My baby SUCKS. Really well. That’s important. It took her a few days
to get the hang of it. But now: awesome at sucking. I’m so proud of her.
It started like this: at 2am Tuesday Jen woke me to say her waters
had broken. I was confused, because we were scheduled for a
Caesarean delivery at 9am, had Jen forgotten? She wasn’t supposed
to labor. This must be some kind of miscommunication. But no.
The baby was coming. She’d heard she was to
be born today and decided to take charge.
Off to the hospital we went. Fifty-two minutes before the
time we had booked four months ago, she arrived: Matilda Margrett Barry,
weighing 8lb 11oz, dazzling onlookers with her rich thatch of red
hair.
The smell. The smell! I had forgotten how good this was. She smells
like distilled contentment.
Matilda is strong and likes to have her hands near her face.
Because of this, sometimes she facepalms. I have to get a photo
of that and release it on the internet. She had a restless first few days,
but now the sucking is under control, has been happy and very snuggly.
She snuffles and snorts. Her big sister Finlay, who turned five
yesterday by the way,
can you believe that? Her big sister is super-super excited.
Look at that smile. There’s ownership.
Today we arrived home. It’s been a great day. I wish you all this
kind of happiness.
P.S. I once wrote a blog about how before I
named my next child, I would
make sure the domain name was available.
Well, I completely forgot about this until Day 3 in the hospital, long
after
tweeting her arrival. The five panicked minutes between realizing this and securing
matildabarry.com were the most nerve-wracking part of the entire experience.
Here is a short story!
Not by me. Oh. Sorry. You thought… you’re
right, that was confusing. No, this is by Sean Silleck.
He’s nobody. I say that with the deepest respect. I mean he’s only
had one thing published and this is it. But check it out: it’s like
something I would write, if I was having a really good day.
I mean, eerily so. It’s like the guy is hanging around my house after
dark, going through my trash. I’m not saying he is. I’m not saying
anything until the police have finished their investigation. But really.
Eerie.
I swapped a few emails with Sean and it turns out he’s never heard of
me in his life. That was kind of disappointing. I was all excited that I
had inspired a bright young talent. But no. Apparently I’m just working
with ideas so obvious that anyone can have them.
Speaking of shorts,
I’m judging a short story contest!
You can win $1,500 just by writing the kind of thing you already know I like. It’s
practically rigged in your favor. Although you do have to be Australian. I suppose
that’s the catch.
If you’re not Australian, I still have something for you. Wait. No, this
is local, too. Wow. This blog is just getting more and more pointless for you.
But anyway, I’m rocking out the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne next week
with the
Writer’s Mix Tape.
The idea is I bring along a CD of significant/pumping tunes and play them
and talk about why what they mean and finish with an awesome breakdance.
It’s something like that. I’m there with Rob Jan of RRR radio. You should be, too.
Unless you live thousands of miles away. In which case I’m very sorry
for wasting your time. As you were.
I shaved my head totally bald and the skin is so baby-smooth I can’t
stop touching it. That’s not relevant to anything. I don’t know why I
brought it up. But seriously. Baby-smooth.
So I didn’t blog or go on Facebook or Twitter for six weeks and you
know what? It was kind of good. It was like walking into the desert
and rediscovering Nature. It was like being born again. It was like
looking at a photo of who I used to be.
No, not really. It was pretty much like this, only I had more free time
and hadn’t heard of Zach Anner.
I have been doing lots of writing. The last big Machine Man
novel rewrite is almost finished, and I started something new. I
was planning another serial, but this kind of grabbed me and it’s
not at all serial-like. So now I’m not sure about serials.
I’ll see where I am in three months.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I’m here and writing and
I know who Zach Anner is. Also: baby-smooth.
I remember when I was desperate to find a girl but had no idea what
they wanted. I knew what I wanted. I wanted them to take delivery
of my package. But how to convince them? What did they want from me?
Where could I find one with a good reputation, who didn’t charge
fees?
Wait, did I say girl? I meant literary agent. I couldn’t find a
literary agent.
Now there are tons of sites about literary agents. Some are by
agents. My favorite is
Nathan Bransford of
Curtis Brown, but there
are plenty to choose from. There’s no longer any excuse for not
knowing at least a little about how an agent’s mind works: what
they’re looking for, how to approach them.
Still, the other day I received an email from a writer facing a quandary:
A Literary Agent has given me a favourable reply (ie: wants to see my entire
manuscript from a lousy query letter), so I immediately panicked and sent it
to a “professional editing” service (one listed on Australian Literary Agents
Website) for a final Mr Sheening. Do Literary Agents have a time limit before
they get miffed if you don’t send manuscript by return email? The Editing
Service assures me that I have two months (?) to submit, as they have not
started it yet, but “it is on the top of their pile”.
Help… please?
Yours in awe
Elle
Usually I can’t respond to emails, but I make an exception for
those that sign off, “Yours in awe.” So I replied, and then I thought
I might as well post my response here, because it was just that good.
Or possibly not, but what the hell, it’s not like I’m forcing you to
keep reading.
Hi Elle!
This is why you don’t query agents until your book is ready, of course.
But I know it happens. I queried a few agents with my first novel then
freaked out because what if they wanted to see it? I think I did
lightning rewrites every time someone responded.
I see two issues. The first is: Are you damaging your chances if you don’t
respond to an agent immediately? If we were talking about American agents,
I’d say, “Maybe.” Most reputable American agents receive more queries than
they can remember, and might not notice whether it’s been two weeks or two
months since they asked to see yours. But they might.
For an Australian agent I’d say, “Probably.” They deal with far fewer writers and are more likely to wonder what’s going on.
But either way, I’d send them that manuscript. Agents want reliable
clients, and if the first thing you do is delay, they’ll worry you are
one of those writers who are forever six months away from finishing their
next book. For this reason you should not reply with some pathetic story
about how you thought your book was ready but now you think about it can
you please have a few more months. Don’t do that.
You are worried that your book could be better; well, it probably could.
They all could. Do you think yours has little flaws or big ones? If they’re
minor, they’re unlikely to dissuade an editor who otherwise loves your work,
and if they’re major, you’re dead no matter what: dead if you send in that
piece of crap, dead if you wait for two months only to discover from this
editing service that you need to spend six more on rewrites.
Speaking of which. There are very fine freelance editors out there but I
don’t like the concept. In particular I think it’s bad for amateur writers
with no idea what’s good and bad about their book to consult a
freelance editor in the hope that this expert can explain it.
It’s bad because
(a) to rewrite well you need to completely believe in what you’re doing.
Receiving advice you don’t really understand or agree with but feel compelled
to follow anyway because it’s coming from an expert will crush everything
unique and valuable about your book.
And (b) some freelance editors are delusional psychopaths.
By my reckoning, about one in four pieces of literary feedback are so
wide of the mark they’re not just unhelpful but destructive. They want
your book to be more like a completely different type of book, or prostrate
itself before the altar of Strunk & White, or not imply things about
hot-button issues you never even thought of, or go into depth about things
nobody cares about, or not do this mildly felonious thing that someone tore
strips off them for at their last story workshop, or stop reminding them of
their ex-wife.
I’m talking about feedback from other writers and readers, rather than
editors; you would hope freelance editors are less delusional than writers.
But I don’t know. Why take the risk? This is why I advocate quantity: get
your ms. read by at least eight or ten people before you show it to anyone
in the industry. Enough to identify the outliers.
More on this here.
Obviously I haven’t read your manuscript (that wasn’t an invitation). I don’t
know which editing service you’ve selected, or how experienced you are, or
whether you’ve workshopped it already. But based on what I know: send it.
You’re more likely to hurt yourself by not sending it than you are to help
yourself by delaying for months in order to maybe improve it but maybe not.
Good luck!
Max.
Who do I have to hug to get a Jennifer Government movie made,
that’s what I want to know. It’s been like seven years. Yeah, yeah, it’s hard to
make a story work in 100 minutes when you’ve got six major characters and
nine interconnected plots. Boo hoo. You know what that sounds like? “I’m a crappy
screenwriter.”
In the meantime, here’s something almost as good:
a wallpaper! I stumbled across this a year
ago but it took that long to track down the original artist:
it started as a
sketch
by Patrick Shettlesworth
that had nothing to do with Jennifer Government until
lordkelvos
of deviantART reworked it and added a barcode tattoo, which I stuck
in front of a background designed by
Michael J. Windsor.
That’s three different people who can now sue me for copyright infringement.
But at least two of them said it was okay so here you go:
It may help you enjoy this image if you imagine you’re a teenage boy.
I don’t need to do that. But you might. Here it is in different sizes:
1920x1200 (widescreen),
1280x800 (widescreen),
1440x900 (widescreen),
1600x1200,
1024x768.
I have a bunch of blogs backed up. Wait. That sounds disgusting.
Pretend I didn’t say that. What I mean is: I keep thinking of things
I want to blog about, but before I do I get distracted by emails or
real writing or my wife getting pregnant. I know. You could argue
that I have prioritization issues. On the other hand, you could argue
I don’t. It’s not like anyone pays me for these. I only do them for
the look on your face. That’s right. I’m watching you. I’m watching
you right now. See that webcam? Give me a little wave. Hello,
my pretty. Hello.
But that’s beside the point. The point is: my wife is pregnant.
I can’t believe you didn’t react more when I mentioned that
a second ago. You barely frowned. Oh, wait. I see. You were wondering
if you already knew about that. I guess I didn’t really telegraph it. I
just kind of slipped it in there. But enough about the conception.
Ha ha! Joke. We used IVF. Not because we have to. We just like to
employ advanced medical technology wherever possible. It’s expensive,
but we think it’s worth it. They say you can’t genetically
engineer your embryos, but once you get inside and they close
the door, you totally can. We went for a female green-eyed redhead
with a propensity to sneeze in sunlight and a tail like a fish.
Last Friday we went along for our 20-week scan. We decided to
find out the sex this time, because Jen wanted to find out the sex
and I couldn’t stand the idea of her knowing something I didn’t.
It would have thrown off the delicate power balance of the whole
relationship. You might think that’s silly but that’s what they said
about Palestine. I don’t want a repeat of that. Not in my house.
So off we went, and Dr. Andrew showed us that we’re having a girl!
He showed us in a way that would be truly mortifying if the girl
was aware of it, by the way. I kind of feel sorry for girls today
growing up with DVDs of their prenatal scans tucked away in their
parents’ bedside tables. You just know they’re going to come
out at the 21st party. Anyway, there it is: we will have two girls,
and the new one will own nothing new until she leaves home.
Before Finlay was born, her placeholder name was “Popsicle”
(Poppy for short),
because she was brewed from a frozen embryo.
As we were walking out of the clinic, Finlay said, “We should call
her Chandelier.” I don’t know where that came from. But that’s the
placeholder. Chandelier Barry. A new light in the world.