Still a bloody lucky country

It’s two weeks since I arrived back in Australia. I thought I might be able to hold off ranting about politics for a bit longer but…well, you follow this blog, so you know me!

The thing I notice is how prosperous Australia seems and how much more equal. We make much of the ‘myth’ of equality here but our belief in the principle has stopped the worst excesses. And generally speaking, all our lives are better than they have ever been.

It’s not like that everywhere: Abu Dhabi has the riches but it doesn’t share the wealth with the migrant workers that are quite literally building the nation for them. And as for power and freedom? Forget about it. The UK is just bloody depressing. The LibDem coalition is destroying the last vestiges of any greatness Britain once had: they’ve already introduced forced labour, even for the disabled and terminally ill, and now they’re taking bedrooms away from poor children. Use of food banks is skyrocketing. There are six million working people in poverty but bankers are still getting million-pound bonuses. And the US has gone batshit crazy. In 2000 their biggest problem was how to spend their surplus and they were the leaders of the free world. Now their government is paralysed over debt and they lock up their own citizens without trial.

Australia is doing well, comparatively. And actually a chunk of recognition is owed to the federal government – the Labor government – for being the only government in the developed world to steer their country away from recession in the wake of the banking/financial crisis.

So how fucking ridiculous is it that the election campaign hasn’t even officially started and Julia Gillard has already resorted to fear-mongering? Migrants taking jobs (457 Visas) and Rising crime (Gangs). Straight out of the Tabloid Guide to Fear and Loathing. Stay tuned for Dole Bludgers and Druggies. Don’t let the facts (visa not undermining jobs: crime down) stand in the way of an old-fashioned neocon hate campaign.

Going down this road could full well lose the ALP the federal election and then we’ll be stuck with Abbott, which will be a disaster. He and his conservative buddies will jump on the cuts-and-privatisation band wagon and before you know it the advantages Australia has gained in the past few years will be gone.

Getting rid of Rudd was one of the stupider things the ALP has ever done but I thought ‘hooray’ – at least a woman is in charge. But Gillard let me down pretty much immediately with her mean-spirited positions on gay marriage and refugee claimants. It seems like the crusty old blokes running the ALP told her to prove her womanhood wouldn’t be a liability by being as inhumane and cruel as possible. And then you find out her Chief Media Advisor/Director of Communications is John McTernan, a Blair Government hack and you KNOW that’s what happened. The UK is a mess. And the Blair Government was a huge part of the problem. He is not going to help.

Julia Gillard was at her best when she told Abbott off last year. Women everywhere applauded her. She needs to lock herself in her bedroom and watch the box set of Borgen while listening to Bette Midler until she finds the woman who gave that impassioned speech . And then she can come out and the tory-lites in the ALP to fuck off and she can start being a decent human and telling Australia the truth.

Just in case she does, I’ve written a speech for her: Still a bloody lucky country

What will become of Me?

In Which our Heroine Jets Off into the Unknown

Our cosy home of the last five years has been stripped back to its bare bones. Boxes have been shipped. We’ve craftily scattered pieces of ourselves all over London so it can’t forget us. Playstation here. Wii there. Awesome ice-crushing cocktail blender inherited from sister to mutual friend with disco ball in toilet. Giant Gorilla Hand to Tic-Tac next door. Clothes to charity, books to the library. All that remains is to once more rattle our suitcases down to the Tube station. Victoria line to Green Park, Piccadilly Line to Heathrow. Heathrow, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, home.

What will become of the Siren of Brixton, now that I’m leaving?

I joined the blogosphere reluctantly. I suspected all bloggers, an unknown species at the time, of narcissism and social awkwardness*. But a writer needs readers. Anonymity would, I decided, both protect me from any awkward problems with my conservative employer and my ego if it turned out my writing was shit. A pseudonym was called for. My partner came up with Siren of Brixton, a punning nod to the emergency sirens that scream up and down Brixton Hill day and night. I worried – I still worry – that people would laugh at the idea of me being sexually alluring enough to be a temptress but it gave me an excuse to use pulp art in the blog header so I decided to embrace it.

For a while I toyed with the idea of developing a persona for the Siren of Brixton but I quickly found out how much work that entails. And so, from behind the cloak of anonymity, I was more true to myself online than I often allowed in public. I discovered writing demands a great deal of self-knowledge and social media gave me a forum for testing ideas and beliefs. Not to mention an unending supply of generous, intelligent, witty people willing to share their knowledge on every topic under the sun (thereby providing an unending supply of ways to procrastinate). I’ve met lovely people in real life that I first connected with online and formed some true friendships. That’s a lesson in examining your prejudices.

We set out on this adventure with a pair of pristine new British Passports and a small wardrobe of unsuitable winter clothing. We thought there would be career opportunities and cheap travel and there were both (although, thanks to the global financial crisis, neither were not as abundant as we hoped!). We’re going home with little more than we came with but we’ve had a wonderful time. And if we can remember anything at all in our dotage, we have a whole lifetime of wonderful memories, just from our little time here.

Heading home, we have no idea what to expect and we’re trying not to guess. If nothing else, the last few years have impressed on us the lunacy of making plans. Hell, the last 12 months have taught us that! Where we will live, what work we will do…everything is up for grabs. I certainly didn’t expect to be going home with the first drafts of a novel and a screenplay in my suitcase, so I have the proof anything is possible.

I don’t know what will become of the Siren of Brixton. I can’t be ‘of Brixton’ when I’m not here! Siren of Brisbane just doesn’t have the same ring. And anyway, I might not end up there. Siren of Wagga Wagga? Siren of Woolloomooloo? A friend suggested a portmanteau, Siren of Brixbane which sounds medieval or maybe steampunk. Gorgeous, but not me. I considered Formerly @sirenofbrixton but that just seems to backward-looking. Maybe I just need a symbol, like Prince.

Whatever happens, I will keep writing. That’s the biggest gift London – Brixton – has given to me: it gave me back my writing. My goal remains to be published or produced by the time I’m fifty and when it happens, the Siren of Brixton will get the credit.

Whether I’m leaving your shores or heading to them, thank you once again for all your support on this incredible adventure. I hope you’ll stay for the ride.

All the best

Robyn

PS Please come and visit me in Australia!

* Obviously, I may have been right, as evidenced by my inclusion in the club.

The Next Big Thing

I’ve been tagged in a project called the Next Big Thing, in which writers are asked to complete a self-interview about their current project and then tag 5 more writers to participate in the project.

I’m working on a screenplay and a novel at the moment, both thrillers. I hope your interest will be piqued by this insight into my novel.

My friend, poet Vanessa Page, tagged me. You can read about her upcoming book Confessional Box on her blog, The Worded Page. Vanessa’s a wonder of a woman who somehow manages to find time to write whilst working full-time and raising a family that is soon to expand to four – and baking the most incredible cakes. She’s a real inspiration to me.

I’ll post the responses of the writers I’ve tagged next week.

I hope this first post of 2013 finds you all well and happy. In February it will be three years since I stared writing again. Some days I feel I’ve achieved very little, as I am still slogging away with nothing concrete to show for my efforts. But I have: not least of which is simply persisting with the pursuit of this dream. The support of the (mainly anonymous) people who read this blog has helped me get through some of the most challenging times. Thank you for that.

Whatever 2013 holds for you, I hope you’ll pursue your own dreams.

Ho Ho Ho or Bah Humbug?

I caught the bus into town yesterday. As we passed the Houses of Parliament, where Chancellor George Osborne was giving his budget statement, I saw a very sad looking Santa Claus, begging on the streets. On my lap was a copy of the morning’s Metro. The headline read ‘Third World Britain’ and the lead story talked about families in the UK that are walking miles to food banks to get food handouts.

Merry Christmas.

The Chancellor, who likes to say frequently that we’re all suffering in this economy but is actually independently wealthy, announced more cuts. Once again, these cuts disproportionately target the poor. The rich are still not being asked to out their hands in their pockets. Corporations are not being asked to pay the tax they should.  Once again we are asked to believe that the economic crisis was not caused by reckless banks and perpetuated by poor governance  but by lazy workers who want to live on benefits.

The benefit system exists because we realised it was bad for everyone if some people fall through the cracks. Now the government are destroying support system. Families are already suffering, and more will.

So: two rants for you today (consider it a festive bonus!): Strivers vs Skivers talks about how the government turns us against each other so they can get away with these attacks on the welfare system. The new social safety net outlines what you can now expect if you’re one of the 200,000 people expected to lose their jobs in the next 12 months.

Maybe I’m being the grinch, talking about this so close to Christmas, but I think it needs to be said. We need to fight this cruelty.

Curse you, Inner Critic!

I had an epiphany today. I’ve been down for a few days and struggling to make any progress with my writing.

I pitched my screenplay project to producers and agents at the London Screenwriter’s Festival last month. To my utter delight, I was asked to submit it to a few people. It felt like an endorsement of my commitment to pursuing my ambitions as a writer.

And all of a sudden I can’t write.

I am merely hours of work away from being able to send it off. And I’ve hardly done a thing. It’s taken me three days to edit 10 pages. But I realised this afternoon that I’m just having a crisis of confidence. My Inner Critic bested me.

I wrote about it to help me get over it. Hopefully A bout with my Inner Critic will help me recognise her before she gets her claws in next time.

But now I must crack on!

A victory for sanity!

I’ve spent much of this past week basking in schadenfreude in the most unseemly fashion. Despite the best efforts of America’s super-rich, Obama was re-elected. For the first time ever, I wanted to watch Fox News, to see for myself as they were hoist on their own petard. I settled for watching Donald Trump’s live twitter meltdown, where he could not contain his disbelief that all his money could not buy him the result he wanted. He was like the cranky old man at the end of a Scooby Doo mystery, ranting at those pesky kids.

I’m not a massive Obama fan. He not only failed to shut down Guantanamo, he signed the NDAA Act which makes it legal for any US citizen to be held without charge indefinitely. He’s made it tougher for whistleblowers. He’s authorising the killing of children in Pakistan in drone attacks. The fact he was given the Nobel Peace Prize makes a mockery of the award.

But Romney would have been much, much worse. And, perhaps worse still, it would have been a victory for the tactics used by the GOP. The hate, the lies, the hateful lies. The attacks on women and minorities. The gerrymandering and voter suppression. The courting of the loony religious fringe. The abject failure to engage with the real problems facing America in favour of an all-out effort to discredit ‘the other guy’.

So: a victory for sanity. One that gives me hope for democracy.

Now we need another. In a few weeks Lord Leveson will make his recommendations to government. This offers a rare, perhaps singular, opportunity to regain a news media dedicated to truth, one that serves democracy instead of twisting it to the ends of the media owners. I hope you’ll agree We need laws to guarantee a free press.

On using feminism to insult women

Here’s a paradox: how can you use your blog to lecture people about using social media to lecture people? I don’t know either, but it’s my blog and I need to get this off my chest.

Here’s another one: how can you rant about feminists telling other feminists their feminism is inferior?

I realise I’m walking a line here with My feminism’s better than your feminism (note: the title is ironic). But I am fed up with people who claim they are pro women using feminist theory to deride other woman. A couple of weeks ago a prominent feminist caused a twitter storm by dismissing someone’s question about why, in an interview about a TV show, she didn’t ask a question about race. This isn’t about that incident (Sarah Ditum has already covered the story better than I could) but nearly three weeks later I am still seeing women on Twitter attacking other women for similar issues. I tried to engage some of the culprits in a discussion, but they resorted to insulting me. And I’m angry about it: not the insult to me, but the ridiculous notion that you can achieve equality by tearing people down. So there.

A lesson from Charlie Kaufman

Two blog posts in three days. Is this what procrastination looks like now? I’ll get back to it right away, I promise.

I found a lecture by Charlie Kaufman,  one of my writing heroes, on BAFTA’s Guru website (which I highly recommend to all aspiring filmmakers or lovers of film) recently, so I put the podcast on to play while I was doing some admin this morning. I’ve listened to it twice already and I will confess I got quite teary the first time through. I get teary watching commercials though, so that may not mean anything.

I’ve downloaded the transcript and will no doubt listen to it again. There is so much in there that resonates with me. But he provoked me too: it’s really given me a lot to think about. My initial reaction to what I learned from Charlie Kaufman is Why I don’t want writing to be a job.

I’m interested in how other writers’ react to his thoughts: if that’s you, and you’ve heard the lecture, I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading.

A new rant and an update

Hello, dear reader.

It humbles me when I come back to the blog after an absence and see the viewing stats continuing to climb. Okay, it seems many of you get here looking for the hot surfer, but I know at least some of you stay and read some of my writing. Thanks for that.

If you’re in the mood, I’ve posted a new rant, this time on religion: Oppression in the name of God. If you’ve read Ten Things I Believe, you’ll know equality is important to me. I am sickened by the way religion is used to oppress people and, as I nursed a hangover on Sunday morning, I felt compelled to get it off my chest. So you could blame the demon drink, I guess.

In just over a month I’ll be back at the London Screenwriter’s Festival. You might remember that last year I dragged myself along reluctantly, in the midst of a crisis of doubt about my writing. I made a commitment then to go back this year with a project to pitch and I’m proud to report I will do so. Just writing about it gives me butterflies: after all this time working away on my own, I’m finally going to expose my ideas and my work to the industry. It’s a frightening prospect. I’ve faced many fears this year but it doesn’t seem to get easier with practice. To manage the nerves I’m trying to absorb as much knowledge as possible. I’m reading everything I can get my hands on and I’ve signed up for the full day’s pitching instruction on the 25th, as well. I pitch to my iPad and am grateful for its lack of judgement. But it’s not going to be long before I have to do it for real. Wish me luck!

Inspiration for oldies

Maybe it’s the Olympics. All that effort: the struggle, the heartbreak of failure, the joy of success. It reminds me that there’s nothing like the feeling you get when you test your limits, push yourself further than you thought you could ever go. I’ve been inspired lately to step up my ambitions.

I stumbled across Damn Good Advice (for people with talent) in a bookshop the other day. It has advice for creatives by George Lois, the Ad man who supposedly inspired the Don Draper character in Mad Men (he hates the comparison).

Lois encourages you to strive for excellence in everything you do and to be bold. It was a timely read. I’ve been working on one of my screenplay ideas and struggling a little. It’s an ambitious project and the work involved is very different from the work I do for money. It’s made me reflect on what work is.

When I started writing again a few months after my 40th birthday, I set myself the goal of being published or produced by my 50th birthday. Some days that seems an impossible dream, so this tip from George really inspired me. I hope it inspires you!

Tip #102. If you’re reading this approaching 50 years of age, remember that oak trees do not produce acorns until they are 50 years old.

Charles Darwin was 50 when he wrote On the Origin of Species.

At 52, Ray Kroc, a milkshake machine salesman, turned McDonald’s from a small chain of restaurants into a humongous fast food empire.

Colonel Sanders was in his 60s when he started KFC.

Dr Ruth Westheimer became famous for her straight talk about sex when she was 52.

Louise Nevelson was in her 50s when she sold her first sculpture.

A New York public school teacher, Frank McCourt, at 66 wrote Angela’s Ashes and a year later won a Pulitzer Prize.

Julia Child was just shy of 50 when she wrote her first cookbook.

A.C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada founded the Hare Krishna movement when he was 69, with $7 to his name.*

Hark the words of Samuel Beckett, reflecting on his own career when he intoned, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

*I do quite like the idea of starting my own religion. If the writing doesn’t work out, that could be plan B.