A Writer's Life

Thousands attend a rally in Isfahan supporting Mousavi (photo: faramarz)

Today bloggers from around the world are uniting in support of the protesters and human rights in Iran. What’s happening in Iran is despicable and I’m proud to join them today; to see innocent people left beaten and dying on the streets, their free speech and hopes trampled into the ground, is something everyone should condemn.

I had planned to write a poem but I haven’t had enough time to finish it; it’s taken longer than I thought and I don’t want to compromise it, so I will post it later this week. I thought I’d post some more general thoughts about what’s happening in Iran and free speech instead.

Recently there has been a debate raging in Australia about censorship and free speech, particularly online. The government wants to introduce a mandatory internet filter to block child pornography and other harmful content but it has met strong opposition. The problem is that it slows connections and doesn’t work as intended; there are ways around it and it has blocked other content as well, including an abortion site and others which have nothing to do with abuse.

I’m strongly against the filter, not just because I consider it censorship and there is no way to know what’s on it but also because I fear it could be exploited later on. I would much rather have an opt-in filter that parents could use, rather than one which applies to everyone regardless.

But earlier today, while I was watching the scenes from Iran, I thought how lucky I am to live in a country where we can have an honest and open debate at all. So many countries can’t. That’s what we’re seeing with Iran right now.

I can’t imagine living in a country where I could be arrested for touching the hand of a female friend; to not be able to have a real conversation in public or listen to popular music; to have to follow a strict code of dress. Sometimes I think we take what we have for granted and I can understand the protesters’ anger, to have felt so close to those freedoms, only to have them disappear.

The situation in Iran has become much worse since my last post. The crackdown has intensified again, with local members of the British Embassy being detained by security forces and a violent clash with protesters outside the Ghoba Mosque on Sunday resulting in numerous injuries. Mousavi also appears to be distancing himself from the street protests and a partial recount of votes has found no sign of fraud or error, creating more doubts.

It’s becoming much harder to see how the protests can continue from here, facing overwhelming force and waning support. While the opposition seems to be entering a new phase, trying to be cautious and find new ways to protest, without the majority of clerics siding with the protesters it’s unlikely they will be able to succeed.

If change is to come to Iran now I think it will likely have to come from the inside out. It’s now become a matter of changing perceptions and pushing back boundaries, letting ideas spread over time; once the culture begins to change, there’ll be another chance. Even if it’s not until Khamenei dies.

Given how serious the situation has become I’m glad for events like this Bloggers Unite day. I know some people will dismiss it and other events like it as meaningless but I think what’s happening in Iran should be condemned by every person who values freedom and democracy in the world. This and the petitions online give us a way of showing our support.

I don’t expect anything to come from it but if it means that even one person in Iran is encouraged by our support and knows they aren’t alone, then I think it’s worthwhile. We live in an open society but being free also means we know what people have to lose, so I think it’s even more important that we stand up to show our support when it’s needed.

If there’s something we can learn from this, whatever happens, I hope it’s that people realise the world is a much smaller place than they think. Fifteen years ago it seemed like other countries and cultures were so distant but the world is a lot smaller now and as technology continues to spread, our differences fade away; we realise we want the same things — freedom, hope, peace — and that’s what I see on the streets of Tehran. That we are the same; the rest is just politics.

The more I think about it, though, the more I feel that if we truly want peace and change in the world, then we have to look within ourselves first. Even if it’s just to set an example, to show we’re willing to do more than just watch, that we will change our ways as well. By making a difference in our own lives, we can pass it on and help others in the world.

I wonder if people looked honestly at themselves, how many would want to make a change? Would their eyes be open enough to criticise themselves, to see their flaws? I know it’s something I want do more; to be less negative, less selfish, to see the world in a different way. Perhaps through the changes in my life, I can then help someone else.

That’s what I take away from what’s happening in Iran. It’s an opportunity for all of us to look at what’s really important, the things we want to change in the world and in our own lives.

If we do that then, whatever happens, the protesters won’t be forgotten.

To our friends in Iran, please stay safe. We’re thinking of you.

Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.
- Saadi

One of my favourite parts of Sydney is the Powerhouse Museum. Sydney has many interesting museums and galleries but there’s just something special about the Powerhouse. It’s existed in several forms for over 130 years (once even sharing a room with a hospital morgue) and it’s full of history. I could lose myself for hours just wandering around if I had enough time.

Recently there have been a couple of new exhibitions at the Powerhouse I’ve wanted to see, including one from the Star Wars films. With my health I hadn’t felt up to going earlier but I finally managed to go a few weeks ago with MQ, just before the Star Wars exhibit closed. It was interesting seeing the costumes; they’re actually very detailed, much more than you can see on-screen. And seeing Darth Vader was fun.

The other exhibit was the Inspired! Design Across Time exhibit, which was excellent and free. It looks at the history of art and design through different eras and has some wonderful displays. I enjoy studying design; some people may remember I designed my library units, so I found it fascinating.

I took some photos of both exhibits to share. Some came out better than others; I’m still learning how to use my camera and the damn flash keeps getting in the way. But they’re not too bad overall. Hope you enjoy them.

These are all from the Inspired! Design Across Time exhibit. The photo of the bench is my favourite; it’s from the crafts revival and there’s just something very rustic and Australian about the display, blending with the background.

I also like the mosaic. It was made by Pierre Cavalan from recycled materials and each panel is embossed with a stylised face in a different expression. It’s very beautiful and must have been painstaking to create.

What was particularly interesting about the exhibit was following the evolution in design, particularly the rapid advances toward contemporary art. Art and design have changed so much over the years but what was obvious was how the same influences keep reappearing, just in different forms.

These are from the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit. It had a mix of costumes and props from the Star Wars films, as well as displays of real world technology similar to the science from the films.

Seeing the costumes and props was interesting; you get an appreciation for the detail that goes into creating them that you can’t really see on-screen. But it was a little disappointing overall. The exhibit was quite poorly lit (which also made the photos darker) and the idea didn’t feel that plausible. Star Wars isn’t really about science.

Probably my favourite costumes were of Princess Leia and the droids, which were still in good condition. And Vader’s but that seemed to have aged more.

And what’s a day out without a nice meal to go with it? These photos were actually from a few weeks earlier as I didn’t get to photograph it in time but it was the same meal, except with more veggies on the pizza – I’d run out here.

And yes, I made it myself. I can cook quite well, believe it or not. The meringue was lovely too.

Image: Vintage Fountain Pen ~ Kriss Szkurlatowski

Before I get into this post, I mentioned in my last post that I’d write a review of the new Star Trek film after I saw it. I posted it earlier at  my other blog if anyone wants to check it out. If you haven’t seen the film yet it contains spoilers, though, so you’ve been warned.

I’m still thinking about what to do with that blog at the moment. I started it to collect my book reviews in one place but I’m finding it hard to read at the moment, so it has stagnated in the interim. For now I’ve decided to turn it into a more general review blog so I can post reviews of music and films… but I’m tempted to close it and just focus on this blog again, including the occasional review here as they’re some of my more well-written posts. I’ll just see how it goes for a while.

Anyway, I have some news as well. I received an award recently from Jonathan Crossfield over at his Copy Write blog. While I took a break from blogging, Jonathan put together a list of the top 50 Australian blogs on writing; I made the list at #14. He used a combination of Technorati and Alexa rankings and page rank to calculate it fairly and it’s a good list. Frankly I’m surprised I made it at all, particularly as I’ve been posting sporadically for the last 12 months. But it made my day and Jonathan was even kind enough to send me a tweet to let me know about it.

It’s actually been good inspiration as I’ve been getting back into my writing again. So far I’m happy with what I’ve written and reading Jonathan’s post, one of the things both he and I agree on is that for writers blogging is a great way to promote and give a better understanding of our work, while also forming part of a larger community. I know I’ve had more people read and comment on my work since I’ve had my blog than in the years before that, including all of my publications. So I guess I’m doing something right!

I thought I’d post some of my favourite quotes about writing to go with the award. Let me know if you have a favourite or have one to share.

* * * * * *

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.
~ Anaïs Nin

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.
~ Alice Walker

Literature was not born the day when a boy crying “wolf, wolf!” came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying “wolf, wolf!” and there was no wolf behind him.
~ Vladimir Nabokov

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.
~ Philip Pullman

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
~ Logan Pearsall Smith

I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library.
~ Jorge Luis Borges

To subvert is not the aim of literature. Its value lies in discovering and revealing what is rarely known, little known, thought to be known but in fact not very well known of the truth of the human world. It would seem that truth is the unassailable and most basic quality of literature.
~ Gao Xingjian

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
~ Ernest Hemingway

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music the words make.
~ Truman Capote

I keep little notepads all over the place to write down ideas as soon as they strike, but the ones that fill up the quickest are always the ones at my nightstand.
~ Emily Logan Decens

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
~ Flannery O’Connor

I’m all in favour of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters.
~ Frank Lloyd Wright

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.
~ Isaac Asimov

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.
~ Neil Gaiman

Lock up your libraries if you like, but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
~ Virginia Woolf

Click here to take the “Which Star Trek character am I?” quiz

This is just a quick update as it’s been a while since my last post. To be honest I didn’t realise it had been so long; I’ve had a lot on my mind these last few months and haven’t felt up to blogging until now.

I haven’t been feeling well for several months; my health has been very poor and I haven’t been sleeping well again. While I am coping, this last year has been exhausting as it’s just been one thing after another… I’ve had to cut back on the amount of time I spend online to adjust.

We also recently learnt of the death of an old friend. Belinda was like an aunt to me when I was younger and was a dear friend of my mother; it’s brought back a lot of memories and we’re all feeling her loss.

But I’m trying not to dwell too much. I’m feeling a little better now and tomorrow I’m seeing the new Star Trek film with MQ, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I grew up with the more recent Star Trek series but it’s always been the relationships between the original characters that made me a fan and have defined Star Trek; to see Kirk, Spock and McCoy again after all these years should be a lot of fun.

Star Trek has needed refreshing for a while now and it looks like they’ve found the right dynamic with a young cast and a new approach. This Trek can have a wide appeal and it reminds me a little of Batman Begins; build word of mouth for a sequel and hopefully that will do even better once people realise that this isn’t the same kind of Trek.

The thing about Star Trek, which a lot of people don’t get if they think it’s geeky and boring, is that what it’s actually about isn’t science but humanity. Star Trek at its best gives us an optimistic view of humanity; it was born out of the 1960s as a counterpoint to issues like racism, sexism, communism, and war, showing us that whatever our differences, we can overcome them and unite in peace, a view that was well ahead of its time.

That’s the message which has always made me a fan; that the future can be better, if we want it to be. It looks different but as long as the new film keeps that message in some way, then I’ll be happy. And I think it will. That message of hope is just as relevant now, in a post-September 11 world, as it was in 1966.

This is one of the few films I’ll probably be able to see this year, but hopefully it will be the beginning of a new era for Trek. So I thought I’d post a fun quiz as well to celebrate the release of the film.

I wonder which character you are? Apparently I’m most like Spock. I guess that makes sense; I do tend to be quite logical. Not sure about the ears, though. I don’t think they’d suit me.

Update: Just found a fun website that can change your photo into a Star Trek character. Mine is here. As I said, the Vulcan ears definitely don’t suit me!

Update #2: Just got back from seeing it a few hours ago. It was excellent. Even better than the hype, actually, which was a surprise. I’ll post a review on my other blog tomorrow but it’s very different and probably the best Star Trek film so far. Highly recommended.

Image: Fire in Upper Ferntree Gully ~ jsarcadia

This is a follow up to the poem I posted earlier about Black Saturday and the bushfires in Victoria. I wrote the poem as a way of trying to move through the horror I felt in the days following the tragedy. There were so many images, so many stories, it was overwhelming and this felt like the only way I could make sense of it. Writing has always been cathartic for me and while I would have liked to have done more with it, I think the simplicity suits the poem… the starkness seems to capture the devastation of what happened.

It’s one week later now and in many ways I still don’t know what to make of it all. I have lived through several bushfires before but none as ferocious as this; it was like the entire southern coast of Australia was on fire and there was smoke around Sydney for days, as well as the overwhelming scents of various native plants, which will always remind me of the fires now.

The tolls keep increasing; 1,800 homes have been destroyed and 181 people have lost their lives so far – that may go as high as 300. As someone who respects the Australian landscape so much, to see it so devastated is awful; some parts of Victoria resemble craters more than bushland and over a million animals may have perished. Many fires are believed to have been caused by arson as well. For that terrible day, it truly was hell on Earth.

Am I angry? I’m more sad than anything else. Sad at the loss of life and property; sad that in many cases the warning signs weren’t heeded. Sad that it’s taken another tragedy for us to realise how fragile life can be. I’m also very grateful for the amount of good that people are doing, the way they’re helping and coming together; the donations and support, making quilts and toys, auctions for charities, giving blood. The way people have responded, here and overseas, has been incredible and filled me with a lot of hope.

I do understand the anger, though. When so many lives have been lost and homes destroyed, you feel helpless and anger is a natural response. I think we need to be careful not to deflect blame, though. There’ll be time for a closer examination of what went wrong but right now it seems like arson is all the media cares about. Arson is awful but we shouldn’t be so fast to deflect all of our anger onto it – there’ll be many factors contributing to this tragedy and what we really want is to make sure this never happens again, rather than to strike out in vengeance. Right now we need time to grieve.

Sam the koala and firefighter David Tree

For me I think this photo is going to be the main image that stays with me from these fires. It’s amazing; the koala almost looks like a baby being fed from a bottle, and the fireman is being so gentle. There’s been some confusion about when exactly it was taken but it’s still an image that shows you how devastating fire can be and the compassion it can bring out in people. It shows that even in the darkest of situations you can find some hope, which I wanted to reflect in my writing as well.

Sam and her rescuer seem to have become the global face of the bushfires; I know the photo has been featured in a lot of blogs and newspapers around the world. That’s largely because there has been so little good news coming out of these fires and something like this really raises all of our spirits, which is what we need right now.

That’s why I was disappointed when TMZ mocked the photo recently. I detest TMZ anyway but mocking a selfless gesture – twice – when people have died and lost their homes seems very tasteless. How about some sensitivity for what people are going through? That’s TMZ for you, I guess.

At least we know Sam is being cared for now and hopefully will recover. Sadly many other animals haven’t been as lucky. They are the forgotten victims in this tragedy, in many ways.

In any case, I wanted to post this and my poem today to mark the week since the tragedy. I’ve not been able to concentrate on much else; everything else seems rather trivial at the moment, particularly when you think about the amount of money spent on Valentine’s Day when people have nothing.

I hope my poem is respectful; I wanted to try and work through that day in my mind and to be evocative of the landscape. I hope in some small way it speaks for what we’re all feeling at the moment.

I don’t think any of us can ever really understand what it must have been like on that day but I found this video by someone who filmed the Churchill fire; it killed 21 people, 1 near where she was filming at Jeeralang. It really brings the impact home, particularly when you hear the wind howling.

It really was hell on Earth.