2013 – Page 8 – Memoranda

Five Books, Five Songs: The Sea Is Writhing Now

“Under the water, I saw it lying there
Creamy skin, lots of flowing golden hair
It was alive, that I know
I saw it gesture to me with the ebb and the flow . . .”

'Ophelia' (1895) by Paul Albert Steck

If you’ve read A Brief History of Montmaray, those lyrics might bring to mind a certain spooky scene (actually, several spooky scenes) in the book, especially if you replace “golden hair” with “raven hair”. The lines are from a beautiful and haunting song called From A Million Miles by Single Gun Theory.

I’m not sure how well-known Single Gun Theory is outside Australia (not that the band was ever terribly famous within Australia), but apparently their music has featured in several films and television series. If you like the dreamy, ethereal sound of From A Million Miles, you will probably enjoy Like Stars In My Hands, the 1991 album featuring that song, and their subsequent album, Flow, River Of My Soul. Single Gun Theory hasn’t produced an album since 1994, but lead vocalist Jacqui Hunt released her debut solo album a few years ago.

Five Books, Five Songs: Hester’s Request

A couple of weeks ago, Genevieve asked me a good question about the FitzOsbornes’ tastes in music, which got me thinking about all the musical references in my books. Here’s the result – five blog posts, each featuring a book I’ve written (or am writing) and a song connected with that book.

Today, I’m going to talk about the most music-filled book I’ve written, The Rage of Sheep, which features dozens of references to 1980s pop music. How can I possibly choose just one song from that book?

Well, at first I thought it would have to be Sheep Go To Heaven by Cake, because two lines from that song appeared as an epigraph in the novel’s initial draft. However, my editors pointed out that quoting lyrics from songs was not a good idea because a) it usually takes ages to track down a song’s copyright holder, which is usually a music publishing company, and b) they usually refuse permission to quote their lyrics unless you agree to pay them thousands of dollars. As I didn’t have the time, energy or money for any of that, I confined my epigraph to a quote from a long-dead writer whose work was out of copyright¹. Sheep Go To Heaven is a great song, but it’s not actually in the finished novel.

That’s why I decided on one of the songs that appears in the final chapter of The Rage of Sheep. You know how lots of YA books with a high school setting end with a school dance, and the dorky heroine turns up looking unexpectedly beautiful in a new dress, and the popular guy suddenly realises she’s his One True Love (or else, the heroine suddenly realises her best friend has been her One True Love all along) and all the popular girls realise how mean they’ve been and embrace the heroine, and she forgives them, and the scene ends with them all linking hands and dancing in a big, happy circle? Well, none of that happens at the end of The Rage of Sheep, except it does involve a school dance². And the DJ does play Hester’s favourite song, which is also (by a remarkable coincidence!) one of my own favourite songs. It’s pretty hard to dance to it, but the lyrics are a wonderful mix of gloom and joy, hope and cynicism, sheer nonsense and deep meaning. It’s by XTC and it’s called Senses Working Overtime.

Giant Squid Makes Film Debut

Yes, Memoranda brings you all the important news. Scientists from Japan’s National Science Museum have filmed the giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time, in the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean. Scientist Tsunemi Kubodera described the creature as “shining and so beautiful”, and estimated it would have been eight metres long if it hadn’t been missing its two longest arms.

By an amazing coincidence (well, not all that amazing, considering my interest in giant squid), I was only yesterday reading about Pierre Dénys de Montfort, the French naturalist whose claims about a “colossal octopus” that attacked ships were dismissed by his peers as sensationalist nonsense. Poor Pierre! Well, okay, maybe some of his illustrations were slightly exaggerated . . .

Pierre Denys de Montfort's 'Colossal Octopus' 1810 — Pierre Dénys de Montfort’s ‘Colossal Octopus’ attacks a merchant ship, 1810

Favourite Books And TV, Plus A Book Giveaway

The Book Smugglers kindly invited me to write a guest post about my favourite books and TV of 2012. My chosen favourites won’t come as any surprise to regular readers of this blog, but you can read my post here. The Book Smugglers are also giving away a copy of the Vintage Classics edition of A Brief History of Montmaray, with entries closing on January 13, 2013.

My 2013 Writing Resolution

It was only last year that I finally started to think of myself as a ‘writer’ but ironically, 2012 was the year in which I did very little writing. Oh, I wrote plenty of blog posts, here at Memoranda and in various other places; I finished editing one book and did mountains of research for my next book; I even wrote a short story. But I didn’t actually do any novel writing, and that’s a problem, because novel writing is the only writing that has ever earned me any money (not very much money, admittedly, but some). Then I realised that I hadn’t made any writing resolutions at the start of 2012. Well, no wonder I didn’t achieve anything! So, here is my writing resolution for 2013. I am going to try to turn this pile of research notes

research folders

into a novel. Then, hopefully, someone will want to publish it. I am not feeling wildly optimistic about either of these two things, but still, there’s my writing resolution for 2013.

For those of you who were more productive in 2012 than I was and already have a finished YA manuscript, you may be interested in Hardie Grant Egmont’s Ampersand Project. They are looking for debut YA manuscripts, with submissions closing on January 31st, 2013. (I love that they felt the need to specify that manuscripts be submitted in “readable typeface . . . No Comic Sans or Monotype Corsiva, please.”) Best of luck to those sending off manuscripts in 2013, and a happy new year to you all.