An extract from my novel ‘Misplaced’

I hear a car beep. I say goodbye to my parents and head outside. Fotis is the designated driver tonight. I climb into the back seat next to Steven and my cousin Milos. Mario is in the front seat. Greek dance music plays lightly through the speakers.

‘Hey guys.’

‘Hey,’ they all say together.

Fotis reverses out of the driveway. All the boys except Fotis are drinking cans of UDH premixed vodka.

‘Man – why’d you guys go to the bottle shop without me?’

‘Relax – here.’ Milos hands me a raspberry vodka.

‘Oh – you’re legend!’ I kiss Milos on the cheek. I notice a small chuck of Milos’s dark-brown hair is sticking up. ‘Your hair – hang on – there, that’s better.’

‘Thanks, Cuz.’

‘Anyone got chingoons?’

‘Ella!’ Milos folds his arms across his chest.

‘Me.’ Steven presents his packet to me. I take one and Steven flicks his lighter for me. I take a deep drag and wind down my window. Milos is looking out of his window. I pinch his waist and he lets out his high-pitched laugh then grabs me in a head lock.

‘My ciggie,’ I yelp, and now they’re all laughing.

He releases me, looks into my eyes. ‘What am I gonna do with you?’

I smile at him. ‘Nothing, Cuz.’

‘And what about all the drinking?’

‘Let me be…’

‘And the short skirts?’

‘I’ve got one underneath this one…’

‘And all that kissing – don’t kiss anyone tonight okay?’

‘Okay,’ I smirk. ‘I love you too.’

I finish my ciggie and pop open my can of vodka. The boys start talking footy and I zone out, drink and watch the brick-veneer wog palaces fly by, each one more revolting than the next. Every once in a while there’s a plain Aussie weatherboard. I can’t wait til the day I am out of Epping – out of the wog-infested northern suburbs. Away from the wogs, and the gossip, and the ‘I can’t do this’, and ‘I can’t do that’. It may have flat, new roads, and huge chunks of affordable land, and vibrant green lawns, and big backyards with wog veggie gardens, but that’s not the real northern suburbs. No. That’s all for show. That’s all for the mums, and their Tupperware parties and Bessemer parties, and their ‘look at my house’, and my garden, and my kristala, and my formal dining room, and my good daughter, my well-behaved virgin daughter. Underneath all that – that’s the real northern suburbs. I’m the real northern suburbs – buried with all the fucking bullshit under the well kept lawns and the blooming fucking plum trees.

Wordiness

How many words are too many? How important is word count? Do the rules change when you’re an established writer compared to when you’re just starting out? These are some of the questions I tackled completing the 7th draft of my manuscript, Misplaced. It was daunting – I reduced my word count from 130,000 words to 80,000. Is it possible to cut so many words without losing your story? Should we be bringing the razor to our work just because publishers want us to?

A year ago, a writer friend of mine advised me to cut down – I scoffed at her. Cut down? Why? This is my story. After all, the debut novel of one of my favourite writers, Paulina Simmons, is 500 pages and about 200,000 words. If she can do it why can’t I?

The talk at the moment in publishing is that the optimum length for a debut novel is 70,000 words. Publishers have limited budgets for first time writers and producing larger books is too expensive. In a way, it almost doesn’t seem fair. Take Paulina’s ‘Bronze Horseman’ trilogy. The first book was brilliant, around 500 pages. The second was a laborious read – the first half was a rehash of the first book, the second half was entertaining enough. The third book was 900 pages – I couldn’t finish it. Publishers would justify that she has a following and readers that love the first book will buy the others regardless of the wordiness. This is a classic example of the leadway publishers allow established writers.

Another example of a wordy book – Christos Tsiolkas’s ‘The Slap’. I wouldn’t take a single word out of that book even though it’s got to be around 170,000 words. It’s a pivotal book to Australian Literature. But what if that was Christos’s first book and he cut it down to 70,000 words because that was what publishers expected? How many Christos Tsiolkas writers are there out there chopping out words in the hope of being published? Anyone would agree cutting down ‘The Slap’ would be a disastrous mistake. Is this expectation on emerging writers moulding our literary space into something for the better or worse?

To me, the Paulina Simmons days where a debut novelist can publish a huge book are over. I still would have cut down my manuscript regardless but this expectation was definitely an influencing factor. Anything that increases your chances of getting published can’t be ignored. Surprisingly I had more happening in this draft than my previous draft. Less is more. But I think emerging writers need to remind themselves that it’s okay to have wordy drafts when you start out. Redrafting isn’t about adding and removing commas or changing a word here or there, it’s an experimentation of ideas, themes and characters. It’s about allowing your creativity to take you where it wants to take you. Then one day you’ll get to a draft and the characters will be so alive that they’ll tell YOU their story. That’s when the true writing begins.

First published @Overland 18-11-2009

The story (a poem)

The story must come out,
ripping like hurls of vomit /
of an infectious plague
that locks away
crazy.

It tears at a body
that coughs up in resistance /
green phlegm and acid /
with seized up hands
of sand.

The story must come out /
at the ‘You’re not going in
there, Mummy’ / and the
‘one more cuddle,
Mummy’ /
You’re a shitty mummy,
Mummy / where is your next child,
Mummy / you should clean,
Mummy / or work,
Mummy / stop chasing dreams,
Mummy.

You – are – a – fucking – lousy – mummy,
Mummy.

The story will come out /
against walls of fucking brick /
of ‘no children at
Rosebank – sorry
that’s for
dedicated writers
to finish their manuscripts’ /
and ‘your submission’s
unsuccessful
but please
celebrate our writers’.

The story will punch out /
at the ‘I won’t read your work
you didn’t read mine’ /
at the snubby
elite /
while I drag heaviness
through fields of mud.

Why am I doing this again?
Oh – right – the story’s got to come out.

It shrills out in the night
where wide eyeballs scribble notes /
and voices not mine
scream lost.

Varuna deadlines loom /
‘Why aren’t you coming to my birthday?’
Where’s my sister, Koraly?
My cousin, Koraly?
My wife, Koraly?

Is that Ella in Cyprus or me?
Is that Ella in love or me?
Is that Ella fighting with Harry or me?
Is that Ella slashing her wrists or me?

© Koraly Dimitriadis
First published on the Overland website 8/11/2009

Where is Koraly?

Where is Koraly? Why hasn’t she blogged in weeks? Koraly is in another space, in a world she created just for you. She is trying to interpret Ella’s mind, fighting with Harry, laughing with Sandra, tormenting Anna.

Koraly is falling in love.

Koraly is analysing what it means to be a wog in Australia. She’s trying to understand why Ella longs for Cyprus like she was born there. Koraly is living and breathing the seventh draft of Xenos. And yes, she is re-writing the entire manuscript – that’s what a draft is. It isn’t polishing, or moving words around, it is re-writing. Each draft of a novel explores characters, story, plot. You start with a vague idea and the more drafts you do, the clearer it all becomes until your characters are ALIVE on the page, living, breathing, and the story writes itself. You don’t tell THEM what happened, they tell YOU. That’s where Koraly is. For the first time ever, her characters are ALIVE. Koraly’s sitting at her computer, typing away, channeling the story.

She doesn’t sleep much.

She’s shut out the world.

The only world she knows is Ella’s.

Don’t worry, she’s not alone – Dalaras and Hatzigiannis are keeping her company.

Koraly will be away until mid November, until the seventh draft of her manuscript is finished. It was once called Xenos, but now she’s thinking, ‘Broken Aphrodite’. Any thoughts on that title, Koraly asks, from somewhere deep within the pages?

When Koraly comes back from her trip, she’ll have a lot to talk about on this blog.

Uni made me dumb – outrage over the government’s skills reform

Before I started university, years and years ago, I would read a book a week. I would let my imagination lead me into worlds created by masters and they would feed my soul. My first loves were R.L Stine and Christopher Pike, then Virginia Andrews. When people looked for me they would find me behind the cover of a book. Books taught me fancy words my migrant parents would raise their eyebrows at. Books gave me so much – grammar, escape, an appreciation for the English language.

Then came uni.

When I started my Accounting – Computing degree, I stopped reading. Sorry, that’s a lie. I did read – text books. I also slept in lecture theatres – my Accounting degree went in one ear and came out the other. My vocabulary died. My imagination dried up. My writing suffered while I wrote code instead of short stories:

Public String victorianGovernment = ‘clueless imbeciles’;

Excuse my assigning the variable ‘government’ with ‘clueless imbeciles’ but right now, that’s how I feel about the government and their neatly packaged ‘Skills Reform’. If you visit the skills reform website you may be excited by phrases such as ‘new funding to create over 170,000 new training places’ or ‘upgrade TAFE facilities’ and the one I love most ‘more opportunities for training throughout your adult life and flexible fee arrangements’. All these phrases are enough to get the average stay-at-home mother excited about the prospect of a new life.

Unfortunately, they may have to think again.

See, what I don’t understand is, why can’t the government just be honest? Why do they have to package the truth with propaganda and shiny marketing material? The truth is, with the changes implemented by the government in July 2009, it may cost you almost as much to go to TAFE as it does to go to uni. How much it will cost depends on which basket you fall into.

Greek Film Festival: Bang Bang wedding

Bang Bang Wedding staring Alex Dimitriades, is set on the island of Crete in Greece. The film spans one day – Ilias and Marina’s wedding. This comedy brings us many colourful and humorous characters, all guests of the wedding, and follows them as they travel the island of Crete to get from the church to the reception of the wedding. The scenery in this film is spectacular and made me want to book a ticket to Greece – tomorrow.

There were some hilarious moments in this film. However, sometimes I felt that the comedy was bordering on farce – each situation that unfolded was more unbelievable than its predecessor. It was funny at the start but after a while it became a little boring and repetitious. Most of the film takes place while guests are in their cars and it wasn’t long before I was nauseated. Some of the best acting was done by the supporting actors, particullarly the mothers and the maid of honour – Ilias and Marina were a bit of a letdown. I didn’t feel the love or chemistry between them. When Alex’s character, Illias, was first introduced, he awkwardly stuck out – everyone was speaking fluent Greek, and fast, while Alex’s Greek wasn’t as confident. It wasn’t revealed until the end of the film that Ilias had only been in Greece for 5 years which is information I would have liked from the start.

Greek Film Festival: A Woman’s Way – Strella

In the film A Woman’s Way – Strella, Yiorgos has just been released from prison after a fifteen-year sentence. He checks himself into a small hotel and begins the search for his son, whom he has not seen in all this time. Strella – a tall woman, with long, thin legs and thick brown hair – is also staying at this hotel. She is a transsexual prostitute, and I just couldn’t believe she was previously a man – she was stunning. Strella uses the hotel when she is with her clients but has her own house in Athens. Yiorgos and Strella begin a relationship together and Strella invites Yiorgos to stay with her. Their relationship blossoms, the feelings and love between them believable and heart-warming. But when Yiorgos uncovers a secret about his son, everything changes.

Through Strella’s eyes the audience is taken into the world of the transsexual where we meet funny, lovable and unique characters. But Strella outshines them all with her honesty, compassion and humour. The acting for Strella’s character is natural and believable. Some of the sex scenes in this film are confronting but all within context. The transsexual life today is misjudged and misunderstood by many. I admire this film’s ability to clear the air and show these woman facing problems and dealing with life just like everybody else does. Through Strella the audience is exposed to issues of the rebirth – when a man becomes a transsexual – and the blurring of boundaries when it comes to love.

Greek Film Festival: Well kept secrets – Athanasia

Athanasia was born in Greece but lives in America with her American husband. She has one daughter, Angela, who is also married, and one grandchild. However, the secrets of Athanasia’s past haunt her relationship with her daughter. When Angela learns that her American father is not her biological father, she returns to Greece to find her real father and to uncover her mother’s past.

The narrative of the film moves from the present to Athanasia’s heartbreaking past and back again. There were moments where I was moved to tears by all the hardship that Athanasia endured. However, it was unclear by the end of the film if Angela, the daughter, had uncovered Athanasia’s story. The film moves from the past to the present but the two don’t seem to be linked in any way.

Greek Film Festival: The last homecoming

The last homecoming – the only film in the Greek Film Festival set in Cyprus – was still tugging at my heart the day after. I left the cinema wiping tears from my eyes and so proud that a Cypriot had made such a beautiful film that appealed to a large audience – younger and older generations, Cypriots and non-Cypriots.

This film takes us to the shores of Cyprus into the heart of a small, tight-knit village where everyone knows everyone’s business. The Cypriot dialect is thick and convincing and the characters are colourful, exciting and mysterious. It is 1974 and although Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots live together in harmony, tensions are rising as some believe there should be ENOSIS with Greece and while others do not.

From the first 10 minutes of the film I knew I was in capable hands – director Corinna Avraamidou knows about story and how to create a story. The pace of this film was perfect, never too slow or too fast. The inciting incident was clear – Alexandra, a Greek beauty, handing a letter to Stefanos in secret. They have never met. Both characters have similar political agendas and do not want ENOSIS with Greece.

Greek Film Festival: Tale 52

Tale 52, directed by Alexis Alexiou, begins with a dinner party – Iasonas is the host and Penelope, a guest invited by one of Iasonas’s friends. The story hints to a spark between Iasonas and Penelope and so the story begins. This film experiments with reality and the dream and you never really know if Iasonas is awake or sleeping, a psychopath or someone that’s being tricked. Alexiou does an interesting job of portraying this but what has ultimately been forgotten is story – you end up right where you started, and feel confused and cheated. If you need a film that has a story and character development, you will probably find yourself very irritated with the acting – which is mediocre at most – or staring at the walls. For those who love thrillers, you may find it entertaining.

Koraly’s rating: 1 1/2 stars