in the life of me

The Bit In Between is available online, y’all!

~ clairevarley ~ 1 Comment

My mother has a very low benchmark for things that impress her. This is a legacy, I suspect, of a lifetime teaching small children to do the kind of things grown ups do all the time, and she enthuses like a pro. Things that impress her include: a good run on the freeway, restaurants with efficient service, and people who arrive on schedule. I remember once, as a child, sitting beside her in traffic as we waited for the car in front of us to negotiate a particularly tight reverse parallel park. As the driver executed the move with the skill of a soviet-era gymnast, my mother’s eyes popped and she exclaimed ‘What a nifty park! Would you check that out?’ I looked on, equally dazzled, and I dare say a little awed by this fairly mundane occurrence.

This was the training ground that developed my own set of standards for things that command my admiration. It is a low low benchmark – you will find me kowtowing in awe at a decent cup of coffee or pledging eternal fealty to people who meet deadlines. So against this backdrop, we must consider my response to finding out that my book is now available for pre order online. Obviously I lost my proverbial, first prancing around the room in homage to myself then sitting still and silent on the couch staring at my laptop screen in revered modesty, demanding every so often that my boyfriend also look at the screen (‘No LOOK at it. Properly. LOOK AT IT LIKE I AM LOOKING AT IT.’)

I’m not quite sure what will happen when the book is available on actual bookshelves, but I imagine it will involve me first im- then exploding, gracefully and jittery, like a terrier on crack. Bring on August 1.

Portrait of artist with unsettling smile

~ clairevarley ~ 4 Comments

I remember one of my uni lecturers saying that every picture tells a story. For mine, that story is normally ‘I just got out of maximum security prison and I’m coming for you.’ I don’t photograph well. I have two smiles: The first is a seemingly casual close-lipped smile – more ennui than ingénue – that looks like I know a secret, and that secret is disdain. The second is a toothy little number that looks like every single emotion is exploding from my face like an over-caffeinated Movie World back up dancer. There is no middle ground, and my natural resting face suggests something terrible once happened to me and I am now dead inside. There’s not a lot to work with.

So when Pan Macmillan requested some author images I reluctantly prepared to bust out a little bit of #1, #2 and heck, why not, even ol’ dead eyes for the camera. Author photos are important. They accompany press stuff, adorn book jackets and fill that insatiable urge humans have to have a visual reference for all things. They also, truth on the table, are part of marketing authors. Depending on the genre or style, they should convey the sense of someone you want to be/be friends with/be in awe of. For me, I suppose I want to seem like someone who will meet you for brunch, make you chuckle, then promise to pay you back because I left my wallet in the car again. You know, your bog standard friend. Easy, right? RIGHT?

Photo attempt 1: Me and John down by the schoolyard

My man-friend John has a fancy camera and I take a ‘glass half empty’ approach to my bank balance, so we decided we could produce a quality image on our own. I took my usual approach to grooming – get up, wash face, leave house – and off we went to CERES, a local environmental park. We wandered around for a couple of hours find interesting things for me to stand in front of and smile demonically into the camera. There was lots of this –

John: Okay, smile.

Me: I am smiling. This is how I smile.

John: …Really?

And also lots of me hissing like a vampire and covering my face whenever people who were not part of our ‘photo shoot’ strolled by.

The results were average; of the several hundred photos there were one or two where my eyes were open and I didn’t appear to be wincing in pain. So these were sent to Pan Mac. They responded with a very nice, very kindly worded suggestion that perhaps I might like to have another try. In fairness, while Beyoncé wakes up looking flawless, I wake up looking like the Babadook.

This led to…

Photo attempt 2: Friends with camera skills!

I don’t wear make up and have what we of the Mediterranean fondly describe as ‘ethnic hair’: it’s thick, it’s curly and it doesn’t give a crap what you do to it because it just wants to BE FREE! In preparation for the photos, two work colleagues helped me buy make up (ie I sat there mutely while they conversed with the makeup girls, before I helpfully explained ‘I just want to look like a better version of me, please.’) I also got my hair did, which for me means gripping the arm rests as a determined hairdressers goes forth at my hair with an electric hedge trimmer. The night before, in preparation, I watched The September Issue, practising my ‘Wintour is coming’ glare and thrusting my elbows about in awkward model-esque shapes. Windmill! Vogue! Popped collarbone! Strut!

My flat is dark and gloomy and looks like somewhere goblins come to dwell and hoard stolen coins and kidnapped first-born royal infants, so we took the photos at a friend’s house. I did my windmill arms and vogue face until my friends asked me to sit quietly and look normal. Then my friend adjusted some settings on the camera and just held down the button on autofire, figuring surely there’d be one or two decent ones. This theory, based loosely on the mathematics of a thousand monkeys at a thousand type writers*, worked and we managed to capture a bunch of photos where I look like someone you just might brunch with if you’re other plans fell through.

So hurrah! And this will now be my author photo for the next decade, at least.

*don’t think too deeply about that.

On signing, or, ten ways I freaked out in the last few months.

~ clairevarley ~ Leave a comment

A few years ago a presenter at the Emerging Writers Festival said that one of the most important things a writer could do was to start calling themselves a writer. Not when they first placed in a short story competition, not when they got their first publication, but right now. Because if not, the point for measuring this would always seem just out of reach.

I always assumed that if I ever got a book contract this would be that moment of acceptance. That a sense of calm self-assurance would envelope me and the consuming writerly self-doubt would dissolve into nothing. Turns out, no.

Continue reading →

book 2 (or the novel formerly known as Bogan)

~ clairevarley ~ 1 Comment

My lovely publisher suggested I blog more and I’ve not heeded this advice because I am lazy and have poor self-marketing skills. BUT seeing as I’m meant to be working on shaping my assorted notes for book two into something coherent, tonight seems like a pretty good time to have a crack at this blogging business.

As you can see from the picture below, at this stage book two consists of a range of printed A4 pages that I have arranged in the manner of ineffective dominoes across my lounge/kitchen floor/tiles. Its working name, which I have long since abandoned, is ‘Bogans, Bacon and Other Reasons for Political Outrage’. Yet to find a replacement title, I have taken to affectionately referring to it as ‘Bogan’. Enough procrastination – back to Bogan.

'Bogan' plot notes.
‘Bogan’ plot notes.

page seventeen

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Busybird Publishing – some of the nicest kids in publishing town – launched issue 11 of page seventeen last night. It includes my poem ‘Hamlet, Remus and two guys named Steve’, the last in my suite of ‘grandparent poems’ (here and here). The launch was accompanied by their regular open mic night and featured a range of gorgeous pieces from the comic to the profound. Copies of page seventeen can be ordered here. I think you should.

Australian Love Stories

~ clairevarley ~ 5 Comments

The clever people over at Inkerman & Blunt have just released their second anthology of Australian writing. Last time it was love poems (including my poem ‘beatitude’] and this time around it’s love stories. My story ‘A Greek Tragedy’ is included in the collection, which was edited by the magnificent Cate Kennedy. I truly heart Inkerman & Blunt – both anthologies are themselves love declarations to the astounding talent that is buzzing around the Australian writing community. (And I’m not just saying that because they keep publishing me. I think we can all agree that this is only because somehow my mother has secretly found out their home addresses and has been sending them baked goods in return for publication favours. Obviously.)

represent!

~ clairevarley ~ 2 Comments

So I got a literary agent. *Tosses hair calmly over shoulder and sips latte as that comment floats casually across the cafe brunch table that is this site.*

I am now proudly represented by the good people at Curtis Brown. I mean, I don’t know if they are proud to be representing me but I’m certainly proud that they are. So is my mum. And that covers pretty much everyone I know.

This is exciting. So exciting that I have given this site an ‘upgrade’ (ie changed the theme, added a couple of new pages and possibly deleted some crucial html that will come back to haunt me later). So now it looks either ‘more professional’ or ‘more uglier’… I can’t tell if I either love it or loathe it, so I’ll settle with having a site that I feel middle-of-the-road about. Which is pretty good considering every time I login it proudly informs me that I am my #1 follower…

But back to that thing about having an agent – yeah!