Off to the Auckland festival!

It's fair to say that real life has thoroughly got in the way of the writing life of late, hence my absence from the blogosphere and all things writing-related. However, I am happy to say the drought will be broken this weekend when I appear at the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival.

I love the Auckland festival. I attend every year, whether I'm participating or not (the last time I appeared was 2007). It's a chance to see some great local and international authors and it's also a great social time, where I can catch up with many friends from all over the country without having to make any appointments at all - we just bump into each other at the Aotea Centre or one of the associated parties. I usually fly up alone and stay at a nearby hotel and get to have some 'me' time.

This year, despite being there in my author capacity, it'll be a more subdued affair for me - in on Friday, out on Saturday - with too much of the aforementioned real life preventing me from hanging out and relaxing. But I am very much looking forward to my session: Saturday at 11.30 am in the Upper NZI Room at the Aotea Centre, alongside my good friend Paula Morris and a very able chairperson, Dorothy Vinnicombe, who always reads the books carefully and asks great questions. Come along - and guess what? It's FREE! So what have you got to lose? Paula is always excellent value - sharp and very funny. I'll try my best to match her.

More details can be found here. See you there!

Bad blogger!

I have been a bad blogger in so many ways, the most obvious being that I hardly ever post anymore. When I was in the thick of writing Magpie Hall, I posted far too often, probably, although I still maintain that it helped me with my writing rather than took me away from it. I am grateful that, according to my statcounter, readers continue to visit despite there not being much new to look at.

The second way I am a bad blogger is that this blog set out to be about writing and books and my thoughts thereof, and lately has turned into plugs for Magpie Hall and events I do around it. But, dear reader, don't despair and abandon me just yet. It's just that along with less time to blog now that I have twice as many children as I had a year ago, I have a fraction of the headspace to devote to thinking about the craft of writing and reading. This will not always be so. I repeat: this will not always be so. And in the meantime, while it is so, I will continue to post when I can, even if it's just to tell you about an event I'm doing, or have done, and eventually I will get back into writing poignant and witty posts about writing.

The third way I am a bad blogger is that even though I only seem to post about events I am doing or have done, I can't even get that right. I had planned to blog all about the Hamilton Gardens Festival event I did and look, two weeks have gone by and I haven't. Not only that - I intended to take photos and all I took was a picture of my aunt holding my baby and one of some fish.

So please engage your imagination and look at these pictures that don't exist:

1. The Hamilton Gardens in full festival flight with happy people everywhere and characters from Alice in Wonderland wandering around directing people to where they woule like to go, including a Duchess holding a real live baby.

2. Alexa Johnston entertaining people with tales of where the recipes for Ladies a Plate came from.

3. The beautiful spread offered on tiered plates: little round cucumber sandwiches and salmon sandwiches; tiny scones topped with jam and cream; other cakes, biscuits and deliciousness. Not to mention delicious fruit punch and bubbly.

4. The items up for raffle: Ladies a Plate along with a lovely tea setting; The Swimmer's Rope along with free swimming lessons; Magpie Hall, perched in a cage with a bottle of red and some chocolates.

5. Stephanie Johnson reading and taking questions before she had to race off back to Auckland.

6. The ladies from Poppies Books, the SPCA and the Hamilton Hospice, who organised a delightful event.

7. Me, reading and talking with Karen from Poppies.

Depending on how good your imagination is, you'll see that a lovely time was had by all.

On another note, I have a booky week lined up next week, starting on Sunday for the Richard King Memorial Cricket Match in Christchurch: authors vs publishers - I may even have a bat and a bowl myself in memory of a fine fellow.

On Monday night I'm off to see Elizabeth Kostova, hosted by Women On Air, and on Tuesday I'm flying up to Wellington to catch Sarah Waters, Audrey Niffenegger, Emily Perkins, Geoff Dyer and more at the Writers and Readers Week. I may even attempt to report back, depending on whether I have become a better blogger between now and then.

Hamilton Gardens Festival.

If you're in Hamilton this weekend come along to the Ladies' Literatea for high tea and bubbles at 3pm on Saturday. I will be appearing alongside Stephanie Johnson and Alexa Johnston and luckily I am not being made to change my name to fit in. I think it'll be a lovely occasion, and the proceeds are going to the SPCA.

The Hamilton Gardens is a simply stunning venue for a literary event. I did an event, a wonderful relaxed chat, with Jenny Pattrick in 2007, on a balmy summer's evening. I was completely enchanted by the place. With themed gardens from all over the world it is hard to believe you are in Hamilton. I particularly loved the Italian Renaissance Garden and sitting beside the ambling Waikato River I could have imagined myself on the Arno in Florence. It was a particularly blinding hot day the day after the event, and my family and I took in as much as we could before it just got too hot to be outside.

Even if you're not there this weekend, next time you're passing through Hamilton, spend a couple of hours at the Gardens: you won't be disappointed. One of NZ's Best Kept Secrets in my opinion. I'll try and remember to take photos and post them here; in the meantime, here's one of me, looking extremely casual, on that hot hot day:

New year, new work.

The inevitable has happened. My thoughts have turned to what I am going to write next. I have been asked so many times, 'so, what are you working on now?' At which point I usually look at my baby and back to the person asking the question. Alas, he is now five months old and I can no longer use him as an excuse. Even though motherhood is a full time job, there comes a time when your brain starts coming back and you start thinking about what to apply it to.

In some ways it's a lovely feeling - a clean slate, an empty page. Anything is possible. At the same time it is daunting. What if I don't have any good ideas? Actually, I have a notebook full of good ideas for my next grown-up novel, but none of them is calling to me louder than the others. Each one would require exploration to see if it's any good. It is worrying to me, because the last time I was at this stage I spent months on something that just never took flight. I don't want that to happen again but know it inevitably will.

There is pressure, too. Your second novel has its own syndrome, but your third has no excuse. Your third should be perfect. It should have all the strengths of your first two and none of the weaknesses; it should have new and unique properties that demonstrate that you have kept on getting better at this writing lark. It should be deeper and more profound, more controlled and yet more exuberant. Not too much to ask.

In among the new ideas scribbled in my notebook, there is one that has been there the longest. An idea that come to me after my first son was born as I walked around Wellington's wild south coast with a pushchair. At the moment that is the idea that is calling to me the loudest, the one that feels less daunting (and certainly shorter): a children's novel. In some ways pushing everything aside to work on it (I have written the synopsis and the first chapter already) is a delaying tactic, but I also feel that this is a story that can be wonderful in its own right, to sit alongside my adult novels. I also feel that while I work this out of my system, my next adult novel will present itself and can slowly percolate while I write about a 12-year-old boy called Jake.

Whatever happens, I will be happy to be writing again.

As an aside, my dear friend Mary has started a very knowledgeable blog on good things to listen to and read while commuting - Beaut Commute (love the title!). A fabulous idea. Sometimes I wish I was a commuter, instead of working from home.

My books of the year.

These are the not the best books of the year. These are my best books of the year; that is, the books I read and enjoyed the most. Some of them weren't published this year. Also, having a book out myself and reading wildly different reviews for it (sometimes you'd think people had actually read different books) I am fully aware of the subjectivity of reading. I'm not reviewing these books. I'm simply giving them a little bit of the praise they deserve, and pointing my readers in the direction of books they might themselves enjoy.

Here are my favourites, in no particular order:

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams
Novel About My Wife by Emily Perkins
The Blue by Mary McCallum
Dead People's Music by Sarah Laing
The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday
Relief by Anna Taylor
The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Magpie Hall by Rachael King (whoops, how did that get on there?)

If you are buying Christmas presents this year, please think about buying books. The above list is a good place to start.

Under the Mountain.

The year was 1979. I was nine years old. My father gave my brother and me a book. It was called Under the Mountain, and it was set in the city we lived in. We both read it - devoured it more like - and were transported to the mysterious and dangerous world beneath our own. It's the story of twins Rachel and Theo, and the enigmatic Mr Jones, who fight the slimy, creepy Wilberforces who sleep beneath Auckland's volcanoes and plan to take over the world. They must harness the power of their twin-ness to triumph.

I loved it. I yearned for an adventure to happen to me.


Then, shortly after, I was given the opportunity to audition for the part of Rachel in the TV series. My dream come true! Drama was my strong suit at school, and I longed to be on TV, convinced that child actors in NZ were terrible and I was just the girl to make it all better. I was sure to get the part, after all, I had the right name and everything! Alas, it was not to be. My brother Jonathan, three years older, also auditioned, and along with our friend Sarah, we had to come up with a mimed scenario to show off our acting talents. I had some vague idea about a kid being bullied on the way to school, but it was vetoed in favour of a gunfight. None of us got the parts, but Sarah later went on to star in another New Zealand children's TV classic, Children of the Dog Star. My brother went on to play Theo in the Radio New Zealand version. I went on to... write books instead.

Under the Mountain, the TV series, spooked a generation of NZ kids.

But that's not all my brother went on to do. He has now directed the feature film of Under the Mountain, which premieres this Saturday night in Auckland and which opens nationwide on Thursday the 10th. Go and see it in the opening weekend if you can, to ensure it gets a long screen-life. Go and see it if you have read the book, or seen the TV series, or go and see it just because you can. See volcanoes erupt! See slimy creatures and a creepy old house on Lake Pupuke! See a great homegrown supernatural adventure.

Spare a thought for a nine-year old girl whose dream didn't quite come true but who is very glad that her brother's did.

Serendipity revisited.

Way back in November 2007, I wrote this post. Go on, go and read it.

I can now do what I said at the end of that post ("I will have to revisit the post in a few years when the book is safely written and published and it will make rather a nice story, I think.").

So, here's that cryptic paragraph, with all the details for Magpie Hall inserted.

"While waiting for the order to arrive, I had the brainwave for my new novel, in no way related in subject matter to the five books I had just ordered. My protagonist (ROSEMARY) has a specific occupation (TAXIDERMIST) and in the novel, a certain object that I had never heard of before until very recently (A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES) plays a big part in the story. So the Amazon package arrives and I am happily reading the first novel when unexpectedly, what should turn up, unannounced, but a CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. The book delves right into the history of CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES and gives many prime and beautiful examples. That book finished, yesterday I randomly picked up the second in the pile of books and lo and behold the first page has the main character STUFFING THINGS. He is a TAXIDERMIST."

What fun.

The latest edition.

Taiwan!

It's been a while.

Sorry for the absence. I have been so busy lately, and once publicity for the book launch died down, I threw myself back into the domestic life and had little room for any focused thoughts worth blogging.

It was a great night at Our City in Christchurch, a cosy chat with Ruth Todd from Women on Air. Thanks to Ruth and Morrin Rout for hosting the event and for asking me. Thanks to Gillian at UBS for selling so many books, and of course thanks to everyone who came and listened and/or bought the book. I do like doing those intimate affairs (although there were around 80 people it felt very intimate) where people chime in from the floor and we get a good conversation going. We gave away some magpie tattoos to celebrate, and you can see one of them in action here.

Magpie Hall debuted at number two on the NZ bestseller list, behind a book that was getting, ahem, rather a lot of publicity, whether it was welcome or not. Which leads me to...

New Zealand literature has finally been in the news. It's funny, with dedicated sports sections on the news every night, it's a shame that it takes a bit of controversy to get people talking about New Zealand books. Peter Wells pointed it out on his blog that at least people are now talking about literature: the national book awards usually get a two-minute slot on the late news, but this has been front page news, with this story on the cover of the Dom Post and this on the cover of the Listener.

As a sometimes-historical novelist, people have been asking about my methods for research and incorporating that research into my books. I could talk about it all day, and I might write a proper blog post about it in the future, but basically, I do my reading, I absorb it, I close my eyes and imagine myself into the scene and I write what I see, through the eyes of my character. So you see, there is little chance of inadvertent copying as it has gone through such a transformation, and often dry information is turned into something altogether more subjective. If it is someone else's bright-eyed description, I do not copy it into my notebook but I might take elements of the description and use them in another context, with different words. But if there's one thing that this scandal has taught me it's that people have different ideas about what artists of all kinds should and shouldn't do and I hope I'm never at the receiving end of anyone's scorn and disapproval due to my methods.

I'm also not sure why people have focused on historical novelists as novelists of all breeds research things and rely on the knowledge of others.

Right, that's me. I've joined the twittering classes, and you can follow me here. I hope to be keeping this blog up to date but my life is an unknown quantity at the moment. I will just leave you with this:

If you're new to my blog and have come here because you're interested in Magpie Hall, you may be interested to know that I started this blog as a diary of writing a novel. Please take a look at the archives when I used to post a lot more regularly and philosophically - I was pretty honest about the highs and lows of the writing life, and the novel writing process is documented from go to whoa.

Launched!

Magpie Hall is now officially out in the world. Available at all good (New Zealand) bookstores yada yada. I feel something like relief.

It had a great launch at Mighty Mighty, which was the perfect venue - it conjured up all the lushness of a Victorian tattoo parlour. The book was launched by my good friend Gemma Gracewood who said unbelievably nice things about Magpie Hall and about me. Afterwards we discussed the fact that while Rosemary Summers isn't based on anyone we know, she is someone we could imagine knowing (indeed, Sally, the manager of Mighty Mighty, is herself a tattooed lady who collects taxidermy). After the speeches, Gemma was joined on stage by three more friends (Nigel, Carmel and Andy) from the Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra, and they serenaded us with songs by Nick Cave and The Be Good Tanyas, both inspirations for the novel and on my list.

The launch was somewhat overshadowed by the sad death earlier in the week of our friend Heather McKenzie. She was sorely missed and will continue to be so.

Further to my last post about my new website, within days of it going up it was chosen as one of 8 great author websites, alongside the likes of Dan Brown, Peter Carey and Isabelle Allende! Thanks to my fantastic designers Sharon Blance and Brence Coghill. Sharon also took my author photos. If any authors out there would like to contact them in view to having their own website done, please feel free to leave your contact details in the comments here and I will pass them on. They were wonderful to work with and really listened to what I wanted, the result being my dream website. These two are multi-talented and are also the best swing dancers around.

Finally, if you are in Christchurch, I am doing an event tomorrow night (Tuesday, November 10) with Women On Air at Our City, Oxford Terrace. For more details visit www.womenonair.org.nz, or www.rachael-king.com. Please tell your friends!