My writing week

Hi all,

I’ve been busy with work and very tired afterwards, so my second job as a writer suffered last week. I did the bare minimum of writing on each day. I did manage to read a few more chapters of the novel I am critiquing though, and also a couple of chapters of a non-fiction book.

I had a look at the Melbourne Writers Festival guide, none of the sessions or authors had me rushing out to book tickets. There are no sessions devoted to speculative fiction and a dearth of speculative fiction authors. Of the 311 or so writers only one Margo Lanagan could be classed as a fantasy author.

My experiment in book promotion (before the novel is completed) continues and seems to be going okay. I will have to devote more time and creativeness to it in the coming months for it to really go somewhere.

Finally, I went and saw the Dark Knight on the weekend. It’s a good film, with it and its predecessor Batman: The Beginning, coming in second to the X-men series as the best films to come out of comic books. Unlike most comic book inspired films, The Dark Knight did at least give me something to think about. Would the average American in one of the ferries at the end have pressed the button? I think the chances of them pressing it would have increased dramatically if no one witnessed them doing it. Or would the average American hope someone else would press the button for them? In this case I would say yes. But who is worse, the person who takes responsibility and presses the button or the person who abdicates that responsibility to someone else? If none of this makes sense, go see the film.

Graham.