Charles Bukowski, Guru

Oh Charles, Chuck, can I call you Chuck?, you are awesome in your dead, drunk, male way. I would give much to have been one of your mad females.

"The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative."
—Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews & Encounters 1963-1993, 2003

Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. That's exactly it.

I have to go file now and watch my soul seep out through a paper cut.

Back in the building

Oh, would you look at that. She's back. For now. So, I think it's safe to say now, here, in the presence of no one in particular, this is going to be one of those relationships. I think it's safe to say that I'm not going to be the guy that your father hoped you would end up with. I'm the guy that had his own 'apartment' (read - shack out the back of Guido's butcher shop which doesn't have electricity, running water, heating, airconditioning, a floor and the 'windows' were actually holes punched by Guido when he was going through his 'drinking' phase) in high school because Mum was an alcoholic and Dad fled to find gold and never returned. In short, I was cool. Seventeen cool, but now we're older, we've been through some stuff, you're desperately trying to remember your seventeen year old self and why the hell you loved this unreliable, flee in the middle of the night deadbeat that has lost his boyish grin.

I don't know. I've got my own problems, like not being a good blogger. Maybe it's your fault. Maybe your the one who nagged and nagged until you drove me away into the arms of something that isn't virtual. Maybe I'm just projecting. We'll never know because I'm not the 'talk about my problems' kind of guy. You will try and change me but it's never going to happen.

Anyway, I'm back. I've got my shit together, I'm thinking about a future. Calm down, and make me a cup of tea little lady. We got a lot to catch up on.

Things I don't miss

1. Blinding summer heat.

2. Carl Williams

3. Living in Brisbane

4. No. That's about it. I'm really a simple girl.

I am

* bored.

* tired.

* bored.

* really bored from the hours of 2.00 - 3.00pm

* have a capacity to hate that applies itself randomly and without any sort of moral compass.

* am woman. Hear me roar. Actually, nah, scrap that. I hate it when women roar.

Things Playwrights would never say ...

* Just say the line any way that feels right to you; I'm not precious about my words.
* My agent is wonderful.
* No need to pay me a royalty or a licensing fee -- it's such an honor just to work with this theater.
* I don't think 3% for 3 years is nearly enough back-end participation for this theater, given everything they've done to promote my play. I think they should get at least 20% -- forever!
* You're absolutely right! That character would never say that.
* You understand the character far better than I do at this point.
* I don't know what I did before there were dramaturges.
* That's a fantastic idea for a play. I'm going to stop all my other projects right now and write it. And I want you to have 20% of anything I earn from it, for coming up with such a fabulous concept.
* Why would I need to be at any rehearsals? I trust you guys know what you're doing.
* No thanks, I don't drink...

Supercell me

So we had ourselves a bit of a storm on the weekend. I didn't think it was much of one when I was standing in the art gallery and hearing it pelt down on the roof. But it was. A supercell storm, whatever that means, and apparently it means that it's bad. It's very, very bad - which I found out after catching the train home and finding the entrance to the train station a metre deep in water. If I come down with some sort of fungal disease I'm suing someone. Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Big storm. Here to tell the tale. May have to deal with some sort of tropical disease in the near future. Slightly terrified.

10 Rules for Writing

1. Never snack while writing; consume only complete meals – a starch, two vegetables and one serving lean protein (remember that one serving is about the size of a pack of playing cards.)

2. Marry somebody who will cook this.

3. When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something.

4. It's doubtful that any fiction worth reading has been produced on a computer running Windows Vista.

5. Keep a copy of Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway on the left hand side of your desk. Keep Fitzgerald's The Crack Up on the right. When you get stuck, pick them up and pretend that they are having a fight, like you used to do with your GI Joes. Just sort of bash them together for a while.

6. Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs.

7. Actually, never write about dogs.

8. And it probably is a good idea to avoid symbolism.

9. If an irate reader should break into your home, tie you to a chair and terrorize you with selections from the cutlery drawer, think back to your most recent novel. Was its point of view inconsistent? Did you at any time make use of the second person, or urban slang, even ironically? Did you attempt to underscore the significance of an action by describing it as having been performed “to the max”? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, accept what you have coming.

10. Remember: Writing is freedom.