2011 May » Deborah Kalin

on a winter's sunday i go

away come away, journal Comments Off

May 302011

So one of my tasks, pre departure for Europe, among the planning of itineraries and other such intricacies, is to find myself a bridesmaid dress. Internets, this is not really my forte. I have a picture of the dress I must match/complement but really, it's not like white is a difficult colour to match/complement so that's not quite as helpful as I was hoping. This weekend just gone, after discovering yet again that I had too much work on hand to leave the house, I decided to try window shopping via the internet. This was not such a good idea. I found dresses, of course — dresses which had no price listed against them (and are therefore automatically out of my price range) and which need to be ordered with up to 16 weeks notice. Oh dear. You can attend a wedding in jeans, right? Totally normal.

On the writing front, I absolutely hate and loathe the faerie novel all of a sudden. Not sure what happened: I was loving it, then not loving it but it was just a bit of a slog, and suddenly it's the worst tripe ever written. If I could be sure it was purely and simply that dreaded middle point, I could forge on ahead knowing the love will return. But alas, I cannot silence the little nagging thought that it could be a symptom of a narrative that's taken the bit between its teeth and dashed off over a cliff in the middle of the night. Which means there'll be a broken neck come morning, and no one likes cleaning up that sort of mess.

So while I wrestle with my inner editor and my inner suck-monkey, who may or may not be in cahoots or at odds, have some more local graffiti. I would dearly like to know what she's advertising, as it were.

(Hey, maybe it's a boutique bridesmaid dress and manuscript writing outfit and all my dreams are answered…?)

there is no moral to this tale

journal, the wages of honey 2 Responses »

May 232011

Glimpse by whim by "What if…?", the Europe trip is starting to take shape. So far there's no actual firm itinerary, but just today StumbleUpon gave me 66 Beautiful Small Cities & Towns in Europe and hello!

Bern, Graz and Salzburg, Bled, Trogir and Hvar were already on my list, but I'm now seriously considering a day trip to Mostar into the bargain. I was trying to find a way to get across from Dubrovnik to Meteora, but so far the world is not proving particularly accommodating in that regard. Colour me somewhat peeved.

I'm also told by reliable sources that there are a range of castles for sale in Slovenia to suit any budget. If that's true, I'm totally buying one. It may be my only chance to own property, ever.

In more banal news, it's been an "I'm a writing CHUMP" sort of string of days, lately. Mostly this has been because I turned back to the thorn girls story to do some more revision, now that it's had a little bit of time to sit alone and unattended and think about what it really wants to be. Stories are like children: if you want them to be cogent, you have to ignore them. They chatter too fast when they're born to take absolutely everything they say seriously.

(Actually, I really like that analogy.)

(Like, a lot.)

(Anyway.)

Feedback on this story has been varied, so juggling what I want for the story, versus what readers want and need (this is definitely one of those stories where the latter two attributes are not the same), has resulted in much whining, stomping of feet, and snarling at the screen. When all of this failed, I picked a new title.

And suddenly it all fell into place. The feel, the focus, the direction, the words I should choose over their similar-but-slightly-different synonyms… Titles, it turns out, matter. Who knew? This is why I wish I could find them at the start of writing a story, instead of at the end.

So the thorn girls story, which was never officially titled the thorn girls but instead had a string of ill-fitting names to do with reclamation and silence, is now "The Wages of Honey". Which is just perfect.¹

And here's hoping whoever publishes it, if I can find someone to publish it, agrees. 'Cos now I love that title and never want to give it up. [↩]

self-esteem extremes

journal 3 Responses »

May 192011

Last night, I had occasion to search through my archived emails, and in doing so I discovered a story of my day which I related at the time to cheer up a friend. It was an offhand account, but it's also nevertheless word for word a true account, and I share it with you now because it is simply too amusing not to.

Identities have not been changed, because there are no innocents in this story.

Enter stage-left, Neal and Deb, who are clearly talking shit, as per their normal practice, but the details are not important and so we watch them get into the car (Deb with slightly more difficulty because she is attacked and harangued by belligerent garbage bins in the process) before we hear their conversation. There's a pause. Neal puts on his seatbelt.

Deb: Oh! Yes, seatbelt. Good idea. Yes. I'll do that.

Neal: Hey, it's your life you'll be saving and all.

Deb: Oh! Yes. Although I was just thinking about your licence points. Which is important.

There is a moment of silence.

Deb: You know, I think there's something wrong with me, isn't there? Because apparently I just rated your LICENCE POINTS higher than, you know, my LIFE.

Neal: Well, dude, I did wonder about it myself — and clearly you have some sort of self-esteem issues going on — but I wasn't about to bring you even further down by pointing it out. Although I do thank you for your concern over my licence points.

Deb: I think I need counselling.

an overstretched tendon; a muscle built around scar tissue

ficlets Comments Off

May 152011

The last knuckle on the little finger of my right hand is inexplicably fragile.

There's nothing visibly wrong, but then I can only see the surface of it, and the problem lies deeper, as it always does, as it always must. I can feel its weakness when I grip, especially in the cold: there's a sensation of bending in the joint, of negative flexion.

I amuse myself with explanations. There's a cavity in the joint, perhaps, a nest threaded into the ligaments between the intermediate and distal phalanges. It was carved out by some kind of blood-swimmer, a creature with bulbous black eyes that can see through the haemoglobin spectrum and bristling with cilia allowing it to taste, touch, and move, weaving its way past the corpuscles. They take their sustenance from the blood, the salts or the albumin, and excrete lassitude. And they find a pocket, when their time comes, some void in muscle tissue or hollow fold of bone, and there they lay their young and so crumple into death, their cilia drooping, their black eyes fading.

I wonder how many micro-hollows I sport, this nibbled-through body that is their universe.

I wonder how long until that day when I grip too hard and the distal phalanx snaps backwards. And I shall have to learn to touch-type all over again.

a city of derelicts, human and architectural

ficlets, journal Comments Off

May 122011

As I may have mentioned, I've recently moved, and am currently rocking new digs in a new neighbourhood.

Mostly this is awesome, for so many reasons, not least of which is that the new neighbourhood is much funkier and edgier¹ and is also — this bit is very exciting, in case you didn't realise it — a fifteen minute walk from work. Goodbye terrible dragging commute on Yarra Trams; no, I shan't miss you! I NEVER LOVED YOU. OR YOUR MOTHER.

It's a suburb of derelicts, my new neighbourhood, both human and architectural; a suburb of the monied living cheek by jowl with the not-monied; a suburb of laneways and factories crammed in and around once-stately now-subdivided homes. It's a liminal space, its shadows filled with graffiti and discarded dreams, and I can't wait to discover more of it. I'm planning lots of rambling impulse-driven walks in my (ha!) free time.

Now, I'm told the fact that I live near an (allegedly) famous cafe type place is also exciting, but I am a philistine and to me food is food is an interruption in my day to refuel that I don't dislike but do resent the inordinate quantities of time it consumes in turn, so that's not my favourite thing about the new digs. My favourite thing about the new digs is that it's such a cosy little place, with a heater (that works). And that the building has a cat! Yay building cat!

Her name is Abigail, and she loves (to run away from) me. So that's working out just fabulously. Uh huh.

Although, to be fair, of the two neighbourhoods … it was the old "less edgy" neighbourhood which delivered the over-excitable naked man. So, yanno, judge for yourself. [↩]

mission: climb a mountain is GO. well, born.

journal, shadow bound, shadow queen 1 Response »

May 092011

This is a snap I took on Saturday, of the Australian landscape somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney rolling beneath the plane's wings, but it's a suitable enough backdrop to say it's official: I paid for my flights today.

Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and Croatia, I am on my way.

(For those who've been already: what's unmissable? So far I have Plitvice National Park, Split, Dubrovnik and Hvar in Crotia; Ljubljana, Lake Bled and the caves in Slovenia.)

This of course leaves me with a myriad more tasks, such as figuring out my itinerary and double-checking visa requirements, not to mention finding a dress to wear to the wedding, but I shall at the very least attempt not to bore the entire internet with all my talk of travel arrangements in the months leading up to my escape.

Instead I shall tell you that the weekend brought me the rather exciting news that Shadow Queen and Shadow Bound have been featuring on the Highly Recommended shelves at local Borders stores. Sadly, I have no photographic evidence, because my eyewitnesses did not realise just how upside-down this industry can get, and logically and rationally assumed an author would know things about her own books. (Kids these days.)

I also learnt, completely unrelatedly, that the Shona people of Zimbabwe name their children for a purpose. So apparently there's a whole slew of ex-army types who go by names such as Bloodthirsty and Bloodlust. (Sounds like a happening party, right there.) And there's a security guard called Nomore — he was the last of six children.

I kind of like this practice. I think, if ever I have children, I shall name them for the purpose they shall serve in (my) later life. Plentiful Retirement Fund and Tireless Chef are sounding pretty good for starters.

the exotic made familiar

journal 2 Responses »

May 032011

These little guys were everywhere in Mongolia. Mostly they came out at dawn and dusk and fled at sight of people, in a strange bounding, dashing gait. I remember being woken one morning by a stream of angry chittering: we'd staked our tent so that the stay-rope interfered with his favourite exit.

We nicknamed them the mighty marmots, but only because we didn't see any real marmots. In reality he's a gerbil.

Why this spate in travel photos? Because tomorrow I'm booking plane fares for my next trip. Which will not be as exotic as Mongolia — Switzerland is far more … trodden — but it will not be here and it will involve MOUNTAINS. Huzzah mountains!