Down time

Today I've been feeling low, inexplicably. I tried two of my usual tactics: getting my nails done, and wandering around the home wares department of a shop (in Auckland, the obvious choice is Smith & Caughey's). Neither has really done the trick, so I've moved on to tactic three, the closest thing I can get to a vodka martini here in the flat - i.e. straight vodka. It's Friday night, and I like going out on Fridays, but I've made no arrangements, plus I've already been out too many nights this week and I need to get work done. (Which is why tactic three is of limited use.)

Perhaps it's all the worrying about TM: he's about to begin the long drive back to New Orleans, where hopefully our house will have electricity and no wind damage. Perhaps it's hearing the Swingers' song 'Counting the Beat' used in all the local Wheel of Fortune promos on TV. [Note to the Swingers: why, why, why? All right - I know why. You wanted the money.] 

Maybe it's the feeling that I'm drowning right now, with too many deadlines, too many demands on my time. I still have chapters to write of the YA novel: luckily, my very tolerant editor at Scholastic has given me a couple more weeks, but I want to scream at myself to JUST GET ON WITH IT and stop dragging my feet. There's the Penguin anthology, bubbling over on the back-burner. In just over a week, I have to interview Mohsin Hamid on stage back in New Orleans, and while I'm looking forward to this discussion in many ways, I'm dreading the volumes of over-preparation I need to put myself through whenever a public event like this approaches. And of course, I'm tired as hell today because there was a little two-car party out on Bowen Lane last night, beginning at 1:30 AM and going on until three. Drinking, shouting, singing, car stereos ... I called the police at two, but they did not come.

So I lay in bed reading my book, listening to the birds sing after my tormentors finally drove away. Finally I got back to sleep, awakened at 6:30 by a woman screaming and shouting in the park. That was the beginning of a forty-five minute domestic, from what I could gather, with lots of fake theatrics. I leaned out the window, but could just see someone sitting on a park bench; he had a better view than I did, I guess. Should I have called the police again? Would they have come?

I've just been downstairs to the Art Gallery, where they're installing an exhibit involving video monitors and rolls of turf, and discussed my plan for tonight: to block access to the end of Bowen Lane with their wheelie bins. They're leaving for the day soon, and were agreeable about my cunning plan. Of course, cars may decide to bowl the bins over, or move them aside. But the obstacle may deter some, I hope. Otherwise, I expect to be calling the police again at some point tonight. And I expect the police will not come.

Outside my window: the homeless guy who often sleeps under the verandah overhang next door is sitting on a bench, going through his plastic bag of stuff. The birds are still shrieking. The TV news is talking about the falling NZ dollar (will we still be able to buy expensive imported shoes?) and the fastest yacht ever with - of course - "its Kiwi connection." 

Other things to feel glum about ... now that my short story collection is coming out, I get regular e-mails from my publicist at Penguin. She is upbeat in the manner of all publicists, but sometimes the missives make kind of depressing reading. They're all about who's Said No to an interview or feature. Kim Hill said no! The Listener said no! (Thanks to the Listener, by the way: I've been writing for you for, what is it, five years?) One magazine is only interested in the famous these days; X newspaper is only interested if you don't talk to Y newspaper; Z newspaper interviewed me two books ago.

And then there are always people who say no - hearing no is a big part of any writing life. (One person I know told me once that everything they'd ever written had been accepted at once. Then they wrote the thing that was not accepted. Now they are no longer writing.) Usually hearing "no" doesn't bother me. Something good happens every once in a while to balance it out. Last week two of my stories were turned down with the tersest possible response, but this week I got the proofs of another story from the Harvard Review - which, despite this, is publishing a story of mine in their upcoming issue. Just when I start feeling petulant about not getting invited to this or that local festival, even though I'm in the country and have a new book coming out, I get a nice invitation from Auckland City Library to take part in a New Zealand Book Month event. Doors close; windows open. I have the horrible feeling that this is a quote from Hello Dolly!, but it's true.

However, if I'm in the mood, as I am today, to feel obscure and unloved, then there's always ammunition. An e-mail arrives in which, I'm told, another writer has been "named as potentially the finest New Zealand fiction writer of his generation." Which generation would that be? Oh yes ... mine. It reminds me of another "rank the writers" exercise a few years ago, after I published my first novel. I squeaked onto the list, but another writer was declared "the star" of our generation. Can't they wait until we're all dead to write their who's who? How do we know that someone else in our generation isn't sitting at home right now writing The Great New Zealand Novel? Penelope Fitzgerald published her first novel at the age of sixty-one, and won the Booker Prize two years later. Hopefully the greatness medals for her generation weren't all doled out before everyone turned fifty.

I've just been outside to implement my daring wheelie bin blockade plan, and bumped into the private security guards employed by the Auckland City Council to police the park. They were very nice, and said they were aware of the drinking/carousing problem here. 

I know the park has security, because Mark Bowater, the park services manager, was quoted in the local paper saying: "The council has regular security patrols of Albert Park, including at night time."

What he did NOT say was that these security patrols are only paid to work until 9:30 PM. I just found this out from my helpful guards. They agree that there's no problem in the park whatsoever in the early evening: all the action happens much later. After the final shift for the day ends.

This is another reason to feel disgruntled, but tactic three is starting to kick in. So I'll cast off my crossness, and get on with some work.

 

Comments

[maggie]

Oh Paula - you have cheered me up no end with this blog - here's hoping tactic three has kicked in and you are on a roll. Cheers.

[Rachael King]

I have always had a bone to pick with that Listener poll: NZ's best writers under 40. As a Listener reviewer at the time (this was before I was a published novelist myself), I was asked to nominate the best writers under 40, so I handed in my list of my favourites. We were not given a limit to who we could nominate, and at no point were we told that they were going to be ranked in any way. So imagine my surprise when Catherine Chidgey was named as "the best". This is nothing against Catherine; her name was on my list. But my point is that they must have chosen her because her name appeared on more lists than anyone else's, NOT that she'd been nominated as the best of the best. Many factors could have contributed to her name coming up a lot but it just meant that more people thought she deserved to be on the list of top ten, not necessarily that she was the 'best'. My list included then-unpublished Carl Shuker, but at that point nobody else knew about him, so of course he didn't make the list, let alone the top of the list. So whenever I see that she was named "the best novelist" under 40 (and I'm not disputing her right to this title or anyone's right to it) I just get uncomfortable because that's not how we voted.

Also, it was inspired by the Granta list of best under 40, and they just present a list, not a heirarchy, so I don't understand why the Listener decided to publish the results that way.

[Vanda Symon]

It's so good to hear of other writers getting glum too, although, I must say I hadn't thought of the getting-my-nails-done fix and my alcoholic beverage choice would involve wine, but I soooo get the kitchen wares. I also tend to self medicate with the contents of the pantry, which isn't the best idea.
The media is so strange with its 'we did her last book' thing, like we've been rude enough to publish another book. I don't get it. I would have thought an article about a writer successfully publishing another book would be an uplifting and encouraging story their readers would want to hear about - but apparently not, that's just me.
As for the best young writers under 40 list, firstly I'd be shocked if I was even on their radar there, and secondly, I'm seriously running out of time...

[Lynn-Elisabeth]

Actually, Paula, I hate to say it but I remember much the same thing about doors and windows being said in 'The Sound of Music' - not that I watch that kind of rubbish at all!