Dinner with Fish
Wednesday, 07 June, 2006
What's all this stuff about dinner with Fish? A couple of weeks ago, Fish emailed to say that he would be in town (he comes from Dubbo) and would we all like to get together for dinner? After much to-and-fro-ing on the email, we settled on Monday as an appropriate night to have it. Bron offered to be taxi and we picked up Loren on the way and met Marinka there. Ken was coming down with a bug and didn't think it sensible of him to come so there was only the six of us.
Fish was staying in Chippendale and in his rather cryptic email, he told us to dress warm and bring a drink (but not mineral water). It was a very dark and rainy night, but despite the cold and the damp, he took us the roof of the apartment block where he was staying, seated us in the BBQ area and then proceeded to bring up cutlery, crockery and a sumptuous meal for all of us that he'd cooked himself—grilled chicken, and roast potatoes with zucchini, mushroom and bacon. Yum! And so we ate dinner on the roof and talked about what topics we'd choose on Jeopardy.
And then we set forth into the city, trying to find somewhere nice and warm to have coffee and maybe dessert. We ended up walking all the way to Glebe and settled ourselves in a quirky little café called Badde Manors where we ended up having yummy things like poppyseed rolls, Turkish spiced milk and tiramisu. I showed everyone the first 8 pages of my graphic novel, and they were all very polite and didn't make any disparaging comments about my total lack of drawing skills. Fish also gave me some very useful feedback which I have to think some more about. (One of the things he said was that there was no conflict—not much to keep the reader wanting to go on. But then I thought Ghost World and Blankets don't have any either so I'm not sure how big an issue it is. And I showed it to Guan yesterday and he said he'd keep reading.)
It was 11 pm when we finally decided to leave and walk all the way back to Chippendale. I was in a bit of a silly mood and I thought how strange it was to have dinner on a rooftop and walk ten blocks to have Turkish spiced milk on a Monday night with work tomorrow ...
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Other comments
Yo Karen, conflict is overrated anyway.
Or at least in the conventional sense.
I’d love to see some of your graphic novel if you’d be willing to put it up.
Thanks for the encouragement, Shy! I’m thinking about putting it up—see comment I wrote in response to Craig on my last post.
Hi Karen,
I don’t know what Craig means by ‘conflict’, it would depend upon what the message of your graphic novel is. Is it autobiographical, a story? Or conceptual?
I’d love to see it too, my husband want to write a graphic novel, he’s no artist, but he’s a pretty good drawer, I think its really the whole package that makes a good graphic novel.
I.e the writing, the story told, the tone conveyed are all important, not just brilliant drawing.
Carte de Voyage ( Craig thompson’s latest) has no dramatic tension, its just a travel diary, but its great. The little character descritpions etc..
Well, I reckon conflict is at the heart of narrative - it keeps the pages turning. Conflict in a broad sense I’m talking about, of course.
It doesn’t have to be much. Look at Shiloh’s “Raven” pictures - there is conflict of a sort in every 2nd frame. Lots of questions you want resolved. It makes you want more, doesn’t it?
Thanks, Amy! I didn’t realise Craig Thompson had written another one!
I reckon your husband should give writing a graphic novel a try. I’m certainly enjoying trying out a different medium!
But I’m thinking at the moment I won’t put it up here until I’ve finished the whole story. It’s more useful getting feedback on the whole thing rather than just part of it.