I hope they don't ask me about fashion tips, all I'm going to be able to give them is a list of my favourite op shops and their respective odours. Can someone remind me which decade's fashion is back in vogue again? Is it the 1980s or the 1560s?
Just to update; my ebay ad has had 100 views in 24 hours and so far I've been offered a vacuum cleaner, tapes, and a degree in the performing arts. Members of the conservative community might well argue that these items are all of equivalent economic value. If you have something that took you three years to make or attain, whether it be a replica of the millennium falcon made from paddle pop sticks or the rights to your patent for a biochemical weapon that makes everyone sound exactly like Fran Drescher then go ahead and place a bid.
It's
been a busy week. I've been flat out organising the interstate tour and
doing radio interviews (you know it's going to be quality airtime when
the guy out of the front of the station greets you with a joint in his
hand). My novel was finally released in Australia this week, and man,
Oprah will just NOT GET OFF MY CASE. Seriously. Yesterday she rang me
up and she was all like:
“Oh my god I loved your boooook!"
You
know, with that rising voice thing she does. Let me tell you, it might
be endearing to watch on your telebox but it is PAINFUL to listen to in
your ear. So I was like,
"Listen Oprah, I'm actually on the last level of
Street fighter IV. Can you txt me later?"
“When can I get you on my show? I was going to have the Olsen twins on in January but their agent just called and said they'll be in rehab or prison or terrorist training camp or some crap. You free then?”
"Yeah Listen O-town I'm actually going to be in Cambodia writing the next book in January."
“Well can I at least get a review to tweet to my peeps?"
"Seriously, O-face, have you ever tried to beat Zangief on level 7? It's f**king hard. And trying to do so with an overexcited billionaire yammering on is making it a lot harder. Look, I'll write you a goddam review myself. Here tis:"
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO DYING IN INDIA
BY JM DONELLAN
(REVIEWED BY JM DONELLAN)
Look, I don’t know what the hell I was
thinkingwhen I wrote this. Didn’t I realise that no one reads books unless
they are about vampires or wizards? Perhaps I should have written a book about
a young vampire wizard on a quest to unlock an ancient mystery hidden within a
famous painting whilst pursuing romance with a sexy rockstar who leads a
double life as a crime scene investigator. That’d really get the money men
drooling.
+ +
= best selling piece o' crap ever.
Everyone from the tweenies to gay twenty-somethings to soccer mums
would be trampling over each other to get to their nearest Borders to pick that
shit up. It’d probably even be adapted into a movie directed by an ex-porn star
struggling to gain some credibility.
I mean, look at the vocabulary in
this book. Kaleidoscopic? Prometheal? It’s like I expect people to use a
dictionary, or their BRAINS or something? This book doesn’t mention twitter
even once! Was it written in the middle ages? A Beginner’s Guide to Dying in
India has been called ‘witty and poignant.’ Poignant? When was the last time
you saw an ultra-hip Gen Y scenester type the word poignant into their iphone?
Never. That’s when.
"Does 'poignant' have two umlauts or three?"
My main regret is that this book
took me three years to put together from having the first spark on the rooftop
on a hotel in the Himalayas to telling my publishers to ‘shove it’ when they
wanted me to tweak the final chapter so that it featured a sex scene occurring
in a helicopter as the heroes escaped the exploding casino. It makes me cry to
think of all the things I could have done in that time. I could have learned
jujitsu, how to juggle flaming chainsaws, or how to make a clarinet out of a carrot.
You
know, stuff that would impress girls, instead of sitting in front of a laptop
for weeks on end bathing in my own sweat and trying to think a better metaphor
than ‘more out of place than the pope at a sex convention.’ (Suggestions?) I give this book sixteen
thumbs down. Which is slightly better than the rating I gave the Twilight
series, and slightly worse than the rating I gave for this guy’s moustache:
"It's Movember all year round in my world bitches! PS: you can get the bookhere if you to write your own scathing review, or if you need something to hide your face from that creepy guy that always sits opposite from you on the bus. Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about."
I had an abortion this week. I was halfway through my follow up novel (for adults at least, my kids book is done and dusted) when I made the difficult decision to prematurely end its life. It was entitled Junk Quay: A Modern Ghost Story. Basically it was a story about blues music and quantum mechanics. This guy featured pretty heavily:
So far I haven't had any christian fundamentalists at my door, but I'm
keeping plenty of death metal albums, gay porn and hardmount prints of Piss Christ on hand to ward them off if neccessary. The good news is that this has given me the chance to dive straight into my next book which I was much more excited about anyway. Expect God in a Coma to hit shelves sometime before the end of the world.
Lately I've been accused by many people, my girlfriend among them, of being a self-promotion whore. I justify this by the fact that this is my first art baby. I'm a bit like that annoying friend you have who's just had their first kid and starts working it into every single conversation you have with them by the most implusible segue imaginable:
You: Hey, have you read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart? I think, for me, it epitomises the pinnacle of African literature and perfectly encapsulates the feeling of fear and confusion that faces a ancient culture dealing with the plague of European colonisation.
Them: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PHOTO OF MY BABY???
You: Uh...yeah I think you should me one last week...
Them: Oh! That was when he was three months and THREE days. This is him at three months and SIX days! Doesn't he look so grown up! Look at the way he's looking at that Caravaggio print on the wall, I think he really has a basic grasp on critiquing and appreciation Baroque era Chiaroscuro painting!
"waaaah! Caravaggio's excessive use of shadows exemplifying chiarsocuro painting displeases me! I'm having a pre-naptime existential crisis!"
In any case, it's only two weeks until the Australian release of A Beginner's Guide to Dying in India and in preparation I've been drinking too much and spending an unhealthy amount of time playing xbox, much like my literary heores George Orwell and Anthony Burgess did before the release of their respective masterpieces.
"I pwned yr droids with my l33t skillz!"
I've been asked if I'll sign copies when it is released. People, seriously, I will lick, bless, baptise and sign in my own blood any copy you want to obtain in exchange for your not very hard earned cash.
Both stores ship anywhere in the world except Sarah Palin's house. Plus
they have heaps of other amazing books like the Bell Jarand Of Mice
and Men that TV characters sometimes mention in a very obvious and
unnatural way when the lazy script writer is trying to make them appear
educated in the space of the few minutes of content between coke
commercials.
If you write a review for me I will be forever in
your debt. Seriously I'll give you a kidney or something. It may not be
MY kidney, but nevertheless...
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