RON BURROWS writes Get Out of the Bath and Do Something “Get out of the bath and do something,” said Cate Kennedy. “Make something happen. “It’s all internal the moment you say, ‘Things aren’t going well.’ The writers at the workshop nodded. Some of them wrote down the quote. Cate explained that it was internal forces that stopped people doing what they wanted. That’s a real-life situation. When it comes to plot in a story, though, you want the opposite. “Make things worse,” was Cate’s three-word answer later on to Bruno’s question about plot. She was “giving away gold” by sharing those three words she told her audience and then started handing out more bullion. Cate said readers don’t want to read Charles Dickens these days. They want to become involved in a story. A writer has to develop the skill of omission and learn to keep the “deep explicit meanings under the water. Our audiences are contemporary. Give them room to become involved.” “Metaphor – ” she laughed – “is the can-opener in the kitchen. I have to use a metaphor to describe a metaphor.” Before the group left the workshop to join the party at last night’s Rotunda in the West, Kennedy advised the writers to, “Put your foot forward and stamp your authority on the grid. You have to have authority. You’re saying to the reader, ‘Trust me. There is order here. A reader might wonder, ‘Why is she showing me this.’ You have to payoff later and answer that question. The trust has to be vindicated.” A young woman said to me the other day, “I’m one inch short of being a dwarf.” “That’s bullshit,” I said. “You’re pretty and you could seduce any man or woman you want with those eyelashes.” Short people don’t stay in the bath. Does anyone remember Tony Liberatore? Libber, the Footscray Football Club’s rover was only ‘one inch short of being a dwarf’ too. Bruno has never had time to even get in the bath! He’s a quick-shower man. “Archee Wa Wa 50th Rotunda,” was what was written on the banner before Bruno burst through it a la Libber. He ran up to the stage and hugged and kissed Hannie Rayson and Cate Kennedy as the audience cheered. Libber never got so lucky. Lisa, the lead singer in the trio ‘The BB’s’, knows how to stamp her authority when she sings. Her voice almost brought a tear to my eye when she sang Patsy Cline’s greatest love song. I’ve heard her sing this before and I could listen to her sing it every night. “I fall to pieces Each time I see you again I fall to pieces How can I be just your friend? You want . . .” There was a lot of talk and anecdotes about writing from Hannie Rayson, Cate Kennedy and Bruno Lettieri but Rayson also managed to use Rotunda as a forum to vent her feelings about the way our politicians have betrayed us. She said that she felt “unspeakably furious and impotent about Rudd’s lack of humanity towards the refugees.” Rayson also said that she thought the avant-garde in all fields was “bullshit” when she thought about the big issues like Climate Change. She said we were “dancing in the face of something huge.” How, for instance, was synchronised swimming going to help matters. On a recent trip to Mexico, where she was a volunteer worker in a poor village, Rayson asked some children why they were running to school at 6.30 in the morning. “Because we want to get a seat,” they said. We all got a seat and a piece of Rotunda-cake last night as teachers mingled with students. There was food and wine, beer and bonhomie. If you couldn’t make it last night I hope you can get out of the bath before the next event.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 01:43:08 +0000
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