My Mac has returned to my office again for another year of novelling and I’ve finally begun to get my ideas down in a kind synopsis/spiel of everything I know so far about the story. I’m sure I’m still forgetting bits though.
I’m using the new preview version of Scrivener 2.0 that was released the other day so NaNoers can get used to it before we start on November 1, next Monday. So far, I can say it’s awesome, shiny and easy to use.
I used the WordPress app for iPhone to write this post and the Hipstamatic app to take the photo. I’ll be posting more photos to my Twitter during next month.
When a movie is based on a book, I always find it hard to separate the two when making a judgement on the movie. For Let Me In, I was left comparing it to the book I’m half way through reading as well as the original movie I haven’t seen yet.
Let Me In is the Americanised version of the Swedish movie, Let the Right One In which is based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist of the same name. It’s about Owen, a bullied 12-year-old who meets Abby. She says she’s been “twelve for a very long time.” Eventually it’s revealed there’s something different about Abby; she’s a vampire.
Let Me In feels very different to any other vampire movie. It’s got a dark, subtle and almost art-house aesthetic that very much suits the feel of the novel. After trying to force myself to disconnect from judging the movie based on what I’d read of the book, it was this feel of the movie that pulled me in and put me at ease.
The screenplay cuts out a few of the subplots I’d come across in the movie and weaves some of those scenes into the main plot, which kind of jarred with me at first but it worked and made the story overall fit the screen better.
Without having seen the original Swedish movie, it’s hard to comment but I thought it was a pretty good version of the film. But friends have commented that it is very close to the original, which begged the question to me, why not just screen the original?
Let the Right One In was never given cinematic release in Australia and it took someone to make it American in order for it to reach a wider audience. This is not a new thing with (poorly done) Americanised versions of many Japanese horror films hitting the big screen but when you go back and watch the original you wonder how they got it so wrong.
What is it with Australian and American culture that makes audiences too backward to watch a foreign film? To turn the whole film American makes it seem as if culture-wise, America is the centre of the world. I guess it reflects a political reality of America being the number-one super power so it translates to this cultural domination.
Despite enjoying Let Me In, I think I’m going to go find the Swedish original and wish they’d just played that at the cinema.
This is a bit of an experiment. It’s an experiment I need your help with.
Emerging writers like myself are always looking for chances to build an audience, build a name, get read, get support and it seems to me that with big publishers treading slowly into the vast ocean of digital publishing that is presents an opportunity for writers like me to jump in first in a sense and catch them out.
My collection, Sanity Juxtaposed, was released last week as an eBook in a range of formats on Smashwords.com. A few of my peers have released books or collections via Smashwords with some success. This is part of my curiosity in experimenting with the format.
Sanity Juxtaposed is a collection of writing from me spanning from 2004 to 2009. It includes some of my first short stories and poetry, a whole heap of flash fiction as well as selected blog posts. I like to think of it as my demo tape or EP, similar to the CDs emerging bands might sell at their local pub gigs to raise a bit of money and their profile.
A printed copy of the book will be available in the coming months once I get around to formatting it. I might even buy a few in bulk so I can sell face-to-face at events and such.
The eBook is $5 in the spirit of supporting an emerging writer and making a purchase that means something. I don’t want to just sell it for cheap and people just buy it without much thought.
But until November, you can get it for $2.50 if you use the coupon code ‘VJ35M.’
I’d appreciate people spreading the word about this on Twitter and Facebook as well as perhaps giving a review. I’m also happy to provide interviews if you contact me at benjaminsolah@benjaminsolah.com
This piece comes from the [Fiction] Friday prompt, “Include this theme in your story… After a long night, a hunter sees something he/she cannot believe.” – which in hindsight, I may or may not done properly but it was also inspired by the city today.
—
Story Hunter
Photo by See-ming Lee
With notebook in hand, on table, or resting on her knee, her body reacted to the happenings of the city. Her eyes darted to the nearest movement; a man crossing a road, a child’s nagging hands outside a shop window. Her ears twigged to the voices floating in the air around her; mocking the boss on lunch or a declaration of love on a tram.
In the afternoon, she had sat in the corner of a cafe, trying to hide away as she transcribed overheard conversations. She would twist her mouth in such a way as to convince those around her that she was lost in anguish, perhaps studying, writing a tiresome essay, not in ecstasy at filtering the world around her.
She was a story hunter. Her pen was like a harpoon as she stalked around her forest of the city. People moved around their everyday lives unaware they were being watched, even as it crossed into night, and the people changed. The shoppers and the lunchers and the workers drifted away.
Some of the workers stayed, changing out of their masks they hid behind all day to revel with the students and diners and drinkers. She had to squint a little at her notebook under lights lit just for decoration. Her ears twitched and panicked as conversations merged into each other like the groan of highway traffic.
When she looked up in the packed bar, she thought she was facing a mirror. Listening eyes peered over a notebook clutched close to the chest. Another story hunter. They lowered their notebook to reveal a mischievous grin in amongst the stubble.
She wanted to shrink into herself when she saw he was making his way across to her. His eyes were as wide as hers but she didn’t want him to know her story.
“This is a big city,” he said, “I’m sure there’s enough stories in this place for both of us. I can go somewhere else if you like.”
She straightened herself and nodded. “I think that would be a good idea.”
She waited for him to leave, and just as he stepped up and turned away, she called him back. “Hey, what kind of character am I in there?” She pointed to his notebook, perhaps a little more worn out than hers.
“The main one, of course.” His smile was sweet. Her reply was a smile that said nothing, that ended the conversation. He turned away again.
She didn’t know whether to be charmed
- or just fucking creeped out.
—
For more flash fiction search for #FridayFlash on Twitter today or every Friday.
Oct 21 2010
Filed In: Books
The First Tale is the first eBook released by friend, fellow blogger and fellow Chinese Whisperings writer, Icy Sedgwick. Icy’s from the north of England, has a real cool accent and has an ability to create awesome worlds with cool gadgets, which suits steampunk.
This was my first major thing I’ve read on my Sony Reader so it was nice that it was this real fun, quick and easy read that never made me work too hard.
The First Tale is a steampunk adventure set in Vertigo City where the Weimar rule and the Resistance, well, resist. In the Resistance, there’s the strong and not to be messed with Melissa Hunt, better known as Liss and I liked how she knocked all these men into line and saved the day.
The plot starts when they find a man dead with a Weimar arm band and a Resistance card. They set off to work out who this guy is only to uncover much more. The plot moves quickly from one situation to the other, which makes sense given it was first written as a serial posted on Icy’s blog.
The strongest element of Icy’s writing is Liss’s character and her dialogue. I thought it was good to have a strong woman at the head of it all. It’s a character I’d love to get to know better. My only criticism would be that the writing falls into telling rather than showing in places and so it left me craving for more detail.
Overall, it was a fun read and definitely worth reading. It’s available on Smashwords as an eBook and you can also read more of Icy’s writing at her blog, Icy’s Blunt Pencil.
Thanks to the wonderful Angela Meyer a.k.a. LiteraryMinded, in September I was lucky enough to join her in a fancy hotel room to interview speculative fiction writer and socialist, China Miéville. As a lot of you might know, I’m a big fan of his work and consider myself influenced by him a great deal. Given I’m the only person that writes under the genre ‘Marxist horror,’ Miéville is probably the closest to me in terms of style, sometimes describing his writing as ‘New Weird’ though perhaps he’s a much subtler in his politics.
The interview is published in the Crikey blog, LiteraryMinded in two parts.
Part One
…I like trying to poke at what makes London different than Paris, different than Sydney, different than New York, you know. There’s nothing terribly unusual about loving different cities and writers liking cities but I do like big cities and every time I come to a city – you almost try and get a kind of mouth feel for it, you know, and it’s amazing how quickly it happens. You can get out of the plane and spend two minutes walking through a city you’ve never been to before and you can feel that it feels different from the last one you were at and you’re like okay, what is that? Trying to put words to that. In a way it’s trying to put words to that sense of the specificity of place that I hope is what you’re talking about – it’s very much trying to express that. It’s quite ineffable.
Part Two
Y’no people have talked about this before and to me, it’s kind of a non-issue. I mean there is a tradition amongst some on the left of having a rather fallacious notion of what culture is and how it works and what fiction is, and so you get this kind of pious and unconvincing sense of, y’no, ‘if you are a socialist you shouldn’t…’ or whatever, and I think – it’s not a job recruitment form, it’s a novel, it’s doing a different thing. I’m not asking you to agree with him. I’m not asking you to agree with his choice of job, I’m not asking you to agree with a single decision he makes in the entire book.
Following last week’s blog post about being unmotivated in the lead up to National Novel Writing Month, it seems ideas have come flooding in and reminded me of exactly the kind of novel that keeps your fingers typing madly until you hit 50,000 words.
Last year’s novel Barbarism began with riots, lots of riots. I lived out every riotous fantasy last November as I destroyed civilisation to set up my story. It was a hell of a lot of fun. There was an element of ‘Mary Sue’ to that and I suppose if you were writing a ‘serious’ novel, that would have to be cut later on, all of the over-indulgence in rioting, but I think taking it less seriously, just having fun with the story, and writing what I what I wanted had a lot of value.
I had a vague idea for this year’s novel and a kind of feel for the mood of it and how to approach it, but it was only like Friday that scenes started to come in. And fun, outrageous, exaggerated, ridiculous and comic scenes. They’re the scenes I live for. I need to start writing them down before I forget them.
I’m also throwing in things I’m currently interested in. Aside from loving horror and being obsessed with politics, my interests kind of fly all over the place and I get obsessed with things really easily. Video games used to be a big thing and now it is again, so whatever it is I’m currently playing (I’m trying not to give things away here) is fitting in somewhere. In the usual situation of writing a ‘serious’ novel, I might err on the side of leaving it out but it’s NaNo.
I think if I can work on my outline and scene plans with as many of these crazy scenes featuring characters and things I’m currently obsessed with, it’ll maintain my interest to keep me writing for the whole month.
This is opposed to those ‘chore scenes’ that always slow down my motivation. I’m sure they slow down reading too or lose people’s interest. I always feel like I have to write these certain scenes in order to keep the novel whole, to keep it making sense, and they’re usually just bridges to get between the awesome scenes, or they’re character development. Or bits tacked on because I think they should be there.
Why can’t I just make those scenes awesome too? Why does there have to be a boring scene in which the main character sits in a bar and meets some other character? Why can’t it be a bar brawl instead? Why can’t they meet, I dunno, charging a sports store for zombie-killing weapons?
This kind of outlook, making all scenes awesome, I think is worth looking at with my other works like my novella. My zombie novella needs more zombies, I think – go figure.
And I think with both cases, I need to look at scenes as individual bits of writing, that need awesomeness contained in themselves, that need a mini-climax and not some boring chore or like eating your veggies so you can get to dessert.
Maybe I can conquer this novel thing after all.
This is another one in my series of ‘weird shit’ that I can mostly blame on work turning my brain into putty. It’s inspired by the dank Melbourne weather.
—
Wet Umbrellas
Photo by twenty_questions
As soon as you step out from the other world of the train station, you can’t help but be overcome by the greyness floating down like mist reminding you of the sameness that is Monday to Friday.
It is thicker today, much darker than yesterday. The room to breathe between the echoing steps and the sterile elevator is clogged with the bad weather.
The streets are filled with black floating organisms, shaking in the wet breeze. Their webbed fingers stab around at each other, prevented from flying away in a riot from something holding them underneath. Their skin is like a seal’s, sleek and shiny, causing the rain to run off.
You shuffle around them trying to make it as quickly as possible to that sterile office. It’s a wonder you want to get there. You don’t hold down on those things, but everyone around you does. You wish they’d let them go.
You duck this way and that, those fingers wanting to gouge at your eyes and fill them with the water falling from the sky. Your red blood would dilute until pink would spill out of your eyes and slide down your shirt like a mixed load of washing.
When the umbrellas lift up, trying to tug free for their release you would see who held them. Their eyes would be hollow, already gouged out and lifeless. The pink drained and lost down the gutter before you arrived.
Dead and decaying, their mouths hang open uttering what you might only dare to call language, the kind just below the scripted recordings fed to you when your time is their time now. They own you for that day and you can only hope to push at the walls a little bit – but never escape.
Those dead faces don’t flock to you hoping to consume you. They flow around you and you let yourself become part of them. Some of the umbrellas have run and found the merging too much. Others let themselves stay and join. They’re more effective as one as they bleed into each other. Silver fingers connect. Black skin merges like the combining of bodies of water.
The mass flow through the streets and up the steps, through glass doors and come to rest in front of that sterile elevator that you dreaded but dreaded less than walking through the rain. It’s not such a problem now.
When the doors open again up much higher now, the mass you have joined flows out and regains its shape, swarming in amongst the cracks of desks and filing cabinets. It’s almost like a plague of bugs that are searching for food.
That food is behind the locked door screaming into his mobile phone. His wide white eyes reflect groaning mouths hanging open under the black skin of a wet umbrellas.
—
For more flash fiction search for #FridayFlash on Twitter today or every Friday.
Last Sunday, a short story of mine, ‘Somewhere to Pray’ was released into the wild. It’s published as part of Chinese Whisperings The Yang Book, one half of a set of anthologies that link together full of stories that interweave and play off each other – all set in one chaotic airport.
I’ve spoken a bit about the anthology and my story both here and on the Chinese Whisperings website, but thought it was worth mentioning it again given the two books are actually out for you to buy and read. I’m very proud of this story and the whole project. I feel like my writing came forward under the editorship of Jodi Cleghorn.
The eBook is now available here and the paperback will be available in December. It’s really worth getting a copy to support the project and read some awesome stories, not only be me, but other amazing writers, many of whom visit this blog regularly. I highly recommend the story ‘One Behind the Eye’ by Richard Jay Parker, which is my favourite story in the collection because of the shocking twist at the end.
I have a copy of the eBook to give away in return for a bit of help spreading the word. If you share a link to the eBook on Facebook and link my Facebook page in the post, you will go into the draw. To do this you need to have ‘liked’ my page; then type ‘@’ and begin typing Benjamin Solah you can select it from the drop down menu to add the link. Hopefully that’s not too complicated.
Good luck and if you don’t win, you can always just buy a copy 
With two major projects out of the way, I’ve been trying to focus on my novella (unsuccessfully) in order to get that out of the way for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) next month. Which has led me to realise that I’m in a very different state of mind this year compared to the last.
I think I’ve done more this year. I’ve just had my short story, ‘Somewhere to Pray’ in Chinese Whispering’s The Yang Book come out on Sunday and my first zine, all edited by me, The Red Pen was launched last Monday with my piece, ‘The Same Place.’ Add to that my work toward my collection Sanity Juxtaposed and my constant work on writing this year, it’s not like I’ve had this drought before NaNoWriMo that has meant I will be itching to come to the page in November.
This is me officially (but tentatively) throwing my hat in the ring for NaNoWriMo this year. It’s not a good sign to be doing this whilst identifying a recurrence in lack of motivation and inspiration but perhaps I can turn it all around in the next three weeks or whatever.
I’ve chosen a kind of ‘fun’ idea for this year based on how fun it has been to write the weird and out there pieces during #FridayFlash. I hope the kind of black comedy genre that I’m stepping into will lead me to take the writing less seriously and just write. I did this in the beginning last year whilst writing Barbarism which gave me some momentum for the rest of the month.
This month whilst trying to muster some motivation to work on the novella, I need to start fuelling myself for November. That means reading books and watching movies, hopefully around the same aesthetic or around the whole Robin Hood tale. It also means immersing myself in the weird and writing more of that kind of stuff with #FridayFlash.
There’s also an issue of time and writing space but perhaps that’s for another post. But those first few thousand words where you begin or restart working diligently on a long term project is often the hardest. I need to give myself a push and just start writing.
I was partly inspired to write this piece by Icy Sedgwick who’s been doing a bit of steam-punk lately. I thought I’d do a bit of it myself though this piece ended up in a different direction. I’m not sure if the concept works or not but I thought I’d share it with you all anyway.
—
Secret Resources
Photo by left-hand
Everything is ordered and calm in the office today. He’s lined his stationary up along his mahogany desk like toy soldiers. It keeps him distracted from the unread emails warning him on his screen. He has no time to speak to them, he insists.
He leans back with a relaxed sigh, careful not to crease his tailored suit when the door swings open. The jolt in his chest almost sends him backwards, through the window to topple down 48 stories. He holds onto the wooden desk. It is his saviour.
The man standing on the other side is rolling his shoulders up and down as if it is powering his jaw, cranking it open to bare poorly maintained teeth. He wishes the man was steaming, that would be quite ironic, and perhaps he could even bill him for it if he did.
The man slaps a piece of paper on the table. All the letters and words blur into each other. He doesn’t need glasses to read because he has a secretary. His secretary’s at lunch.
“It’s a lawsuit, dipshit. You don’t need to read it. It’s simple: I’m suing you and your fucking steam company for all it’s got.”
He leans back in his chair to avoid the spit sprinkling between them. He’s heard this all before. It’s not the monopoly they hate, not in principle at least, but the fact they didn’t get in first.
“You can’t strangle every bit of innovation…”
The rant fades in the background. He swivels his chair around to survey his empire. The whole city is his – basically, though no one would ever acknowledge it. Underneath his window, vehicles roll passed with snakes of steam trailing long behind.
He can almost hear the ching-ching of cash registers in his head every time water evaporates into gas. Of course, as technology has advanced, most of his money rolls in the form of bytes and electronic signals rather than coins. A lot has changed since he’s started except for the fact that money still rolls in with the steam that flows through the city like blood through veins.
It’s assholes like the ranter behind him that threatens that stranglehold.
“…oil…”
“What did you say?” He suddenly snaps around. He’s up from his seat. The ranter takes two steps back as he steps around his desk.
“Yes, we know about your secret little resource called oil.” His clenched jaw transforms into a grin. He clutches the plastic chair in front of him and throws it. “Like that, what was that made from?”
“Shut up, shut up now.” He steps forward, toward the ranter, his hands tingling at the desire to make him do what he just said.
“Why’d you hide it? If you had that too why’d you hide? You held us all back 100 years.” He stops stepping back when he hits two thick chests now standing behind him. “Why?”
“Steam’s cheaper.”
—
For more flash fiction search for #FridayFlash on Twitter today or every Friday.
I am never surprised but always sickened when I hear stories about acts of gratuitous violence at the hands of the police, like the man that was tasered multiple times by police as he writhed handcuffed on the ground or the 13-year-old girl that was capsicum sprayed on Monday night.
These acts can hardly be surprising. They happen all the time. We have a long history of Black deaths in custody in this country, there are repeated cases of violence and racism from police, and I have been at many a protest when the police grit their teeth with a glint in their eye as they step into a protest with fists flying to break it up.
But the idea that the police are a violent force, not there to protect us, but to protect our rulers, probably remains one of the most controversial positions I hold. Even amongst those that can condemn the government for racism, violence in wars overseas, and condemn individual acts of violence from police, the idea that police violence is systematic or that we can live without the police is one that is met with reactions from scepticism to outright accusations of madness.
I’ve made the argument before that police racism is systematic and not just amongst a few bad eggs, and I think this applies to violence too. It is developed in the way they’re trained.
Police are told they are there to protect the values of society, which turn out to be ones based on a small minority at the top keeping the majority down; it’s based on violence and repression, and it’s based around ideologies that oppress minorities like racism, sexism and homophobia. To maintain order under capitalism, it means using those ideas to defend the status quot.
This training is done as a group and this force is cohered as separate from the rest of society. Those ‘values’ are then held as a collective, not amongst individuals.
If you compare this to racist ideology about ‘other cultures,’ racists argue when one member of an ethnic group commits a crime, it is some how intrinsic to their culture, that their behaviour is common to that ethnic group and that the whole ethnic group is responsible for those actions. It’s not logical as individuals are influenced by many other material conditions, their position in society etc.
It also doesn’t make sense if the Right are happy to demonise ethnic groups on this illogical basis, to then say that violence and racism is not inherent to the police when they are trained in these ideas and behaviour as a collective force.
I’d argue that you cannot reform this force, that it will always use violence and discrimination to maintain the rule of a minority, and that those ‘community aspects’ of the role that is used to cover for their main role in society, will not just be left undone but will be taken up by other aspects of society that have much more of an interest in playing that role.
Last night I was very honoured to be in such great company when I launched the debut issue of The Red Pen, a zine with contributions from socialists interested in creativity and politics.
With poetry from myself, Amy Bodossian, Joel McKerrow, Luka Haralampou and Santo Cazatti, it was a great way to celebrate and entertain the audience.
Copies of Issue One will be available in Sticky this week with proceeds going toward the Refugee Action Collective (Victoria). The zine is also available online for free as a PDF and an EPUB so you can read it on your Sony Reader, iPhones and other gadgets.
I went into September focussed mainly on writing some fresh fiction, which has been a goal for the last couple of months but not a priority in my mind. So last month was much better and I feel on top of writing again.
September Results
- Write 2,000 words of fresh fiction.
I made working on my novella a priority for this month and got a heap of words down, like 1,700 or so. I’ve got a bit of momentum going again. The other 300 went toward a flash piece that will be published soon in 50 Stories for Pakistan.
- Edit Playing with the Big Boys and submit to critique group.
I wasn’t as ruthless with editing this time around as after reading through again, I started to doubt the plot a bit so I sent it out to the critique group to get feedback on that aspect. It may require another rewrite.
- Submit 10 pieces of writing.
This was a bit of a bold, almost impossible goal. Not hitting the target wasn’t such a problem. I ended up submitting 5 things which is still a pretty huge achievement and much more than I usually submit in a month.
- Read a novel in a month (cultural goal)
I’ve ploughed into The Danger Game but afraid I haven’t finished it yet. I really am not the fastest reader, nor the most diligent. I should finish it this month.
- Research Homophobia in Colonial Australia (Political Research Goal).
Didn’t even think about it. The story idea has kind of faded in importance too anyway. I need to work out a better system for organising research anyway.
- Discuss Politics and Fiction.
I blogged about this a number of times this month, but not as much as I would’ve liked. I was a bit lost on the multitude of questions and directions I could of explored.
October Goals
October’s goals are mostly decided by November’s, like last year, when October was a month of preparation for National Novel Writing Month which is next month. It’s kind of scary how quickly it all came about. Thank god I already have an idea. Read more ›
It appears I’ve been tagged, like how when kids run around playing tag or whatever we called it in this part of the world when I was a kid. But it’s also an electronic tag, so it appears I’ve regressed to 10 years old and run around the Internet (that was nothing like it is now) and truth be told, I was very happy to be tagged. I was kind of like those kids who play catch and kiss and run around for a bit and then freeze, with my eyes closed squealing “Don’t kiss me! Don’t kiss me!” when I really wanted nothing more than to be kissed.
I was tagged by fellow Chinese Whisperings contributor, Jen Brubacher of Scribo Ergo Sum.
I haven’t done a meme in ages (people hate them for some reason, but I love them) so am allowing myself to do this one, answer some questions – and actually be mean and tag some people too.
1. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? Why?
Definitely the ability to stop time, or alter it. Work goes by so slowly. The weekend goes too quickly. I want more time to write, more time to play around and less time to work.
2. Who is your style icon?
People either answered this as a fashion style icon, or a writing style icon. Both change for me all the time and depending on my mood.
For writing at the moment, it’s mostly Chuck Palahniuk. I love his short and blunt style. It’s edgy. I’d like to lose the masochism element of him though. He influences my writing stylistically but less so for other things like themes.
For fashion, it’s probably inspired by some emo frontman of a band I like – or some sort of mix. I don’t really emulate individuals more certain broad styles, which all include black, lots of black.
3. What is your favourite quote?
I’m a big fan of quotes. I love quoting writers and revolutionaries all the time – and feel like I’ve really struck gold if I find quotes from revolutionary writers or creative revolutionaries. One of my favourites at the moment, stemming from my fascination with questions around writing and politics, is of course from Karl Marx.
“The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.”
4. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?
I like compliments. I don’t get that many of them, but remember a woman who came up to me after reading on the open stage at The Spinning Room one night and complimented me on my strong voice and my passion when reading.
5. What playlist/CD is in your CD player/iPod right now?
I’ve been playing Dead Letter Circus a lot on my iPhone lately. I probably listen to it at least once every day or two. Am half way through the album now.
6. Are you a night owl or a morning person?
I’m a night owl by nature, but a morning person by circumstance having to work 9 to 5. So I often blog and write in the morning at work, and having to go to bed at like 12 to get up for work, I lose those best hours when everyone is still asleep.
7. Do you prefer dogs or cats?
Definitely cats. Dogs and saliva don’t mix with me and I get grossed out. Cats are cleaner and usually less energetic so it would be nice to have one to hang around in the house when writing.
8. What is the meaning behind your blog name?
My blog name isn’t very original. It was even less original when I started it. It was ‘Benjamin Solah’s blog’ but now ‘Benjamin Solah, Marxist Horror Writer.’ It seems to catch people’s attention and I’m remembered for the tag line I gave myself, a kind of new genre which comes out of the belief that capitalism is a horrific system and fits well with the horror genre.
Now it’s time to tag other people…
Jodi Cleghorn
Sam Van Zweden
Karen Lee Field
Kath Lockett
Kara McElhinny
I’m not sure what I was doing with this piece, just letting my mind wander this morning, a little fantasy playing in my head on my way to work so this stemmed from real life and went totally off course.
—
The Red Tram
Photo by chudo.sveta
I woke up late like I meant to, but regretted it as soon as I did. I didn’t feel any more awake as the thought of heading to work induced a coma in my brain that not even my shower could wash away.
And I knew I’d feel like I was chasing time for the rest of the day.
On the tram, there was a kind of haze floating amongst the passengers, all crammed in. I’d expected less as most people ought to be at work by now but it occurred to me that I wasn’t the only one with the same idea.
All around Melbourne, many of us had woken up late, preferring to chase the day in return for a little more sleep. I bet they resented us all for being slack and unmotivated but what would it be like if we didn’t turn up at all?
What if the tram driver was later than us all? Would it stand idle? Would it drive itself?
What if we were floating along and the tram turned the other away? We’d be more than a little late. The tram would suddenly turn red, an invisible paint brush coating it all over and the red tram would glide away from the city to wherever we wanted to go. Not work, that was for sure.
The city would have a hole in it, the later-comers nowhere to be seen, not enough to serve coffee, half the call-centres empty.
And in my fantasy, I would drive the tram with my mind as I read a paperback in the back corner. It would turn and cross tracks because that’s what I’d want it to do. I’d drive it to Maribyrnong despite the network of tracks not connecting like that.
I wanted to do something productive, more than anything I could do in the city. The detention centre fences would rise on the horizon. They’d be too strong for bare hands (but maybe not bear hands) but a red tram in my control could plough through and set them free.
The wondrous eyes of people who’d never been free would climb on the tram and come with me. You see, they’d never lived a life where someone’s boot wasn’t on their back from home to here. There was always some army, some occupation, some form of detention or isolation.
In my red tram, we would float further away. I would look back and see. Screens of spreadsheets and databases would float over Melbourne’s skyline like holograms and reminders of what I was running away from.
But soon the tram would stop and let people off, people would slink back to reality and soon it would just be me, alone, in my red tram fantasy. It would be lonely and less what I wanted it to be.
And finally, I would get off. The tram would dissolve with my little dream. I would get back on a tram, back to the city. This new grey tram would grate and resist every kilometre back to work – and there were still too many hours in the day to go.
I would play loud music in my ears, drowning out the horrible sounds. The guitar strings would pull my nerves tight, bringing back into focus reality.
But my mind was still on that red tram that rode me out of the city.
—
For more flash fiction search for #FridayFlash on Twitter today or every Friday.
What kind of world do we live in where the attacker is portrayed as the victim? Wait, don’t answer that. A week doesn’t go by without some newspaper defending some rapist against the predatory urges of their victim.
But now the focus is on Australian soldiers who’ve been part of the occupation of Afghanistan. They killed a group of women and children. White men with machine guns killed unarmed women and children as part of an invasion into a country that is in ruins.
I seem to be missing the link that makes these soldiers the victim. The media seems to know what this mysterious link is because they continue to run story after story quoting soldiers at length about how unfair it is that they’re being charged for killing people.
There is barely a mention of the people killed, there is barely a word broadcast from Afghan people, and what they feel about their families and their people being killed in cold blood. Their views, their wishes don’t seem to matter. The sovereignty over their country means fuck all. The Australian army never got visas. They more than just jumped a so-called queue. When you come to a shore in a giant Navy destroyer instead of a leaky boat, there’s no talk about coming here legally or illegally.
The only thing they cite as why these troops fired was the so-called insurgent. An ‘insurgent’ in your own country? This man was most likely defending these people against the invasion. You really can’t blame him or any Afghan person who takes up weapons when they’re being invaded. Do people expect that they just lay down and take it?
The majority are against the invasion so it makes even more sense now to call for the removal of all troops – immediately – from Afghanistan. But the only alternate view being put forth is from the coalition calling for more troops. Abbott might as well be saying we need more killing of women and children.
And then we wonder why they come here on boats to seek a better life…
Daybreakers bucks the trend of modern day Vampire film with a nod to science fiction whilst going back to the dark and sinister.
The first thing you notice about Daybreakers is the dark and stylised aesthetic. It pulled me into the film, along with the world it slowly unfolded for me. It’s all set in very modern and corporate type settings, illustrating a kind of dark mood to a society driven by vampires.
This society is very much on verge of crisis. With vampires having taken over, the minority of humans are quickly becoming extinct and therefore the blood supply is running out. It has some parallels with real life; with economic crisis, food or oil shortages as well as global warming and climate change.
And I felt that it dealt with this with class. The division between the rich and poor was an obvious element to the world with those unable to afford the dwindling blood supply suffering.
Add to this the richer elements like Charles, played by Sam Neil. He heads a company researching a blood substitute but remarks “There will always be those willing to pay more for the real thing.” And Charles is evil. Not only did I enjoy the rich being the bad guy, but it’s a return to vampires as vicious and evil characters unlike the current trend of vampires like in Twilight.
I found the conflict between Edward and Charles as well as the underlying crisis within the society much more interesting than the more central plot which was with Edward fleeing with the humans and to help them find a cure to Vampirism.
Part of it may have been that I’m not much of a fan of Claudia Karvan, but there wasn’t a lot of inner conflict with this thread.
Another aspect that had more conflict was between Edward and his brother Frankie, who was in the army and had the job of trying to hunt humans. That kind of battle between Edward trying to regain his humanity and Frankie being faced with that and the purge of the ‘Subsiders’ – those that were mutated due to being starved of blood – made references to soldiers turning against the Iraq war.
There were lots of these seamless nods to real world events though they were never so obvious or jarred with the storyline. It all fit within the world and the story.
I’d have to say that the ending was a bit sudden and didn’t tie up a lot, but otherwise this was a great movie with the return of vampires as being sinister and a movie that relates to the world in a way I can agree with.
This piece was inspired by a few things; recent events, a couple of prompts or themes that a friend has been using to write for a student publication as well as this Friday’s [Fiction] Friday prompt from Write Anything: “Use this lyric from Shore Leave to flavour your story: “Hong Kong drizzle on Cuban heels””
—
Shoes in the Sea
Photo by JMVerco
Her shoes bobbed up and down in the green mass swirling around the group. They were beyond her grasp now and, as if they were conscious, moved toward the gap in the bars. Her father had saved for a whole year to buy them, heels from Cuba. When they had left, he had wanted her to leave them behind, hadn’t wanted people to wonder how they had managed to buy them. But she had held onto them until now.
The drizzle from clouds over the Indian ocean, coming from the East, had coated them when she had had them in her tight hands. The rain from the East and the ocean from the South merged now. The origin didn’t matter.
“Hold onto yourself,” his father pleaded with her, her fingertips wanting to let go to float through the bars with her shoes. She wouldn’t fit. She’d have to pass her uncle’s body floating face down metres from her. Her stomach protested at the thought. She couldn’t eat, even if she wanted to.
Her father hadn’t eaten for days, said he wouldn’t, said he’d rather be eaten from the inside.
The bars were becoming shorter and shorter, eaten by the green sea. They had left them there.
His taught fists turned red and white as they crawled around the grey. He would not float away, passive and given up. The cage remained unmoved by his body shaking it but only shaking him. Like a seizure, his eyes lit on fire, his teeth set and wide.
He was a strong man. Anger, a proud emotion tried to disguise the tears streaming down his face, the salt of his frustration mixing with the salt of the sea. They would not be moved. He had seen faces just as unmoving as the bars.
Men in suits had surveyed the cage, but they were long gone now, not even willing to let the sea spill on their shoes. Statuesque faces had nodded when the guards had given a demonstrative shake of the bars. They were not moving and they had been satisfied.
It was a lone face, just as on fire as his was now, that had chipped at the statue. The young face was alive, just on the horizon as the suited men had walked away. One slap. A squirt of blood, just as red as his. His only hope had been dragged away kicking and screaming.
They needed someone on the other side. She floated across to her father, tried to pull him away from things that wouldn’t budge.
“Help us,” he said to no one, “please.”
The green rose upward, coming so close. Was it too late? He wondered what it would’ve been like it that one angry face on the outside had multiplied, had been a sea of angry faces washing away the sea. A sea of angry faces gripping those bars until they bent just from the determination set in their jaws.
They would be free if there were more. The green that was about the choke the last of their life from their souls would be limitless and would carry them away, no longer dangerous. And she would be able to follow those shoes to wherever they wanted to go.
If only that face was a sea.
—
For more flash fiction search for #FridayFlash on Twitter today or every Friday.
I haven’t had a chance, until now, to respond to the events in Villawood Detention Centre over the last couple of days. The conditions and inhumane treatment has been pushed to breaking point and I can see no reason why this won’t continue until something happens.
For those that haven’t been following the story, a Fijian man, Josefa Rauluni, committed suicide inside Villawood Detention Centre on Monday by jumping off of a building’s roof. He was meant to be deported that day back to Fiji. As a pro-democracy activist, he’d most likely face torture back at home and said he’d rather die here than be sent back.
The immigration department didn’t care, ignored his pleas, were going to send him back anyway and put mattresses on the ground underneath before telling him to jump. Of course, he jumped and deliberately missed the mattresses.
Following that, up to 13 men climbed onto the roof over a 24 hour period in protest of this man’s treatment and their own treatment. They said they’d jump if their claims weren’t reconsidered. Some even had UNHCR cards confirming their refugee status.
The immigration department didn’t care, ignored their pleas, were going to send them back anyway. They used a cherry picker to pull dehydrated men off of the roof.
All of this follows a man dying in Curtin over a month ago, and protests inside Darwin Detention Centre a few weeks ago including Afghan men breaking out to stage a protest on a busy highway.
All of this has been more and more in the media. The plight of asylum seekers in Australia is becoming more and more in your face again. I think you’d have to be a monster to ignore it.
It’s all reminiscent of a time under Howard when hell holes like Curtin, Baxter and Woomera were forcing other asylum seekers to their own breaking point. Self-harm, suicide was all on the rise. Refugees were sewing their lips together, swallowing shampoo, refusing food.
These are all desperate acts from desperate people because, both then and now, the government gave them no options. They’re locked up indefinitely and they have no choice when they get back to places they fled from in fear of their lives.
And you have to say that, rather than be quiet and accept their fate, the protests and the struggle inside is a good thing. Anyone who actually cares about these people should stand with them and say that they support them. These struggles act as a flare, bringing attention to the horrific conditions the government puts them in.
A return to protests and hunger strikes from the detainees themselves is a rallying cry. When they did it last time, it inspired refugee activists to come and take a stand. We need to do it again.
I say it a lot. I say that we need to take a stand, I say that we need to get out on streets, I say that we need to protest. We really fucking do. Nothing changes unless we do. And we did it last time, we can do it again, but only if people do something.
Men, women and children are going to continue to be locked up, rot behind razor wire, be driven to suicide, and be sent back to their deaths unless we join with them in their protest.
In Melbourne on Friday, there will be an emergency protest calling for an end to mandatory detention. It’s at 5pm in the Bourke Street Mall in the city. I am sure there are others around the country, and there will be more in the future.
