30\/7\/12<\/p>\n
The new portal\u2019s actually on my computer though not yet live, and I\u2019m astounded at how work-personlike and authoritative it is,\u00a0\u00a0 this dream that\u2019s coming true \u2013 it\u2019s not touched by all our uncertainties and doubts, rather in the way that one of my newly published novels has always astonished me, where a messy manuscript of thousands of \u00a0strsy thoughts and dead-ends and revisions becomes a remarkably neat, precise and absolutely rectangular object that I can cradle in my hand without bits of paper falling out.<\/p>\n
We have intense discussions about the portal\u2019s features \u2013 for example, how to classify all e books for easy accessibility to readers, what extra abilities it needs that we hadn\u2019t imagined when it was just a dream, and what it would look like to readers- is it inviting enough? Does it charm? \u00a0Since it comes from India I\u2019m advocating that it should look like a magnificent silk sari swathed around a very able body.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, The Oldest Song in the World<\/em> with the prettiest cover I\u2019ve ever had has migrated via Harper Collins out of my head and into the bookshops of Australia and New Zealand, and so far, no hate mail, no hate reviews. Over the years I\u2019ve had my share of tough reviews, but Oldest Song<\/em> has caused me many sleepless nights, set as it is in forbidden territory, though told from the point of view of a white outsider\u2026do I dare, do I dare. But there\u2019s a point as a writer at which you have to dare, you can\u2019t live with yourself unless you dare, in fact, you can\u2019t write. Books push us out of our timidity \u2013 but of course, maybe not every author is as timid as me. There\u2019s a moment when you give up wrestling with what\u2019s inevitable, trying to make it become something more acceptable, and then you let the book chatter away, and you become its listener, its Boswell taking notes, while\u00a0 the book is Johnson commenting on the world, even pontificating. I remember Elizabeth Jolley saying in an interview with Kate Grenville and I in Making Storie<\/em>s that she didn\u2019t allow her characters to take her over and I , as a new author, with only the experience of Painted Woman<\/em> behind me,\u00a0 thought \u201cThat\u2019s how I\u2019m going to be!\u201d But my determination seems to have nothing to do with the novel\u2019s will. For me, the characters, and this time the setting, take over and lead me and I just stumble along behind, often grizzling away like a small child.<\/p>\n I\u2019d love to hear from other authors if this is their experience.<\/p>\n Now that the portal\u2019s imminent, we panic about our name. Would anyone think of googling us under \u201cThe Royalties\u201d? Might it just be an in joke, a family joke? Why would readers think for a moment about the royalties of authors? Shouldn\u2019t we have a name that\u2019s more self-explanatory?\u00a0 I argue that a name can gather its own meaning. Someone else agrees, asking, what did \u201cApple\u201d originally have to do with computers? Or \u201cPenguin\u201d with books? We decide to decide at dinner, finally, once and for all, again at my place. But the day assigned to this final decision is for me a working day followed by a radio interview and I only think of the menu in my morning shower \u2013 minestrone soup, purely vegetarian, with a base of fried carrots and fennel and leeks and then only water for its liquid, not stock which I haven\u2019t made or a stock cube which I haven\u2019t got, with home-made pesto stirred into it to enrich its flavor. Then I\u2019m racing to the shops in the afternoon just before the interview, and arrive at the studio puffing and laden with rustling plastic bags with celery stalks sticking out.<\/p>\n But the soup and the wine work their magic while we try out many names, one of us calling out possibilities from the thesaurus while everyone else eats and drinks and shouts and argues. We consider very Australian place names, since we\u2019re representing Australian authors to the world- Bong Bong Books delights us with its alliteration, as does Bogong Books- then someone remembers that, after all, nostalgia has got to us, \u00a0we\u2019re not producing books, certainly not in the usual meaning of the book, the old meaning of books, so the alliteration of Bogong Booksor Bong Bong Books is irrelevant. We work through lists of Australian birds, then gemstones, then colours, and that leads us to Australian phrases like \u201csunburnt country\u201d\u2026It\u2019s during coffee that we realize that over the past year, we\u2019ve become our name, and now it\u2019s part of who we are. It\u2019s too late to change. There\u2019s too much history attached to it now. It\u2019s like changing one\u2019s own name. Besides, we admit as we part, we share a grudging fondness for \u201cThe Royalties\u201d. \u00a0And our URL will be\u2026but I won\u2019t tell it yet. Not until we\u2019ve got it. Just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 30\/7\/12 The new portal\u2019s actually on my computer though not yet live, and I\u2019m astounded at how work-personlike and authoritative it is,\u00a0\u00a0 this dream that\u2019s coming true \u2013 it\u2019s not touched by all our uncertainties and doubts, rather in the way that one of my newly published novels has always astonished me, where a messy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-e-publishing"],"yoast_head":"\n