). You see, I’ve been rehearsing to act in my first play.

It’s not like I haven’t been on stage before. I started public speaking when I was at primary school in Fiji, and first saw my name etched into a brass plaque on an oratory competition trophy when I was in class seven. In high school, I moved on to debating, but dropped that quick-smart when I started university in Melbourne. Later, my curiosity turned me toward trying out stand-up comedy, which I did for a couple of years and enjoyed the challenge of. So, given all these past experiences, you’d think that acting in a play would be a piece of cake – just a different version of what I’d been doing all these years. I thought it might be, too, in the early days of rehearsals. Now I know better.

In the play, titled I Could Be You, I play the part of Shireen, and International student from New Delhi in India, who finds herself in the Maribyrnong Detention Centre after breaching her student visa. While I obviously have the look for the part, I do not have the sound – a sound that’s been described as ‘ocker’ before, though I don’t really think my Australian accent is as twangy as that description implies. I was brought up in Australia till I was eight years old. I’ve always sounded like this.

Initially, my worry about being in a play was learning the lines. Highlighting my character’s parts in the script, I asked myself, ‘How am I going to remember all this?’. Then rehearsals began and, together with the other three actors, I began to settle into my role. My character’s lines slowly became my lines; her story, my story. I tried to feel her pain and to communicate it – but the problem was that I was still using my own voice, not hers.

When I did stand-up, I spoke as myself. I did not use an accent, Indian or otherwise, to get a laugh. Mainly because my stand-up material was personal - observational - and not character-based. I got up on stage, picked up a microphone, and began to speak. What you saw was what you got. I represented no one but myself. Now here I was, playing a character, but using my own voice. For the first time in my life, I have changed the way I speak in order to allow someone else to speak through me.

Playing Shireen has been a moving experience. As I speak her words, I feel the anger and frustration that I know belongs not only to her, but to many Indian students in Melbourne. I feel privileged to have been able to take on this role. I must be doing it right - after our opening night performance, I was paid the highest compliment: a stranger asked a friend of mine how long I had been in Australia for.

I Could Be You is showing at Theatreworks (14 Acland Street, St Kilda), Friday 24th and Saturday 25th at 8.30pm September, then October 5-9 at 7pm. Tickets are $25/$20 concession, or $15 per person for groups of 6 or more. For more information and to book tickets, visit the Theatreworks or Melbourne Fringe Festival websites.

Happy Birthday, Melbourne!

2010-08-31T13:49:00.003+10:00

In honour of Melbourne's birthday-week, I'd like to share with you all a story I wrote a very long time ago about the Yarra River. Even though it's never actually been published before, out of all the shorts I've written, it's the one that's closest to my heart.
Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yarra Dreaming

If the Yarra were made of jelly, it would be easier for rowers to keep to their lanes; they'd be able to use the same tracks over and over again. If they lost balance and fell out of their kayaks, the river's skin would cradle them, gently bouncing them upright again like fallen tightrope walkers in a safety net.

We could roll out a large rubber-backed picnic blanket from bank to bank and watch the stars together, gently bobbing and swaying on our big, open-air waterbed. In the school holidays, it could be converted to a trampoline, and we could attempt new world record for simultaneous bouncing. In the lead-up to major international sporting events, our gymnasts could train there, eagerly observed from its banks and bridges by breathless supporters who'd sprinkle our agile athletes with encouragement and applause.

Ducks would have to waddle across the surface instead of paddling; non-Melbourne ducks would be instantly recognisable as the ones who'd get stuck in the jelly after attempting showy 'now-I'm-flying, now-I'm-swimming' landings. Deep beneath jelly layers, the dark river would still flow. Yarra fish would swim free, protected from swooping beaks and worms on hooks.

Though, a jellied-Yarra wouldn't always be so slick and shiny - its sticky surface would attract all manner of things. Stray tickertape from parades down Swanston walk; discarded Met tickets; vouchers from The Australian Diamond Company. Bored and curious people, throwing things of varying size and weight off Queens Bridge, would punch a series of tube-shaped holes in its surface. Its face would get more and more pockmarked till the summer heat would force it to melt, oozing and relaxing back into itself, sending random collections of tickertape and Met cards back a layer to mark their time in the Yarra's sediment-jelly layers.

If the Yarra were made of jelly, people could cut little squares out of it and keep them in them in jars to take home as a memory. Rows of small, quivering green-brown squares of murk in labeled and dated jars on trestle tables; tiny pieces of Melbourne for sale at the Arts Centre Sunday markets.

Having the only jelly river in the world would eventually take its toll. Soon enough, they'd draw up plans for the world's only jelly-foundationed, multi-level live-shop-work complex. The only way future generations would be able to tell that the Yarra was once made of jelly would be by reading a little brass plaque on Princess Bridge inscribed with a date and a brief note, or by visiting a historic display at the museum. The pride of the display (donated from a private collection) would sit in a glass display box, bathed in soft light - a glowing cube of green-brown jelly, with a Met ticket and an ATM receipt suspended within it.

on a walk in footscray

2010-05-29T12:49:00.001+10:00

this is my may column for AUzone magazine - enjoy!
______________

Ah, Footscray. I’ve been close to her for years now. We have a familiarity, an understanding, and I know I can depend on her when I’m in a bind. In my mind, she’s like Nigella – a beautiful, caring lady with a cheeky smile and a recipe to fix whatever ails you. One time when I stumbled out of the station long after last drinks were called at after-work-drinks, she offered me hot, oily goat curry to soak it all up, and neon-orange jalebi to sweeten my dreams. The next day, she’ll tempt me out of my cocoon of self-loathing with a pork roll and a tapioca cake. I know when I feel like detoxing, she’ll offer me bowlfuls of fragrant pho and sweet jasmine iced tea. She takes care of me. But you know, it’s not all sunshine and lollipops between me and the grand old lady – she’ll turn away if I dawdle for too long and can’t make up my mind, or sometimes even yell at me when there’s been a misunderstanding. And honestly, I can’t say I blame her.

I mean, I speak of being close to her, but if I was to be honest about it, I’m a bit of a fair-weather friend. No wonder I step on her toes sometimes – she’s probably sick of giving, nurturing, taking care of other people’s needs all of the time. Meanwhile, here I am thinking that physical closeness was enough to claim a relationship. Sure, we shared some secrets in the here and now, but what did I know about her past? Her history? You can’t really say you know someone unless you know something about where they came from.

Unless there’s some sort of performance happening, Footscray Mall is not a place you’d usually find me lingering in on a Saturday afternoon. Not to say I haven’t walked briskly through it on my way to somewhere else, or to check out what’s on the shelves at Cheaper By Miles. But there I was, under a sky threatening a drenching, waiting for a walking tour to start. Having a reason to be still in Nicholson Mall gave me an excuse to do something I almost never do in Footscray: look around. The mall was full of people. There was a group of older European men sitting on benches, dressed in suits, their greying hair slicked back in precise lines on their heads. There were dark-skinned children dressed in neon-bright frilly dresses trailing their regal-looking mothers. Emboldened by purpose, so began my first step into strengthening my relationship lady Footscray.

Did you know that Footscray Mall was the first public mall in Australia? I didn’t. Back in its heyday, it was a grand promenade, featuring grand rows of emporium-style shops on either side, with detailed second-storey facades and intricate iron verandahs. And the next time you duck into the Sun Theatre in Yarravile, have a think about this – four of their six boutique art deco cinemas are named after theatres that existed in Footscray - housed The Grand, La Scala, the Trocadero and The Barkly. The old lady obviously loved her shopping and her entertainment. I feel closer to her already.

If you, like me, want to strengthen your relationship with your local area, I highly recommend going on a walking tour. They are organised by the City of Maribyrnong, and are free. For information on future walks, visit http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au for further information, or email walking@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au

shalini's first column

2010-05-14T13:25:00.002+10:00

hello there - thought I'd share my first column from the inaugural April 2010 edition of AUzone magazine. happy reading!

~~~

It seems I was destined to live on this side of the city. My first big-city job (the one that still holds the record for ‘The Job That Shalini Held Down The Longest’) was in an office block that sits directly in front of what is now ‘my’ bus stop. Back then I used to wonder at the need for buses in the city. What could buses do but add to the city traffic choke? Wouldn’t it be more efficient if they dropped you off at a train or a tram, those ancient, fixed, dependable (in theory, or course) forms of public transport that have been coming into heart of the city since the dawn of time? Valid questions all in retrospect, but now I know buses have their advantages. Apart from sharing a ride with the occasional eccentric with no concept of personal space, you actually get a seat more often than not. And sometimes, said eccentric will also furnish you with the answers to the problems of the universe for free.

I don’t usually get too attached to the places I live in. When you’re a renter, you can’t afford to lose your heart to a postcode. I should have known something was awry when we made the move to the Wild West and the change of scenery started seeping into my writing. The first piece I had published in a local paper was about a place we rented in Kensington. Some pretty magical stuff happened in that house – imagined and otherwise.

It was a grand old shopfront, sandwiched with some other houses between a pub and an RSL. There were fairy lights in the front room. They were way up high near the ceiling, and they spread candy-coloured smudges on the rough white walls when I turned them on. My friends used to laugh when I pointed them out and say ‘Oh! That is so you!’, as if I put them up there. As if it was My Idea. But they were already there when I moved in, just waiting for me to come home and turn them on.

I’d always wanted to go to an Anzac Day service; when I lived in that house, I got to see one without leaving my bedroom. Wrenched from sleep in the darkness by the beating of a lone drum, I stood transfixed at the window, peeking out from behind the curtains at the procession from the RSL next door. My skin prickled from this sudden, accidental intimacy. Apart from the men, women and children marching solemnly down my street, all was still. Back under the covers afterward, drowsy and snug, I strained till I could no longer hear the bagpipes and the regular thumping of the drum. I finally arose four hours later and spent the day in a private, enchanted trance, wondering if I’d dreamed it all.

Our bathtub was powder green and claw footed, and filling it emptied the hot water tank. Sometimes as I soaked, I lazily imagined the combined weight of cast iron, warm water and untoned flesh splintering the floorboards, plummeting me to the ground a floor below. In less morbid make-believing, I wondered how they got the bathtub up the stairs in the first place.

The new perspective didn’t just seep into my writing; it seeped onto it. At a cover-art meeting for my first novel, The Bollywood Beauty, my over-stimulated brain barely caught my publisher say something about a city skyline in the background. When I get proofs, I see that the skyline they’ve used is from a western perspective, as if the photo was shot from the top floor of Footscray Markets car park – or, if you’re really tall and have a really good zoom lens, from my spare room window.

Cut to a few years later, and my husband and I are renters no more. We’re all set up in our unit west of West Footscray, with tomato plants taking over the courtyard and a hand-painted mural on the inside of our front door. We’ve been west-siders for a bit but we know we’ve barely scratched the surface – there’s so much more yet to discover – and I’m looking forward to taking you along on that journey with us.

ta-dah!

2010-04-22T10:44:00.002+10:00

if you live in, work in, drink coffee/tea/beer in, browse in, or just wander through the western suburbs of melbourne, keep your eye out for a new free mag called 'au zone'. i have a regular column in it called 'west of centre'. this is what issue one looks like - if you get your hands on a copy, give us a shout-out and tell us what you think!

2010 updates

2010-03-17T09:24:00.002+11:00

this year is shaping up quite nicely so far. this month particularly - good news, good vibes! first off, i'll give you an update on my first author talk.

my manager, also a novellist, came with me to the school. i had never been to that campus, though a cousin of mine went to school there. it's quite lovely, and immediately i had the urge to wander... however, we were delivered to the library office in preparation for the talk. i was feeling fine, a little nervy. i looked through a stack of old school magazines to find my cousin. i chatted to the library staff. all was fine... then the bell rang.

girls everywhere. they looked so cool and confident, and some of them were heading to the library to come listen to me. when the time came for me to start, there was a good crowd of expectant faces, and as i stood to face them, the nerves kicked in good and proper - which is good, 'cause they're a great driving force.

i loosened up as i introduced myself to them, and soon had them laughing. i read them some excerpts from this blog. then i asked if they had any questions - and they did! lots of very intelligent, well-put and honest questions. then i read them some of my work. and it was over! a couple of girls hung around afterward and smiled at me as i chatted to the librarian. the whole thing was a massive adrenaline rush, and i got some very positive feedback, and a tiny spoon with the school's crest on it, to take home with me.

they must have liked me because i have been invited back to address a different group of girls in may this year, and yes, i am absolutely looking forward to it!

also in recent news, i have started to write a column in a new magazine that will be launched next month. it is based in and on melbourne's western suburbs. i'll give you more info on where you can get this magazine soon.

novel 2 is coming back - i decided to scrap what i had and start from scratch again, and that decision is (slowly but surely) paying off... but that's about as much as i will say on that front right now.

so, there you have it. if you're after more regular (and more succinct!) updates from me, you can always follow me on twitter.

the writer! she speaks!

2009-10-14T12:02:00.002+11:00

i'm here, i'm here, just been doing a lot of thinking lately. so, now we've gotten that out of the way...

tomorrow i'm doing my first school gig ever. i am doing a lunch-time talk at a girls school in the city, and i'm looking forward to it. i'm going to read them some old blog posts to give a little insight into what it was like to be a newly-published author. hopefully they enjoy that. i'm also going to read them my first published work, a piece of short fiction that was published the year before my novel came out, and has since become my most-published piece of work. it's also the one closest to my heart, a piece called 'destiny', about a child (me) wanting to grow up to be wonder woman. i think that might strike a few chords in the audience, no matter how little or many girls turn up to hear me. after all, it is their lunch break... though the weather may work in my favour for once.

will update you on how the talk went in a few days! see ya.

latest publications

2009-07-15T09:33:00.002+10:00

hello there! it's been a while, but i have some writing news - i currently have two new (non-fiction!) pieces on the shelves, both housed comfortably within anthologies whose themes couldn't be further apart, though interestingly both have a maternal bent...

firstly, a piece called 'my many grandmothers' in an anthology called grandma magic, full of stories by and about grandmothers. mine is about a few of the many grandmothers and grandmother-figures i have had in my life.

second, a shorter piece called 'cringe carousel chronicles' in your mother would be proud, an anthology chock full of colourful, touching and funny 'true tales of mayhem and misadventure'. all proceeds from the sales of this anthology go to the mirabel foundation, so buy yourself a copy and a few for your friends! there are some real rip-snorters in here which i am sure you'd all enjoy :)

download me!

2008-06-11T18:54:00.002+10:00

well, not me per se, but audio of a couple of recent appearances. first, here's a link to the audio of the melbourne event for the growing up asian in australia anthology (which turned out to be a good fun evening); and here is a link to ABC radio national's the book show, on which myself and alice pung were guests this morning. enjoy!

may news

2008-05-11T17:52:00.009+10:00

i had a piece in the A2 section of the saturday age this weekend, about my mother's wedding dress. you can have a read of it online here (my bit is on page 6-7). the original article had a picture of my mum and dad on their wedding day, together with on of my mum's brothers. for the benefit of readers who weren't able to get their hands on a hard copy of the paper that day, here is the photograph:

also, allow me to plug an event that i'm very much looking forward to - the melbourne launch of black inc.'s 'growing up asian in australia' anthology, edited by alice pung. i have started reading this, and am loving it. the panel should be great fun. details follow:

'Growing Up Asian in Australia' Melbourne Event. Join editor, Alice Pung and local contributors Tom Cho, Tony Ayres and Shalini Akhil as they discuss this irreverent collection with Triple J's John Safran.
Date: Tuesday 3 June
Time: 6.30 pm
Venue: Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne, Swanston St,
Parkville. Bookings are essential - book through Asialink, Phone 03 8344 8474 or email events@asialink.unimelb.edu.au

this is where i'm at.

2008-04-02T19:26:00.003+11:00

i got my copies of silverfish new writing 7 in the mail yesterday - actually they had arrived early last week, but i wasn't home to receive them, so had to pick them up from the post office. it was great to see my piece, the breifcase, in print. it's very different to anything i've ever written before. i'd performed the piece at a reading a while ago. i wasn't able to approve the final edit for silverfish, as technology conspired against me at the time - the editors were unable to contact me. so i only realised that the story had been included in the anthology after it was done and dusted. i'm happy with the final edit, but reading it was an interesting experience. i realised i hadn't actually decided what it was about.

i took the anthology in to work with me today and a few people read it, and two readers said they thought the story was sad. i was a little surprised (though i don't know exactly why i reacted that way), and one person (not at work, but elsewhere) asked me what i was on when i wrote it. truth is, i got the idea on a train when i saw a man with a briefcase. he was dressed in a suit and looked pretty professional. when he opened the briefase i got a glimpse of what was inside - all he had was a banana and a book - and that struck me as a little bizarre. kinda like that episode of sex and the city when carrie is on jury duty, and she sees the guy who brings the fruit into the court while they are waiting to be told if they were part of the selected jury. i wrote the idea down and didn't know what to do with it for ages. the resolution of the story came to me out of the blue one night - not sure where from - but i remember sitting on the couch, watching tv, and all of a sudden getting the idea of what would happen in the end. i thought at the time that the theme of the story was disconnectedness and alienation, but weirdly i never thought it was a sad story. in restrospect, i guess it is a little sad. i'll put the story up here soon, and maybe you can tell me what you think.

i got page proofs today for black inc's growing up asian in australia anthology, which is coming out next month. it's very exciting to have two pieces out so soon this year, and it's very motivating. 2008 has been a bit of a rough trot for me so far. it's excellent to have things happen that remind you of your purpose, that help you re-organise your energy into areas that are fulfilling and enriching. i've gone from feeling helpless and forlorn, to re-gaining my focus. i'm liking how that's feelimg.

i will be working on two other short pieces this week, plus adding to the other project which will henceforth be known as - quite originally, i'm sure you'll agree - 'the project'. i'm not going to say much more about that till it's done. some things just need to be protected.

still here!

2008-03-06T08:35:00.002+11:00

... just been amazingly busy. quick update before i come back to fill you in on the details...

1) got a new job which is satisfyingly nerdy
2) got a new piece of short fiction accepted for publication in silverfish new writing 7 (malaysia)
3) have a previously published piece of short fiction coming out in black inc's 'growing up asian in australia' anthology
4) will be participating in a panel at the childrens book council of australia conference in may
and
5) plan to finish second novel this year. sometime.

more later - hope you're still out there!

... and now for something completely different.

2007-11-21T09:34:00.000+11:00

ah yes. an absence from blogging of more than a month can mean one of two things. either there is feverishly so much writing happening that there is little time for much else, or that there is none happening at all which makes there seem to be nothing but empty time, all wasted. unfortunately in my case, the situation is the latter. nothing happening apart from a lot of thinking about why, some self-loathing, much housework, and a little bit of baking. no need to worry though - i'm sure it's a temporary ailment. and to prove that point that is hasn't all been red wine, cigarettes and woebegone soliloquies, here is a short highlights package of the past month:
- my birthday, for which mark and i went to have dinner at the delightful tempura hajime - i had put us on the waitlist and fully expected to be going there around march next year, but we got a call early. i will not put pics up because a quick googling will show you other blogs that did it better.
- my birthday part 2, for which mark and i spent a relaxing weekend in a hotel in the city. we went to koko black and savoured their wares, and had dinner alfresco in hardware lane. lovely. yes. it's all about food.
- on that note, finding the easiest, most perfect meatloaf recipe. give it a go - you won't regret it (unless you're a vegetarian in which case, pretend i never said a thing)
- farewelled a dear friend, who is off to have many a new adventure in dubai, with a sharing of stories, wine and a sprinkling of tears.
- flicking on rove for the first time in ages the other night and watching k-rudd do his thing.
- also, am slowly increasing my win-to-loss ratio on scrabulous, which is a welcome change.

pictures: moving and otherwise

2007-10-10T12:27:00.000+10:00

recently i took myself to the movies and watched forbidden lie$. if you haven't heard about the film yet, it's a documentary based on the release of norma khouri's novel forbidden love, and her subsequent outing as a bit of a psycho. hailed at the time as one of the biggest literary hoaxes in australia (if not the world), the doco gives a thrilling - at times infuriating - insight into the mind of a conwoman. it was very frustrating to sit there and listen to her try and justify herself when it was becoming more and more obvious that she was just making things up to try and justify things she'd made up earlier. all in all, norma khouri comes across as a very confused, highly intelligent, and very disturbed woman. either way, i wouldn't want to meet her ever. anyway, i had a choc-chilli choctop, so that helped calm my nerves somewhat.

i have also traded my phone in for a blackberry pearl recently and i must admit i have quite fallen for my new bit of gadgetry (i wear my 'queen of the dorks' badge with pride, thanks for asking). following are some piccies i took on the way to and from work recently:

succulent i planted in our garden obviously feels at home:

the walk to the bus stop used to be lined with cherry blossoms, now it's red-filtered sunshine:

hedge near the bus stop reminds me of primary school in sydney:

accidental shot while waiting for the train - i shall call it 'waiting':

green and gold - shrub and paint puddle at the vca buildings in sth melbourne.

oh - did becca's monologue at the end of this week's ep of californication have anyone else on the brink of bawling?

carrots, cheesecakes, martinis and shooting stars

2007-09-11T10:37:00.000+10:00

on sunday morning i had a brain-wave and wrote a poem about something that had been floating around in my brain for a while. now i have had some feedback and tweaked it enough to feel it's finished but i have no idea what to do with it now.... anyway. i got a real high after i'd finished it, and it was a great feeling - for that brief window in time after you've finished something you've made and you're really please with how it turned out, you're just totally invincible... well, this feeling happened to coincide with a monday morning at work, and amazingly, it still lifted me up and sent me soaring... for about three hours. then i was dumped back into reality, rolled and rumbled in the harsh sands of reality, totally winded and dislocated and bruised, and i had to literally drag myself through the rest of the day. what kept me going was the promise of today, of the rest of the week, and a concerted, renewed effort to get back on track with the writing. if a poem can deliver such a potent high, imagine how i'll feel when i blast my way through the current scaffolding around my story? imagine.
that, and i have promised myself a martini on friday afternoon if i am a good girl this week.
hey, a girl needs a carrot occasionally, even if that carrot is a martini. get what i'm saying?

also speaking of things you make that result in a feeling of invincibility, i made this on the weekend and highly recommend it to all and sundry. trust me, you will not regret it.

last night while i was walking from the bus to my house, i saw a shooting star. initially i thought it was a very fast-moving plane, but i realised it was a shooting star when it disintegrated and left a brief but sparkly tail. i stopped and couldn't stop smiling, and actually said 'thank you' out loud. i have not seen one since i used to live in fiji, where the sky was huge and dark, and shooting stars were plenty. it so happened that mark was in our driveway at the same time, and saw it too - his first shooting star ever. special.

melb writers fest wrap-up

2007-09-04T10:40:00.000+10:00

mwf is over, and this year i actually went to more things than i ever have. seven sessions all up, the festival club's shallow end most nights. i couldn't bring myself to go on the last night though - after watching the poetry idol finals, i just wanted to go home. my absolute highlight for the festival was discovering the amazing shane koyczan - brilliant perfomer of very evocative words. in the same way that everyone left ubud last year a little in love with anita desai, i reckon shane would easily qualify as the collective crowd crush for this year's mwf. anyway, it was a fun week, with many new friends made and interesting ideas shared. and next year, the mwf will be at fed square instead of the malthouse, which though a little sad (i love the malthouse!), i must admit i'm looking forward to.

now, back to it! i must try and get some work done this week, as next week my house is being (willingly) invaded by canadian cousins in search of good times... please leave your suggestions of good stuff to do and places to go after the jump (i.e. in the comments section).

martinis, mwf and more

2007-08-28T15:30:00.000+10:00

once when i was in sydney, i went to a bar near the opera house and asked the bar-keep to make me a cocktail. i didn't want anything on the menu, so asked him to create something for me - soemthing with lemongrass, lime, fresh chillies and lychees in it. he made a valiant effort and seemed pretty pleased with the result himself, though i was left with a cocktail that was all-right, but not really very close to what i'd had in mind when i'd walked in to the place (i guess it's kinda like deciding you want to find the perfect little black dress befroe you leave the house on a shopping mission - doomed from the start, really). anyway, last week i tried again, this time in melbourne at a bar called the beach club in docklands. never been in there befroe that night, but we found it on our wander - mark and i decided we would explore there in the evening. anyway, this time the guy hit the nail on the head, and i loved what he made of it. i asked him to use lychee liquer and green tea liquer, which when taken individually are not that hot, but together... very nice. he put some lime in there, some apple juice too, maybe - it was lovely. i got to name it - so uf you're ever at the beach club at docklands, ask for a shalini's ly-tea-ni, and tell me what you think of it.

thanks to the lovely marieke, friday morning a friend and i went to the taping of the first tuesday book club which usually happens in sydney, but because of the melbourne writers festival, was happening at abc elsternwick. it was so much fun to watch it all come together - i won't say who was on, just that it was a great mix and there were many laughs. it'll be interesting to see how different the what airs is to what we saw live.

haven't been to much yet at the mwf apart from last sunday evening where sonya hartnett talked about writing (great session, loving the fact that it was free), and stayed for the shallow end afterward (also free, and also a corker. they also have martinis which i am yet to try... hmmm). i think it's safe to say i will be lurking at the malthouse for the better part of the end of this week...

far away places, real and imagined

2007-08-22T10:58:00.000+10:00

i got knocked sideways by a virus last week, and as a result lost my voice and my will to do anything - apart from housework. i was sniffling and feeling like crap and there i was sweeping the tiles downstairs and vacuuming upstairs, washing the dishes and wiping down the sink. then last weekend i decided that i needed to have soup for dinner, but not just any soup - oh no. i wanted matzo ball soup, just like we'd had in new york. so, with elvis crooning in the midday movie in the background, i improvised nigella's recipe and made matzo ball soup. it was alright, not as good as the matzo ball soup i had at the city diner in new york, but i'm not sure any matzo ball soup i ever have will be able to live up to that one - it was the first time i'd tried it, and i was finally in the city i had dreamed about for so long. i would love to run away to new york alone and stow away for a while... one day. anyway, i digress. i also think the soup i made didn't really impress me too much because i made it. i don't know. sometimes, a girl just wants to be pampered. needs to be. whatever.

writing, writing, writing. yes, must get back into that soon. maybe even today! what a thought. things to look forward to in the coming weeks - am going to the taping of the first tuesday book club at the abc in elsternwick, and if the weather is nice, i might spend the rest of the day at ripponlea, and imagine that i am in a far-away land full of strangers and mystery... until i have to go home and work out what's for dinner, that is. then early next month there are 2 book launches - verandah at the mwf, and a new friend's second novel in the city. nothing like a few glasses of wine and a bunch of reader-writer-types to put a smile on a girl's face, don't you say?

back at it again

2007-08-09T17:44:00.000+10:00

it seems byron provided me with the shot in the arm i needed, because i've been writing regularly since i've been back. it also made me realise that even though i thought i never really had a writing 'pattern' or routine, i actually do.

i was getting lazy in the past, sleeping in on my 'days off' (which weren't actually days off at all - they were supposed to be writing days, hence work days), and just whiling the rest of the day away doing housework and organising stuff - one of the dangers of just having moved into a new place. this week, however, i've been waking up earlier, and i think that's made a difference. i usually do the bathroom thing, then have something to eat, and potter round till about 10.30ish, and i find the whole time i'm doing other stuff, i'm thinking about my story. then i come up to the study and i sit here and write till maybe 3ish. then i actively seek distractions (hello, facebook!), and write a little more till mark gets home. then it's dinner prep time. the only problem i have with this is that i forget to eat lunch... maybe i'll bring up some cheese and crackers next time.

i'm really quite happy with what i'm writing at the moment - unlike other ideas i've had since the first novel, this one seems to have a real hold on me. there is danger ahead, this i know for a fact, but i'm looking forward to finding out how my characters will tackle them. my protagonist is a tough little cookie, and it will not be easy watching her crumble - but it will have to happen eventually, and i'm sure she'll resist it for as long as she can. it's a challenge i'm looking forward to.

on a lighter note, after hearing so many authors at the bbwf talk about working on more than one project simultaneously, i have come up with another idea which is completely on the other end of the scale to my current project. it's slightly trickier though, and will be a challenge of a totally different sort, in the way that rock climbing is different to rollercoasters... i'll keep you posted.

byron bay re-cap

2007-08-06T10:03:00.000+10:00

i meant to blog earlier than this, forgive me. now i am back at home with both the heater and a load of washing on, i think i'll re-cap the last week or so, with a longer-than-usual post. first up, the byron bay writers festival.

i arrived on wednesday afternoon and met some fellow attendees on the shuttle bus to byron - had some lovely chats and some moments of quiet contemplation. the weather was lovely from the get-go, and we all know how i love gazing out windows when traveling... anyway, was dropped off at accoms, felt immediately alone, so decided to unpack - i actually ironed some stuff and hung it in the wardrobe. i never iron, let alone actually unpack, when traveling - so that tells you what frame of mind i was in. i was a little nervous about what lay ahead, especially with the workshop the next morning... i ended up walking into town with a new-found friend, grabbing some supplies and heading back to my room for a quiet night in.

thursday morning i was picked up by the festival director, jeni caffin, and taken to the workshop venue. there i met my lovely assistant sandra, who took care of registering all the attendees and getting me organised. all in all there were 25 people there to take the workshop - jenni had told me the day before that the session tickets had sold out, so that was exciting. we started the workshop and i think i rushed things to begin with, as i found myself a half hour ahead of my schedule - i slowed it down a bit, and we had a little break before getting back into it. i had decided that the workshop would be very interactive, and that it would be more about doing exercises and discussion than about me talking at the attendees - i took the 'showing, not telling' quite literally. it worked, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the final group exercise i had envisioned worked really well - though by this stage i was beginning to run out of time and really had to crack the whip. after the workshop was over, one of the attendees came up to me and said she thought i was good at workshops because i could get people to stop writing. basically, little miss bossy. i think i may have found my calling... then, that afternoon i was whisked off to my first panel, a chat about being a writer for the schools programme. here i met the extraordinary alexandra adornetto, author of 'the shadow thief'. she's 15 and already has 2 books behind her, with a third on the way... i think she may have found her calling. she is a beautiful girl and very well-spoken, and her mum grace also lovely. we hung out a fair bit as we were staying at the same hotel, which was nice. that evening all three of us walked in to town for the opening night party, which was great - catching up with deepika, nury and janet, the old ubud crew; finally meeting marieke on the way back from the drinks table with a glass of champagne in each hand (classy look, yes, but i actually was getting one for janet, too);
chatting with the penguin crew and spying jennifer byrne, brian dawes and other recognisable faces from a safe distance; telling a photographer that the writer she'd just snapped was michael buble (for some reason i had his name stuck in my head that night. i wanted to take off my name tag and put his name there instead just to see if anyone would react). all in all lovely night, and seeing as i had the whole of the next day off, i relaxed and enjoyed it.

friday morning i was up early, so hopped on the shuttle bus to the festival site and checked out some panels. i was starting to feel a little lonely as i had no one to wander around with, but there was a lot going on *and* free cookies in the green room, so that feeling soon passed. friday night was the most nerve-wracking experience ever (and i've been in a few of them, let me tell you), waiting to go on stage and perform in a surprise scenario for the 'thank god you're in byron' feature event. i mad the mistake of deciding to sit out the front and watch the first half of the show, and it did nothing for my confidence levels, i tell you. i was on in the second bracket, and my 'costume' consisted of a shirt worn over my regular clothes with a sewn-on patch on the shoulder which said 'northern rivers parks authority', so i got a sense of what i would be doing. this proved more of a hindrance than a help, as my brain went into overdrive trying to come up with witty things i might say once on stage, but i talked myself out of thinking that and tried to blank out everything. it nearly worked. before i knew it i was on stage and i felt like i was always facing the wrong way, and any time i responded to the actor who was 'driving' my performance, i would crouch down and wave my arms about a-la steve irwin (rest his soul). it seemed to work, there was some laughter, though i have no idea how long i was out there for. the whole thing's a bit of a blur. it was fun, though! then, at the end, all us guest star-type people were dressed up as cops and sent back out on stage to try and quell a 'protest' - i was pretty useless in this one - then to cap things off, the rest of the actors tore onto stage minus all their clothes and i don't think any of us were expecting that - i grabbed nury's hat off his head and covered my face with it. i'm glad i did this, it was an absolute rush, and a great challenge.

saturday i had two scheduled events - a panel on comedy in the afternoon, and a comedy performance on saturday night. the panel was supposed to be about 'the serious business of being silly', but ended up rolling right off the tracks and taking everyone on a joyride of laughs that was immensely enjoyable. moya sayer-jones chaired the panel, and my fellow panelists were nury vittachi and charles firth. charles went on first and set the tone, he picked on me a bit but little was he to know i have two older brothers and thus lots of experience with biting back. nury and i ganged up on him a little, we basically sparred our way through the panel, trying to get laughs off each other and bouncing off each other so well, just having an absolute ball. the panel had a pretty chaotic feel to it and we all just went with the flow, at one stage banishing charles into the audience. it was a great mood-setter for the performance to follow, which where charles, nury and i would be joined onstage by brian dawes. nury and i decided to exact our revenge on charles by putting him last in the lineup, and i went on first because there was no way i was going to follow either charles or brian, and as nury was MC-ing, he was cool with that. not having performed stand up for nigh on a year i was a little nervous, but i decided to allow myself to go on stage with notes (for the first time ever, might i add), and i feel i delivered a good set. it was fun being up there, and the crowd was very responsive, which always helps. brian dawes was on after me, and he brought the house down, followed by charles, who was also very good. following the performances we have a q&a session. much of the questions were directed toward charles and brian (which i was expecting), but i was quite happy to listen. saturday was a definite highlight for me, running a very close second with the debate night at the ubud writers festival last year.

sunday i had a reading in the morning alongside james phelan, and it was 'intimate' - i guess 9.30 on a sunday morning is a little early, even for enthusiasts! a merry band of volunteers filled up the front row, which was lovely - and our readings could not have contrasted more, what with my bit on a traditional hindu outdoor celebration in melbourne, full of food and colour, and james' gun-toting, blood-spilling car chase in europe somewhere. we did a q&a at the end just because we felt like it, and it was a lovely, mellow way to start the day. saw some more sessions during the day, and ate some more yummy yum-cha from red ginger (their prawn and spinach dumplings are to die for, i tell you!), then went to my final panel on blogging. got to meet some very interesting people - antony, kate and marieke - and see deepika again. after the book signing tent kate, antony and i gathered our peeps and headed straight for the bar - we deserved a couple of bottles of wine, i tell you! it was time to let the hair down. had a lovely time at the festival site, made a few new friends, then went on to the party at nury, deepika and janet's hotel room - much wine, some spicy pizza, and some singing on the balcony.
yes, i had a hangover the next morning.
yes, it was very much worth it.
thank you, beautiful byron. thank you *theeees* much xox

2007-07-24T16:10:00.000+10:00

i should be packing, i should be packing, but i decide today is the day i will re-jig the blog template and so here i am at 4ish in the afternoon on the day before i leave for byron, and my bag is sitting empty on my bed next to the 'maybe i'll take these clothes with me' pile. as always, i will over-pack, i know this - though the weather is apparently little nippy, so i might end up needing the layers. the initial plan was to fold clothes while watching oprah, but the re-jigging fairy possessed me and what can i say - the clothes are not folded, and now i will never know the real story behind the feud between oprah and tommy hillfiger. how will i ever sleep tonight?

updates & technical difficulties

2007-07-10T10:03:00.000+10:00

on a general note, you may have noticed that my kai-india website has disappeared, and that you are being re-directed to this site when typing in its URL. apologies for any confusion or disappountment, but it seems that the whole website has been lost. i have it on my list to replace it with something bigger and better, but for the moment, this blog is it. so, if you've read it all before, there'll be more soon, and if you haven't, browse the archives. i'll keep you updated.

i did a reading gig not long ago for the second asian-australian conference that was held in melbourne. i hadn't taken to the stage in a while, and i did a little bit of standup as a lead-in to the piece, which i wasn't planning on doing till a few hours before the gig. it actually worked quite well, and i really enjoyed being up there again - i guess it's all good practice for byron bay. this week i'm putting the finishing touches on the lesson plan for the workshop i'll be conducting there. i'm really looking forward to the whole experience of the byron bay writers fest in general, but particularly the workshop. i'm keen to see if my plan works!

... but i can tell you what i'm doing at the end of next month.

2007-06-01T15:18:00.000+10:00

the official program for the byron bay writers festival was released today. i will be on two panels, having a chat to some young'uns, doing a reading, conducting a half-day workshop, and participating in as much other costumed and un-costumed frivolity as i can get into. details of my official appearances are as follows:
thursday 26 july -
9.30 - 12.30pm half-day workshop 'showing not telling'
1.45 - 2pm (schools program): 'now i can call myself a writer: first timers discuss their journeys', with alexandra adornetto.
saturday 28 july -
4.15 - 5.30 pm 'laugh out loud: the serious business of being silly' with nury vittachi and charles firth, moderated by moya sayer-jones
8pm (feature event) 'people who take the piss: good fun and big laughs' with bryan dawe, charles firth and nury vittachi.
sunday 29th july -
9.30 - 10am reading, with james phelan
1.30pm - 3pm 'Blogging: why do it, who does it and who reads it?' with marieke hardy, anthony lowenstein, kate crawford and deepika shetty, moderated by fiona martin

if you're there too, pop by and say hi, obvs. laterz!

tell me what you'll be doing this time next year in one page or less.

2007-05-17T11:00:00.000+10:00

i have to write a synopsis. i am finding it harder than i thought i would. i mean, i know what's going to happen, in that i sorta do. but to have to write it down in a page? maybe i am making this more daunting than it has to be thinking about it this way. i'm sure if i wrote down one thing was going to happen, then further down the track something else did, no one one hold it against me...
i missed the deadline to apply for ozco funding this year, though those applications mystify me. you're supposed to write an outline of a project you're not allowed to start till november? how does that work? ah well, one of these days i'll work it out.
on the bollywood beauty screenplay front, there's good news - i received a first draft of the transcription of the book to script early this week. it's weird seeing it all laid out in script form like that - much as it was weird seeing my manuscript laid out as pages for the book. well, hopefully in a couple of years we'll have some real movie action to see. my dad was thumbing thorugh the script and was disappointed there was no speaking part in it for him, though... hehe. at least i won't have to go far to look for extras!

a weight off my shoulders...

2007-05-03T15:01:00.000+10:00

so, i've been writing (i know, doing actual writing!) and i was worried a little that what i thought was good was actually not too good at all. you see, my next project is taking me on a new and different journey, down the YA (meaning 'young adult') fiction path. while this may sound easier than writing for grown-ups, i don't think that's true - it's a whole different ballgame, and brings its own challenges. i am enjoying it - but i found myself grinding to a halt because the idea that i might not be doing it right had begun weighing heavier and heavier on my mind. so i got my 13 year old nephew to read it and he said he liked it, though a part of me was thinking 'you have to say that cause i'm your auntie and you feel sorry for me because though i'm twenty years older than you, you're so much taller than me'. you know, the usual familial paranoia.
but oh, weight of weights has just now been lifted. my agent thinks it's good! gooder than good, she thinks it's terrific. oh, the joy! (and the relief).
i have worked out a system. it came to me last night when i'd finished watching 'extreme makeover' and the rest of the house was in bed and i was not sleepy at all. i will work at night! the house is quiet, there are no distractions, and then i will have a valid excuse for sleeping in the next day. hurray!it's a win-win situation.

virtual ticking-off

2007-04-24T17:16:00.000+10:00

i've been bad lately. i've been letting myself get all distracted by the interwebs. i now have a facebook account (in addition to a myspace page, orkut and linkedin profile). i have also discovered google reader, and have a list of things on there i check every day. one of those things is miss snark, the literary agent's blog (linked form the sidebar over there). not long ago, i read an entry which i had a physical reaction to. excerpt follows -

Your job is to write.
Unplug the damn internet and get to work.
If you need to buy another computer that doesn't actually hook up to the net, do it.
Blogging is not writing.
Looking at MySpace is not writing.
Friending on MySpace is not writing.
Checking site meter stats to see if anyone from NYC is reading your blog is not writing.
There's a lot to be said for sitting down with your ownself and writing.
Nothing, literally NOTHING replaces that. Focus. You're wasting time.

i will try and curb my online wanderings, or at least restrict them to certain times of the day. i'm sorry, miss snark. more ribe tuchus from now on, i promise.

building myself a word-bridge, and getting over it

2007-04-17T12:45:00.000+10:00

my 'top 5' bit came out in the age on saturday, though friends have found it, well, hard to find. if my scanner was beside me and not in storage in a box on the other side of town, i'd put a copy of it up here now. in the meantime i direct you to page 6 of A2, under the 48hours 'eat drink cook' section. that's the one, with the picture of the hamburger and fries in the middle and my name at the end. sorted!

writing-wise, mini crisis and subsequent mini-recovery. i realised last week that the new story had some continuity problems, so called a friend to check dates of things that happen in the real world to which i refer in the book. lo, i had the sequence of events backward. so i sat and stared at much-laboured-over words and felt like crying, then decided to walk away from laptop for a while lest i did something rash. turned out to be a good decision (i think, now at least) for i feel i've found a way to write myself out of this hole. it's tough stuff, though. this new project is a bit dark and sad (at least the bits i'm writing now are). hopefully when i finish it, it will be a story other people want to read.

new news

2007-03-30T14:10:00.000+10:00

- i'm going to have another piece in the age A2 on saturday april 14. i realise, as i'm typing this, that having articles published in the papers is not really that exciting for people who freelance for a living, but it's all still quite new to me and i'm still getting a buzz from it, so i'll continue to report publications on this blog.
- i've re-jigged and re-juvenated my manuscript and it looks like it's back on track for the moment. this one's happening a little different from the first in that i have a general idea where the story is going as opposed to just writing and waiting to see what happened next. i'm a little nervous about this new direction, but i'm happy to go with it. we'll see what happens...
- i have an agent. woohoo! i now belong to curtis brown. very happy all round with that develoment...
- i have registered the dot com domain of my name, which currently re-directs to this website. just thought it'd be handy to own... and okay yes i was procrastinating, okay? anyway stop distracting me so i can go back to writing, alright? sheesh! :o)

new acquisitions

2007-03-22T09:17:00.000+11:00

yesterday mark had the day off work, so we spent some time together to celebrate in advance of our 7th wedding anniversary this sunday (since i'll be working sunday and he will most likely be working on saturday, we thought we'd take the time while we had it). all in all, great day. i started off calling an old friend to get some tips for a second piece i've been asked to write for the age (woohoo!). then i got a call from another friend, clem, asking if i wouldn't mind popping in to the abc to help with an interview on the breakfast club. apart from being a producer/presenter on in the loop, he has a weekly segment on the breakfast show called 'indian eye'. this week he had in as a guest a girl called corrine davies, who is a performer with jhanak dance company, and who also has aspirations to become a bollywood actress. so i went in, and together with the presenters adelaine and phil, had a group chat/interview with corrine. it was great fun - it was my second time in the breakfast club studios, and i'm telling you, i'm pretty darn comfortable with a pair of headphones on my head and a mic in front of my face...

anyway, back to the day. we spent the afternoon having high tea at the windsor (and constantly comparing it to high tea at the national gallery of london, snobs that we are...). also made a purchase at the hill of content. neither of us has bought a book in a while, not to say that we're deprived of reading material (thank you city library!). anyway, my purchase. it looked good online, but it's even better in the flesh - it has one of those trendy recycled-paper covers and rough, uneven page ends (i once nearly bought a book i knew i wouldn't read just for those things, but now i am glad i saved myself for this one). and it smells great, too. it is the portable dorothy parker, and this is what its face looks like -

and this is what the inside back cover flap looks like:

my dilemma is this - i envision myself lugging this book around a lot, and am afraid of damaging it. but if i put clear contact on it, there goes the lovely feel of the cover. oh, what to do?

article alert & updates

2007-03-16T11:40:00.000+11:00

- article alert: melbourne readers, or readers of melbourne news - i have a piece coming out in the saturday age A2 section tomorrow. if it is also published in the age online, i will post a link to it.**
- updates: writing is progressing slowly but surely. can't say much apart from the fact that what i'm working on is very different to the first novel, and as such it is presenting its own unique set of challenges. but it's all good, and we'll see what happens.

**update again: the article is online and can be accessed by clicking here.
post-script - actually the link wasn't working for a while, so after this morning's activities, the tag line should actually read something like this - 'Shalini Akhil's first novel, The Bollywood Beauty, was published by Penguin. She is currently sitting in front of her computer and clicking 'refresh' repeatedly.'

- confession: i bought three copies of the age at at the servo very early this morning, and the indian behind the counter stared at me quizzically and demanded, 'where you taking?'. i told him i had an article in it and he softened and said 'ah, you buy for your family?'. i said 'yes, one for mum and dad, two for me...'

you know... stuff...*

2007-02-27T14:26:00.000+11:00

that's the answer to the 'what's been happening?' question, at least. some things i can tell you about (yet), and some i can't. so, let's start with the can, shall we? you may have noticed some changes to the sidebar on the left there. i have updated my links to blogs i like to reflect my recent reading and a couple of new friend blogs. also, on the top there, you may notice i have included a link to a site called show and tell promotions. that's cause i now have a speaker's agent. it's exciting and scary at the same time... i'll keep you posted on how that goes.

writing-wise i have been plugging away, having cleared myself some space on the spare desk in mum and dad's computer room. it gets a little hot in there - though these days in melbourne, where doesn't it? - so i have been blaming my distraction on the weather. i have another little project that has a deadline though, so i definitely will not be able to use that excuse for that... i'll tell you more about it when it's in the bag.

i have been invited to be a guest at the byron bay writers festival later this year and i must admit i'm already quite excited about it. i met a whole host of writers at last year's ubud festival who had just attended the byron festival prior, and they all loved it. ah, ubud... fragrant memories. wouldn't mind going back as an attendee this year. well, you never know what might happen. i do know that instead of dreaming of more travel, i should be dreaming up story-lines...

speaking of which, an old favourite short story i wrote a while ago has finally found its way to print - in the latest sleepers almanac, 'the family affair'. in true shalini style i was so excited to see it finally fly the coop... then my parents read it. will i never learn, i wonder. intrigued? well, you'll just have to buy the book now, won't you?

* yes, confirmation for you eagle-eyed movie buffs... that's yet another quote from clueless.

... and we're back! (again)

2007-02-14T08:28:00.000+11:00

hello there faithful friends. it has been a while, but we are back on home soil. and i say (again) because we got back from the big trip a couple of weeks ago, we spent the past weekend in sydney. i know, i know. what's with all the travel, right?

the big trip, as you know, was around the world from the end of october last year to the start of february this year. we explored parts of the usa, canada, europe and south africa. you can catch up on what happened at my other blog, but i'll give you a run-down of the writerly things here:
- whilst in new york, we caught up with ron mclarty and his lovely wife, kate. we met them both at the 2005 melbourne writers festival, and they invited us over to their gorgeous pad for dinner one night. it was an excellent evening in which we met lots of interesting people, drank much wine and talked about everything. thank you ron and kate for a lovely evening!
- we went on a tour of bbc tv and i met a guy who used to work on the sketch show 'goodness gracious me'. not really writerly, but i gave a few business cards and like to now think of self as at one degree of separation from meera syal and sanjeev bhaskhar.
- not much else - apart from the fact that for most of the trip, i kept taking notes on an idea i think might develop into a manuscript. i'm working on that now.

they sydney trip this weekend was all about participating in a talk and a forum at the liverpool regional library for an event titled 'chutney generations'. it was all about indo-fijian diaspora and identity, and was very enjoyable. again i got to meet a lot of people who had read the book, and even got to sign a few copies. it was a great way to get back into it.

now i am hoping to settle down and get some writing done. we're staying with my mum and dad at the moment and yesterday i cleared the spare desk in the computer room. now, with lakshmi, ganesh and saraswati watching over me, i hope to get some words down. happy new year all, and see you later!

autoreply:

2006-10-22T23:55:00.000+10:00

me 'oosband and i will be out of the country from tuesday the 24th of october 'til feb 01, 2007. we're going round the world, and as i have been saying, i;ve never been before. no, we have not packed as yet... we'll be updating my other blog with travel tales, though any specifically writery-related news or views will as always find its way to this blog. in the meantime, please enjoy a piece of short fiction called destiny which has been published in edition two of an online journal called peril. the artwork which accompanies the piece was created by artiste extraordinaire (and a friend of mine) stephen devlin. hope you enjoy it - drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

updates

2006-10-15T21:47:00.000+10:00

i haven't put up pics for a while, so i thought i'd do a little photoblog entry for you all. here we go:

picture 1 shows that shalini is still a little obsessed with checking bookstore shelves for her book. most times she finds nothing, but sometimes she hits jackpot: case in point, virgin megastore at melbourne airport international terminal: woohoo!

picture 2 shows myself and anita desai. at the same table. need i say more. picture 3 shows me standing between tarun tejpal and kunal basu, after we won the debate. just for the record, who does 'love' better? according to audience vote, novelists, that's who.

picture 4 (not from ubud) shows me doing a reading earlier this year at my old residential college, mannix. they had me over for formal dinner, and there was a talk and reading was in the senior common room afterward.
picture 5 shows the gathered listeners - i managed to keep them awake, which is always a good thing.
picture 6 shows me doing a book signing at mannix college whilst the college dean and librarian look on.

also, deepika shetty from channel news asia's prime time mornings made a report on the ubud writers and readers festival - to view, click here.

ubud update 2

2006-10-02T13:09:00.000+10:00

panels are going great - i've officially finished my business here, but i invited myself onto another panel this afternoon - all about blogging, which is going to be fun. i just came out of an 'in conversation with' session between anita desai and festival director janet de neefe - i think it's safe to say that everyone in ubud at the moment has totally fallen for anita desai. i was on a panel about identity between cultures with her and meira chand on saturday. they were both gracious, but i have a definite soft spot for anita. at one stage, when responding to an audience question, she turned to me and said 'maybe shalini would be the one to answer this'. apparently my face lit up enough to risk a power outage (of which there are many - though i'm not sure how many of them can be traced back to anita).

last night was the one session i'd been a little stressed about - a debate titled 'love: who does it better, poets or novelists'. i'd been a little worried about what angle i should take, especially on finding out that my fellow team members were to be tarun tejpal and kunal basu. i met some of the poets beforehand and gathered that they were going with a historical argument, that poets invented love, and that novelists really had no business even trying. so, in the end i decided to go for the pop culture angle - i thought i'd stay close to the ground and go for maximum audience impact. it turned out to be the right decision.

i used wide-ranging references to play to different generational ideas of 'love', and with some great suggestions from mark, i picked four points and expanded on them, pretty sure that they would get me through. i decided to open with a quote from an 80's song by the masters of yacht-rock, toto - 'hold the line, love isn't always on time'. it seemed like a good idea then (it all worked out in the end, as it happens) but when we got to the venue, and as it slowly filled up to capacity (and then some), i started having second thoughts. as in any other pre-performance nervy situation, i located the bathroom and locked myself in it for a bit. now, don't worry - i won't go into too much detail here - but as i turned to grab some paper off the roll, there it was - a sign. the loo-roll dispenser had a silver cover, and on the cover was etched the manufacturer's name - toto.

the debate itself went great - funniest bit was when i mentioned mr. darcy. all the women in the audience glazed over for a bit (imagining colin firth emerging from the lake, i assume) and went 'oooh' at the same time - their combined swoons ended up sounding like a large cat purring. but on the table behind me, apparently all the other debaters - including the rest of my team - all looked at each other and said 'who's mr darcy?'. it was great fun. the novelists won in the end, and even though i had a few people come up to me and say i won it for the team, i'd like to think that tarun and kunal helped us across the line somewhat... i jest! we were a great team. after the debate we went to a poetry slam at another restaurant, m-c'ed by morganics, an australian hip-hop artist. it was an amazing evening, and it took me a while to come down... actually i think it will take me some time coming down from this trip in general. so many good things have happened here, so many new connections made, i have a feeling ubud will be in my heart for a very long time after i leave.

writer no. 46, reporting from ubud.

2006-09-30T19:55:00.000+10:00

today was the opening day of the ubud writers festival. i had my first panel, and got to sit at the same table with anita desai and meira chand. the first session on monday morning is the festival director, janet de neefe, in conversation with anita desai. we anticipate that the queue will stretch out to the street and beyond. anita desai is a bit of a legend, and an absolute joy to listen to.

ubud is beautiful - it is a very picturesque town full of art - carvings everywhere, and many, many temples - religious ceremonies seem to be happening at one of them almost every day. we went to a temple perched high on a cliff yesterday, and monkeys roamed free in the grounds. 'make no eye contact with them' was one piece of advice - 'make sure there's a man in your group' was another. on thursday night we were treated to dinner at one of the most extravagantly gorgeous resorts i have ever seen. anita desai and william dalrymple did readings, and four courses and countless glasses of wine later, i felt like i was walking on a cloud.

the resort we are staying at is very beautiful, set high on a cliff amongst coconut palms and rice paddies. it is serene and quiet apart from the occasional motorbike engine noise from the road below. this morning, we saw two lizards - one in the garden, smooth as a skink with streaks of yellow from its armpits to its waist, and one earlier, stealthily sneaking across our ceiling as we lay slightly pertified in the bed beneath it. last night on our way home from the opening ceremony, our driver pulled over on the way home and turned off the headlights, saying softly 'you want to see kunang-kunang?' as our eyes adjusted to the darkness we were amazed to see flitting sparks in the rice paddies, as small as christmas lights and twice as bright, flashing noiselessly through and up out of the dark fields.
fireflies.

i've read about fireflies, and i thought they'd be like candles, yellow and pale in the darkness. not as sharp and as brilliant as lone fireworks at ankle-level. but i was happy to be proven wrong in my assumptions - much as i feel about bali in general. it's a whole lot more than i ever expected it to be.

ubud writers festival

2006-09-27T12:57:00.000+10:00

we leave tomorrow morning (very early unfortunately!) for the ubud writers festival in indonesia. i've yet to pack, but am very excited about seeing this beautiful part of the world, and meeting so many pther writers and artists. if you happen to be in the area and want to find out more about what's on, the website address is www.ubudwritersfestival.com .

details of sessions i'm involved in are as follows:
saturday sept 30, 11.30 AM - 12.45 PM
Writing Across Place, Time and Identity
Writers discuss their experience living between cultures and the importance of identity and belonging when you live in someone else’s world. Featuring: Shalini Akhil, Meira Chand and Anita Desai. Moderator: Deepika Shetty.

sunday 1 october, 1.15 PM - 2.15 PM
Breaking the Ice
First-time writers discuss the highs and lows of writing and publishing their first books. Featuring: Andrew Lam, Claire Scobie, Jan Cornall, Shalini Akhil. Moderator: Nury Vittachi.

7.00 PM - 9.00 PM
Debate: ‘Who Does it Better?’
Join us for this fiery debate as a panel of the Festival’s lustiest and most romantic novelists and poets show us who is better at writing about love, longing and desire - is it poets or novelists? Featuring: Tarun Tejpal, Shalini Akhil and Kunal Basu vs. Angelo Suarez, Ketut Yuliarsa and Albertina Soepboer. Dragonfly Restaurant

author-stalker

2006-09-07T15:59:00.000+10:00

well hello there, my pretties. i have neglected you. but how else to keep you keen, no? indeed.
anyhoo, back to business.

it's been a crazy month for me, with a some family stuff and a house move going down at the same time, headspace has been a little crowded. i have, however, been reading a bit - just finished gautam malkani's londonstani a matter of minutes ago and i tell you, my head is still spinning. if you can. get into it as soon as possible. i might have to read it again, slower this time - once you get into the rhythm of the language, you find yourself flying through the story, albeit with an affected limp, gangsta-stylee. the twist in the end slapped me so hard upside the head that i sat there after i'd finished for a while, just going 'what the..?'. it's goood.
another book i mentioned in an earlier post which i have recently finished is alain de botton's the romantic movement. i enjoyed that a lot too - i think boys should read it, they'd learn a whole lot about wimmin, innit - it is written like an enjoyable thesis. that might not sound that appetising, but obviously it is meant as a compliment... i'm currently reading alice garner's the student chronicles, and am at this very second contemplating checking out nicole ritchie's the truth about diamonds. borrowing it, not buying it, that is. balance, people. it's all about balance.

the writers festival has just wrapped up here in melbourne and due to aforementioned factors messing with said headspace, i only managed to get myself along to one panel discussion - all about creative writing courses at universities, and whether they were a good thing. the general consensus was that they were, at the heart of it, great money-spinners for universities. inspirational stuff. apart from that, i went to the festival club twice - once for the sleepers salon starring nick earls, and another time because the new director of the festival, rosemary cameron, was going to be in conversation with jane clifton. oh, and nick earls was going to be doing a reading. so maybe there was a little hero-worship happening there. mild author-stalking, even. serves them right for printing up programmes, i say... then what can you expect but for people like me to turn up? i did get a happy snap with nick, uploaded below for your viewing pleasure -

in other news, we're off to the ubud writers festival at the end of the month - emails have started bouncing back and forth, containing details of events and happenings. exciting!

brown girls in the ring

2006-08-17T14:02:00.000+10:00

last night i attended formal dinner at my old residential college, mannix. i was a resident there in my first year at monash, way back in 1994. mark was along too, as were three other of my fellow '94 freshman friends, and it was an excellent evening full of reminiscing and meeting new people. it was international night, and there were a few salwaar kameez about, even a ghagra choli. after dinner we went up the the senior common room, where some staff and students had gathered, and there was a general q& a session, followed by a couple of readings. it's funny, but i think the readings i did last night were performed the best out of all the readings i've ever done before. i slowed down, did all the voices, and changed my pace according to what was happening on the page. i really enjoyed the whole experience last night - and it felt really great to be welcomed back by the college. so thanks for that - you all gave me a real boost! i also met a crew of 'brown girls' from all over the place - dubai, kenya, mumbai, ballarat! - who all told me how much they identified with my story. in my book, that has got to be the definition of 'buzz' - i love it when that happens. college is definitely more multi-culti now than it was when i was there.

i have been having second thoughts about the proiject i've been concentrating on recently - but that doesn't mean i'm going to give up on it or anything. i still like the concept and think it has potential - but it's not really exciting me at the moment. i don't know if that's just a cop-out or if it actually means something, but i think i'll put it aside for the moment and look at some other things. i have a couple of ideas for short pieces which i've jotted down, and another longer piece i started on a while ago then, for some reason, stopped. maybe it's just what happens - you get excited about an idea, launch yourself into it, then run out of steam. if it is, i'm willing to file the ideas for a while and just wait to see what happens.

today i am quite excited because i book i requested is waiting for me to pick it up from my local library. i saw a copy of this book at mary martin's on the weekend and had to stop myself from buying it (because we're supposed to be saving and all that), so am happy i will have a copy in my hands this afternoon - it's called londonstani, by gautam malkani also on the go at the moment is alain de botton's the romantic movement, which i am really getting in to. i have been meaning to read his stuff for a while. one question - exactly how do you pronounce his surname?

brain-drain

2006-07-31T17:41:00.000+10:00

i have found out that a piece of short fiction will be appearing in the next sleepers almanac, due out feb 07, something i'm pretty chuffed about. i haven't done any proper writing in a week or two and it's beginning to get me down - but free time isn't happening. work demands have seen my usual fifteen-hour week slowly ooze into a thirty-five hour one, which leaves me a little braindead. i really should stop complaining and get back into it, i know. i will. i will. but it's not as if i haven't been thinking about it...

i've been thinking about the story i'm writing, and the characters i'm writing, a fair bit lately. i had started out writing them as extensions of other characters i'd created for another piece of short fiction i wrote a year ago, but something felt a little NQR - so i went back and read the original story they starred in. it was then that realised that i had the personalities of my to lead characters mixed up. so i had to go through what was already there and swap them around. then i had to change some secondary character names because subconciously, my brain had defaulted to ones i'd used before. how weird is that? i hope i'm not out of practice or anything...

i've been invited to do a reading and talk at mannix college, the place i lived in my first year at monash way back in 1994. i was sent an email from the secretary there asking me if i would like to be a guest at a formal dinner - held (back when i was there, and to this day) every wednesday night. we used to have to wear smart clothes and graduation gowns, and sometimes we'd be invited up to the senior common room to mingle with the guests and staff. one of the formal dinners i remember going to had members of the philosophy fac as guests - and i got busted by my tutor, because i'd been skipping lectures since week 3. it feels weird that this time, when i go back, that i will be one of the guests, instead of one of the students trying to plan a swift exit so i can get back to melrose place or the simpsons. the year i spent at mannix was the most challenging and rewarding one of my life so far - it will be good to be able to go back and talk about that. anyway, i'll save the rest for the speech.

... and so this is research

2006-07-20T11:39:00.000+10:00

at the moment i am reading a book called 'l.a. woman'. i picked it up at the city library the other week whilst on a 'research trip' - i have to read a lot of chick lit, i've decided, to get my head into the zone for the next novel. this book's blurb sounded interesting, though it has a weird cover that i feel teeters on the offensive - a fuzzy closeup of a very red lipstick just poking out of its silver case. i find myself wilfully covering up the cover when i read the book on public transport... i know, i'm a weirdo. anyhoo... i realised something else about it the other day that disturbed me even more than the cover art. it's published by a company called red dress ink... which makes it a harlequin mills & boon novel. not that there's anything wrong with that, right? rrrright.

i've known the good old mills & boon label for a long, long time - my mum, her mum, all my mum's sisters and all her sisters-in-law used to read them. my mum's the eldest of ten. when we were living in fiji, most of my mum's siblings were living there too. so between them, they had a pretty mean book-swap program happening. and when the titles were done, they'd be taken off to the book exchange and, well, exchanged for others. i can remember, before i was officially allwed to read carefully selected titles, sneaking paragraphs here and there. and i thought i was so clever. mills & boons novels were always around, as were these little romance comic-books - i haven't seen them for ages. the family had a huge stack of them, too. i remember getting in trouble for reading them once at my aunt's house - then my mum's youngest sisters jumped to my defence and it turned into a full scale argument in the lounge room - i felt a little guilty, but then i just turned the page and kept right on reading. and in the next room, they all carried on debating whether i was old enough to be reading those comics.

anyway. mills & boon. i read them for a bit then got bored with them. i think i went off them round about the same time i went off bollywood films. they are very similar plot-wise, and are all about romance and happy endings. mills & boons became an object of scorn for a while there, a secret shame even - something i wouldn't publicly admit to having enjoyed, or indulged in, ever. and yet here i was, with my nose buried in one of them on trams and trains to and from work. how ironical.

the other night on the way home, just as our packed tram was pulling away from the stop, mark looked at me and asked quite loudly, 'so, how's your mills & boon novel going?'. yes, he was being a smartarse, and yes, i was a tad annoyed. especially when he repeated the question louder in response to my snarky 'what??'. the answer? it's going pretty much as can be expected, really. and what would he know, anyway? he was reading science fiction. hard cover, even. how nerdy is that? anyway. i think i'll go run a bath now and read my mills & boon novel. all in the name of research, obvi.

uni's done - it's time to start reading for pleasure again!

2006-07-10T20:31:00.000+10:00

i really envy people that can read multiple books concurrently. i've never been able to do that. also, when i read, if the book doesn't grab me pretty quick, it flutters out of my mind and slips from my fingers, joining the dusty shelf of half-read books in my collection. should i dare tell you the names of the novels on the adhoo-ra shelf? not yet. i'm quite ashamed to admit to some of them.

so anyway, i read a book i've had my eye on for a while - ruth reichl's garlic and sapphires, the secret life of a critic in disguise. it's based on ruth's time as the food critic for the new york times, and how she employed disguises in an attempt to review anonymously. it is an excellent read, and something else i didn't realise on the occasions i flicked through it at bookstores - there are some really good recipes in there.

i also had a surprise the other day - when i went to the city library to get garlic & sapphires, i was informed that there was a book i had requested waiting for me. i nearly said no, that's not mine, then i remembered i had put someing on hold ages ago - kaavya viswanathan's how opal mehta got kissed, got wild and got a life. then when the poop hit the fan and she was pulled off the shelves, i assumed the book would never make it to melbourne. but i was wrong. i'm now reading it and i can't help judging it really harshly. but i'll persevere, and let you know what i *really* thought of it in spite of the scandal (i just realised theres a little 'precious stone' link happening between those two titles. and i'm sure there'll be garlic in the curries lurking within kaavya's pages. weird coinky-dink, huh).

i just noticed that louise bagshawe has a new book out, too. she must crank 'em out! i should get back into it, too. i mean, seriously - it can't be that hard, right??

oh yeah, one more thing - i looked myself up on the city library catalogues (it's just like auto-googling, only more obssessive). anyway, one of my books was listed as 'withdrawn'. i was confused - what does that mean? does it mean that someone from the library read it and went pffaff! why are we stocking this tripe? i hereby demand it be withdrawn from the collection!
i had to know, so i casually asked one of the city lib staff what that status meant. she said that usually it meant that the book was damaged beyond repair, and unable to be put back on the shelves, hence withdrawn. well, that's nice to know. made me feel a whole lot better, that. so now i'm thinking a member of the public read it and decided the only proper thing to do afterward was set fire to it. or they decided, after reading it, to tear each page out very, very slowly, and then feed each page to their dog. or insinkerator. or worm farm...

or maybe someone borrowed it and took it on holidays somewhere exotic like, say the greek isles or tahiti or hey! even fiji! and they were really looking forward to reading it and they were saving it for the days they were going to lie on a the deck of the yacht and just, you know, like, laaaaze, and just as they fished it out of their stylish tote, they fumbled the tiniest bit and the book went flying out of their hands, bounced off the bright white deck and slipped splashlessly into the crystal clear water. and so there it is. on the bottom of the ocean, as yet unread and sorely missed. sleeping with the fishes somewhere exotic.

or maybe someone just spilled pumpkin soup on it at their pod at work and now they're in real trouble cause not only did they wreck the book, but they also got busted for having food at their desk. i dunno. it could have been anything. why are you asking me?

another day in paradise

2006-06-16T13:41:00.000+10:00

it's finally happened - the book was officially re-launched in fiji last night. we've been here for just over a week now and the bulk of my writerly responsibilities are over. they started the day after we arrived, with me presenting a talk on the book, and accepting questions from the audience. it was a small but enthusiastic crowd, which was ideal for my first 'public appearance'. over the week i did a couple of interviews (plus one more just earlier today), and conducted some writing workshops for the very first time. one was on prose writing and the other on life writing, and i concentrated mainly on doing writing excercises with the group, and talking about the writing that came out of them. i have to say if it wasn't for john marsden's writing book, i would have been in trouble - i took a lot of my excercises from there, and of course they worked brilliantly.

last night we had the re-launch of the book at the defense club in suva, a club whose main bar is generally not open to women (though i have a feeling that might change soon if the fiesty women of suva have anything to do with it). i met the president of the club and gave him a bit of heat about it, which i think he expected. many women and men turned up for the re-launch of the novel, however, which was great. kavita nandan from the university of the south pacific compered the evening, and seona smiles did readings from the novel. seona is a local journalist and writer, and an excellent individual. she and her husband kisor chetty, are our hosts in suva. sir moti tikaram launched the book, and i made a little thank-you speech at the end. the book launch was a little unique, as there were no books available for sale at all - the USP bookshop has sold out, and are expecting more copies to arrive next wednesday. instead of books, attendees were given discount vouchers, as the bookshop was really quite put out about being caught short.

today i did a little interview at the university which they will keep on file to use for their writing classes. my novel has been put on another course list, this time undergraduate - for post colonial literature. this will mean it's exposed to a wider student audience, which is great. i might get to come back to fiji more often!

updates

2006-06-01T10:56:00.000+10:00

well, it's been a while. i've been playing the avoidance game as usual, with a couple of (actually, three) assignments for uni being the things i'm hiding from at the moment. but, i have to get them done. here is a summary of some things that have happened since the last time i was here:

- this morning, a line of character desciption came to me in that half-alseep, half-awake moment before fully waking up. i kept thinking, 'i should write this down' but couldn't be bothered moving, so i imagined writing it down in several different ways, in several different colours, on several different writing pads. i still remember the words. that's a good sign.

- i met the sister of an actor who used to star in an australian soap. i never actually watched the soap myself, but was excited nonetheless, because his face was on a collectors card that i, um... collected, out of a box of fruit loops when i was growing up in fiji.

- i had to write a bio for the organisers of writing and book related stuff i will be doing on my upcoming fiji trip. the final line reads 'shalini has just completed a graduate diploma in professional writing'. this felt very good to write, though this is not technically true until i finish the three aforementioned assignments. wish me luck.

- i bumped into a writer i very much admire at my local cafe (oh, alright - it was helen garner) . i debated on whether or not to say hello to her, but decided not to as she was busy reading, and i was a little chicken. then as she was leaving the cafe, i waved and she said hello to me. we chatted, then said goodbye. i skipped home.

- the film option contracts for the bollywood beauty are done and dusted. they are sitting on my coffee table in triplicate (plus one, but i love the nonsensical sound of 'in triplicate'). i like them, and will send them off this week.

- i have been invited to write a column for glossy india, a free monthly magazine available from indian grocery stores everywhere (in melbourne at least). my first one was on the whole viswanathan plagiarism thing. i think the second one will be about being an indian working in an australian call centre.

- on the fiji trip, i will go to the world music festival in suva. i get to interview artists backstage and will be writing some articles. i hope to thank boney m in person for the song 'brown girl in the ring', which, when growing up in fiji, us brown girls all believed to be written for us.

longest. post. EVER.

2006-05-04T16:01:00.000+10:00

the kaavya viswanathan story keeps getting weirder. it now seems that she has borrowed not only from megan mcafferty's works as initially reported, but also from sophie kinsella (a book ironically titled can you keep a secret?), meg cabot (the princess diaries), and salman rushdie. interesting mix - chick-lit with a side of serious, anyone?

i'm mystified by this whole thing. when i first heard of kaavya viswanathan, she'd just been offered the contract. i was so envious - half a million, harvard education, huge deal, new york, new york - you get the drill. i imagined her to be a sassy, funny, sharp girl whose friends would all be shiny and very, very clever; a girl who lived on campus in a room just like reece's in legally blonde, but with a little less pink, maybe. basically, she had a life that i probably couldn't even imagine accurately.

when the first allegations came out, i felt the beginnings of a slow-cook panic. even though i'd protested otherwise loudly at smoky, wine-fuelled discussions about how there is no such thing as an original idea, i had an inkling things were going to get a whole lot worse for kaayva. however, i still don't get it. it just doesn't make any sense. what would make sense is this - it would make sense to point the finger straight at alloy entertainment, the 'book packager' that split the advance with kaavya. it would make sense if the book was put together by a team of faceless researchers with highlighters duct-taped into their hands, chained to desks covered in piles and piles of other people's books. that would make sense. but a harvard sophomore, borrowing paragraphs from recently published, highly popular novels, and assuming that no one would notice? like i said. makes no sense.

what was she thinking? did she buckle under the pressure of expectations of a million expectant readers (myself included), and of the (alleged) half a million in her bank account? can she even write? it seems such a waste of time and effort to have gone through all that. now the publisher has pulled her book off the shelves and issued a statement saying that the book will not be re-written and re-released. and they've cancelled their contract with kaavya.

while i stand by the belief that at the end of the day, the author is responsible for the authenticity of anything with their name on it, what is the publisher's role in all this? whenever there's a new scandal, it seems the publishers just drop the author and back away. i know that a publishing house's main focus is to make money, but at what cost? in this case, and those of norma khoury and james frey, wouldn't it have been easier all round if the publishers had hired researchers to go through the manuscripts and checked the details - could it really be that hard to organise? instead of putting something out there and waiting for readers to spot the inconsistencies, why not make a pre-emptive strike yourself, then sit back and watch the money roll in?

on a lighter note, i'm currently reading a very interesting anthology called mortification: writers' stories of their public shame. picked it up at city library the other night - it's brilliant. i was reading it on the way in to work this morning, and i kept groaning, going 'oh my GOD!' and slapping myself on the forehead. i hope i didn't freak anyone out (too much).

and at last, an update on the writing scenario. you might remember me talking about some characters i'd been thinking about writing in an older post - well, they are no more (for the moment - never say never, right?). anyway. the story i thought i was going to write has been put on the shelf indefinitely - i've come up with a new idea, most likely using the characters i created in my short story 'not really a party girl' which was in girls night in 4. i'm quite excited by the idea, though i think it's better left in my head at the moment. i tried explaining it to the husband and a friend of ours over a bowl of kumara chips and drinks at the kitten club last night, and the expressions on their faces suggested that there may have been some losses in translation. it's frustrating, because i love the idea and think it's be a really fun challenge to write it, but i can't really explain it all at the moment. or could it be that i don't really want to explain it at the moment? hmm. maybe a little bit of both.

... and that's where my day went.

2006-04-27T15:10:00.000+10:00

i stumbled across a story on my web-travels earlier today, and i just can't stop reading about it. it's all over the internet - a new literary scandal involving a 19 year old Harvard undergrad, Kaavya Viswanathan, and her debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life. I remember reading about her last year - she was reported to have gotten a $500,000 advance from Little, Brown.
Now we have KaavyaGate - a plagarism accusation that the author claims was unintentional. I wonder how this one's going to pan out.

gotta story brewing there?

2006-04-21T11:32:00.000+10:00

when i found this, i had to take a break from my online studying (yes, that's what i'm calling it these days...). seriously though. finishing off my grad. dip. off campus, hence online... anyhoo. i 'stumbled' across this family guy quotes website, and have finally found my favourite stewie griffin moment of all time. it is reproduced below for your reading pleasure.

Stewie to Brian: How you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) No, no, you deserve some time off.

then, later...

Stewie (his voice getting progressively higher): Oh I know it hurts now Brian, but look at the bright side: you have some new material for that novel you've been writing. You know...the novel you've been workin' on? You know the the one, uh, you've been workin on for three years? You know the novel. Got somethin' new to write about now. You know? Maybe a, maybe a main character gets into a relationship and suffers a little heartbreak? Somethin' like what... what you've just been through? Draw from real life experience? Little, little heartbreak? You know? Work it into the story? Make the characters a little more three dimensional? Little, uh, richer experience for the reader? Make those second hundred pages really keep the reader guessing what's going to happen? Some twists and turns? A little epilogue? Everybody learns that the hero's journey isn't always a happy one? (Voice returns to normal.) Oh, I look forward to reading it.

re-cap

2006-04-10T17:43:00.000+10:00

last weekend was the emerging writers festival, where i was part of a panel on sunday morning. there was a good turnout for our session - the festival in general was very well attended. mark and i went along to the launch party on friday night, and a lot of catching up was done. a couple of poets last seen in newcastle circa nywf 2003, some faces from the mwf last year, some old and some new friends.

the panel went well, and after it was done this girl came up to me and thanked me for talking about not really belonging to any one place in particular, and how that might not be such a bad thing. before she thanked me, she apologised, saying she hadn't heard my name before, didn't know who i was, and had not read my book. i didn't mind of course, i'm just glad she got something from what i'd said. one thing i was a teeny bit put out by was the fact that my book was not on the sales table that readings had set up at the fest... what more does a girl have to do, huh? what mooore?!... just kidding!*

sales-wise, i got some numbers in the mail a couple of weeks ago. it seems i have managed to shift just over 3500 units in australia, and just under 100 in nz. from what i understand (after a bit of asking around), apparently these are not bad figures for a first novel. so, if you are one of the people that contributed to those numbers, thank you; i really appreciate it. having said that, do feel free to continue spreading the word - especially in nz. there have got to be more than a hundred fellow kai-indias over there!

also, i just wanted to say - the city library cafe is my new best place in the world. i could sit there for ever drinking english breakfast and watching the world go by. don't just take my word for it, though - check it out for yourself. weird story set at the city library cafe: shalini meets her reviewer. shalini is online one time, checking out the forums for her off-campus unit, and recognises a the name of the person (frances) who wrote a review of 'the bollywood beauty' for the age newspaper a six months ago. they are both doing the same unit. shalini and frances decide to meet at the city cafe and get along like proverbial flaming dwelling. as they leave the city cafe in a babble of 'lets do this agains' and 'so nice to meet yous', they both notice that ambient cafe music is the beatle's 'paperback writer'. weird indeed, no?

*sort of.

emerging writers' festival

2006-03-28T19:16:00.000+11:00

i will be participating in the upcoming emerging writers' festival in melbourne in a couple of weeks. i'm on a panel on sunday morning.
for ease of use, here are instructions of use for the emerging writers' festival -
instructions:
- open diary. block out dates april 7 - 9
- open emerging writers festival website
- feast your eyes on the program
- attend. remember, writers aren't just for christmas.*

* or mwf, or father's day, or your aunt's birthday.

divine intervention

2006-03-17T12:03:00.000+11:00

i woke up this morning with a scene in my head - a scene which featured a character from what i'm hoping will turn into my next writing project. recently i've been doing a lot of thinking about, but not much writing of, the three characters i think will star in my next novel. one of them i know better than the other two, and the dream i had featured one of the characters i don't know that well yet. i wasn't expecting it, so that was an interesting way to wake up.

i've been doing some research and planning, and am not as worried as i used to be that the idea was going no where. it seems the character in my dream is at the tail end of her chrysalis now, which is exciting. the other two are sort of waiting in the wings - one's going 'we know this whole story is all about me anyway so i don't see why you're spending so much time on her', and the other one's just gone off into her own world again because she can't be arsed waiting around for me to get to her. should be fun when i finally get them all in the one room.

anyway - news on the bollywood beauty. the film option contract is closer to being finalised - that is, closer than it's ever been since the whole process started in july 2005. this whole excercise is teaching me a lot about trust and patience... and you'll be as happy as i am to know that this month, i will finally see my first sales figures statement. i don't expect a cheque, but am quite keen to know how many units i've shifted.

to finish off, please enjoy the following picture of me baring all my teeth next to marian keyes (note the copy of own book strategically placed in front of her - nice work, no?)

p.s. - yesterday the traffic for this site passed 6000 visitors since its birth in july 2004. now, if *each* of you bought a copy of my book... ah, just joshin'. thank you, come again!

day after the night before

2006-03-09T17:33:00.000+11:00

last night i met marian keyes. she is currently in australia promoting her latest novel, 'anybody out there'. i love her work and think she's grand, so i thought i'd take myself along to one of her events at the arts centre. i gave my husband an out and went alone, and though i think he would have thought she was funny, he would have been one of about five men in a the room of 250 people (and that was including marian's husband and one of the penguin publicists).

yes, marian belongs to penguin uk. when i was on the promo trail for my novel last year, i shared the fact that i love marian keyes with my own publicist, aimee. aimee told me back then she'd heard a rumour that marian would be out in early 2006, and said she'd give me more information if i promised not to stalk her (i promised, but did have my fingers crossed behind my back at the time).

i actually stuck to my finger-crossin' word, though i did decide to drop marian a line off her website (i figure if authors didn't want to be contacted, they wouldn't have a 'contact me' page on their websites - so technically, not stalking). i intro-ed myself as a fellow penguin and asked when they would be out here. marian's husband emailed back and thanked me for my kind words, confirmed the dates, and said he looked forward to maybe meeting when they were in australia. a while later i had a piece in the age ('tears and cheers' - you can read it on my site) where i referred to one of marian's books. so i emailed a copy of it to them to add a face to the name (no, still not stalking).

anyway, last night. when i bought the ticket, i was talking about how excited i was that i might finally get to meet her, and my husband suggested i give her a copy of my book. and so last night, i did! marian said she loved the cover and looked forward to reading it, and so did her husband. she signed my copy of her novel to 'shalini, fellow penguin'. i was on such a high after i left the signing that i really needed to let off some steam, so luckily i had a heavy, loud, head-bangin' gig to go to. then i drank too much beer, smoked too many cigs, had a pear for dinner, and fell asleep mid-sentence, blabbing on to my husband about what a fab evening i had.

forming a habit

2006-02-24T11:02:00.000+11:00

this week, the victorian writers centre held an info session on funding, where representatives from ozco and arts vic talked about, and answered questions on, funding opportunities available through them. i have never applied for funding before - in past years, my writing track-record was not impressive enough to have me fit into their 'emerging writer' category - but this year things are different. i've totally bypassed the 'emerging' and skipped straight to the 'developing writer' category... odd, but i guess that could explain the occasional nausea and general malaise.

anyway, the rep from ozco was saying how applying for funding should be part of your 'yearly writerly habit' - i thought that was an interesting way of putting it. so this year, i begin - i will apply for funding and see what happens. it would be great if it came through. even though the odds aren't that bad - one in five for funding, and about the same for residencies - there are still a lot of people who miss out from year to year, so i won't go quitting my day job or getting my hopes up. though the interwebs is never short on inspiration... one writer for whom things seem to be going brilliantly at the moment is max barry. but i guess if i sit here in my dressing gown and just wonder what it must be like to be in his position instead of actually writing something, then ive got no one else to blame but myself. so i'm going now to get started on my new habit, and hopefully write something new today. hoo-roo.

quick change

2006-02-02T16:23:00.000+11:00

nothing.
nothing, nothing, nothing.
no writing, jotting, sketching; there's even been little-to-no reading. i put a book on request at my local library and let it lapse; when i finally dragged myself in there to ask about it, someone else had taken it away. i had to re-request it. serves me right.

have been stuck in a bit of a creative pothole lately, which is damn frustrating. maybe it had something to do with the fact that i fell out of love with the 'nook' i'd made for myself in the upstairs spare room (yes, the very same nook i carried on and on about in a previous post), and subsequently moved the laptop back downstairs to the lounge room, where i spent most of my time surfing the net and reading about other recently published authors who jumped straight back into the saddle and started typing away as if nothing had changed at all. i don't know. anyway, yesterday i had a cup of tea with my former publisher and we chatted about my creative dearth, and i decided today to re-arrange the nook into a more functional space. so here i am sitting in aforementioned reorganised nook, and i hope it bloody pays off. because there's nothing worse than wandering around, wondering why everyone else seems to be writing up a storm when you can't even manage to keep your blogs updated regularly.

anyhoo, appearances. i have one scheduled for a couple of weeks from now, and i'm really looking forward to it. come along if you're in the melbourne area, and be sure to say hello afterward if you do.

theatre@risk's 20th century close up festival - sat 11 feb from 4pm
a staged reading of 'midnight's children' followed by a discussion forum
festival pass $40, single reading & forum pass $10/$8
online bookings: theatre at risk website

home-made vs. store-bought

2006-01-10T17:48:00.000+11:00

i have in my wallet some home-made business cards. i had some made up ages ago when i toyed with the idea of becoming a freelance copy writer from home, but making the business cards and advertising postcards was about as far as i got.

the original plan back then was to tout myself as a writer who could edit anything, from restaurant menus to real estate copy, for a small fee. i found a website that made postcards and business cards for a relatively small fee also, and got to work. i designed an excellent postcard and a clever, bright yellow business card, but never really got round to the touting bit... mainly because i got a wee bit scared, and because i started thinking no one would want my services anyway. as a result i have a boxful of postcards upstairs in the bedroom cupboard - but all the business cards are gone. whether they were handed out in jest or otherwise, handed out they were. anyway, i was at my local discount store and saw an impressively packaged stack of A4 card that were niftily pre-perforated into bite-size business cards and thought it'd be a grand idea to print up a batch for myself on the printer at home.

i went with a 'back to basics' approach, and tried not to let the fact that these cards will have perforated-y edges distract me. after all, i told myself, it is not the glossiness of the card that matters; what matters is i remember that i am making up these cards so they may serve as an alternative to scribbling my name and contact details on the back of a expired metcard the next time i meet someone i want to pass them on to. so, as a result, my business card is devoid of gloss, devoid of slogan; instead all it is adorned with is, in right-justified text, my name, my web/email address, and my mobile number.

but i could not resist: in one last nod to old-school, in the top right-hand corner of my new 'business card' sits a lone character (to scale, and in chocolate-brown ink) :

tears and cheers

2006-01-02T17:48:00.000+11:00

well, another year gone. 2005 was quite an amazing ride for me - the publication of 'the bollywood beauty' obviously being the pinnacle. 2005 was a year of discovery for me, and i enjoyed it immensely. 2005 has given me a new perspective, and i'm looking forward to finding out what 2006 has in store.

the title of this post refers to the title of a little piece i have coming out in the age newspaper this saturday - a little bit on a book that made me laugh, and one that made me cry. my mates have been giving me a hard time about how much my mug has appeared in the papers lately - now there's a complaint i never thought i'd be hearing. it's true though - i got a lot of print coverage for the book, which is excellent. i wonder if that translated to sales? i'll find out when i get a sales statement this year sometime. i'm looking forward to that - and dreading it at the same time.

planning of novel no. 2 is well under way - i guess i'll just have to wait and see if al this theorising actually comes to anything. here's to a year full of creativity and release for all of us!

will this be on the exam?

2005-12-13T15:41:00.000+11:00

i found out yesterday that 'the bollywood beauty' has been set as a prescribed text for a post-grad literature unit at the university of the south pacific. as much as i day-dreamed about something like this happening in the days before published author-dom - i mean, what could be better for sales than getting your book on a reading list, thereby forcing panicked students to buy a copy at the start of semester? - there is a flip-side

firstly, the realisation that your book will be studied. the characters and their motivations will be dissected, the language will be picked apart. i know how brutal i got in my lit. units back at uni. i am happy, however, that the novel begins with the words 'in the end'. does this have any significance? discuss...
the second thing is that it's going to be studied in fiji. apart from the occasional swearing and drug use, i wonder what will be made of its description of fiji through the eyes of these two indian girls. i hope everyone realises that these characters are not representative of the way i think all indian girls feel. i just hope i don't offend anyone.

as penance, i have decided to go where i never thought i would - i have pledged to read the whole book, from start to finish, without skipping any bits, or trying to get hung up on sentences i wish i'd deleted/elaborated on/edited. i started this morning on the way to work. i have hidden the book inside a jacket for another book, because i don't think that even i can bring myself to openly read my own book in public. it's just not right.

it's only now that i understand why other authors never read their own books once they've been published. in the final stages before publication it was all about editing what was already there and adding bits in to flesh areas out. in the little progress i made on the train this morning, i am noticing that i deleted some sentences i thought were still in there. it's kinda scary.
i hope i like this book i wrote.

in with the in-crowd

2005-12-06T17:52:00.000+11:00

i have a little piece in the current edition of the virgin inflight magazine, voyeur. it would be handy if they're still selling the books at airport bookstores... if anyone finds themselves browsing the shelves at an airport bookstore sometime soon, let me know if you see my purple spine in the shelves. i only seem to find myself in bookstores that don't stock it lately... oh, boo-hoo, right? haha!

today i sent off a short story to a journal in the hope that they'll publish it. i wrote to the editor a few weeks ago to ask if they were still accepting fiction submissions and he wrote back saying yes, they were, 'especially from tried and true authors like yourself'. as nice as it is to hear/read someone say that, it's a little bizarre because i feel i'm the same person i was before i got published. i wrote back then, i write now, but now it seems to mean a lot more. yes, it is true that my writing style has gotten better over the years partially due to practice and partially due to study. but if i hadn't gottena book published, i would have kept reading and writing, and i think my writing would still have developed in a similar way. would i still have been included in the 'tried and true' category? interesting.

it's like that age old catch-22, you can't get a job unless you have experience, and you can't get experience until someone gives you a job. anyhoo, we'll see what they make of the new story, which is quite different from the other work i've done. i'll keep you posted.

swings and roundabouts

2005-11-29T10:19:00.000+11:00

just when it all gets a little crazy, something nice happens - there was an article in the sunday sun-herald on me and the book, and it made me feel happy. it's hands-down my favourite from all the publicity pieces. i've put a copy of the scan on my other website, so to read a copy, click here. the photo in the article was taken last week at kensington station, and the interview for the article happened in august. i missed out on getting the papers on sunday, but i have operatives working to get their hands on hard-copy versions as i type...

yesterday i had a meeting that could end up seeing me smack-bang in the middle of a writing dream that's been on my 'hypotheticals' wishlist for a while. on the way to the meeting i was a little nervous, then during the meeting i was perfectly fine, and then after the meeting i wandered around bridge road in a daze for a bit. i stumbled upon an organic market called macro. i spent $50 on chocolates, snap-dried fruits, cheeses and rough oat crackers. the future's sweet, rich and slightly crumbly round the edges - just the way i like it.

don't mess with mr. in-between

2005-11-23T16:10:00.000+11:00

i've been examining the workings of my mind lately and i tell ya, they're on to something when they say chicks are crazy. take me, for example. i've been going through a pouty, droopy phase lately (a-gain? i know!). it all started when i went into borders melbourne central and saw two copies of my book (spine out in fiction), then saw all these other australian authors, some who were published round the same time as me, all over the shop - on tables, on those special tiny shelves at the ends of the bigger shelves, in the 'borders reccommends' section. i know, i should just stay out of borders, right? maybe it's just *that* borders. anyway, i thought 'what's the deal here? do they not realise i'm also an australian first-time author? why aren't putting my book all over the place, too?'. and i toyed with the idea of finding a store manger and asking them these questions (politely, of course). i stalked round the store, keeping my eyes peeled for someone who looked manager-y, then i got this mental flash of michael douglas in falling down. so i made my purchases and left without making a word of query to anyone.

then i did what any well-adjusted, proper psycho would do - i made a couple other checks to see who was actually stocking the book. and i found out that angus and robertson aren't. and i went into a little tailspin. and i decided that no one liked me. and i went a bit mopey and droopy. and moped and drooped. and not long after i started, i realised what an idiot i was being.

firstly, i have a book out there. i should be mega-thankful for this. i should be focusing on the fact that this has happened, instead of who is (or isn't) stocking it. and i should realise that i am basing my mope-and-droop-inducing thoughts on, what, two bookstores in melbourne. get some perspective here, girl!

question: why are we so quick - nay, eager - to jump on our own negative-thought bandwagons? it's just not right.
so i'm getting off right now.
and i'll fight the urge to hop on it again, no matter how tired my feet get from trying my hardest to stay a few feet in front of it.

three paragraphs beginning with the word 'last'

2005-11-13T23:14:00.000+11:00

last weekend i did a reading at a writers conference. there was a poet and academic from the university of the south pacific there, so for once in my life i wasn't the only indo-fijian writer in the room. after the reading and discussion panel was over, i introduced myself to this poet we chatted briefly and resoved to catch up again at the wrap-up dinner on the following tuesday night. at the wrap-up dinner we had a few beers, worked out we were most probably related through marriage in two different ways, and generally cracked each other up. then after the dinner was over, i followed him back to the flat at international house that he was sharing with two other writers who'd come to melbourne for the conference. when we got there, i was given a beer and a knife, and directed to chop up corriander and spring onions and capsicum while he prepared some fish. he then proceeded to cook us a curry at eleven o'clock in the evening. we sat around talking about writing and stuff in general, and he read us a couple of his poems. it was an excellent end to a very surprising evening.

last week i was browsing dymocks on collins with a friend from work and we decided i should ask them how the book's been going. after much to-ing and fro-ing i introduced myself to one of the booksellers there, and before i knew it i was shaking hands with the store's event manager. she asked me if i wouldn't mind signing the books they had on the shelves. so i did, and then i broke her pen (not on purpose). then just as she was going to put 'signed by the author' stickers on the covers, i thanked them profusely, said goodbye and left. thank you dymocks! you made my week.

last night i was at a party (three birthdays - one of which belonged to me - and a housewarming combined, so it was rather a large evening). the housewarmees are both mates of mine, and they each own a copy of my novel. while i was waiting in the loo-queue, the girl standing next to me mentioned how surreal it was to be standing next to an author whose book was just over there. i told her it is quite surreal to be that person.

keeping up appearances

2005-11-02T21:56:00.000+11:00

i will be doing a reading this sunday as part of BEYOND BORDERS: Creative Strategies for Global Harmony, organised by the asia and pacific writers network. so if you're around melbourne and you're looking for something to do, here are the details -

sunday 6 & monday november 2005, trades hall bar, 54 victoria st (cnr of lygon st), carlton south.
day ticket pre-sale: $35/$30. concession price available for victorian writers centre and PEN members.
door price: $40/$35.
session tickets: $12/$10.
session tickets can be purchased on the day at the door, subject to availability. a session is either a thematically linked reading and discussion, or the reading in the evening.

my session details:
Sunday 6 nov, 2pm: who goes there? strangers, borders and fear.
readings by tom cho, javant biarujia and shalini akhil that cross borders of genre, culture, identity and fear.
discussion: at a time when the world is closing down its national borders, boundaries of culture, identity, etc are more fluid, open... at the intersections of boundaries/borders, new forms, practices, theories...
chandani lokuge, mohit prasad (fiji) and goenawan mohamad (indonesia) in discussion with peter mares.

... and i don't even know it

2005-10-27T12:34:00.000+10:00

it's true, people - last week, i wrote a poem.
now, poetry and i have a sketchy history. just the other day i re-discovered an excercise book full of angsty poetry from the dark years [1995-96]. i was looking for a notebook to scribble in and came across this pristine-looking, spiral-bound excercise book and thought 'this'd be perfect', but when i opened it up it was like a pandora's box of pain and suffering. and embarrassment. i swear (actually, i think i did swear when i opened the book)... but how crazy was i back then? obsessive is a mild, mild word. i could tell that my main influences at the time this poetry was penned were definitely that sprightly ray-of-sunshine writer, one ms. dorothy parker, and the uber-sparky lelaina pierce, played by winona ryder in that angsty classic, reality bites. looking back, i am so glad all i did was write angsty poetry. anyway, moving right along...

i wrote a poem last week and it kindve happened fast and without my brain's prior consent. i was to write something by the end of the week in response to a friend's paintings on the theme 'reflections on footscray'. i visited her and seen the paintings first hand the week before, and spent the rest of the day wandering around footscray to soak up the atmosphere (oh alright, i'll admit it - it was also to buy myself some bollywood dvd's, a box of jalebi, and a mixed ham roll from the vietnamese bakery while i was at it). so anyway, having done all this research, i spent the early part of the week wandering around thinking about what i was going to write. then i sat down at the computer thursday, knowing that the piece was due the day after, and began to write. and what came out, as much as i tried to pass it off as a piece of prose, was a poem.

let me just say i have nothing against poetry. i like some poetry, in the same way that i like some of the tracks off bjork's last album. the others, i don't necessarily dislike; i just don't understand them. so i will not presume to start calling myself a poet because i happened to write one piece that looks more like a poem than it does a short story. the few people i showed it to liked it, but as the majority of them were actually related to me, i'm not sure if i should rest on their opinions. i am toying with the idea of posting the poem on this website and getting you to give me feedback on it. let me know if you think i should.

anyway, the alleged poem did me a world of good - it seems to have gotten the rusty cogs in my head moving again, and i am now very near completing a short story, the idea for which had been lying dormant on my laptop for quite a while. and the direction this story has taken is a little different to anything else i've ever written before.

hmmm. nook + accidental poetry = interesting new writing.

a nook of one's own

2005-10-25T16:50:00.000+10:00

today i realised that writing a novel is somewhat like having a baby. you have this idea that gets planted in your brain and it stays there and doesn't bug you much to begin with. you imagine what it will look like when it's born, what this fully-formed idea will look like, and you try and make room in your life for it. then you feel it kick you in the ribs unexpectedly one day and you're like 'ohmigod! it's in there and it's changing'! and you go into a nesting frenzy, cleaning and clearing and setting up a new place, and then all of a sudden you have a nook in a space where before there was just a mess, and you look at it in wonder and say 'this is it, this is where it's all going to happen, and i did it myself!' and you hope and pray that everything goes alright between you and your baby. well, today i went throught the writer's equivalent of a nesting frenzy.

okay, it could have been a massive act of procrastination, but who cares? the result of it is that i now have a little 'writing nook' in a corner of the back room of our house. i had tried to set something up in this room on other occasions but i think i had the perspective all wrong - now i am sitting facing the window instead of facing the fireplace, and it seems to feel a little better. i have the fireplace behind me to the right, which will be perfect for keeping my booty warm, and a not totally uninspiring view of citylink and housing commission flats and a nice chunk of sky. i will move my printer up here and once again free the dining table so it may for once in its life be used for its intended purpose.

all this is happening because the night before last while wandering on the footpath out the front of my house, i had a brainwave about one of the characters in the rough idea in my head that could become the next novel. actually a totally new character kinda stood up and went 'hello!' which was weird because i don't think i was actually thinking about writing when that happened. and now in order to fit this character in i need to see what i need to do to the other ones that i'd already kinda mapped out, and already one of the other characters seems none too pleased about this intrusion. could get interesting - we'll see how long this affair lasts.

candy: eye versus brain

2005-10-18T15:44:00.000+10:00

the cover of zadie smith's new book makes me crave chocolate. it has a paisley pattern in two shades of brown (dark and milk, i like to think of them as), and hot pink and pastel bits all over it. it's quite a cover. maybe one day i'll have a gorgeous, chocolatey-covered novel out there... anyway. point is, i love the cover and i'm about halfway through the book and i'm liking that too. what pisses me off is that just as i had started reading it, i read a review in the age or the smh which gave away a major plot twist. why do they do this? can't reviewers hint instead of state? hmmm. maybe i shouldn't have read the review at all. now i find my opinions of the characters coloured by what the reviewer said. anyway, i'll soldier on and see what i think when i've finished.

to balance out the heaviness of our zadie, i have borrowed a book from the library that will deliver the candy-rush from within its pages as opposed to it's cover. it's called 'adored' and it's by tilly bagshawe. if anyone reading this is also a bit of a chick-lit fan, you might recognise the surname - yes, she is louise bagshawe's sister. now, far be it for me to make any sort of deal about the fact that these writers are siblings - i think that rocks, quite frankly. i mean, how cool is that? if she gets along with her sister the way i get along with my brothers, i'm sure they are a great source of encouragement to each other, and are inspired by each other's work. but what if that's not the case? hmmm. i wonder which one of them will be the first to write a 'fictional account' of two gorgeous, talented sisters who also happen to be bestselling writers... only time will tell.

imagine the research...

2005-10-06T14:37:00.000+10:00

last night i went to the launch of a friend's book at one of my fave hangouts in melbourne, cherry. it started in the early evening and probably went through till the early wee hours (though i left just before eight). it was a lovely, feminine affair with a rock n' roll edge, much like my gorgeous friend. the book is called 'the cocktail' and is a collection of 200 cocktail recipes, illustrated not with pictures of drinks in glasses, but with fanciful representations of the women who might drink them. it's a beautiful hardcover book which (in my humble opinion) would make an excellent present - but the copy i have is destined for my bookshelf alone (and more than occasionally, i'm sure, the shelf in my kitchen).

now, the launch. i must admit a twinge of launch-envy when i walked into the darkness and saw the bar lined with multiple martini glasses filled with three shades of joy - very 'sex and the city', and we know how i've always wanted to be carrie. we said hello to jane and, squeezes and squeals exchanged, we picked our poisons and took up some seats. mark had a crushed ice concoction dubbed 'aprodite', and i had a froth-topped affogato in a glass, the honey espresso. i will not reveal the total list for fear of persecution, but we also know that i've always been a sucker for a pretty drink in a pretty glass.

at the end of the bar there were, suspended from the ceiling, several martini glasses in fishnet stockings (a la that james boags television ad with the woman on the balcony), with big red blossoms and bunches of sharp green leaves peeking out. very nice! helen razer launched the book, and it was an excellent evening. it's so good to see a friend have success and make a huge achievement, and i am so proud of her. she was on bert this morning, too - she's such a star. well done janey - love your work!

what a difference a day makes

2005-09-15T12:23:00.000+10:00

okay, so it would be a slight understatement if i said i was feeling a little surly yesterday... so i won't say it. it's weird. i read the entry back to myself and nearly deleted it (ungrateful girl! how dare you carry on like this!), but then i thought, no. it's not about being logical all the time. and it's not ne trying to offend anyone. it's just the way i feel, and i really can't help that. so don't judge me too harshly, and i'll try to do the same for anyone who asks me how the book's going. deal? deal!

anyway. i had a coffee after work with a fellow writer friend of mine, and after catching up on all that's happened in our personal lives since the last time we saw each other, she shared with me some gems about that scary, scaaary thing - self-promotion. it's something i used to think i just couldn't do. but between coffee yesterday afternoon and all day so far working at the computer today, i realise one thing; if i don't promote the book, who will? i will have to get over my own insecurities and do something. more on that later.

anyway, after starting the day on such a negative yesterday, which way do you think the rest of the day went? as i walked round the corner into my street, i saw that someone had left our recycling bin right out the front of the house, blocking the front gate. i started muttering from a distance - since we live in an old shopfront and people love mucking with our wheelie bins - and dragged it out of the way before unlocking the gate. when i went to unlock the door, i noticed it; a small package wedged between the gate and the door. so the postie had dragged the bin and put it there to hide the package from passers-by! he would have had to have gotten off his bike to do that. my mood lifted - thank you, mister postie! - and i went inside, put my bag down and ripped the package open. surprise! it was from penguin sydney, and it was an advance copy of girl's night in 4. i can't show you the cover or anything because it's not officially out yet, but i can tell you that my story in it is called 'not really a party girl' and has never been published anywhere else. and i can also tell you that my name is in curly writing on the back cover of the book, third from the top. which menas my story is the third story in an anthology roughly the size of a housebrick. it's times like these you're thankful that when your grandfather made up your surname, he chose one that started with 'a'.

i should also let you know one last thing - all proceeds from the sale of the girls night in 4 anthology go to war child and no strings. so when you see it on shelves in october, do yourself and a whole heap of other people a favour, and buy a copy or three.

south of the pacific

2005-09-14T08:03:00.000+10:00

there's one question i've been getting asked a lot lately that makes me cringe every time. so, how's the book going? it's like the writer's equivalent of so, how have you been?. it's a nothing question. i don't know how to respond to nothing questions. nothing questions are formed from words people say when they think a silence needs filling. nothing questions taste like styrofoam. nothing questions are a waste of time.

i know i'm carrying on, but this is my venting forum, so i'll let you know when i'm done. you see, i'm the kind of person who, if i'm having a bad day and someone asks me 'how are you', generally deflects with a 'yeah, you know'. or if i can't be bothered saying more than one word in response, i substiture with a long, drawn-out, high-pitched 'yeeeeah.' it generally gets a laugh and deflects the glaring fact that the question was mere filler and should never have been asked in the first place. i don't like smalltalk.

now, back to the point. how can i answer a question like 'how's the book going?'? here are some answers i may have already given, and some i wish i could (you decide which is which) -
- it's out there.
- yeah good.
- i don't know.
- it's selling so fast that it has its own aisle at borders.
- it's not even on the shelves at borders.
- hang on, i'll find out now for you.
- yeeeeah.
- what book?

i don't mean to sound unappreciative, i really am flattered that poeple want to know and feel compelled to ask me. but that's a question that i just can't answer.
on the other hand, i have been getting emails and comments left on my blogs from people who have read the book, and these i chrerish. apart from being specific (which really is the issue here, i guess), they feel more sincere. i am amazed that people are taking the time to do it. thank you!

ouch... (a.k.a the smh review)

2005-09-07T16:27:00.000+10:00

i don't know when this appeared in the sydney morning herald or who wrote it, but here it is... ah well, you can't win 'em all.
(though i must admit i think the first sentence is brilliant - cracks me up every time!)
_________________________

Shalini Akhil's debut asks little of the reader and gives enough in return to make the exchange worthwhile. It is a pleasant tale of life between two cultures , one that has been told often enough in Australian writing, though not in saris. The novel is part of the long overdue seepage of the experience of Pacific communities into our literature, a slow movement which has been helped in no small measure by the work of Celestine Hitiura Vaite.

Kesh and Rupa are cousins of Fijian-Indian ethnicity. As a youngster, Kesh's family was known to return from Melbourne for Christmas in Fiji. Now they are older and Rupa is moving to Melbourne, where she wants to study, living in Kesh's small flat as she does so. Naturally, the glamorous Rupa will have to learn how to live in jeans and T-shirts and adapt to the fact that her cousin is a smoker and a drinker. By the time Rupa's parents arrive six months later, it appears that Rupa has changed in only superficial ways.
_________________________

my meg ryan moment

2005-08-29T21:20:00.000+10:00

my affair with the writers' festival ended in the best possible way - on saturday night at a party thrown by penguin which doubled as their mwf drinks, and the launch of joanna murray-smith's novel, sunnyside. it was held at the penthouse suite of the manchester unity bulding in the city. i had always wondered what the world would look like from up there; so it should come as no surprise that i spent a lot of time out on the balcony just gazing up at the tower of the MU building, smiling and pinching myself.

the whole evening had a fairytale-like quality to it - the weather was surprisingly pleasant, and the views from the balcony were absolutely spectacular. then there was the actual tower, which we realised upon closer inspection was an apartment all on its own. mark and i peeked into it and imagined what kind of person would live there and how much the place would have cost them - then we noticed that the door to the place was open. and people were going in there an checking it out. so after waiting for a bit so as not to look too eager, mark and i climbed two stairs from the balcony into the first floor of the apartment. and this is what we found:

a living room you'd never need a tv in. floor-to-celing views of the city, all the way down collins and swanston. a compact kitchen and a walk-down-a-couple-of-stairs bathroom (with a bath, even). then up some carpeted stairs to the second level, split into another living-ish area and a bedroom. then we spotted the ladder. black metal and narrow, a small rope tied across the lower rungs hinted that maybe we shouldn't go any further. but instead of stretched taut, it was loose from having been trampled on by previous curious climbers. so myself and felicity, followed closely by mark, climbed (drink in one hand, rung in the other), to the next level.

what we found was an unfinished room with a twist on the outside, and one on the inside. a balcony all the way around the outside. we walked slowly round the whole turret, marvelling at the views, and at just how quiet it was up there. looking down, the trams looked like electrified slaters. then inside, a spiral starcase leading even further up. we put our drinks on a little table and slowly twirled up the staircase, and met another, even narrower, metal ladder. having come this far, how could we stop now?
i have been right to the top of the MU tower. how about that?

reality v. fantasy

2005-08-24T19:06:00.000+10:00

first off, thanks to all who left comments on my last entry re: the review and the writers festival. it has been an excellent experience thus far, and very surreal. i had a session on saturday and sunday, and have one more on friday. i'll give you a little re-cap of some moments:
- saturday night's session was titled 'the artist's life'. after stressing out about whether i was qualified to comment at all, i realised i would have to say something since they'd asked me to. i decided that i would read out excerpts from this blog to give the audience an idea what it was like to be me. i got some laughs (which is always nice when you're behind a microphone), but something else happened that i wasn't expecting - reading entries from the blog out loud was very therapeutic. and people seemed to get it, which was great (helen garner told me later that she thought i handled the session well - helen garner! what a treat).
- many people congratulated me on my first review. that was excellent.
- two people bought my book, and about four asked me for this blog address.
- i saw douglas coupland.
- sunday morning i went to a very entertaining session on women's fiction/chick-lit. it was refreshing to be alone and awake, absorbing clever conversation by a panel of very sassy women. great way to start a day, i think.
- sunday's session on 'mothers and daughters' went very well. i spoke for a short time, but what i said seemed to connect with the audience. sold more books afterward this time.
- had some friends & family in the audience, along with a whole host of penguin people (probably a good thing i was unaware of the latter)
- many people came up to me afterwards and said how much they'd enjoyed the session (including a lady who cornered me in the bathroom as i was washing my hands - add that to the 'things that you've heard happen to other people' list)
- stayed for a session on tv writing. i wish i was as gorgeous as mardi mcconnochie.

i won't be back at the festival till friday. if you are around, please come to the verandah 20 launch at 8pm - it's a free event, there will be free drinks and nibblies, and copies of the anthology will be on sale for the special launch price of $15.

i think i'll buy myself some flowers tomorrow.

book review from 'the age'

2005-08-20T10:08:00.000+10:00

The Age Book Review, August 20, 2005

Reviewer Frances Atkinson

The Bollywood Beauty
By Shalini Akhil
Penguin, $22.95

Kesh and Rupa are cousins, but sharing a blood-line is about the only thing they have in common. Kesh is the Australian-Indian born in Fiji who embraced partying, dope, university life, swearing and a Bloody Mary before 11am. Rupa is the Bollywood ideal - beautiful, wholesome, with "spiralling tendrils" and a traditional outlook on life that includes Hindu music, cooking curries and arranged marriages.

As little girls, they were inseparable. Every holiday, Kesh would fly to Fiji and spend hours with Rupa pretending to be actors in their favourite Bollywood movies. Kesh was always the baddie while Rupa was the helpless heroine. Problem is, although they're now both adults, nothing has changed.

Rupa has arrived in Melbourne to begin her studies in administration and reluctantly, after a massive push by her mother, Kesh agrees to share her small flat with her. But it doesn't take long for old tensions to surface. Doe-eyed Rupa is fearful of just about everything the modern world has to offer, from computers to short skirts. In Rupa's mind, Kesh is the epitome of a good Indian girl gone bad.

As the book progresses, Kesh's anger towards Rupa intensifies, but what exactly is she mad about? Kesh spends a lot of time pretending to be exactly who she wants to be, but at the same time, longs to be the daughter her parents dream of having - someone a lot like Rupa. Her parents just want to see Kesh married and eating more biriyani. In their perfect world, she would never have moved out of home, skipped the whole university nonsense and got a job in a bank. Her mother, who'd win gold in the guilt olympics, thinks Kesh has changed. "Why did you leave us, beti? You used to love us."

Tired of the endless comparisons to the perfect Rupa, Kesh finally snaps and all the years of resentment and anger bubbles over into a confrontation full of bitterness and spite that's essentially about how each of the the girls has failed to see the merits of each other's life. But in the process, they discover they are more alike than either of them would like to admit.

The Bollywood Beauty is peppered with genuinely funny moments and most of the characters are authentic, fleshed out and feisty, especially Kesh and her meddling mother. Whether it's Christmas in Fiji or St Kilda, Akhil evokes smells, colour and sounds with skill and originality.

There's something joyful and unselfconscious about the book and, behind all the jokes and Kesh's bravado, there's a lot about loneliness and feeling disconnected from people you love.

Kesh's struggle to be happy with who she is and where she comes from provides much of the book's tension. It's a familiar story and if you take out the saris, curries and mehendi, Akhil has written a universally appealing novel about identity, flawed families and the struggle to be yourself.

Shalini Akhil discusses writing about mothers and daughters with Merlinda Bobis, Margaret Clark, and Josiane Behmoiras tomorrow at noon at the Malthouse.

oot and aboot

2005-08-17T16:32:00.000+10:00

i have been getting encouraging reports from all over the place about the book. apart from staring out from bookshelves (sometimes misplaced in the 'biography' section - i mean, really... with a cover like that?), apparently it has been seen being read by people on sydney's trains. which is excellent to know, as i have yet to see my first public-transport copy. i must admit, i do a quick scan of the train/tram whenever i get on, but have spied nothing as yet. that is something i'm looking forward to, though - i wonder what it will feel like.

i haven't been going to bookstores much lately. i did, but i always end up overwrought afterward (a particularly strong strain of drama-queen runs in the family, and by the grace of the gods, my generation did not miss out). i'll see copies of my novel on the shelf, and instead of marvelling at the thought that i may now call myself a published author, i begin the silly questions: why are there only three copies there? why aren't they face-out? why aren't i on the new-release table at the front of the store? why don't the good people of [insert bookstore name here] like me?. and on and on the merry-go-round of 'it's all about me' goes. though fret not. i am aware of the lack of logic in this-here situation, and i am doing the only thing i know how to control the situation - i am temporarily removing my presence from bookstores. i know myself well enough to know that this is the only thing that will work.

next week is the beginning of a whole new ride - the melbourne writers festival. in case you're wondering and/or want to come along, full program at the 2005 melbourne writers festival website. details of my sessions follow - if you do come to any of them, be sure to come say hello after!

saturday 20 august, 6pm - 'the artist's life'
alice garner, gail bell, merlinda bobis and shalini akhil discuss the survival of the artist with, to chair the session, jane clifton.

sunday 21 august, 12pm - 'writing mothers and daughters'
merlinda bobis, margaret clark, josiane behmoiras and shalini akhil look at writing mothers and daughters. chaired by la trobe university’s helen nickas.

friday 26 august, 12pm - 'making it'
kate grenville, carrie tiffany and shalini akhil talk to the victorian writers' centre's joel becker about success and failure in writing.

bollywood come-down

2005-08-11T13:18:00.000+10:00

ah, yes. what a week it was. like early-to- mid-twenties birthdays, i stretched the launch celebrations out for a week, till last saturday. the bollywood party at the bedford went off; i think i've converted a whole lot of my friends to the bollywood dance phenomenon. it's so much more than dog-patting and lightbulb-screwing - people got so into it last saturday that it felt as though we were at a wedding. you'll be proud to hear i stayed sari-clad all evening, even all that dancing didn't dislodge the firm tucks and folds my mum put in place for the evening. we get to see the video my dad took this weekend, so that should be fun... between now and then, i will cradle the thought that i looked sultry and sexy wrapped up in my aqua and navy creation - until i watch the video, when all memories of the party and my place in it will be tainted with the realisation that i have five chins. yes, i am aware of my patheticness. let's move on, shall we?

mark wrote a speech which he never did deliver on the night; instead he read it to me before we went to bed. it was a beautiful speech, but he's a shy boy, which is also a beautiful thing. two lines i remember from the speech -
'in the true spirit of bollywood, we invite couples to have spectacular arguments - in song - then make up, because fate draws them inexplicably back together; and we invite strangers to bump into and spill their drinks on each other, then fall instantly in love under the disco lights'.
aahhh. he gets it!

i have been having weird weeks of interviews for print and radio; i went in to the abc studios in southbank and did a tardis interview for hobvart radio. except the link didn;t work in the end, so it was a phone interview from inside a tardis, which i didn't mind, because i was at the abc in southbank. i should have stowed away... best radio interview so far prizes go to jan goldsmith from 3cr's published or not, and radio 927's trevor himstedt. i love doing radio interviews, and i think it's because of one great piece of advoce i got before i started them - after each interview, don't go over and over what you said, cause it's done. start fresh for the next one. best piece of advice anyone could hope to give to an over-thinker like me!

launch recollections, part one

2005-08-02T13:27:00.000+10:00

on initially walking in to readings in port melbourne, it was a bit of a shock to see a whole bookshelf laden with multiple copies of my book (apart from the bottom shelves which still housed some jk rowling, but i had more shelf-space than her for sure!). i turned right to the counter, where more copies were stacked; it seemed that the staff at readings had propped them around the shop wherever they could. aimee had also made some a3 size copies of the cover, and these were pinned up around the venue, too. the whole place had been taken over by 'the bollywood beauty'. i was understandably a little jellified by the whole thing, but people began to arrive and distracted me from my own unstable state. so many people turned up! i am still overwhelmed just thinking about it. bob sessions opened the talking, followed by clare forster (who launched the book), and it was surreal to listen to the things they were saying and digest that it was me they were talking about. then clare called me to the mic, and i proceeded to thank everyone for coming and then two people in particular - clare and mark. mark tried to hide behind the video camera, but i found him! i walked off thinking 'you didn't thank aimee! you didn't thank cathy larsen for the cover! you didn't even thank bob!', but it was done, and i apologised and thanked everyone one one-on-one later. after that it was signing time... and i was there till the end. there was an actual queue. it was insane.

afterward, a small group of stayers moved on to molly bloom's, so i talked my parents into going there for a meal - luckily we caught their kitchen just in time. after dinner we had a couple of drinks, took a few more happy snaps and then came home. the whole evening felt like three minutes. i wish i'd had time to catch up with more people, to chat more, but i guess that's what saturday's party is for. i am so looking forward to it!

T minus five...

2005-08-01T13:27:00.000+10:00

so, the counter on my blog right there is all counted-down. right now we're roughly five hours away from the official launch of the book, yet it's been on shelves for longer than that.

last week thursday, mid mid-afternoon-browse i spied a copy in mary martins southbank's australian fiction section. i yelped audibly (the sales person near me turned around suddenly, presumably to see if i'd stepped on a chihuahua, or turned into one) and ran out the store bellowing 'mark! maaark! come here!'. then i pointed at the shelf from across the store. he went over, knight in shining armour that he is, and fetched it off the shelf. my knees were seriously jelly... i blushed and ran to hide behind the greeting card shelf in a move i later recognised as cheap imitation of a classic bollywood over-reaction. then the bubbles subsided, and in a moment of classic mood-swingery, a voice in my head said:

hang on! one copy, spine-out? does that really warrant a bollywood duck-and-cover?

then the knight came through again, gathered me up in his muscular arms and whispered, i found the other four. face-out, new release section. and that was it, i had to leave.

i have also heard that at dymocks in collins street, 'phoebe' has picked my literary debut as her read of the month. thank you, gentle phoebe. let it be known that i am in no way connected to this obviously highly intelligent dymocks-person with very good taste in books. long may you live, phoebe, and long may this month be.

yes, i am going a little silly in the head. but really, do you blame me?

it's been a week of firsts:

2005-07-23T17:26:00.000+10:00

my yet-to-be released novel has gotten its first review.
a fashion magazine that i had no idea existed has published a short review of 'the bollywood beauty'. have a sneaking suspicion i will have to come to terms quite quickly with repeated references to bend it like beckham and repeated usage of the term 'cup of chai'. not that i'm complaining, mind - i love the movie, and am also a fan of chai, especially the punjabi tea blend that ay tea do. it has rose petals and orange rind in it. yum. anyhoo, back to the review - read it here.

i had my first interview.
last friday afternoon, i got interviewed for a piece in the melbourne weekly. i was quite nervous, though that could have been the after-effects of the espresso in the affogato that i had just before the interview. the interviewer was very nice, and i had aimee (my publicist, who also happens to be a genius, and an excellent individual - we found out that we both wanted to marry santo in the late show years) sitting across from me the whole time. then a photographer came and take some shots. he asked me what the book was about and then went to look around the venue to see if he could find a suitable background. he found a large vinatge black-and-white poster of a bearded man holding a pot of beer, which he thought was perfect. i still don't see why we didn't use the 'beer and curry night' posters as a background instead - that's merging cultures for you, right there.

i saw my name in the melbourne writers festival program.
i now realise that it hadn't really sunk in until i saw the papers this (ahem) afternoon. i am doing three sessions, and also a reading at an umbrella event. it is very surreal and bizarre to see myself included in that whole sphere, even though they've used the words 'stand up comedian' in my bio. if any of you find yourself at the festival, do come up and say hi (i'll be the uncomfortable looking one, gawkily staring in awe at the real writers).

launch week party details

2005-07-15T11:48:00.000+10:00

okay, peeps.
this is it.

countdown to the bollywood-est party of them all.
you ain't seen bling till you seen this thing.
it's all about bindis, it's all about sequins

it's all about going so far over the top
that you'll need a ladder
to get back down again
it's about screwing in a lightbulb with one hand
and petting the dog with the other

it's about breaking in to song
in lieu of conversation
it's about three-plus hours of power

it's about loving your parents
it's about scotch on the rocks
it's about the good guys winning
it's about synchronised backup dancers...

emotional rollercoaster
be there!

a tasty paste... of tiny ponies

2005-07-09T11:59:00.000+10:00

Shalini: Hey Nellie, You *could* keep on watching The Nanny… or we could run a comedy room.
Nellie: But Niles is on and CC’s just come into the room, something hilarious is bound to happen…
Shalini: If we don’t start a comedy room, I will kill your unborn children.
Nellie: Mmmm. Can I watch the Turkish episodes of The Nanny on SBS? Maxwell the Turk is so handsome
Shalini: Okay.
Nellie: Very well.
Shalini: I think we should call it ‘Horse Chutney’.
Nellie: Hmmm. How about ‘Wight/Akhil Productions present: A TASTY PASTE OF TINY PONIES ’?
Shalini: I always wanted to be wight.

Akhil/Wight Productions Presents: A TASTY PASTE OF TINY PONIES. July 13, 20 & 27 @ The Bedford Hotel, 1 Flemington Rd, Nth Melbourne. $7/$5 entry, drinks and food at pub prices. Be there or be elsewhere.

A tasty-pasty-pony buffet of the best comedic stylings of the comedians that asked us for a gig (or the ones we asked, who said yes).

... and she's up! (again)

2005-07-06T18:40:00.000+10:00

on re-reading the last post, i feel compelled to apologise. but, as ova girl said in her comments, 'the depression? ...isn't that a huge part of every writers life?'. i guess it is, and just quietly - thank you for understanding. things have taken a turn and i'm feeling more and more excited about the book with every passing day. twenty five days to go! twenty five days to the day that i've been imagining for the past lifetime.

the rest of the gratis copies of the novel arrived while i was at work today - i came home to nine shiny novels peeking out at me through styrofoam bean thingies (the tenth had already been claimed by my brother, who luckily was at home when the courier guy came to deliver them). i had taken one of the ones i'd received earlier to work today, to share with the rest of my team (who i'd filled in about it when we were in training together). their reactions made me get all excited about it again, which was nice. the rest of the people at work didn't know about the book at all, so i decided to just walk up to a couple of people and say 'have a look at this', and hand it to them. the looks on their faces when they digested that it was my name on the cover were priceless. i hadn't really been in the kind of place mentally that made me want to run around and tell everyone before today, so it was an interesting excercise. i got an email from a fellow employee about it, and she said 'finally! a little bit of culture in this place!', which i thought was cute. i have a feeling there will be a large fosters contingent at the bollywood party on the 6th (and i hope there will be, too).

whip out your diaries - the details of the bollywood launch week party are -
saturday august 6 @ the bedford hotel
1 flemington rd, north melbourne
dress bollywood, baby!

alone in my bedroom

2005-07-02T11:31:00.000+10:00

don't be misled by the title of this post - if you're expecting some sort of kinky nookie action, you're about to be sorely disappointed. anyway, let's get on with it, shall we? let the disappointment begin.

anyway, remember me waxing lyrical, going all soppy and poetc-like in a previous post about the book, and how the next time i will see it, it will have blossomed? how i would probably want to spend a week alone with it in my bedroom, stroking sniffing prodding etcetc? well. i am in my bed as i type, and i am in possession of advance copy of the novel, but there are a handful of other things present that i had not accounted for in my previous fantasy set-up. there is a hangover, there are memories of bawling my eyes out until i fell asleep, and there is an amazing lack of feeling as far as the actual novel is concerned. maybe i'm suffering postpublish depression?

it was weird. getting the book off my publisher was a great moment, as it was also her last day at the office. so it was special to be able to have a chat with her and give her a hug. but once i left the office i kind of numbed out. yeah, i showed lots of people and went through the motions of appearing happy, but inside there was pretty much nothing. so, what's the best way to deal with these confusing feelings? get rolling drunk, of course. in a nod to the 'half-a-bowl of chips and beer with a red wine jus for dinner fir me, thanks!' days of old, i proceeded to stumble round richmond in the rain, feeling stupid for feeling sorry for myself - i mean, what else do you want? you got a book, you idiot! - then i came home, cried like a freak, and fell asleep. oh yeah, then woke up at five a.m. with a splitting headache and was comforted by the husband whom i had earlier accused of not being happy enough. yeah. it's party central at shalini's place at the moment. doesn't she sound like a marvellous person to spend and evening with? marvellous!

i don't know what's wrong with me. maybe it's a combination of the huge build-up, and my tendency to over-think things. i'm sure i'm not the only one to have gone through this weird emotional psycho-tumbler, but i hope it all levels out before the launch. cause this stuff would make for rivetting publicity...
- so shalini, how do you feel about getting your first book published?
- *shrugging* yeah, it's good i guess. it's all right.
enough of the whinging. i have so much to be thankful for ayt the moment, so i will now begin building a large bridge so i can get over it.

i would like to share with you that i have been invited to participate as a key guest of the 2005 melbourne writers festival in late august. that is so surreal, that i don't think i'll even start thinking about that till after the launch.

power whinger

2005-06-24T13:43:00.000+10:00

i tried to sit down and write the other day, but all i got done was a lot of whinging and some blog entries. here's the thing: i got started on a concept for a second novel when i was in the middle of final edits for the bollywood beauty. i sketched some characters, mapped a broad situation, and decide that this would be the next story i would tell. the whole time i was supposed to be finishing edits on tbb, i'd be thinking about this new story. later, when i finished the edits and handed in the book, i started writing down ideas for the second story when my mind should have turned to finishing assessment tasks for uni. but no - the whole time i was supposed to be doing something else, i blazed ahead with these new characters and situations, so eager to write all this stuff down when there was obviously so many other things around that plainly needed to be done.

now, flash forward to the present time; shalini is free of assessment task pressures and has no editing deadlines for first novel. in a sane world, this should equate to her pouring all her time and energy into realising the many and varied characters and situations presented to her by this new project that has been on the boil for some time now. however, in the insane world she inhabits, the only things she has been able to do are drink too much tea, watch too much television, and make weird guttural grunts whilst staring at her laptop screen and further damaging her already appaling posture. yes, it's back - shalini's got the fear, people.

somehow the two-thousand word start i made on this story does nothing but irritate me now; read it and say to myself in my head, you have got to be kidding, surely?. i think of the two and a bit years the first novel took me to write and i'm exhausted already - how long will it take this time? why do the scenes in my head not pour straight out onto the keyboard? why is it so hard getting the bastards out of there and onto the screen, dammit? why can't it all be as free-flowing and effortless as having a good whinge on your blog is? why, dammit? why? whyyyyy??

ahem. because it isn't.
we apologise for the interruption in coherent thought.
now is the time we should think like a writer, and what exactly does that involve? you guessed it. it involves going to your bookshelf and grabbing one of the many books written by other writers about the process of writing. it's about picking that quote and really reading it. it's about sucking it up and getting to work. it's about getting over it.
so excuse me for a second as i go put the kettle on, then sit down and try and make a go of it again. afterall, i've got all the time in the world.

me? obsessive? never!

2005-06-23T11:05:00.000+10:00

yesterday i found out that mary martin's in southbank have five copies of my book on order. the lady behind the counter was quite impressed - given the size of the store, apparently they only ever go with two copies of a first novel to start off with. five books, she said, was 'a block', meaning that if they are placed face-out on the shelf, they come right to the front. she said that the sales person must have been pretty excited about the book for their store to have bought five (thank you, oh enthusiastic salesperson!). so even though i have many unread novels around the house at the moment, i bought a novel before i left (this book, australian edition titled 'everything happens for a reason'). as you can imagine, when i got home i was itching to know who else had ordered copies of my book. i had already heard through a couple of friends that dymocks had ordered (the book shows up on their site if you search for it), and i knew that readings would have ordered, seeing as the book is being officially launched there. so what does shalini do? she googles her little heart out. as a result i now know that both collins and angus & robertson have copies on order - how many, i have no idea. i can't tell if borders do yet. maybe i'll make mark go in and ask someone for me!

shiny and new

2005-06-16T10:06:00.000+10:00

last night i went to a launch for paul morgan's 'the pelagius book'. it was held at readings in carlton. we share a publisher, hence my invitation - it was interesting to see a launch happening for someone else, and to stand there and listen to him reading from his novel and to know exactly how he felt. his book sounds very interesting, so check it out if you get the chance.
while at the launch, as i tussled with internal demons as to whether browsing the shelves at a book launch really was appropriate behaviour at all, my publisher pulled a 'present' out of her handbag for me - a final-final version of my cover, glossy and goldfoiled and cut to size. as i wasn't expecting it, my reaction took me totally by surprise. my internal demons no longer gave a shit about what was on the shelves, but soon even they began to clear their throats and gently point out that stroking a copy of your own book cover at someone else's book launch was possibly maybe rather very bad etiquette. so i beat a hasty retreat, and to appease the devils within i purchased (alongside a copy of paul morgan's 'the pelagius book', of course), a copy of the lost in translation soundtrack. tracks four and five on that cd (and quite possibly the bonus track at the end) are the sole reasons why this girl now wants an mp3 player of her very own (but not an ipod - refer to post dated tue, june 14 on my other blog).

fyi, i am doing a reading from 'the bollywood beauty' on tuesday june 28 at monash university's clayton campus. if you're interested in attending, full details available here.

today... is the day

2005-06-09T12:44:00.000+10:00

today is the day that the bollywood beauty goes to the printers. in maybe four weeks time the first copies will come back, and i will get some to keep before anyone else does. then about four weeks after that it will be launched, and then hopefully it will stare out indefinitely from shelves in bookstores everywhere. so far i know that it will at least be at reader's feast - a friend of a friend works there and confirmed that they have purchased it. i seriously have to hold myself back every time i'm in a bookstore now, i am nearly always overcome with the urge to run up to the counter and ask the lovely lass/lad to search their catalogue for my own title. how sad is that? though i hope that big chains go crazy and buy mountains of books and do huge displays right at the front entrance of their stores that virtually scream 'hey look, we have indians here too'. now that would be grand. indeed.

the final page count comes in at 312 - not taking into account the non-story pages like acknowledgements and dedications and those blank pages at the end that are there because the binding happens in lots of 16 (or something like that). my publisher termed it (quite nicely, i thought) 'a healthy baby'. i told mark and he said something along the lines of four weeks being the longest labour ever. i'm going to leave that one well alone.

i can't wait - it all still seems so far off. but it's less than two months away now! i have to start planning what i'm going to wear. anyway, for those of you that are interested, whip out your diaries! i will be having a launch-week bollywood party on saturday august the 6th at the bedford hotel, 1 flemington road, north melbourne. everyone's invited!

i got asked in an email today whether or not i've been practicing my signature. i replied -
practicing my signature?? of course not!!*
*(by which i obviously mean 'of course'. please don't tell anyone)

show & tell part II

2005-06-02T19:42:00.000+10:00

i might have a short story (actually one that's already been published in meanjin, and is available for your reading pleasure on the fiction sampler section of my site) published online soon, and i have submitted another piece (that i have been dying to see in print for as long as it's been written) to somewhere else. here's hoping they say yes. it's weird - this particular short piece has nearly been published two times. once it got through the first round, hence nearly making it into an anthology. then the second time it was accepted, typeset and matched with artwork - then the publication went under. so maybe this submission will be third time lucky for my little story...
ok, so anyway. like every other blogger, i was checking out my site traffic stats today and i saw something that made me go 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the same time. it seems that earlier this evening, my website was visited by someone from the bbc. the bbc! i love the bbc. i love pride and prejudice and meera syal and ha ha hee hee and white teeth and little britain and the office and gurinder chadha and colin firth and gurinder chadha and goodness gracious me and gurinder chadha and some of the kumars at no 42 and the bbc.
so whoever you are, if you do decide to come back, leave me a hello-message - that would be really, really nice.

show & tell

2005-05-23T21:48:00.000+10:00

the book's in the bag. final proofing has been done, blurbs and dedications and acknowledgements have been written, the launch date has been set and plans are slowly coming together. but it strikes me that now, i've finally let the novel go. the next time it comes back to me it will no longer be a bundle of pale pages, all wobbly and shapeless and prone to scattering. it will have shape. it will have definition. it will have blossomed. it'll be a book, and i'll probably want to spend a whole week with it alone in my bedroom, poking and prodding and flicking through and sniffing it, wondering at the fact that i made it.
okay, i'll shut up now.

today i got a very pleasant surprise in the mail - proof copies of a short story that i have coming out in an anthology called girl's night in 4. i'm really excited to be a part of this project - i've read other war child anthologies, and it's huge to have been invited to submit to one of them. the story i wrote for them is called 'not really a party girl', and it's quite different to the novel. it'll be fun to have them both coming out at around the same time.

on saturday night, i was showing my nephew a pdf copy of the book cover.
he said to me 'when you get a copy of that, can i take one to school for show and tell?'
i gave him a hug and said 'that's so sweet, sure you can! just get your dad to buy you one.'

wanky cafe fantasy fulfilled!

2005-05-16T13:16:00.000+10:00

i have been asked so many times whether or not i spend hours and hours in cafes, writing. i never have - i tend to write on my laptop, and i tend not to take it out of the house much (i know, kinda kills the point of having a laptop, right?). i feel as if, while i was out and about being 'a writer', that it would be just my luck to get the lappie stolen or something. and writing in such a visible way would probably make me so self concious and paranoid that i'd just sit there the whole time explaining or trying to justify myself that i'd never get any real work done - as much as i would love to, i could never be like carrie on sex and the city, comfortable at her local starbucks, contemplating her next sassy sentence bathed in the flickering glow coming from the many laptop screens around her. anyway, this sunday just gone, after having packed the husband away for the day (no, i didn't stuff him in the cupboard - he went on a bike ride with my brother and his kids), i fulfilled the writer-in-the-cafe fantasy.

by the time i read the papers, had a shower and got my shit together it was lunch time, and i was starving. i could see myself pottering around the house all day, cooking and faffing around, and then finding myself at 4pm with not a shred of work done. so i decided i needed to leave the house in order to get some constructive hours out of the day. before i could over-think it, i packed the pages in a bag and went down to my local cafe. it was the best decision ever. i got so much reading done, all the while enjoying scrummy food and a seemingly bottomless pot of english breakfast. then, three hours later, i packed up and headed home, rewarding myself with an afternoon viewing of closer on dvd. i'm nearly done with the second proofs, but the only thing slowing me down right now is this irritating cold i've caught from somewhere.
hmmm...
it better not have come from the cafe.

weddings, parties, anything

2005-05-12T09:33:00.000+10:00

right now i'm waiting for a courier to bring me the final proofs. i have a list of things i need to check and double-check, and some threads that need to be tied and trimmed. today i get to start playing with my pages for the last time. i am also looking forward to seeing how my additions/deletions from the first round of proofs went. then after this is all done, of it goes to the printers ti be turned into a real book, then i can start writing new stuff again. some characters i created a while ago have gotten so bored waiting for me to write them that they've started talking to each other - which is a little weird, but i don't mind because i've been eavesdropping. sounds crazy but is actually true - i've been getting snippets of their interactions, their surroundings, their social lives - the results could be interesting. I’m finding that any times where i'm not actually putting words down can be excellent character background development times. i think maybe it's like a writing equivalent of the old saying 'a watched pot never boils'.

anyhoo. my publicist (yes, i now have one of those) sent me a draft of a press release for 'the bollywood beauty' earlier this week and i opened it at work. i laughed my head off when i read the line 'shalini akhil is available for interview'. well, aren't we special (and a tad desperate-sounding - it's a little 'weddings, parties, anything', don't you think?). anyway, it will be interesting to see if anyone takes me up on that offer, and also if i get misquoted. i was speaking to a lecturer at uni about interviews and publicity. she wrote a memoir last year and did a fair bit of publicity, and told me that one paper in melbourne (no prizes for guessing which one) interviewed her, then just decided to make up its own quotes for the article. she also recently got interviewed by a women's magazine for an article about grief, and found it amusing that next to her words, they ran a picture of a sad-looking model.well, here we go then. i'm looking forward to seeing pictures of stunning, indian-looking models propping up my words all over the place - quoted or misquoted, i don't mind - as long as the models are hot.

he searched, therefore i am

2005-05-06T23:04:00.000+10:00

a mate of mine, obviously bored at work, emailed me because he came up with this. if confused, please click on the 'home' link at the bottom of the page to realise the significance.

bollywood beauty b&w

2005-04-29T16:56:00.000+10:00

today i went along to penguin do the general meet-and-greet with their sales staff. it was quite surreal, walking into a meeting room and having everyone ask me questions about the book and myself, but it was fun. then we had sandwiches and chatted a bit more. then when i went to leave, the most bizarre thing happened. two of the sales reps came up to me with pens and the bound proof copies of my novel and asked me if i would sign them. seriously. i thought they were taking the piss, but realised very soon that they weren't, so i tried to think of something witty to write but couldn't. so what did i do? i signed my name on the first page underneath where my name was already printed in the book. then i realised that i hadn't even asked the first guy what his name was, so i got the book back off him, wrote his name and something i thought of just then that referred to a conversation we had had earlier. he laughed his head off when he read it, so i think i made up for the total goofiness i displayed to start off with. i so have to get a signing plan in place. also i found it interesting that both requests came from boys. for a novel with chick-lit-ish leanings, that aint a bad first reaction at all.

i have an uncorrected proof copy of the book sitting next to me now, which basically means it's the first proof pages bound like a book, with a b&w cover and a blurb on the back. i don't know who wrote the blurb, but it's quite good. whoever wrote it obviously read and liked the book, because they've caught the feel of it quite well. though i'm not too sure about the line that goes 'the chai hits the fan'. but then again, maybe i'm just bitter that i didn't come up with it first.

so, next step in the process will be the final one, words-wise. i will be getting the second proofs next week, and that's the last chance i get to make any changes. scary but good at the same time - as much as i love it, i would like to be able to let this one go now, because i can feel my brain gearing up to get back into writing new stuff again. i haven't written anything new in such a long time - no comedy, no nothing. i'm looking forward to getting back into it all again...

oh yeah - for those of you that are in easy reach of melbourne, keep the evening of monday august 1 free. launch party, dahlinks!

ta-daah!

2005-04-14T08:48:00.000+10:00

... you likey?

assembly required

2005-04-11T16:48:00.000+10:00

all done. now i am the proud owner of a novel kit, complete with swanky cover art, back cover blurb, acknowledgements, dedications and tongue-in-cheek author profile. it will come in somewhere round 300 pages lengthwise and, if used in self defence, should make a nice thunking noise on contact. once all the pages have been delivered back to the publisher, they will come back as 2nd proofs and i'll probably read it again - however this time i will most probably have to make sure there are no writing implements within reach while i am reading. i am afraid i will never be able to stop tinkering with it... i think there is a final set after that, then it's off to be made into a real book. that should put a copy in my hand late june, and copies on shelves from august the first. woohoo!

a proofreader is also reading my pages at this very moment (figuratively speaking, of course). i am quite excited as she is the first to read it in its current form, and this is the first time she's seeing it. it'll be really interesting to find out what she thinks of it. it'll be like my first review in a way, apart from the fact that if there are any major problems i'll get a chance to fix them. i don't think there should be anything major at this stage, but when you're this close to something it's sometimes hard to see it objectively, so there's a chance there could be some continuity stuff or the like. time will tell... also, countdown is on for my editor's baby, due any day now!

delivery day

2005-04-01T17:54:00.000+10:00

i'm sitting at my dining table, surrounded by all manner of crap (unopened letters from the bank, a copy of sleepers almanac, my uni stuff, a teacup full of fererro rocher wrappers, lip balm, handbags, assorted notebooks, miscellaneous comedy festival brochures, a nearly-finished triple power push pop - you know, the usual for a dining table that's never actually used for dining), and staring at my front door. every car that i hear slowing down might be it, every person i hear walk near my front door (crunchy brown autumn leaves everywhere, so i'm not being poetic or anything) could be him - the courier. why am i so jumpy? because this morning i have been informed that my first proof pages are ready. they will be in my hands before the sun is set. i am so excited i can barely function. i wasn't even this excited when i was going to see the cover. i will soon know exactly how many pages the book has and what font* it will be in...
*hey, they don't call me 'words nerd' for nothing.
~~~~~~~~~~
update - it's here. it's here, and it's 320 pages long. it's pretty, and like most pretty things, it's also a little scary. i didn't even give the courier time to ring the doorbell - he stopped in front of my door and i opened it. it's massive. it's marked out like book pages. it's my book.
i tried to read it, but i couldn't. i made it through the first chapter, but it read like one long sentence. i think my brain was too excited to process the punctuation. i rang my editor and asked her, 'are the sentences too long?'. she said 'i don't think so...'. i told her that she'd have to help me because i just can't tell. i got mark to get me two books off our bookshelf and i compared the text and the length. then i sat there holding someone else'd book, wondering if they felt the same way when they got their first proof pages back.
i think i'll read it tomorrow.

done!

2005-03-21T13:07:00.000+11:00

finished the final edits last friday - woohoo! just got off the phone with my editor, and after discussions on the last round of chages and additions i sent her, she said 'well, i think we might be done'. woo-hooo! we are now another step closer to the stack of a4 becoming a book... woooo-hoooo!! it's off to the typesetters this week, and proof copies will be back soon after. excitement!

blocks: road and writers

2005-03-17T13:05:00.000+11:00

i got the final 20 pages of my novel back from the publishers yesterday afternoon, and i'm about to dive in to the re-jigging. it's funny, there's more work here than there was in the whole middle section of around one hundred pages. i think that's understandable, because the middle section has been in existence for the longest - kinda like a custard tart, really. the middle is set, nice and creamy, and the crust is crumbly round the edges... mmmm, custard tart... hmm. anyway. i have re-polished the start and now i am going to finish off the end for what i hope will be the final time.

yesterday when the courier delivered the pages, i had a read over them and was overwhelmed with the idea of a re-draft; i began to feel the symptoms of impending writers block coming on, so i put the pages aside and had a bath instead, and didn't look at them again till this morning. i was a little scared of how i'd feel, but i thought 'they're just words, dammit!'. so i had breakfast and then sat down with them, and i've realised that the situation is not as dire as i imagined it was. i have had a brainwave. i think i can make this thing work. the solution i have in mind involves some changes and additions and shifts in mood, and i think the ending will be better for it. maybe after the book comes out i will put alternate bits up on this site for anyone who's curious to see what it started out as. the most significant thing that's happened that i can share with you without giving much away is that the bit that was the 'start' when i first began writing this story in early 2002, is now the beginning of the final chapter in the book.

anyway, the title of this blog refers to blocks of different kinds. i thought that today i would wake up with writers block; instead, i am pleasingly bloackage-free. i did wake up top another kind of block, though - the street i live on is blocked off as the irish pub on the corner closes it off on st pat's day every year to curb the spill of revelers who will pack their good establishment this evening. happy st pat's day!

dah na na na, dah na na na (ch, ch)

2005-03-10T11:56:00.000+11:00

today i worked in a BH90210 reference into my novel. i surely hope it makes it through to the final version. yes ok the title of this post is a weak attempt to write down the opening bars of the theme. i used to love that show - i'm amazed that they haven't released it on dvd yet. maybe tori spelling is supressing it on purpose. actually come to think of it, they've all probably got together and made a pact that they will block every attempt made at getting the series released on dvd. which is a pity, cause i would love to own it.

i've worked a few pop culture references into the novel, and a lot of kai-india slang too, which i'm hoping my fellow country-peeps will enjoy. i wonder if they will enjoy it? i had a moment last night where i was writing something from one character's perspective that was maybe a little harsh in its judgement of fiji, and i thought as i was writing it 'what if people read this and think this is how i feel?', and it freaked me out a little. but maybe i was (as mark suggested) over-thinking it. like leading up to seeing the rough of the cover, i thought i'd be so excited that i'd need retstraining. then i saw it and i was blown away obviously (my book! that's my book!), but then the feeling passed quicker than i was expecting it to. i got a bit worried and tried to work out why i was down again - do i not like the design? after hours of staring at it, i knew that wasn't the problem. then it occured to me. now it's tangible, now i can see it, i am starting to think about all the things that could go wrong.
now that the book has a cover, it dawns on me that it will be judged by it.

editing update

2005-03-08T14:42:00.000+11:00

edits are progressing quite well. in the beginning, i was afraid that i would hit mental blocks, and not be able to write extra bits and pieces when and where they were required. i'm finding though (touch wood) that it's been quite an interesting challenge - kinda like spending your days doing a series of mini writing excercises, except they all fit in to the story somewhere. that's not to say that everything i write comes out excellent the first time. the edits that i am choosing to elaborate on are the ones that make me think, and i'm having a fun time convincing myself that i've explained things thoroughly enough. am i making sense? i hope so! the ones that i'm choosing to ignore - those are the ones that i'm sure will give me an ulcer futher on down the track somewhere. ah well, wait and watch i guess.

another exciting development - today i received a mock-up of my cover! it's very rough, more of a concept design at this stage - and the good news is i love it. it's a little bit indian/a little bit urban melbourne - a lot like me, really! (can't say fairer than that!). i can't really say much about the cover yet; i don't want to spoil the surprise for you! i will say this - i haven't seen anything like it before. it's very colourful and the imagery is quite evocative. i can't wait till i can share it with you all...

edit posts

2005-03-01T11:17:00.000+11:00

got the first round of edits back from the publisher last week. head is swimming with edit marks and additions & deletions and stuff. it is nice, though, to be reading the manscript word-for-word from hard copy. some continuity things are standing up and waving at me, asking to be fixed. i get to re-visit some great opportunities to colour in scenes that i missed the first time around. editor has helped me break the thing into chapters, which is great - i started out well enough, but there's this massive bit in the middle i just couldn't break into smaller pieces. the plan is i will work away at the first bit this week, and the second bit will be deliverd to me toward the end of the week. uni starts (for me) today, too. woo-hoo...

i am so excited because i have also been told that the cover design concepts are nearly there - i may get to see them next week. i can't wait!

i, writer

On a year that's flown by...

Where did January go?

On acting.

Happy Birthday, Melbourne!

on a walk in footscray

shalini's first column

ta-dah!

2010 updates

the writer! she speaks!

latest publications

download me!

may news

this is where i'm at.

still here!

... and now for something completely different.

pictures: moving and otherwise

carrots, cheesecakes, martinis and shooting stars

melb writers fest wrap-up

martinis, mwf and more

far away places, real and imagined

back at it again

byron bay re-cap

updates & technical difficulties

... but i *can* tell you what i'm doing at the end of next month.

tell me what you'll be doing this time next year in one page or less.

a weight off my shoulders...

virtual ticking-off

building myself a word-bridge, and getting over it

new news

new acquisitions

article alert & updates

you know... stuff...*

... and we're back! (again)

autoreply:

updates

ubud update 2

writer no. 46, reporting from ubud.

ubud writers festival

author-stalker

brown girls in the ring

brain-drain

... and so this is research

uni's done - it's time to start reading for pleasure again!

another day in paradise

updates

longest. post. EVER.

... and that's where my day went.

gotta story brewing there?

re-cap

emerging writers' festival

divine intervention

day after the night before

forming a habit

quick change

home-made vs. store-bought

tears and cheers

will this be on the exam?

in with the in-crowd

swings and roundabouts

don't mess with mr. in-between

three paragraphs beginning with the word 'last'

keeping up appearances

... and i don't even know it

a nook of one's own

candy: eye versus brain

imagine the research...

what a difference a day makes

south of the pacific

ouch... (a.k.a the smh review)

my meg ryan moment

reality v. fantasy

book review from 'the age'

oot and aboot

bollywood come-down

launch recollections, part one

T minus five...

it's been a week of firsts:

launch week party details

a tasty paste... of tiny ponies

... but i can tell you what i'm doing at the end of next month.