books into movies...

This week (in the city) I've watched two movies based on books I've loved -- Mao's Last Dancer written by Li Cunxin, and The Time Traveller's Wife written by Audrey Niffennegger.

As we all know, sometimes movies don't work as well as books, but in both these cases, I think the directors have captured the spirit of the books and then added something more. I loved both movies -- loved the visual details of Li Cunxin's peasant village in Communist China, was blown away by the extraordinary dancing, and cried buckets at the end. This story had a beautiful arc.

I also loved visual details in The Time Traveller's Wife. I mean... Eric Bana gets to run around naked quite a bit, which is a bonus. But a big plus for me in this movie, apart from the story and the acting were the fascinating and atmospheric interiors of the various places where Claire and Henry lived, especially the final house.

I thought the romantic edge to this story was very involving. (Mind you, I was familiar with all the time jumps from reading the book, so I knew to expect this. The movie handled them much better than I thought it might.) And although the ending was different from the book and a tad Hollywoodised, I adored it. Wept oceans. Loved it, loved it, and thought it was an improvement on the book's ending.

But then I would, wouldn't I? If you see it for yourself, you'll know why.

I said it was a day for hats...

Take your pick...

Melbourne Cup sweeps

Tomorrow in Australia we have a horse race which is reputed to stop the nation. It's pretty much true. While the Melbourne Cup is running, people all over the country are glued to their televisions or radios. Many businesses stop work for those few minutes of the race.
And there are parties galore -- and hats!!! Lots of hats. I still have to find mine.
When I was a child, my grandparents always used to visit us in November, and I remember my grandfather running sweeps. We children would put in sixpence from our pocket money and the thrill of having a winning horse was huge.
This year I'm in a cyber sweep with writer mates organized by the fab Bronwyn Jameson, and I've drawn Newport and Alcopop. I had no idea until last night that there's been a lot of excitement about Alcopop. His trainer, Jake Stephens (32, and pictured here) is a South Australian cattleman and restaurateur (how appropriate), and he trains his horses on the beach apparently. I've only been quickly gathering info, but it seems he missed out on entering Alcopop in the Caufield Cup (the precursor to Melbourne), because he forgot to pay one of the registration fees, but the horse powered home in another race that earned him a place in the big race, and now he's one of the favourites. In another unconventional touch, Bron tells me he's using an unknown jockey rather than one of the big city names.

I haven't found out anything about Newport yet, but I mustn't neglect him. If you have a horse in a sweep, or if you're placing bets, good luck!!! And don't forget to find a hat!

life balance...

One of the things I miss most when I'm away from the city (apart from family) is our cinema group. But tonight we're going to try a country style cinema club, with the illustrious title -- The Stratvell Film Society. It involves an hour's drive down the mountain to South Johnstone, dinner first at one of our favourite little cafes, Off The Rails, and then a viewing of the film Elegy with Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz in a hall two doors down from the pub.

It's sure to be a different experience from the Warrina cinema in Townsville with its audience drawn predominantly from James Cook University lecturers.

I'm looking forward to it. Will report back.

Oh, and I had a good writing day today. Got my word count done before breakfast. Love it when that happens. Have had a lovely morning doing housework while listening to the radio. I feel almost normal. Heaven forbid.

This week I'm reading...

Loves Me, Loves Me Not...

It's a fabulous selection of short stories written by members of the UK's Romantic Novelists' Association.

I'm about half way through (reading religiously from front to back), having a lovely time rewarding myself with another story here and there during the day. Even though these stories all have a romantic theme, they are wonderfully varied. I've read romantic comedies, fantasy, a ghost story, an emotionally challenging tale, a regency romp. Lots of interest and inspiration and fun!

There are big names like Joanna Trollope and Katie Fforde, and familiar favourites like Liz Fielding, Sophie Weston and Nicola Cornick , but I'm also enjoying discovering authors who are new to me. I'm looking forward to checking out their websites and learning more about their books. I certainly recommend this book.

a quiet week in the country....

I've had my head down writing, so really there hasn't been a lot to tell you. It's rained, however, and it's amazing how this place greens up after a couple of inches.

We poked our heads in at the Yungaburra Folk festival yesterday. Saw (as in glimpsed on the way past) a very scary looking tarot reader. No one at her table. I wasn't surprised. Bought more plants (of course) and came home and made a new garden beside the shed.

Our gardens are being attacked by bandicoots, however. In the mornings, we find new plants buried under upturned soil and deep cone shaped holes where they've pushed their snout in to hunt for beetles.

And we've been visited by a yellow footed scrub fowl. He/she usually stays deep in the rainforest, but we think the lack of rain forced her out to forage further afield for food. E tried to take a photo (this blurry shot), but was chased away by a very bolshie bush turkey, another of our regular visitors. In the mornings a lovely blue crane arrives to work over the dew drenched grass, but he's timid and flies away at the slightest movement from us.

We had a friend to dinner last night and I taught myself how to make caramelised onions -- yum! I used this recipe.

Suffering for our art...

Sometimes, we writers back away from writing difficult scenes. We don’t mean to. We know that good dramatic storytelling involves high stakes conflict, and yet, when we come to write certain scenes, we still back away. I’ve seen it in other writers' work, and thought oh, if only she’d taken us into that moment. I wanted to be there…
Sometimes it just seems too hard. We flinch from the task, because it feels like it’s happening to us, and we don’t want to put ourselves through the pain. But we should.
Yesterday, I made the same mistake. It’s so easy… and I wrote myself into a corner. At the end of the day I was totally stuck. I went outside and cut off dead tree fern fronds (It hasn’t rained here for four months and the whole district is brown and sad, although we’ve now had good rain overnight – yay!). I decided that I needed to ask E how he would behave in the same situation I’d put my hero in.
While he cooked divine salt and pepper prawns (shrimp) using freshly ground Szechwan pepper, (the aroma of it being ground with a mortar and pestle is sensational) I chopped vegies for stir-fry and pitched my problem.
As part of my lead in, I explained that my heroine has just told my hero something shocking, something that makes him very angry and hurts him deeply.
And what had I done next? I'd sent the hero off on a little walk to get his head around it and to calm down.
‘Why did you do that?’ Elliot asked.
‘He needed space,’ I said. ‘Head space. Emotional space. A chance to let all his feelings out and calm down.’
‘Why? Why would he do that on his own?’
Because he’s a gentleman? ‘I don’t know. I just wrote it that way.’
‘But wouldn’t it have been better if he’d let out his feelings in front of the heroine?’
Duh.

Cue bells ringing in my head.
Of course, he was right.
I couldn’t believe I’d made that mistake. No wonder I’d written myself into a corner, and didn’t know where to go next. Of course they have to have bitter and angry words and tension, and of course they don't go off and have dinner together and have nice chats afterwards. They suffer!!!!!
Just thought I’d pass it on, in case you’ve done something similar recently, or are about to…