Mac Slater On Stage

This week, my character Mac Slater will be brought alive onstage courtesy of the State Library of Victoria. They're working with a director and actors to bring scenes from the second Mac book, I ♥ NY to the stage. I can't wait to see what they do with it. I love it when someone takes something you've created and puts their own spin on it. And I'm looking forward to spending a couple of days in Melbourne, too. It's a fine, fine city and I always get inspired.

I'll be meeting with the producer and animators bringing my Nit Boy series to life while I'm down there, too, so it should be a fun adventure. We're talking about a background look for the animation so I'm sourcing lots of visual references right now over at lineboil.com

And I've just blogged Crocodile Tears the eighth Alex Rider book by Anthony Horowitzat http://boysblokesbooks.edu.au . To WIN a copy, just leave a comment on the post.

T.

Nit Boy Art Exhibition

The Teacher-Librarian at St Joseph's, Bracken Ridge, in Brisbane recently read my first Nit Boy book, Lift Off! to her students without being shown the cover. Students were then asked to create their own covers based on the story they'd heard. I thought there was some amazing, hilarious and tasty work in there and I wanted to share it, so welcome to the exhibition. I only wish I had time to scan them all! Perhaps there'll be a sequel?

Oh, and here are a couple of recent kids' reviews of the Nit Boy books:

Nit Boy 1: Lift Off!
Nit Boy 2: Bug Out!

Characters Who Just Won't Die

I'm 30,000 words into a new book. Just a zero draft (a term I first encountered here on Carole Wilkinson's blog and which she discovered via Scott Westerfeld). I know what I'm writing is mostly crud but I push on anyway, knowing that the story and characters don't truly exist when they're just a pile of notes or an outline. A draft solidifies them in some way. They start to live.

So I'm letting the characters speak and letting unexpected things happen and trying not to force them to fit into my evil plan. But it's hard. I had hoped to blow at least one character up in an unfortunate accident but they all seem to want to stay in the story. I can't think of a polite way to decide which one of them gets it so I'm going to have to jump in late, start the chapter at the penultimate moment and use the element of surprise. Wish me luck.

The Writing Process

So often writers are asked to break down the writing process and share secrets in workshops and talks but I believe it's almost impossible to honestly describe the actual process of writing a book.

Sure, there are marker posts along the way – outlines or freewrites or zero drafts etc. Those things can be described and disseminated but the other stuff, the magic, the stuff that really makes you love a book, cannot. Fiction writing is such a mash of influences - the things you're reading now, dreams, the things you're struggling with in your own life, every person you've ever met, bits of video from Youtube, the breaks you take to read Twitter conversations, the movies you watch at night, the mix of caffeine and green tea in your system, the perfectly timed nap, an interruption by an AAPT salesperson, and all the other happy and not-so-happy accidents.

Even a piece of chocolate eaten at the right time in the afternoon can stimulate the writing of a chapter that never would have happened without that half Cherry Ripe. (Thanks, Cadbury.) It is truly a mysterious process and I will continue to talk about writing and try to share thoughts with kids and emerging writers but, really, it is unbreakdownable, the truth of what happens on that journey.

Books for Boys Blog

I'm still resident blogger over at Boys, Blokes, Books blog. You can catch my recent interviews with Australian authors:

David Metzenthen (The Really Nearly Deadly Canoe Ride - Win a copy!)

Sherryl Clark (aka Captain Blood. An interview on her obsession with pirates!)

Gus Gordon (The Undys, Wendy)

and you can link to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter or get a free Ranger's Apprentice ebook.

There's an upcoming interview with Specky Magee author, Felice Arena, too. We both started out as actors and we've followed a similar trajectory, working in TV in Australia, then in the UK, and now writing children's books. We spoke at Perth Writer's Fest earlier in the year and I was inspired by his high-energy show that brought his writing alive for the audience.

The Power of Time Off

Back from a week-long break and it was a life-changer. I haven't had any time off all year and, 
with three book releases very close together, it's been a period of strong focus and intensity. But then I stopped. For a week. Holidays are underrated.

Earlier this week I found a TED talk titled The Power of Time Off by Stefan Sagmeister. He's a New York designer who, every seven years, closes his studio and goes on a year-long sabbatical. He goes to Bali or South America and re-discovers design, plays with new materials and ideas and starts to think freely again.

I think everyone needs this. Creative work starts to feel samey when you work too hard for too long. You forget why you love it. As a writer, I'm also a business person. I have to make a living doing the thing I love but sometimes I become so stuck in my thinking and so mesmerised by the rectangular box of my laptop screen and that blinking cursor in the TwitWindow asking me what I'm doing now that I don't even know what I'm doing.

Long live the holiday. Feeling loose and the words are flowing freely. I remember why I'm here and I'm trusting my gut again, rather than being owned by thinking.

T.

www.tristanbancks.com

Mac Slater Exhibition

Hey

Here are some cool drawings based on my Mac Slater series, created by the students at St Ita's in Brisbane.

And a shot of author James Roy and I at the MCG watching Sydney Swans v. Richmond a few weeks ago. I could watch anything at the MCG and enjoy it. (Toad racing might be difficult without some kind of zoom lens.)

Making Stories

I found the image above on this blog: A Beautiful Mess (Super-cool chick and her boyfriend's music is great, too. She found the image here). The sign captures just how I feel right now.

Here's a thought that occurred to me yesterday while I was thinking about my story, driving through the hills, looking over the beach. I came home and jotted it.

'Sometimes when you’re writing, you become lost in fragments of thought and then, all of a sudden, it feels like these broken, scattered bits merge together to make something whole. And, for a moment, it feels as though you have something that’s perfect. A story that feels as much a part of you as your ear or your arm or nose. 

This doesn’t last long and you end up smashing it again and, at some undefined future date, it comes back together in another form. It’s still the same parts of you but they slot into different spaces and make something else (im) perfect.'

TED.com Top Ten

Here's my top ten at TED.com. I vote TED the best site on the superhighway. The coolest free video and audio talks ever. I download them for long drives.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design and it's a conference that happens in California each year with the most amazing speakers on earth... from Michelle Obama to Al Gore to Richard Branson to Bono and loads of others you've never heard of, but who are equally as fascinating.

1. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Flow

2. Liz Gilbert (Eat Pray Love) on Nurturing Creativity

3. Bono's TED Prize Wish, A Call to Action on Africa

4. Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity

5. How Benjamin Button Got His Face

6. Michelle Obama's Plea For Education

7. J.J. Abrams' (Lost) Mystery Box

8. Can Kids Teach Themselves?

9. The Intelligence of Crows

10. The Habits of Happiness

Another fave talk is Malcolm Gladwell on the 10,000 Hour Rule (The Story of Success)

Not a TED talk but such a really interesting idea.

Brisbane Writer's Fest Highlights 2009

Hey

I recently spoke at Brisbane Writer's Fest which I loved. The beautiful State Library of QLD, sunshine, the river, coffee, telling stories, lots of sessions, lunches, breakfasts and parties. Too good. Here are some pics and, at the end, a few fest highlights.

Nit Boy audience in the Breezeway

They were a fun and wild crowd.

Brisbane's State Library by night.

Photo by the multi-talented Amber Melody.

Griffith University students performing scenes from my book, Mac Slater, Coolhunter 2:

I Love NY

The audience in the Mac Slater 2: I Love NY book gig.

Some Fest Highlights

* The incredible audiences across the board, especially the four-hundred kids each morning in the Breezeway tent between the Library and the Gallery of Modern Art. They were so juiced.

* Getting tips on research and fascinating pirate facts from Sherryl Clark.

* Meeting the affable Scott Monk and the lovely Melaina Faranda.

* Catching up with James Roy. He's a funny man with an encyclopedic rolodex of one-liners at the ready. He was a hit at the fest.

* Hanging out with all the cool publishing people, editors etc. who support the festival. Kids' book folks tend to be good humans all-round.

* A funny session with Jack Heath and Charlotte McConaghy where we spoke about the perils of starting out as storytellers at a young age.

* Skyping with Tempany Deckert on the big screen from LA in our it's yr life session

* Seeing Belinda Jeffrey and Rebecca Sparrow in a Fest Fringe battle-of-the-writers event. I heard Belinda's session at BWF was a scream, too.

* Some thoughts on a zen approach to my upcoming US release from Andy Griffiths.

* The grapes in the green room.

T.

www.tristanbancks.com