Thank you, Mr Premier

It's always a pleasure when the premier of the state you live in endorses your book, even if he probably hasn't read it! Still, I was happy to find out this week that my humorous picture book, What's the Matter, Aunty May? (pictured above) has made it onto the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge list for the second year in a row.

There are, of course, thousands of books to choose from (it's a very comprehensive list). That means a lot of kids may never get to read my particular title. But since tens of thousands of students take part in the six-month program, and they all are challenged to read many books, there's a good chance a whole lot of kids may get to read What's the matter, Aunty May? this year who might otherwise not have.

And that, I think, is a good thing. Good for the kids, I mean, not just for me. It's been four years now since this book was published (and longer still since I actually wrote it) and that means there's enough distance between me and the book for me to sit back and appreciate it simply as a book.

And, as a book, Aunty May seems to "work" (if you like this kind of thing, and a lot of kids apparently do). The text rolls along with a sing-song rhythm and rhyme, and there are lots of funny bits; the kid character creates chaos wherever he goes, joyfully oblivious to all the mess he's created.

Of course, the book was much more than a solo effort. As well as my poetry, it needed a publisher with a stack-load of vision to get me to extend one of my poems into a whole book (some of you might remember that I hadn't originally intended to write a book at all, just a poem; it was the publisher who had the idea for a picture book). And it needed a fabulous illustrator too, who the publisher found in Andrew Joyner, one of Australia's best, who took the text, and not only illustrated it but also added wonderful new layers of humour and madness.

As a state Government initiative, a large number of schools will be involved in the 2016 Premier's Reading Challenge. For many schools, the Challenge is an important part of their yearly reading program. It's not just an individual pursuit either. The website encourages teachers to organise class, group and in-pairs activities around particular books. Perhaps some of them will choose the Aunty May book. I don't know.

The Premier, Mr Mike Baird, wrote this in his "Message from the Premier" on the Reading Challenge website: "The world of books is certainly an exciting one, and I wish all students undertaking the Premier's Reading Challenge a fun, enjoyable and fulfilling experience."

Of course, I don't know how many kids will read What's the matter, Aunty May? But as a writer, it's a pleasure to be involved even in a tiny way.

Thank you, Mr Premier.

The 2016 NSW Premier's Reading Challenge opened on the 7th March and closes on the 19th August.

The platypus that turned somersaults

This blog is about an encounter with a real-life platypus. I didn't have a camera with me that day, but I did have my notebook (pictured) and, actually, this blog isn't so much about the platypus as it is about memory. You see, I'd forgotten about my encounter with the platypus until I came across my notebook again. Then the memory came flooding back to me. It was from a day at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. I wrote a lot of notes that day about different birds and animals. And my notes included the following quickly-scrawled sentences about the platypus:

"I stop by the platypus nocturnal house. The platypus appears and—oddly, I think—proceeds to do these somersaults in the water, with a diameter of three-quarters of a metre or so, tracing circles alongside the glass. It does this for a few minutes, round and round and round like a wheel and never stopping."

Can you picture the image? Now that I've been reminded of it by my notes, I remember quite distinctly being astounded by the platypus' behaviour. The platypus went on for minute after minute, somersaulting continually in its tank, at a considerable speed. I had never imagined a platypus would act like that. I have no idea if it was "natural" behaviour, in the sense of it being the sort of action a platypus would perform in the wild. Perhaps it was an action brought on by its being kept in captivity? But, either way, it was a "natural" behaviour, at least in the sense that a platypus can physically perform such a feat.

Just outside the platypus nocturnal house was an enclosure with a wombat in it. The wombat, too, was active, and I wrote a number of lines about it in my notebook:

"Outside, the wombat is out and awake. It is munching loudly on a hunk of raw, sweet potato (the orange variety), holding it down loosely with the claws of one front paw. I catch sight of its hind paw when it starts to walk, seeing for the first time (since I learned about it last week) the fused second and third toes which are joined but still have two separate claws..."

Again, these notes brought back memories which I'd otherwise forgotten. They jogged images back into my consciousness, for now I do remember the unexpected loud CRUNCH of the wombat consuming the raw sweet potato whilst holding it down (somewhat like a bear) with its front paw.

Both these images—of the platypus and the wombat—are usable images if I ever want to write about such creatures. I can use these behaviours as real-life observed facts in either fiction or non-fiction. Of course, that's why I wrote down these observations in the first place. But it's a point worth making. Writing observations down greatly increases their usability. Otherwise, thousands of little observed details are simply forgotten, and days spent in "field work" are almost completely wasted. Written notes not only provide data; they also jog actual memories in my brain back to life, so that I remember the thrill of discovery that I had on location on a particular day.

For writers, all of this is as valuable as gold.

Writing as a subversive activity

As mentioned a few blogs ago, I recently finished writing a shortish and rather crazy kids' novel. With a working title of The Elephant Heist, it details an outrageous plot to rob a town bank. (The two bandits hitch a parachute to an elephant, and plunge from 30,000 feet in the dead of night to crash through the bank's roof—with chaotic results for the town and a particular group of kids.) But what may not be immediately apparent, unless you think about it a bit, is how subversive this activity of writing a novel is in the 21st Century. We now live, of course, in the age of television. Children are being drawn to watch more and more on screen, whether it is television itself, or television's major allies (i.e. movies, Youtube clips, and video games). Writers may therefore feel the need to justify their writing of a new novel, which is precisely what I'm doing in this blog.

Now, firstly, I should point out what I am not saying. I am not saying that kids should be forced to turn screens off and read books instead, as much as I might like that to be the case. Parents and teachers, by contrast, may quite legitimately turn screens off, for they have responsibility for the children under their care. But writers are in a different category. They do not possess—nor should they—such powers of coercion.

What I am saying is actually something more subversive. As a writer, I am not trying to force kids to do anything. But I am quite deliberately seeking to subvert the dominant medium of our age: television. I am seeking to use words—words that will be read, not produced graphically—to tell a story that kids will love: and I am presenting it in a medium that is ultimately much more wonderful (I believe) than mere television.

Television, remember, presents every image ready-made. Each frame is prepackaged. There is no room—not the slightest room—for a child's own imagination. A certain TV program may appear "imaginative", even highly so, but it is the imagination of the program's creator and producer, not of the child who is watching it. The child therefore consumes a highly produced package, a package which cares nothing for the imaginative contribution of the child, and is, in fact, opposed to it. A TV program only "works" if it is consumed as a ready-made piece.

But "reading a book" is, and has always been, different. Words are printed on the page. The author and child meet half way. All the images, and sound effects, and voices, and characters, and scenery, and story highs-and-lows appear in the child's own mind. The child is constantly engaging with the words and producing their own graphic version in their brain. The story becomes "theirs" in a way that a television program never can.

Television, I expect, will only increase its dominance in the coming decades. It has too many powerful tools at its command to be easily resisted. But one place of resistance that continues to retain considerable power is the reading of books. When a child truly discovers the joy of reading, they develop a certain immunity to the flashy yet empty promises of television. They develop powers of creativity, imagination and thoughtful engagement, equipping themselves to be more human, and thereby more real in their futures.

That's why my writing of a new novel is subversive. It opposes (happily) the age of television in which we live. And hopefully (joining a host of books by other authors already out there) it will wrest many hours away from screens!

My second-rate writing

It was C.S. Lewis who first pointed out to me the difference between first and second things. His article, entitled "First and Second things," first appeared in a British periodical in 1942, and was later reprinted in a C.S. Lewis book that bore the same name (pictured). It's a wonderful little piece because it places writing (any writing, including my own) in its proper position. It therefore sems a good article to muse upon as I look out—in this first week of 2015—upon another year of my writing life.

C.S. Lewis covers a lot of ground in just a handful of pages. But the bit I want to focus on is this: the arts, including writing, are not (says Lewis) primary. It was only in the Romantic era—that heady period at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries—that "the arts" began to be taken seriously in their own right. Before that time, the arts were almost always considered secondary to some other, greater thing. Writing is not a "first thing". It was a "second thing".

Now, Lewis makes a very interesting observation, which, he suspects, may even be a sort of universal law. It is this: that if second things (like writing) are put first, they not only cannot deliver as one of the primary-level things in the universe, but they lose the enjoyment they would have had if they had been kept in their rightful secondary place. The more I think about this, the more I think he is right. I have occasionally come across the sort of writer—and have been tempted to be one myself!—who considers writing to be everything. "Being" a writer defines them. It is who they are, rather than simply what they often do; in other words, their raison d'etre for existence in the universe is to "be a writer".

But the sad thing is, whenever writing is put in this primary place, it doesn't seem to be much fun any more! It becomes all-consuming, compulsive, self-absorbing. It becomes, somehow, less human, and less real. This is ironic, since the writer is trying to make more of their writing. But it seems that such writers are pushing writing beyond its natural limits. Writing, it appears, is meant to serve other, greater things in life. And when it does (and only then) it can be enjoyed for what it is.

This of course, as Lewis himself notes, raises the question: well, what then are the "first things", if writing and the arts are not? "Ah, now" as Lewis would probably say, "we're asking the right questions." Many people, I guess, would put "our common humanity" in first place, or something similar, like love or relationships or human dignity. Lewis, being a convinced Christian, would want to push deeper and further than this. The primary-level things have to do not only with humans but with God, and I, as a Christian, would want to argue along the same lines. But that is an issue we can discuss separately. The point I want to make here is that we are wise, in any case, to relegate writing to a secondary position. And, as writers, we will be far happier and more real when we do; and we will be free to explore what really are the "first things" in life.

A new Silent Night

A few days ago I did something I've never done before. I released a song on YouTube. There was nothing particularly fancy about the production. It was simply a home-made live take with one voice and two guitars, and I needed some help doing it (thankyou Olivia and Daniel). But it's the song itself I want to talk about in this blog. You see, writing this song was somewhat audacious, since it was a new tune for a 200-year-old classic Christmas carol.

I'd actually written this new 'Silent Night' tune years ago, but it was only recently I decided to do something with it. The reason it seems rather audacious is that (of course) Silent Night already has a perfectly good tune (and a very pretty one), a tune known and loved by millions around the world. So why write a new—and different—melody?

Part of the answer (though only part) is that the idea of writing a new Silent Night tune inspired me. As a creative person, I get lots of ideas. Some of these ideas are best expressed in poems, some in short stories, some in picture books, some in little novels, some in short plays or non-fiction articles. But other ideas are musical, and so need to find expression in musical form. That's what this idea was
—an attempt to write a new tune for Silent Night that I could love as much as Franz Gruber's 1818 original.

The new melody came quite quickly to me. After all, it was simple and fairly short. But it had to feel 'right' as a melody that would suit Silent Night. So, it's probably worth pointing out, that it therefore had to fulfil at least three requirements.

Firstly, the new tune had to exactly fit the meter of the English lyrics. (The lyrics had been originally penned by Joseph Mohr in German in 1818, but it was the most common English translation that I followed.) So my tune was in three-four time, similar to Gruber's famous three-eight tune, and the placement of my notes fit the flow of the words. Yet the internal rhythmic structure of my new tune, as well as the actual new melody, was almost entirely distinct; almost, though not quite, for the words virtually required that there be at least some slight correspondences between old and new in the internal rhythm.

Secondly, my tune had to be fresh and new; otherwise, what was the point. Thus, the chordal structure was new and had (I think) a little sense of 'journey' to it from beginning to end. Overall, too, the melody was—to my ears at least—lyrical and even lovely. It pleased me, and my hope was that it would please others too.

Thirdly, I wanted the tune to have a 'classical' feel to it. What this actually meant, I had no idea. After all, I have very little knowledge of music 'theory'. But I sort of felt, by instinct, that this melody did the job. I liked it, and it sounded sort of 'classical'. To me, the melody seemed as if it could've been written any time in the last 300 years!

Anyway, it's now over to others. Does anyone else out there in Internet-land like this simple, lyrical alternative Silent Night tune? Would anyone else like to sing it for themselves? It will be interesting to find out.

You can see the YouTube clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXWqGNFChH0 or by tracking it down via my Facebook page at facebook.com/peterfriendwriting.

Why I like the Grinch

It was only in recent years that I discovered Dr Seuss' How the Grinch stole Christmas (pictured). In fact, I saw the movie (starring Jim Carrey) before I found a copy of the book and read the original for myself. The movie quickly became one of my favourite-ever movies. And the book, similarly, delights me when I re-read it―as I did this week, twice―even though it is so much more simple than the film.

As a writer of children's verse, I am interested in Dr Seuss' Grinch from a professional point of view, quite apart from my private delight as a reader, although the two are linked. And what seems inescapable is that much of the power of the Grinch story derives from the fact that the Grinch is a great villain, yet lovable at the same time. He's an outcast, a loner, deluded to the point of committing a heinous crime against an entire town. He's also a greatly troubled individual, who cannot bear the noise and joy of ordinary society and so wants to spread misery to everyone. Even though he isn't "human", the Grinch has so much of the darker, mournful side of humanity about him that the reader cannot help but recognise him as familiar. In the end, his fault is boiled down in the book to one thing: his heart is "two sizes too small"―a delightful encapsulation of his fundamental condition.

And so the Grinch commits his great crime, stealing all the Christmas presents, decorations and food from the town of Whoville. Near the end of the book, of course, comes the great twist. In spite of his efforts, the Grinch doesn't stop Christmas from coming. It comes, even without the presents and trappings. The inhabitants of Whoville are still able to rejoice and sing, simply because it's Christmas. This revelation leads to the Grinch's own redemption; his heart grows "three sizes that day", and he returns all that he has pinched and joins in the celebrations with the rest of the town.

The whole story is given a light touch, not only by the crazy illustrations but also by the constant rhythm of the comic verse, and by the rhyming scheme. The rhythm is accented on every third syllable, and there are four of these units in every line, to give what is in strict terms anapestic tetrameter, i.e.da-da-DA da-da-DA da-da-DA da-da-DA. Dr Seuss doesn't follow this meter slavishly; sometimes syllables are dropped, and sometimes lines are split so that they appear on the page as two or three shorter lines instead of one long one. But the general rhythm provides a structure that basically extends through the whole book. And the rhymes are often delicious too.

Now, the whole point of this blog is to point out one very important truth. The power of Dr Seuss' text doesn't come solely from his clever rhyming verse; nor does it come solely from his wonderful character-driven story. The book is successful because Dr Seuss manages to meld both these things so beautifully. It is a fantastic story, but it is also a fantastic story written in wonderfully crafted verse. The two things meet, and the result is a book that has become a classic.

I often try to keep this double-truth in front of me when I write children's verse. I try to go all the way in imagining crazy character-driven stories, and I work hard to get the rhyming verse to really "sing".

Perhaps you'd like to get a copy of Dr Seuss' How the Grinch stole Christmas, and notice it all fresh for yourself!

My 10-tonne elephant

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) I don't really own a 10-tonne elephant. I only own an imaginary one. But, since this elephant of mine figures quite prominently in the crazy kids' novel I have just finished writing, I thought it might be worthwhile telling you about it. This elephant, in fact, may even make it into the novel's title―that's if the publisher ends up using the title "The Elephant Heist" (pictured) which I hope they will.

Let me tell you the set-up for my novel, and then you might understand why I so wanted the elephant. You see, the story is about an ordinary town that wakes up one morning to find the town's bank has been robbed during the night. But I didn't want this bank heist to be ordinary. I wanted it to be dramatic and wacky, because this was a novel for kids aged around 8-12 years and I wanted the plot to be pushed to the max wherever possible. So, the two bandits in the story did a strange thing. They didn't just break into the bank with a sledgehammer in the middle of the night, or dig a tunnel underneath. No, they had one of their henchmen fly a plane at 30,000 feet over the town. Furthermore, they had nabbed (from who knows where) a huge African male elephant that very unwillingly was now forced to play a major part in the heist. Fixing a giant saddle on the elephant's back, and slipping the elephant into an enormous parachute harness, the bandits then hopped on while the huge beast was PUSHED out of the airplane. Down, down, down the elephant zoomed in the parachute. The two bandits guided the elephant by means of a massive rudder they had fixed onto the elephant's back. Then, with a large CRASH, the bull elephant smashed through the roof of the town bank. The bandits were in!

Thus the town woke up the next morning to a double emergency. Not only had the bank been robbed, with the bandits still at large (presumably) somewhere in the town, but also there was a massive and very angry African elephant inside the bank that couldn't get out.

This was the sort of set-up that gave me something wonderful to work with in the remainder of the novel. The town was in an uproar. The media was frenetic. The police were trying to track down the bandits. And four kids and a Dobermann were drawn into the middle of it all, and become, as the novel progresses, key to resolving the whole outrageous situation.

So you can see (hopefully) why my elephant was key. He turned a fairly humdrum set-up into a very wacky one, surrounded, by the very nature of things, with heaps of drama and possibility.

I'll probably tell you more about The Elephant Heist novel in some future blogs. And, if you're interested, you can follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/peterfriendwriting to hear news of where and when this novel might actually be published! It should be LOADS of fun.