The last thing of Bad Teeth’s photo essay from Brow 1, January 2007.
Chris Currie and Chris Somerville talk about their stories from Brow 7 (which is out in a couple weeks).
25th April 2010
Currie: Hey, so I can gchat now!
Somerville: ok, cool
Currie: Good start.
Somerville: i’d assume we’d edit in
Currie: This is going to look so good on a Tumblr
Somerville: like cut off the beginning
Currie: No, this is the good stuff.
Somerville: no, but i’m not even using capital letters, or full stops
Currie: I guess what I really wanted to ask about your story is, why did it display at 92% magnification when I opened it? Is this your magic writing number?
Somerville: It looks the best on my old screen, which was broken by a piano.
Currie: How?
Somerville: we had a piano keyboard plugged into the computer. Like a Casio.
Currie: So, the keyboard corrupted it, or did they smash together?
Somerville: yeah, it smashed when my brother Jack was moving the piano.
Currie: So now you have no computer?
Somerville: we have a new monitor, which is widescreen, but I originally wrote the story on the old computer
Currie: Excellent.
Somerville: hence 92%
Currie: Do you lie sideways now to write, on the widescreen? That’s what I’d do.
Somerville: I can’t even picture that
Currie: So you can view a longer page. By turning the alignment sideways on the page
Somerville: Oh, like taller?
Currie: And lying down, so it looks longer, by lying down
Somerville: no, everything is just really wide
Currie: So, anyway, is the Harold Holt story in your short story collection?
Somerville: That makes it sound like I have a book out
Currie: I’m just trying to make people know about your Premiers short listing. Big you up, etc
Somerville: haha, yeah, it is
Currie: I’m in the state library at the moment, I might go and request a copy of your collection, because I think they have it here.
Somerville: That will take a while. So is Retreat the first time you’ve published a story in first person and the narrator’s a woman?
Currie: Do you know what? One of the very first stories I had published, in the QUT newspaper, had a first person female narrative. I don’t remember much about it, but it was pretty bad
Somerville: what was it called?
Currie: Back then, QUT had this million-page tabloid newspaper they had to fill with so much stuff. It was genius. I can’t even remember what it was called.
Somerville: you’ve just published so much, it’s a blur
Currie: Remains of the Day, not that, but something like that. It was semi-humorous, in the way a trailer is a semi-trailer
Somerville: semi-trailers are bigger than trailers
Currie: But not semi-circles. What a mad mad world. How did you come up with using Harold Holt?
Somerville: The story’s pretty true to life, in that I did have an uncle who would tell people he was looking for Holt
Currie: And was he actually looking for him?
Somerville: I think so yeah, or at least that’s what I heard. The obsessive stuff is made up
and the pig, though I think someone in my family had a friend called Troy Ferrari
Currie: Troy Ferrari is a most excellent name
Somerville: the jig is up, I’m not really that creative at all
Currie: Do you think Holt is still alive on a Mexican trawler somewhere, like Olivia Newton-John’s husband?
Somerville: no, I don’t think so, the sea is a big thing
Currie: That’s true
Somerville: So I have prepared questions
Currie: Oh, really? Shoot
Somerville: ok, I don’t
Currie: Thank god. I thought I was woefully underprepared
Somerville: But do you feel that Retreat is a continuation of your small town themed stuff? much like your (soon to be published by Text) novel RECEPTION?
Currie: Haha. Yeah, I suppose so. It has themes I’d been kicking around in my book. The main character has similarities to one of the novel’s characters. Are you working on a longer piece? ie. Novel?
Somerville: I was, and then I stopped. No wait, I should be drumming up excitement
Currie: I found that the concept of a novel is fine, but that it uses very different writing muscles to a short story. And it’s fucking horrible, do you agree?
Somerville: At the moment, yeah. I had the idea that I’d write three novellas, with the same narrator, then just smash them together
Currie: This was going to be my question: Are you using a short story as a base for it, or are you thinking big from the outset?
Somerville: I have trouble thinking big
Currie: Please expand on “smash them together”
Somerville: I also like short stories a lot
Currie: Yeah, me too, and I see all these collections being publishing in the US
Somerville: it’s like a first love I had in high school that I never really got over. Though maybe that sounds bad
Currie: And there’s the title, and then a colon, and then the word Stories
Somerville: i’ll cut that
Currie: No no. I think that’s a great way to put it
Somerville: yeah ‘stories’ always appears on there, though I like the term ‘and other stories’
Currie: I guess. How did you plan on “smashing” three novellas together?
Somerville: either cutting them up, so it’s like different chapters in different time periods
or I guess just putting one after the other
Currie: So how would that not be a novel?
Somerville: I’m really just winging it, yeah I have no idea. It’s probably because you can keep one short story entirely in your head, right?
Currie: I like the idea. Sometimes it works better than a straight narrative. Like Denis Johnson or, more recently, Steven Amsterdam. I agree about keeping it in your head. There’s something satisfying about having a single world in your head
Somerville: sure, and I mean, you’re re-writing your novel now, can you keep that in your head at one time?
Currie: It’s very hard to do. I’m nearing the end, so I’ve spent a lot of time with the characters, so it does get easier. But in a novel so many details depend on so many other details, which can be problematic
Somerville: right
Currie: I’m not quite sure what that meant.
Somerville: does it mean that parts of the novel depend on the already existing context of the novel?
Currie: Yes. Especially when rewriting, changing one detail has a domino effect. And especially when your story is sort of a mystery story
Somerville: it orders a pizza?
Currie: There’s the funnies!
Somerville: I’m gonna push for that one being cut.
Currie: Do you know what? I think I’ve only seen you reading short
Somerville: sometimes I read novels
Currie: Do you enjoy reading SS more?
Somerville: I just read The Name Of The World, although that’s, let me check
Currie: And by SS I mean Schutzstaffel fan fiction
Somerville: yes, exactly, The Name Of The World is 129 pages, so that’s a novel, I suppose. It says ‘a novel’ on the cover
Currie: I’ve been thinking that my next book should be very short. I really really love a great short novel
Somerville: yeah
Currie: That way, reviewers can say “he achieved so much in so little space” or something
Somerville: “with such a small page count he allows the book to be almost word perfect”
Currie: Yes. And all the great ones are short.
Somerville: like
Currie: Like the Grug oeuvre
Somerville: Franny and Zooey?
Currie: Like Disgrace, Gatsby, Of Mice and Men etc
yes. Salinger. Although is Gatsby that short?
Somerville: the copy I have is 187 pages
Currie: I’d call under 200 pages short.
Somerville: how long is your book?
Currie: You know, they want it to be 70 000 words, but because I’m writing in Scrivener, I have no way of checking complete word count until I export it to Word. I think
Somerville: so you might get to the end, and then experience failure?
Currie: Yes, it’s going to be strange to see if it’s shorter or longer than draft one. It will be just like Christmas morning
Somerville: maybe you should start a bet
Currie: Nice idea.
Although, obviously, I could bet on three words, and make some cuts. How many words was your SS collection?
Somerville: only about 44,000, if that
Currie: Cool.
Somerville: there’s some dead weight in there though
Currie: Ain’t there always. I have this problem where I think: If every time I write, I get better, will I ever stop rewriting? That is assuming it gets better
Somerville: How often to you re-write a short story?
Currie: It’s been a while since I’ve done one, and usually I’m editing as I go, but maybe five times on average? How about you?
Somerville: it’s hard to say, because I have this problem where I re-write a paragraph again and again, until it looks right, then I move on to the next, which is really slow and then I get to the end and re-write again anyway.
Currie: Hey they’re about to kick me out of the library. Better head off. We can continue this soon though.
7th June 2010
Currie: AM I INTERRUPTING YOU?
Somerville: yes, I’m just drinking a tea
Currie: And I’m eating some trail mix. Shall we begin?
Somerville: yes
Currie: Wait, drinking “a tea”?
Somerville: do you want to know what the last thing you said was? Yes, a tea
Currie: What was the last thing I said, and how long has it been between our last Official G Chat and this one?
Somerville: ok, you said: Hey they’re about to kick me out of the library. Better head off. We can continue this soon though. And this was on the 25th of April
Currie: What fateful words. So, what’s been happening with you? Appeared in any publications I should know about?
Somerville: What are you leading in to?
Currie: Oh, you know… The New Y…. actually, maybe we should keep the audience in suspense. Build the sizzle
Somerville: Build the sizzle?
Currie: ssssssssss
Somerville: is that slang for suspense?
Currie: I believe it’s a radio term. Yes, suspense.
Somerville: Yes, ok, but I wasn’t in the New Yorker, just something I was involved in was mentioned on their blog.
Currie: Yeah, but THE NEW YORKER. And you’ve ruined the sizzle.
Somerville: Paper Radio make me way cooler than I am. Since obviously ‘a tea’ is the wrong terminology.
Currie: Yeah, it’s “having a cup of tea”, or “having some tea”. Anyway…
Somerville: are we going to go on the lifted brow blog and talk about rival publications
Currie: Fair point. Ronnie will cut us. Both literally and also with a knife.
Somerville: Yes
Currie: Is your story all edited and ready to go?
Somerville: so i revisited your story
oh, we’re doing me?
Yes, it is. Done and dusted.
Currie: Any great changes to what people might have heard at Newcastle? Or to what I’ve already read?
Somerville: Originally it was a letter. So that changed. I took out the ‘you’ in the story.
Currie: Oh really. So the character has a name.
Somerville: Harold Holt. It was a letter to Harold
Currie: True.
Somerville: I revisited your story
Currie: Yes
Somerville: and I realised in the first half of this conversation I was calling it Retreat, but that’s not its title.
Currie: That was the Wells Tower story, which I am very glad to be confused with, but no. It’s name is REALTY. Retreat would be just as good
Somerville: The version you sent me also had track changes on, so I got to read your mistakes and Ronnie’s notes
Currie: Ah crap
Somerville: So my question to you is: do you think there’s a good story to be made, that incorporates track changes?
Currie: I was about to say that Ronnie should do a complete issue with track changes as part of every story. That way, less work for him, and more for the reader. Like a DVD extra.
Somerville: the answer i was looking for was no
Currie: Strike one.
Somerville: no, I think it could be interesting
Currie: One of the things they were doing at MWF last year was projecting writers writing onto a giant screen, so you could see their process. It’s such an interesting thing to watch.
Somerville: So you could see them deleting?
Currie: Yeah. I didn’t get to see a whole lot of it, but it was cool. I watched Shaun Tan do drawings which was even better.
Somerville: Yeah.
Currie: I want them to do that at BWF, but hide the writers, so you don’t know who’s who. You just get a list
Somerville: I was filmed once for the news, and they made me simulate writing a story.
It was incredibly dull.
Currie: Freehand, or on a computer?
Somerville: On a computer
Currie: That’s crazy. So do you write straight onto a computer?
Somerville: It was just stupid, but what are they going to do?
Currie: Have you act out your story
Somerville: With puppets. I carry around note cards too, and write on them
Currie: Really? Like index cards?
Somerville: Yeah, sometimes. I keep them in my bed, actually
Currie: Inside the bed?
Somerville: No, like on the mattress.
Currie: So you sleep on them
Somerville: It’s not like i’m hiding money
Currie: No, just that you absorb ideas through your skin while you sleep
Somerville: I have a double bed, or the headboard. Actually I have books all over the headboard
Currie: That is a very cool thing to do. I’ve heard about these books. They fall on your head sometimes.
Somerville: Sometimes. And now everyone knows about how I sleep
Currie: I’ll upload the pictures afterwards.
Somerville: tinypic
Currie: The pictures will all be of monkeys in various states of circus play.
Somerville: yes, to keep with our theme, of monkey based image swapping. But, getting back to your fiction
Currie: Tale as old as time. Yep
Somerville: Both our stories are almost the same length
Currie: Oh really?
Somerville: yeah, like early 800’s
Currie: It feels like a strange length
Somerville: I usually write very short things, so what’s your excuse?
Currie: haha
Somerville: it’s three pages on double space
Currie: and generous indenting
Somerville: yes
Currie: The story actually came from a post I’d written for the blog, but I changed it around a bit and actually scooped up a bit of one of the characters from my book. Put her into the scenario
Somerville: who? the woman is in the book?
Currie: Well, yes and no.
Somerville: which woman do you mean, the older one or the narrator?
Currie: I was writing the book at the time, and fleshing out the woman’s back story, which suddenly had this relationship with her mother. It’s a police woman, a 32 year-old
Somerville: so you’ve finished your book for now
Currie: Yes, second draft is sitting with the publishers.
Somerville: You’ve entered text, but you haven’t hit enter. I think people should know you’re stalling.
Currie: Sorry, I was just trying to find the original story from the blog: http://tinyurl.com/2g647kd
Somerville: We’ll retain that link. Also: I hate you
Currie: BAM. Here’s the actual story: http://www.furioushorses.com/2008/07/helvetica.html
Somerville: Do I have to read it?
Currie: No, but it’s there for posterity.
Somerville: good show
Currie: It’s just unusual to have a record of an earlier version. And it is very different. It’s two guys in the first story, not a guy and a girl
Somerville: So you’re trying to prove that you did actual work
Currie: I’m just finishing off my trail mix
Somerville: and didn’t just submit something you had lying around?
Currie: Yes, verified by science! It was a procrastination tool from writing my second draft.
Somerville: What was, the blog?
Currie: No, that story. Well, actually, yes the blog was a year-long distraction from the novel, which I was thoroughly sick of.
Somerville: but if the story is set in the same universe as the novel, then doesn’t this count towards working on your draft?
Currie: I should add I was contracted for the book well after the blog project. I’d just written a version of it earlier. Yes, same universe I guess, but a far off universe.
Somerville: that’s not the same universe
Currie: Do you see links emerging through your stories, esp. the collection you’re working on now? Do you see them as part of the same “universe”?
Somerville: Yeah, cause I’ve been re-writing it through a mentorship thing which is really horrible by the way, as well as being good
Currie: In what way?
Somerville: hang on my dog is whimpering to be let in
Currie: No probs
Somerville: it’s great because I enjoy re-writing and I like working on things to make them better, but it’s also bad because it makes me feel like everything is inadequate
and that I worry that whatever, like, spark that was there in the first place, that i’ll ruin it
Currie: Yeah, true. But I guess you have to trust that each time you come back to it, you’re a better writer. But there is that strange feeling of not knowing when it’s at its best
Somerville: Sure, and last night I scrapped an entire story
Currie: Woah. To be replaced with another?
Somerville: Maybe, some are getting longer though
Currie: Really?
Somerville: but, you know, it didn’t really fit in with the rest. And it’s that universe thing, like it felt out of place
Currie: This was going to be my question: Are the other stories moving closer together in theme? But you answered it
Somerville: I also wrote it when I was 18. Before I met you actually, so like 1 BC
Currie: Those dark days
Somerville: Before Currie
Currie: hur hur
Somerville: I’m here all week folks
Currie: So how many stories are in the collection now?
Somerville: 23
Currie: Nice. Can you describe the “universe” that the stories are occurring in, or is that too awful a question?
Somerville: Describe it?
Currie: Yeah, I’m being too vague
Somerville: it’s a world without passions
Currie: Is it “real world” I guess is what I’m asking
Somerville: Governed by a senate, of owls
Currie: I think you’ll find it’s a Parliament of Owls
Somerville: I’m gonna cut that bit out
Currie: AND RUIN MY JOKE
Somerville: also you misused ‘literally’ but I wasn’t gonna bring it up
Currie: That was also a joke.
Somerville: the misuse of literally?
Currie: Yes. Are you referring to where I said Ronnie would cut us, both literally and also with a knife? Because that means the same thing!!!
Somerville: yes, so the literal part is with the knife
Currie: Oh god
Somerville: am I wrong, you’ve made me doubt myself
Currie: No I was playing on the expectation that you thought I was going to say, Ronnie will cut us, both literally, and also from the journal
Somerville: oh right
Currie: Can we put the word REDACTED a lot in this chat?
Somerville: because I want to go back to the real world question.
Currie: Go right ahead
Somerville: the answer is yes and no, because most of them are domestic, you know, but then I have a few that take place in a kind of different universe, without that term invoking unicorns and triple moons
Currie: No, I agree. The best short story collections—at least for me—are the ones that are recognisably “of this world” and yet inhabit their own reality. Like, no one else could have taken me here.
Somerville: like George Saunders?
Currie: Yeah, but not even as obvious as that. Some of your heroes, the Carvers and Cheevers. It’s still THEIR world
Somerville: Right. Did you know this conversation is over 3500 words?
Currie: Holy shit
Somerville: which is more than either of us wrote, combined, for the issue.
Currie: THINK ABOUT THE IRONY
Somerville: do you think using capital letters is the new way to be ironic on the Internet?
Currie: And we only used the phrase “triple moons” once I think?
Somerville: that’s true, it’s to get that Twilight crowd
Currie: Robert Pattinson. Pattison?
Somerville: I don’t know who you mean, is he a crime writer, like you?
Currie: He’s the guy, from the thing! Crime writer, eh? I am also a YA author, because one of my main characters is nine years old.
Somerville: YA crime is a big market these days
Currie: Yeah, people lap up underage murder. PULL QUOTE!
Somerville: were you disappointed not to be on the 20 under 40 list? From the NY’r
Currie: I really wanted to put something funny on Twitter about that, but I couldn’t find a way in. Did you agree with the list? Somerville? I wish to acknowledge your absence from this chat.
Somerville: Sorry my phone rang. The list was ok
Currie: Do you think this conversation will be the social media hit that Ben and Michaela’s was?
Somerville: No, they are both funnier than us.
Currie: Can we link to it?
Somerville: We can fix that up in post. (link)
Currie: You know I don’t actually know what ZZ Packer has written
Somerville: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Currie: I’ve got the new Gary Shteyngart at work
Somerville: Riveting
Currie: The youngest person on there is 24! P.S. Screw you
Somerville: she’s published two stories, but maybe they read her upcoming book
Currie: Her book has endorsements from fucking TC Boyle and Ann Patchett
Somerville: TC Boyle and Ann Patchett both fucking and endorsing books at the same time.
Currie: We should make reference to some current events, so it looks like we’re not lying about chatting this far apart. How about that Sinkhole?
Somerville: What sinkhole?
Currie: In Guatamala
Somerville: Wasn’t that like a week ago? You know it’s a shame we had the gap.
Currie: Alright. How about those MTV awards?
Somerville: Because I came up with a really good analogy for writing
Currie: Go on
Somerville: and it tied in to why I like the band the Avalanches, and why I dislike the band Girl Talk, and now I’ve forgotten it. But, it was really good, I remember thinking that at the time
Currie: We can put it in later, like special effects
Somerville: I can’t remember it though
Currie: I just redacted a LOTR reference. Redactyl
Somerville: Pter-edactyl. Sorry, that’s really lame.
Currie: Yep. How about literature, though?
Somerville: Maybe we should wrap it up on my feelings of regret.
Currie: Yes
Somerville: Say one illuminating thing. One more illuminating thing
Currie: Please wait while I Google a Borges quote
Somerville: That’s it! See you in the real world soon
Currie: To fall in love is to
Sister Sex by Krissy Kneen
Krissy’s final Sister Sex column. Thanks for “Juning it up for June”, KK!
++
I don’t want to have sex with her. If I really think about it that isn’t what I want at all. I hate her hard edges and her angry hair and I don’t want her to touch me at all. She is like a broken thing with edges and I imagine her making love would be the same angry push and pull. I knew my place and I was prepared to stay in it. Never as good, never as strong, never as hard working.
The truth is I imagine we made love. Love as in sex. Sex as in getting closer, one body to another, getting so close that you are inside each other. I pretend this because she is just a hard shell of a person and there is no soft place anywhere. She fights her battles on all fronts. She makes better paintings, she makes better friends with relatives. She makes better love to the people who were once my lovers.
I don’t want to have sex with her but she has sex to fight with me and I just roll over and let my neck become exposed even though I don’t want her to savage me and I don’t want her to kiss me and I don’t want her hugs which feel like she is all glass that has been broken.
I want her to go away and not to touch me and not to hurt me but even her distance seems to cut just a little.
I remember playing with a friend in the corridor at our house. Just some stupid game. She called all my games stupid. Baby games. But we were playing and it was fun because it wasn’t often I had someone come round to play with me. She came from nowhere, swooping down like a condor and her fingers like talons to rip flesh, but she wasn’t ripping, she was scrambling and poking in my ribs so I would laugh uncontrollably only she didn’t stop when I laughed and I couldn’t get any breath in and my friend was watching me and she still didn’t stop even though I might die from lack of air and then my bladder straining tight, and letting loose, like it does when you are hanged. And her still tickling, hanging me as I wet myself right there in front of someone who had been my friend.
I imagine we had sex because that would be the secret that makes us more together, like friends against the world, like dirty secrets that need to be kept by an ever-lasting bind. I dream that we did things we never did because that would give us something to be together about.
I call my sister on the phone but it goes straight to a message about how it is a wrong number and she is gone, just like that. All the air is out of me and I can’t take anymore in and I need to pee so bad that I might let it all go right here, on the bench, on the street, in the middle of nowhere with a whole bunch of nobodies looking at me doing it. But I don’t. I am all grown up now. I stand and put the phone back into my pocket and I go to find a public toilet and when I have gone I don’t feel all that relieved at all.
SISTER SEX by Krissy Kneen
I don’t like his wife. I have never liked any of his girlfriends. He is right when he tells me that I will never be happy for him. His happiness seems to be proportionate to my own unhappiness.
The last time I was happy it was just us, him and me. Us against the world. His first girlfriend came after the fighting. I wondered if he started the fighting just so he could go out with her without feeling guilty about me. Me at the centre of the world which is what he is always accusing me of. It is not all about you. But his girlfriend, I think, was actually about me. She was about as opposite to me as you could make her. She had pale skin and pale hair and blushing pale cheeks and eyes that never looked at you because she was being shy and pretty all the time. She wore cardigans and little old-fashioned dresses with flowers on them. She looked really tiny in those dresses like if she missed a meal she would starve completely to death. I said all of this to him and yes, I was picking a fight because he could love her and he wouldn’t love me.
Why don’t you just punch me in the face I said to him, watching the spit come out and settle on the front of his hoodie.
Don’t you think I have done enough damage? He said to me then and we both nodded. He nodded because he thought that sleeping with me did the damage. I nodded because I knew that not sleeping with me did the damage.
He is not sleeping with his wife and I look at her in her little baby doll dress and I see that sad look in her face and I know that it is a similar sad look to my own. The people who have been abandoned by my brother. She and I should be firm friends, but instead I hate her because at one point it was possible for him to lover her. I am sorry for her and I hate her all at once.
It can’t be me and him against the world, not even now when he is separated and I know how he will be feeling and I could comfort him. We sit at the table with the rest of the family and his sad wife two seats away from him and only me knowing that they are ending it now. She told me. She said she knew we were close, him and me and I laughed then because we haven’t been close for years.
What can I do to stop this happening? What can I do to save it.
Nothing can save it of course. My brother burns all things down and then he rises from our ashes and he builds something else up until it is almost done and ready to be undone.
Sleep in a separate room, I tell her because I can’t bare to think of her with her skinny little naked body beside his. Don’t let him have sex with you, remembering his perfect penis rising all gorgeous and erect from his lap. Don’t let him kiss you, because his kisses are the thing I have never let go of. The feeling like his mouth is a perfect mirror image of my own. The kiss being the place where the edges of him blur into the edges of me. More so than even sex itself. More than when I take him in my mouth and swallow a part of him. All of this sadness sitting bitter in my stomach because he is my brother and they say it is wrong for us but I know it is the best thing ever and I will never, ever, have the best thing ever again.
