Michael Collins

Archive for the ‘About life’ Category

Friends?

I was having a cup of coffee with Jane Teresa the other day—a not infrequent pleasure—when, on my way back from a loo visit, someone stopped me to say, hello.

‘I was talking to a friend of yours last week …’ the conversation went. It was a propitious encounter. The person who waylaid me wanted to write a book and had heard that I did book coaching.

There was something about that encounter that kept nudging my mind over the next couple of days before it finally bubbled to the surface and I got it. The simple, everyday term, friend, had been flagged deep in my grey matter as something quite intriguing and requiring further consideration.

Facebook

What or who is a friend? Only ten years ago, it was simple. A friend was someone you knew rather well, probably someone you trusted, and a person you had known for a considerable time. You may have referred to them as a pal, buddy, chum, mate, or comrade. You may even have given them the most exalted title of best friend. For the next tier down in intimacy, you may have used the term acquaintance, associate, contact, or colleague. Everything was pretty well defined, wasn’t it? So what has changed?

The phenomenon of the 21st century is social networking—a method of expanding social and business contacts through connecting with others. Yes, social networking has been around since humans began to communicate, but the Internet has recently taken the game to an entirely new level. I’m playing it right now just writing this blog—but you know that. And then along came Facebook.

Facebook, so the legend goes, was originally designed for college students by Mark Zuckerberg in a fit of pique, and the rest, as we know, is recent history. Apart from all the arguments for and against, what is now an institution until the next best thing comes along is a very friendly place. There are 500 million active users with fifty percent of them logging on every single day. The average user has 130 friends. Aah, those friends.

Mark Zuckerberg

I have friends on Facebook I have never met and probably never will. I have friends on Facebook I don’t even communicate with except to like, tag or poke from time-to-time and, usually, not even that. So do I log on? Yup, every single day.

In a single stroke of his keyboard, Mark Zuckerberg destroyed the meaning of one of the English language’s oldest and most clearly understood words. We need to find a replacement. Any ideas?

A nice little swim

It’s that in-between time—the funny period that separates Christmas and New Year. I really enjoy these few brief days. Before Christmas it’s hectic. There’s simply too much to do and not enough time to either do it properly or, more importantly, enjoy doing it.

Now, timeframes and targets have been achieved, final drafts have been prepared, clients are happy, and there’s the opportunity to do the lawns and tend to the pool in the anticipation of the odd swim—when Brisbane’s worst coldest and wettest December on record comes to an end that is.

There’s also time and space for reflection. In the months before Christmas I was beginning to think hyperventilating was a normal method of breathing. I’m joking of course. Folk in our industry have to learn the basic disciplines of relaxation very early in their careers, or they’re likely to burst into flames every time the heat’s turned up.

It was pissing it down

All that aside, there was one moment in the week before Christmas when I lost the plot. It was raining. Actually it was pissing it down. And while it happened to be raining thus, I discovered a minute window of opportunity between a mass of assignments to scamper to the supermarket for some seriously needed supplies.

Jane Teresa has a silver car and I have a blue one. I was already soaked by the time I reached the drive to discover that her car was parked in front of mine, so what did I do? Of course, I took her car.

Keeping his head warm

Have you ever had your vehicle stolen? I did many years ago. There’s a feeling of disbelief when you look at the place where you left your motor and find that it isn’t there. I was only twenty when mine was flogged in London. At first I thought it had been towed, but in those days parking was easy peasy and I’d definitely left it in a good spot. Not safe as it turned out, but good.

So, I find myself on this rainy day, weighed down by a multitude of shopping bags, standing in the middle of the supermarket car park looking for the car. The water was hammering down so hard that the inside of my brolly was wet from ricocheting rain drops, my sandalled feet were slithering hopelessly in the deluge of water that poured across the bitumen, and my glasses were fogged up from leaving the insanely air-conditioned supermarket for the 100% humidity outside. Where was it?

‘Move it did they?’ cackled an old bat as she hit the remote, unlocking her nice, dry Mercedes.

Dropping my shopping in a nearby lake

For over fifteen minutes I cruised that carpark in the smashing rain and, believe me, it’s a big one. I mentally retraced my route in. I normally park in roughly the same place, probably further away from the entrance than most people because I can’t be bothered hovering close to the main doors in the hope that someone will conveniently vacate a spot. I prefer to drive slightly out of the way and convince myself that the walk does me good.

Eventually, I had to concede that the car had been pinched. Dropping my shopping in a nearby lake, I fished around in my pocket for my mobile, intending to ask Jane Teresa to come and pick me up. As my wet fingers fumbled around my soggy pocket they happened to brush against the car’s remote. CLUNK! I heard right next to me. At first I assumed that another shopper was scurrying towards their nice, dry car, but nobody was in sight. I looked at the car—it was Jane’s. For the entire time I’d been looking for my blue car and had, by my sorry calculations, walked past Jane’s around twenty times.

How sad is that?

Slowing down

It’s amazing what the mind will do when it’s in overload. Mine slowed me right down. What’s your story?

Lamb ragout

I’ve just finished At Home by Bill Bryson. Those of you who’ve read it will no doubt be nodding, grunting, smacking your lips, or whatever you do when you agree, when I say that Bill’s book is absolutely packed with facts—too many to easily recall as it happens, although in recent conversations some of them have conveniently popped back into my noggin when someone mentioned a key word. Unfortunately, not all of those recollections have been appropriate.

I couldn’t help myself at dinner the other night. We were talking about how fortunate we were in these modern times, dwelling particularly on the leaps and bounds made by medicine in the last fifteen hundred years or so, and comparing our longevity of life and general state of health with London’s less fortunate, mid-nineteenth century folk, who wallowed in a miserable miasma of ill health and often fatal disease.

As we progressed through the nourriture délicieuse—a superb lamb ragout—I began to answer a fairly innocuous

Busy with the body

question directed to me on the subject of medical research from someone on my right. As I replied, some of Bill Bryson’s fascinating writing sprang to mind and, in no time, I was off and away chatting to my dinner partner about the ghoulish world of the resurrectionist.

In a typical year in the eighteen hundreds, there were twenty three schools of medicine in Britain’s capital, each requiring a heap of fresh bodies every day on which to hone their skills. The law specified that only the cadavers of executed criminals could be used, and as there were only fifty-odd executions out of 1600 death sentences in 1831, for example, a lively body business developed amongst the daring and insensitive.

Never enough volunteers

The rush for flesh became a bit of a goldmine, with the cemeteries either unable to keep up with the demand, or too well guarded to risk life for limb, so to speak. To the infamous-to-be Burke and Hare this situation was unacceptable. In a time when the well-paid workers were earning a pound a week and a nice pinky-fresh body could bring up to ₤14, more direct measures were called for.

This ruthless, alcoholic pair went out and found people to befriend, got them drunk and then suffocated them by sitting on their chests and covering their mouths. Voila, another body ready for delivery—what excellent service. Fortunately, after fifteen (known) victims, the enterprising duo was caught, and after Hare turned King’s evidence and welshed on his mate, William Burke was hanged and, ironically, his body sent to a medical school for dissection.

I’d just got to discussing aspects of nineteenth century dissection implements with my dining companion when I felt, rather than noticed, that something was not quite right. I stopped mid-sentence and glanced around. To my embarrassment, all the other guests had ceased their conversations and were staring at me. The room had become deathly still.

The art of dissection

I was saved by our host, who’d disappeared into the kitchen minutes earlier, missing the body of the conversation. She reappeared right on cue, carrying a large platter.

“More lamb anyone?”

I couldn't put my finger on it

I had to laugh the other day. I was poof reading a section of a client’s book I’m writing when something niggled out of the page at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it straight away, but I was aware that I had been burning a little midnight oil and was on the lookout for any interesting little errors a tired brain can easily produce.

Sitting at my screen late at night is not usually my preferred working style. However, sometimes a client may request reasonable additional work to a manuscript at the last minute. Rather than derail the timetables of others: editors, page layout peeps, proof readers et cetera, this glitch in the schedule is best dealt with expediently, and the task naturally comes to me, the writer.

I know many of my colleagues prefer to tap away by the light of the silvery moon, starlight, or guttering candle. Oops, forget the guttering candle bit—that’s my creative mind kicking in—it’s more likely to be with a cup or three strong coffees hitting the gut. But, that’s what works best for them—quiet time—no phones, TVs, kids or other distractions. If I tried that on regular basis I’d have QWERTY permanently imprinted on my forehead.

By the light of a guttering candle

Oh, yes, my error. I did find it and, in the process, found another. They weren’t that dramatic, but they’d have made my editor’s day if they’d slipped through. I was writing some dialogue where a homosexual was being confronted and being accused of being a pouf. Yes, that’s the same pouf—an 18th century, women’s hairstyle, not the poof of my story. Then my eye caught the second gaffe. My gay hero was straining beneath the yolk of oppression, and I’m sure if he wasn’t careful about it, he’d have egg all over his face.

I felt quite pleased with myself. I’d avoided giving my editor something to laugh about and the opportunity to insist on my buying his coffee. But I still wasn’t satisfied, and in doing a little more research found that pouf, as well as poof, can actually be used as a derogatory term for a homosexual.

More than one way to trap an editor

Now, should I leave the pouf in place and attempt to trap my editor, upping the ante and tricking him into buying my coffee AND a large piece of chocolate cake? What do you think?

And did I get you on that proof reading pun in the intro?

That old security guard

How many times have you heard the expression, “Everyone’s got at least one book in them”? In non-fiction terms, I believe that everyone has—as long as they’re old, crazy, or experienced enough to have had some life experience. Of course fiction is a different story. You only need a vivid imagination. Well, along with a bucket load of passion, discipline and an awesome plot—hmm, quite a lot really.

Swinging back to non-fiction, because that’s what I mostly deal with, I’d like to tell you a little story about how the most unlikely people have the most fascinating tales to tell. But, before I do that, I’d like to ask you to think about the people we come across in our daily lives. Do they have stories to tell? How about the old security guard who checks your pass every day—ex SAS commando maybe? And the cab driver who drove you to the airport this morning—could he be a screenwriter or novelist, or a refugee with a harrowing story of loss and survival? I’ve heard one of those bios and it was only because I asked the right questions.

The art of studied indifference

The other day I listened to part of an interview on the radio. It referred to the art of studied indifference, an art in which the speaker claimed New York subway users took top prize. In my experience, she was right. Take the London tube, or the Paris metro, in the evening (Friday nights are good) and almost every trip will be highlighted by an event. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s disgusting, hilarious, poignant, or plain daft, everyone will be openly scoping it out, if not joining in.

However, take the same event and repeat it on the NY subway and you’ll see scores of people continue to (pretend to) read, stare studiously into the middle distance, feign sleep, push their iWhatevers deeper into their heads and do everything possible not to acknowledge what’s happening around them.

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki

As I was listening to this story, I was reminded of an evening some twenty years ago. I was staying at a smart, upmarket guest house in Tasmania where the hosts had a very agreeable policy of lumping all the guests together for dinner at the same large, round table. They had the only restaurant for miles, so if you didn’t want room service—that was it.

We were a merry bunch; getting very loud and boisterous as the wine flowed, nicely encouraged by the fact that nobody had to drive. As the night wore on, I noticed a more elderly couple who weren’t joining in the banality, and decided late in the piece to have a slurred sort of chat.

I had about ten minutes before they left, and it turned out to be one of the shortest ten minutes of my life. The couple—from the US—were both retired physicists who had worked right alongside Robert Oppenheimer to develop the atomic bomb. Horrified after the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they’d migrated to NASA where they’d been directly involved in the Apollo manned moon landings and a bunch of other fascinating stuff.

Who's sitting right next to you now?

The next morning I hurried downstairs to the dining room hoping to catch a little more of their story, but I was too late. The couple had left for a hike at first light. I’ve thought about them many times since and would like to thank them publicly in this blog for that brief window into their extraordinary lives. I’ve no doubt that fleeting meeting went a long way to developing the intense interest I have in people today.

Amazing who’s sitting right next to you, isn’t it?

I had a weird experience the other day. I’m perfectly comfortable talking with people and recording our chats with a view to writing books for them—that’s my job. But, I was taken right out of my comfort zone when Ian Kath, interviewer extraordinaire, decided that he’d like to create a podcast episode about ghostwriting.

Ian Kath, a genuine and sincere man

For once I’d be on the other end of the microphone and I wasn’t really sure if I liked that idea. However, after only a few minutes, I warmed to Ian’s genuine and sincere personality and, realising I would be in safe hands, decided to give it a go.

Ian, the mastermind behind two fascinating podcast websites—yourstorypodcast.com and creatyourlifestory.com—has decided to follow his passion and “create a space in my life for change, a place to meet new and interesting people and a place to create a way for some others to see how others live and develop a little more empathy for others so that we will realise that fundamentally we are all the same and want similar things as each other and that there is more that connects us than separates us.”

I had no idea where Ian was going to go with this interview. There was no preparation at all. We just sat down and had a great conversation. And here it is:

Some words hold water better than others

Have you ever read a novel and stopped somewhere thinking, yeah right? That little something that hasn’t quite held water, jerking you rudely out of the narrative perhaps?

I was reading a story the other day when a synchronous moment it described did just that. It brought me back to reality like a twanging elastic band. I grumbled at what I felt was the author’s too vivid imagination and went off to do some shopping. And that’s where my real life story begins to stretch belief.

I was away from home a great deal longer than I’d anticipated. On the way back, feeling extremely thirsty, I was lamenting that I’d forgotten to bring any water with me, so I pulled into a service station to get fuel, intending to buy some eau en bouteille at the same time.

No luck. The servo’s EFTPOS system had imploded, leaving the shop hamstrung. They were unable to charge for

I was feeling a little thirsty by this time

fuel or goods, so they had switched off the pumps, closed the doors, and put the kettle on.  By this time I was very dry and exceedingly grumpy, asking the guy on the forecourt—only slightly sarcastically—if the EFTPOS being down had affected the air pump too.

I thought that I could at least check the tyre pressures and put some meaning into my visit before collapsing to the concrete with extreme dehydration. With any luck the EFTPOS would remain out-of-order long enough for the paramedics to be called, otherwise my rapidly desiccating body would be bounced around the pumps by a mad rush of vehicles when the place reopened.

The guy’s radiant, toothy smile made me feel instantly guilty and I decided to put a cap on my churlishness right then and there. My resolution was so strong that when I drove over to the air hose and saw it almost completely blocked by a campervan, I shrugged philosophically and took some time to manoeuvre around and squizzle the car as close to the pump as I could.

He was possibly from Austria

I’d just turned the engine off when a young man jumped from the campervan and walked toward me carrying two full two litre bottles of mineral water, another one half-full (please note the use of half-full rather than half-empty here), and a large bottle of fizzy drink.

His accent was probably Austrian.

“So, we are flying to Sydney in two hours and cannot carry this on the plane. Do you like it?”

I took the gifts and thanked him. As I guzzled back some of the water, my mind went back to that small fictional synchronicity I’d been reading. Now, if I included that water-manifesting story in a novel, I bet you wouldn’t believe it. And yet it happened.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I’ve just finished Barry Forshaw’s The man who left too soon, a biography of Stieg Larsson, author of the runaway bestsellers, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.

The Millennium Trilogy, as the collection is called, was published after Larsson’s death from a heart attack in 2004, aged 50. He was a journalist and an author who, sadly, never lived to see his books in print, or to enjoy the fame and immense fortune they and the ensuing movies generated.

Despite the conspiracy theorists’ popular notion that he was murdered by the teams of misogynists and right wing elements he actively condemned, Larsson died at his desk after struggling up seven flights of stairs. He was extremely unfit, a workaholic, chain-smoked, and was as much a lover of junk food as his protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist. Perhaps writers should take a note here.

Forshaw’s book is a blow-by-blow analysis of Larsson’s books and how they often mirrored the controversial writer’s life, although he would have been most unlikely, and very unlucky, to have actually encountered the other protagonist, the butt kicking, hate-filled, mean machine, Lisbeth Salander.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Forshaw also delves into the terrible acrimony surrounding Larsson’s estate, along with the possibility that a laptop exists with notes and drafts for another seven books in the series. How he could accomplish that feat after tying up The Millennium so tidily is anyone’s guess.

In the bio I particularly enjoyed the comments of other successful crime writers around the world. They were remarkably frank, and sans sour grapes, a phenomenon in itself. One publishing figure remarked that the first 100 pages of Larsson’s first book, despite a proper editing process—something the following two books missed out on—were so ponderous (and I agree) that if they represented a submission to a UK publisher by an unknown author, they would never have risen above the slush pile—so much for aiming for a dynamic, nail-biting start to every thriller.

Stieg Larsson was very much aware that most journalism is a matter of preaching to the converted. We generally read publications that confirm our own opinions, so reaching out to convince a reader that there’s an alternative view is difficult. One of Forshaw’s interviewees makes the point that fiction removes the boundaries of fixed opinion, leaving us open to contemplate new perspectives. Some would say open to suggestion.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest

Forshaw says that Larsson had a crusading personality and a fierce desire to right the wrongs of the world. If his books were, as they seem, a vehicle for his beliefs, it would make his untimely death that much more unfortunate, wouldn’t it? How much more he could have achieved will be cause for much ongoing speculation.

Ben Elton

I was reading Ben Elton’s Meltdown the other night when I realised that some of the characters really pissed me off. Well, I didn’t realise it exactly. My wife, prompted by a few too many huffs and puffs, asked me gently if I was alright.

Jane Teresa will often ask me questions. She always has. In fact, from what I understand, she’s had an enquiring mind since she could first speak and, on a number of occasions, drove her mother crazy with queries. I guess that’s what catapulted her into the scientific world and then into her own research into dreams, but that’s another story.

A selfish and grasping character

I was so deeply engrossed in the book that I hadn’t realised that I was making an issue out of Ben’s characters until JT mentioned my obvious discomfort. I suppose discomfort is the word. Some of the people in the story were dickheads and, as the plot progressed, they developed into obnoxious dickheads. It was making me angry.

Of course that was Ben Elton’s idea. For example, the selfish, grasping, bad behaviour portrayed by one of the protagonists was meant to prickle and upset the reader. Unless they too were selfish and grasping in which case the whole point would be lost. But, again, they wouldn’t be reading the book anyway, would they? Too busy out there grabbing.

When I sat back and thought about it, I wondered if I really wanted to read the book at all. I had to make a decision. I was at the point in the narrative where I would shortly be sucked in and would have to finish the book. It’s happened to me too many times before not to be aware of it. What a choice – continue, knowing that I was going to grind my teeth until I was ready to climb inside the pages and give what’s his name a quick slap, or toss the book to one side and pick up another one without all the angst in it from my burgeoning to-read pile?

There's plenty of happiness around

Do we really need to have books upset us? Is avoiding writing that challenges us ducking the realities of life? In my case I know the answer. From time to time my long life has been well drenched in other people’s dramas and sorrows. Conflict and death aren’t strangers to my memories. I’ve pretty much seen it all – very, very good and very bad. I wouldn’t swap my life’s experiences for anything. Well, not a lot anyway and only some things. Why would I choose to immerse myself in a story of bickering and misfortune when there’s so much happiness in the world to enjoy? It just reminds me of the blacker side of real life.

What do you think?

And Ben Elton’s tale? I did finish it. And I did enjoy it.

I don't shit, darling, I poo.

If we’re pet lovers and we faithfully pick up our dog’s dropping, we refer to that steaming offering as poo, don’t we? But when we step in a hunk of it on our way to an important meeting, it suddenly becomes dog shit.

The circumstances and origin of that awful inconvenience usually merits a considerably stronger reference, and the other day I had the dubious pleasure of hearing a well-heeled young lady scream, “I’ve fallen into a pile of fucking dog cack!” Everyone around her cracked up, and when the young lady’s colour returned to something less than life-threatening, she saw the funny side of it too.

Our choice of words can dramatically change the emphasis on what we want to express. We often use words that mean exactly the same thing, yet conjure up an entirely different picture.

Harsh & uncompromising

I was recently writing about the Australian outback, and thought I had the mood just right. I’d spent time researching the weather in that part of the continent and had a good idea of the type of flora that predominate there.

But the piece wasn’t quite right, and for ages I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. And then it leapt out of the page at me. It was one word. One simple little word, and all I needed to do was change it and everything would be solved.

The word I changed was earth. It became dirt. And the entire universe shifted. Did the earth move? Did the ground tremble? Well, not exactly, unless it did for you around about that time, but someone reading my words in the not too distant future will have a better feeling for those harsh, uncompromising badlands of Australia’s backyard.

Out of your comfort zone

That one word, dirt, created a flavour beyond the capacity of earth. In the context of the story, it was meant to pique the imagination and bring the reader out of their comfort zone for just a moment. A bit like shit really.