New Danny Hawaii Website

Just to tease the hell out of all of you (and myself), I've cobbled together a new Danny Hawaii website.

Don't get your knickers in a knot about it though. It's pretty bare. I just want it to be a placeholder for when the novel does come out. The previous version of the Danny Hawaii website was a mixed up, confused mess of all my creative interests. Now I'm focussing in on the writing.

There's an email list, which happens to be the same as the one I've put in the contacts section. The idea is that if you don't want to be a regular visitor to my blog, but you do want to read the novel, sign up to the email list and I'll keep you informed.

Daniel Hatadi OUT

Windup Laptop

"Free wind-up laptops for world's poor" from news.com.au

Great.

Let's save those poor heathens from their technology-free Hell. They must be so depressed, not being able to afford a laptop of their own. Soon their lives will be free of disease and health problems. Is there anything a windup laptop can't do?

I dunno. How about windup FOOD?

The Stars Tell All

Stolen from The Onion:

Taurus April 20 - May 20

Your long-held belief that the pen is mightier than the sword will be put to the test this week when you sign up for a combination fencing/calligraphy class co-taught by an angry Spaniard and a weary sensei.

Danny Hawaii Toons

Music has been on my mind lately.

I've had my first brush with fame with an artist I truly respect. And it got me thinking about my own music career. The one I decided to leave behind.

If you've read my previous blog, you may know that before I used Danny Hawaii as a character in my novel, I was doing music under the name. My idea was to combine blues and beats, in a future retro style.

I was getting somewhere, but I came to the realisation that I didn't think I was a good enough singer. And I wanted to be, because damn it if I was going to write music for someone else again.

So I left it all behind, replacing my music with writing. And the writing bug has hit me hard. I seem to get the same satisfaction out of it, without the downside. With writing, I don't have to carry around heavy amps and guitars, or worry about endless metres of cabling, sound levels, tuning, or the lack of dedication and ability of the other members in the band.

Because there is no band. It's just me.

In a fit of nostalgic goodness, I now present to you a link to four of the better tracks I did under the Danny Hawaii name.



Danny Hawaii Toons

Care For Your Characters

I've put this here because I think it may be one of the most important issues in a crime novel. And I don't want to forget it.

***

From Ms Snark, literary agent:

I think the thing that's missing in most of the novels I reject is that the characters don't seem to grow or change enough. I read a lot of mystery and thriller submissions and it's like dead bodies are leaves on the ground: no impact. Even in cozies, there has to be some sense that this isn't quite normal and will mean something to the characters.

***

I know I'm already guilty of this mistake with some of my flatter characters. So this one goes (puts on harsh Aussie accent) ... straight to the trophy room.

What Kind Of Writer Are You?

You're a Dialogue/Character Writer!


What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This is probably the only online quiz I've ever taken that revealed something about me that I didn't already know.

Now, back to the plotting ...

Little Words

My brain hurts.

My eyes have assaulted it with a pair of garden shears, and on top of that, they inserted a lobster directly into my cerebral cortex.

Translation: I spent a good few hours rushing through my ms to get together an overview. The point of this exercise, aside from turning my brains into soft noodles, was to give me the chance to step back and think about the purpose of each scene in terms of the whole story.

I didn't mean for the writing to look so small, or to have the word 'Danny' appear so often, but here it is in techicolour glory:



In other news: while writing the novel, whenever I thought of a catchphrase I snuck it away into a secret file, with the hope of using it ... someday.

* Peter Corris goes clubbing with Janet Evanovich.

* Danny Hawaii wants to be a PI. Only his lack of ability is stopping him.

* Toilet training can be fun. So can training to become a PI.

Try making up your own and send them to me. If I like them, I'll remember you, and I'll send you a copy of the novel when it comes out. I promise.

Danny Hawaii. Loving The Law. Read it. When it's finished.

Manuscript Megalomania

It's all about me. The me, me, me talk just dang well never stops around these here parts.

Today's talk on Me is all about errors. Errors that creep into writing, so's you don't even notice them. Little errors, like 'them' instead of 'the', or 'bard' instead of 'bad'.

Then bigger errors like, 'pacing too fast' or 'this part sucks dead dog's b***z'.

Four days of intense shoulder hunching and red pen wielding have given me this masterpiece of errors, shown below for your viewing pleasure.



Note to self: Read it and weep.

Things Mean Things To Me

Years ago, I said this to someone and it sounded so silly it stuck. It's been trapped in my skull ever since, and whenever I find myself getting too Deep & Meaningful, I use this sentence to take a step back.

Things mean things to me.

Which leads me right into yapping about these pictures. I took advantage of my day job to print out the whole damn novel, and then I got all emotional and took some snaps of it.

Of the manuscript, the MS.



As a computer professional, I'm used to dealing with words on the screen. I wrote the whole novel on computers. The images don't convey how weighty the thing feels when my hands are wrapped around it, but there's something very tangible and awe inspiring about a printed tome. At 283 pages, tome isn't the right word, but being my first novel, it feels that way to me.

I'm going to buy a special red marker, one that sings in my hand like a magical weapon, and then I'm going to take a couple of days to attack my manuscript.

That's when the work truly begins.

Study Time

I took a break from working on the novel to get some perspective, so that my head is clear for the second draft. For the last six weeks, I've been working up to printing that thick wad of manuscript and going at it with a red marker. Now I'm raring to go.

So what do I do instead? I procrastinate. Just like any good writer should(n't). Just like I knew I would.

(cue James Brown dance moves)

Two books on writing are winging their way across the globe, courtesy of Amazon. I've ploughed through two other books already. On top of that, I'm reading Neil Gaiman's latest and I've enrolled in a one day course on publishing.

It's a full day on Saturday and I'm pretty sure my mind will be successfully blown away. Eight hours of intensive study in anything is a great way to burn brain calories.

Here's a link to the course: Demystifying Book Publishing

And now back to work (yeah, sure, Dan).

Eat My Shorts

My last month was spent in a frantic and ill-advised attempt at spitting out two short stories. One was to be 3000 words for a local competition called the 'Queen Of Crime', the other would have been 4000 words for a Writer's Digest short story comp.

One is a Danny Hawaii story, set a couple of months before the novel. He's still finding his feet, but he does his best to help a shop owner track down a vandal--by making the vandal come to her.

The other story is a more ambitious piece. I've been reading a book called Destructive Emotions. It's an account of a series of talks held in the year 2000 involving the Dalai Lama, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. One of the speakers mentions how prisons have been experimenting with Buddhist meditation classes for the inmates. He talks a bit about the successes ... and the failures.

Obviously the story I was trying to write is about one of the failures. How else could I call it a crime story?

I had two deadlines to work to, both days apart, both at the end of the month. 7000 quality words encompassing two stories in that short a time was something I found impossible.

So I gave up.

What I did do was concentrate on the story that was more important to me. The Danny Hawaii one. To get it up to speed, I did a lot of back and forth with various 'critters', one who I'm sure will comment here.

Hi, M!

I'm pretty happy with the story I sent. It's the first decent sized short story I've written and it's been a hell of an education. I've heard short stories compared to small sports cars, whereas novels are more like trucks.

Fingers crossed, I hope to become the Queen of Crime for 2005.

I'm sure I'll never live it down.

Viral Tagging

Mary tagged me.

The RULES

1. Go into your archives
2. Find your 23rd post
3. Find the fifth sentence (or the closest one to it)
4. Post the text of your sentence in your blog along with these rules
5. Tag five other people

Because my blogging is becoming more convoluted than fettucini mixed with spaghetti, I chose to use my old Danny Hawaii blog as the source, and this blog as the destination.

Here's my sentence:

"Eat food."

Which of course is a reference to my other blog: Food What I Ate.

And because I'm a rebel, I refuse to tag anyone else.

The virus stops here.

If you're a rebel too, that means you can go against my word and pretend that I've tagged you. If you do, and I strongly suggest you don't, tell me about it.

But if you do, think on this: who are you rebelling against?

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty

Diamanda Galas at the Sydney State Theatre, October 21st, 2005

GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY

The lights went down and Diamanda walked out, taking her seat in front of the piano under cover of darkness. I could see this because I was in the second row, almost dead centre.

Small sounds of her adjusting the seat and microphone, then the first low notes from the piano. Powerful and percussive, hidden somewhere inside them were the blues.

Then came the voice.

From the pits of her soul, she started as low as a woman can go. A single light faded in. She moved, she writhed, her feet worked at the pedals, her face was part of the song. Anger, sadness, frustration, pain. It all showed, and it all could be heard--in her voice, in her playing, in the stamping of her foot.

No banter, no patter, nothing to appease the audience or give us a reprieve from the intensity of her art. After every song, the light would fade and she would turn away to drink water. And Diamanda needed to. Her four octave vocal range was used to full effect, tearing from the furnace of her lungs, shifting to sweet, angelic tones, then back to a chattering, scratched soundscape.

Her voice startled me at times. She would lull us into security, then rip into a screeching, banshee wail. A strobe light came on to pierce the eyes as well as the ears. Just as quickly, back to a soft touch on the keys. Back to a single red light.

There was humour among the darkness. A song she wrote with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, entitled 'Baby's Insane', started off as a ragtime tune. With choruses of 'hide all the knives, cause baby's insane', there were a few chuckles from the audience, who otherwise were simply too scared to utter a word.

Themes of guilt, death, and isolation were constant. The old bluesman, Skip James, played piano in a similarly disjointed fashion. He would tell the audience that his music existed solely to inspire dread. It was not for dancing.

After her hour long set, there was begging, chanting, and whistling for two encores. I couldn't decide whether the audience's stamping of feet on the floor was something to be pleased or embarrassed about.

Encores over, Diamanda walked to the front of the stage and bowed slightly three times, centre, left, and right. We cheered and clapped, and then she smiled and walked off stage with music in her moves, waving good-bye.

The Not So Mean Streets Of Sydney

For those of you that read this blog and don't know Sydney too well, or even for those that never venture far outside their suburb, here's a website for you.

Take a bite out of the apple (secret code for 'click on the picture').

Walk Sydney Streets
Alan, 91, walks every street in 182 suburbs of Sydney Australia - 401 photos
"Streets ahead of us, and he's 90" - The Sydney Morning Herald
"Australia's Forrest Gump" - 7 TV network's Today Tonight

Go Aussie Go!

From SarahWeinman.com:

It may be too early to call this a bona fide trend, but then again, so often we get a trend of one these days. But considering Kathryn Fox's debut MALICIOUS INTENT will be out next month in the UK (from Hodder Headline) with US publication to follow soon, and now this new deal just announced, it may be safe to say that the next group of rising stars is female, and from Australia ...

Read more: Crime Writers Down Under

Now, if only I can figure out a cheap and easy way to become female.

Abbeys: Crime Fiction Capital of Sydney

I simply cannot believe that I haven't checked this bookstore out before. Living in Sydney for most of my life made me aware of it, but I only went in once to get a language book, many moons ago.

Saturday changed everything. I now have a new favourite haunt.

Abbeys Bookshop.

It has the best collection of crime and true crime novels in Sydney I've found so far. Authors that I previously would have had to order through Amazon are right there on the shelves in front of me. They even put out a monthly 'Crime Chronicle', a newsletter with blurbs on the latest and greatest.

I stumbled around, eyes glazed over, on a bookish high. When I saw the NEW CRIME section, I felt like I'd come home.


While systematically checking each section nearby, I got a big old smile on my face at this:


Then, my fantasies started playing out. Where would my book be on the shelf? Between which two authors does my name reside?



So if you're ever in the City Of Sydney, pop on over to York Street, just behind the Queen Victoria Building, and look out for the guy with the beanie.

Just don't punch me, okay? Just because I write crime doesn't mean I'm tough.

Guitar Shred Show

In my spare time, and before the days of The Novel, I've always played guitar. So you can imagine my joy, my wonder, my ecstasy, when I stumbled across this site.

It's a strange combination of flash animation, interactive music and Zen guitar method, all passed on to you by a Zen Guitar Monk Guru, hidden in an exotic location.

And you definitely have to explore the whole site. Do the Lesson & Jam and enter into a diabolical competition with a Demon Accordian Player.

Click on him, YOU MUST.



I think it's one of the funniest things I've seen this year.

Advice

Stolen from Inkslinger:

Decide exactly where you want to go professionally, then act as if you're already there.

Five Year Plan

I've always heard of people having five year plans. It's a question that gets asked in most job interviews and it's one that I don't usually have an answer for. It's the nature of us creative types, always looking for the next Big Idea.

Rather than flounder around for the next few years, I thought I'd try coming up with a Five Year Plan myself. I'm pretty sure that if I use lots of Capital Letters, I should be able to make all of this A Reality.

The plan took about five seconds to come up with. It's pretty straightforward. Every year, write a novel, submit the previous year's novel, and make sure the novel before that gets published. I can't predict sales figures, but three novels out in the bookstores should allow me turn a living.

I hope.

And that is my goal. The goal of my Five Year Plan.

Earn a living as a writer.

THE PLAN

Year 1 (2005):
Finish first novel.

Year 2 (2006):
Finish second novel.
Get first novel on the way to publishing.

Year 3 (2007):
Finish third novel.
Publish first novel.
Get second novel on the way to publishing.

Year 4 (2008):
Finish fourth novel.
Publish second novel.
Get third novel on the way to publishing.

Year 5 (2009):
Finish fifth novel.
Publish third novel.
Get fourth novel on the way to publishing.
Become a full time writer.

Books On Writing What I Read In The Last YearPART III: THE FRIENDLY

The last of my series on shameless Amazon links to books I've read and didn't buy on Amazon.

I'll plug a local bookstore instead, because this is where I bought this book: Better Read Than Dead.

Just one little book here. Look at it, isn't it cute?

* pats book on head *

The Writer's Mentor - Ian Jackman
I like this book. Good to keep nearby for those times when you need motivation to keep going. It's a great list of quotes from writers of all walks of life. Makes you feel like you're not the only one going through the torture that is writing.