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Painting the Bridge

Andrew Christie

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OMG it’s almost a thing

January 31, 2021 by andyadmin Leave a Comment

So, at long last the new book is now officially imminent. It has been to the copy editor and had all its commas rearranged and plot holes filled up with fast drying patches of exposition. Now it is being proof read by my wife—backwards, line by line. (That really is love.) Meanwhile I have made a cover that I am almost completely happy with, but will probably tweak a bit more.

So now it is time to try to drum up a bit of interest.

The new book is called The Ridge. It is largely set in Lightning Ridge, an opal-mining town in outback New South Wales that has a reputation for heat, eccentricity, and black opals. The genesis of this story came from a couple of converging ideas.

I have long wanted to write something else featuring Large, the villain from my first book, Left Luggage. Basically I didn’t want to abandon a character who was so much fun to write. The Ridge is not a proper John Lawrence book, but it occupies the same world. I like to think of it as John Lawrence adjacent.

The other idea came from my father. In his last years he was bed bound and unable to paint anymore. Without any other creative outlet he started coming up with story ideas, which he would pitch to me when I visited him at his nursing home. Dad had written a detective novel during the war, while he was in New Guinea. It was called The Flaming Jacarandas, an image I managed to slip into Comfort Zone as a kind of tribute to Dad’s long lost masterpiece. Anyway, one of Dad’s ideas was about an old opal miner who finds an enormous opal which might have magical properties and which causes all kinds of tragedy. I would sit by his bed and we’d talk about how the story might work, but I never really took it seriously because magical stones are just not my kind of thing. Then I had an idea of how Dad’s story could be a legend that formed the backstory for my ideas for Large’s return.

The book took a while to write because there has been a lot going on and merging the two ideas hasn’t always been straightforward.

It will be out in the world soon and you can make up your own mind if you think it works.

In the meantime stay safe. Wear those masks. Get that jab.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

How’s the new book going, Andy?

March 24, 2019 by andyadmin

I get asked that a lot and to tell the truth, it’s been a bit of struggle.

I have been flailing around in the muddy middle of the book for what seems like months. Back in November I got off to a flying start, piggybacking on the momentum of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month–look it up, it’s definitely a thing). I got about half way through the month and halfway to the target of 50,000 words and then hit a wall. Admittedly the wall was in the shape of a second hand tinny.

I spent December putting electrics in the boat and took it on a couple of fishing trips. Then it was Christmas holidays and family beach time. After everyone went away at the end of January I spent more time working on the boat and catching flathead in the lake and the river.  All this time, though, I was still thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking–it still counts as writing, even when you are fishing, I checked with the union.

Eventually I decided I was trying to tell the wrong story. So I killed someone off, promoted someone else and re-jigged the timeline. Then I made a lightning trip to Lightning Ridge, driving the length of the state to do some research. Came home and re-wrote the start. It felt good. But now I’m back in the middle, where I left off, wondering what comes next: writing bits and pieces without any confidence, and not moving the story forward. Researching stuff I don’t really need: I know a lot about poisons now.

And now we have the builders in–renovating the kitchen and bathroom. We have moved downstairs to the studio while this is going on. So there are plenty of distractions and excuses for procrastination: lots of power tools, lots of blokey conversations to eavesdrop on, and plenty of decisions to be made.

You sure you want the tap over there? I mean we can do it, if it’s what you want…

But this morning in bed, listening to the wattlebirds chortling in the dark, I had another hard think about the book and decided what the problem was. I don’t really know where I’m going, not really. I need a destination. A couple of key set-piece scenes and a finale will give me something to aim at. So I will write those next, then having created some waypoints and a safe harbour I will return to the soggy quagmire in the middle and set sail once more.

That’s the theory.

How is your Sunday going?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: boat, builders, Lightning Ridge, new book, writing

Looking for the perfect Christmas present?

December 9, 2016 by andyadmin Leave a Comment

Greetings from sunny but cold Cooma, on the edge of the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW. I’m down here for a week of fly-fishing and writing. Or maybe writing and fishing. I’m not sure of my priorities at the moment.

In my absence Strop has taken it upon herself to organise a Christmas sale of the John Lawrence paperbacks at Newtown Markets on Saturday the 10th and 17th of December. So if you are looking for a great present for Christmas, get along to Newtown Markets, from 10am and pick up a copy of Left Luggage or Tunnel Vision. Or get both.

The markets are at the corner of King Street and Enmore Road, just opposite the train station. Say hello to Strop for me. It’ll make her day.

Now I have to get back to figuring out what exactly all these rainbow trout are eating.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Spoiler alert: crime stories need some crime

June 12, 2016 by Andrew Christie 2 Comments

It’s been a funny old day here in Sydney. Cold and mostly clear, full of deleted back story and birthday celebrations.

I have been writing in the living room because my brother is up from Canberra for our father’s birthday. 97. Not bad for an old fella, although he has taken to saying he is 79. Anyway, my brother is occupying the room I normally write in, so I am in the living room. And I am really enjoying it. It has the benefits of a cozy gas fireplace complete with fake coals, an excellent sound system that I can control from my phone, and a little table that is the perfect height for resting my legs on.

Having spent yesterday full of anxiety about what to do about the start of my new book, today I got to work. I have been cutting a swathe through the opening chapters, deleting acres of unnecessary backstory (some of which I was quite fond of), switching chapters around, combining some, and consigning others to the Spare folder. A kind of purgatory for scenes I can’t quite bring myself to cast into the flaming fires of the Trash folder.

All this carnage came about because of my writers group. Their reaction to what had been Chapter 3 was generally along the lines of  “Sure, okay, but nothing happens.” Which was true. The only action involved a guy coming home from work and talking to his aunt. There was a bunch of back story and atmosphere (buckets of it), but it wasn’t good enough for Chapter 3, when we want to be moving things along a bit.

One of my group put it this way, “This is Chapter 3, right?”

I nodded yes, thinking that’s what it says on the first page.

“And it’s crime isn’t it? The genre?”

I nodded again, starting to worry about where this was going.

“So where is the crime? It’s Chapter 3 and all we’ve had is a prank, someone visiting his daughter, and now a guy comes home from work. I’m a crime reader. I want some crime.”

It was hard to argue with. By definition, a crime novel needs crime, and it needs it up front, not buried back at Chapter 6. So now the bank robbery (ooh, spoilers) has moved up to Chapter 2 and two chapters that were mostly back story have been deleted or smeared seamlessly across two action packed chapters. With no visible joins. That’s the theory anyway. I suspect that the surviving chapters are now a bit too long for their own good. So a bit more hacking will probably ensue.

In the midst of all this carnage, we had a family outing to visit Dad for lunch. He drank Guinness, we drank hipster beers. Eventually we all ate pizza, after Strop managed to find the only pizza joint in the area that was open at lunch time. By a happy coincidence they were also some of the best pizzas in Sydney. Then for desert it was Strop’s home made coconut-lime custard tart. El Yummo!

So if your father turns 97, get him some Guinness and some Mad e Pizza from Darlinghurst. And if you can get hold of some coconut-lime custard tart, you can’t go wrong.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Shaahi Tandoori – Doesn’t always come with a floorshow

March 12, 2016 by Andrew Christie 1 Comment

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I blame Strop. I blame her for my complete lack of professionalism in regard to this blogging business. I should have a schedule, and I would have, if only Strop would stop having birthdays. And if she hadn’t married me, we wouldn’t have had to go to Hobart to celebrate however many years it’s been now. And if I hadn’t been cooped up in a big, aerialised, aluminium tube with a bunch of sick people I wouldn’t have caught man flu…

Actually I blame David Walsh for creating MONA. If he hadn’t done that, then we wouldn’t have felt like the only people left in Sydney who hadn’t been to see the wall of vaginas and none of this would have happened.

So on behalf of David Walsh and Strop, I apologise for the yawning chasm that is the last month on this blog. It won’t happen again. Ever. I promise. Cross my heart, all of that. Never, ever. Ever.

Before we were so rudely interrupted, I seem to remember a trip to a surprisingly enjoyable Indian restaurant. In terms of sub-continental cuisine on Enmore Road, Faheem’s Fast Food casts a very long shadow that hides all other curry joints. I had never noticed Shaahi Tandoori before this visit, but I’m pretty sure we’ll go back. Particularly for the Goat Curry and the Salted Lassi. Yummo.

We sat at the front table with an excellent view of the buses roaring past, and the passing parade of pedestrian punters on their way to the Enmore Theatre. Tonight the crowd appeared to be predominantly of a certain age and greyness. Well, the men were, I suspect a bit of colouration was at work in many of the women’s hair. One of the entertaining things about a night out on Enmore Road is the changing nature of the street crowd depending on who is playing at the Enmore Theatre.

A very sweet and attentive young woman took our order which included Paneer, Chicken 65, Aloo Mattar and Garlic Nan, as well as the goat and the lassi. One of the problems we have found with dining on our own is that we want to try a lot more dishes than we can actually eat. We usually make a pretty good effort though, a clean plate is a good plate, but we pay for it on the walk home.

The Paneer was a bit heavy for my taste but the Chicken 65 was terrific. Basically fried chicken but with all the flavours. I’ll go back for that one too. The Goat Curry was dark, succulent and spicy. Lucky we had the Salted Lassi. I’ve never had it before and it was terrifically refreshing, as well as easing the effects of the chilli.

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While we were working our way through too much food, Strop caught a glimpse of a pair of nephews walking up the other side of the street. As she leapt to her feet and rushed out the door I took the opportunity to nab another piece of fried chicken. Strop waved and hallooed across the road, and Keir and Charlie waved back. I kept eating.

Five minutes later Keir and Charlie showed up at Shaahi Tandoori. Apparently their family were just down the road at Cow and The Moon having a refreshing gelato. Young Charlie’s tolerance for watching his aunt and uncle eat food that he wouldn’t touch with a light sabre, was understandably low, so they didn’t stay very long.

Strop and I were back to enjoying the food, trying to decide if we could discreetly undo our belts a couple of notches, when Keir returned. This time he and Charlie had Emma and Will in tow. While Em came and joined us at the table, Keir and Will, proceeded to put on a floorshow outside on the footpath. Enmore Road has everything you need for a night out. You can see part of the show here.

When Charlie couldn’t stand it anymore, Em took her tribe and headed for home, while Strop and I wandered back down Enmore Road.

At the Enmore Theatre the reason for the greying crowd became apparent. Icehouse were playing.

Faheem’s Fast Food is next up on Enmore Road, I’m looking forward to the comparison.

And now for the ratings: Accessibility – 5 Susans; Value – 4.5 Wendys.

shaahi4

Filed Under: Encore, Uncategorized Tagged With: Curry, floor show, goat, Indian, lassi

212 Minoya – I blame the tree

January 30, 2016 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

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The Friday-night thousand-yard stare. The woman needs a beer.

On the Friday night of a strange, disjointed week, the weather was having its usual effect on Sydney’s transport. A couple of thunderstorms in the middle of the day meant that the trains would be stuffed until the following day, so Strop and I were going to be a bit late rather than the half an hour early that I had anticipated. No quiet beer beforehand this week.

The target for tonight, the first actual, on-Enmore-Road eatery of the Encore, was a Japanese restaurant. We had thought it was called Oganoya, but it seems to have mysteriously changed his name to Minoya, according the the sign outside. Luckily, it was still Japanese, so the bottle of Reisling I had bought at the bottle shop, wouldn’t go to waste.

Strop and I arrived within minutes of each other but there was no sign yet of Marie. Strop had warned her that we were running late, so she had no doubt adjusted her own travel plans. The room at Minoya is large and sparsely decorated. The main feature is a large and luridly autumnal, plastic Japanese Maple tree in the middle of the room. Like some sort of bento-based fairy tale, the room is frozen between summer and winter. We were directed to a table tucked behind the tree which I suspect may have contributed to some of the erratic service that followed.

Both Strop and I had been subjected to “interesting” work weeks, but now it was the weekend. We opted to save the wine for the moment and have a quick beer before Marie arrived. Strop decided she wanted an Asahi, so I took the other option and went Sapporo. Suffice it to say, I won the beer wars.

Marie arrived soon after we had determined which was the superior beer, and by inference the superior judge of a good ale. It turned out that Marie had been sitting in a bar on Enmore Road, having a pre-dinner drink of her own, and had seen both Strop and I hustling up the road, thinking we were late. Which we were, but as it turned out we needn’t have rushed. Marie had no sooner plonked herself down at the table, than her phone started ringing. She is a popular woman, obviously in demand, even by Strop’s standards.

When the phone calls had been dealt with, the conversation somehow flipped over to Marie’s arrival in Oz 37 years ago (she is originally a French-Canadian), and how she was disappointed when she arrived that no one spoke French. It does make you wonder about who teaches geography in Canadian schools though. As a 24-year-old world traveller, she ended up in Singapore with no money and no visa, so she did what all good travellers do. She married the first Australian she met. It seems to have worked out well for her though, she and her first husband are still good friends. Of course while Strop and I were taking all this in, we had been neglecting the menu. The waiter kept coming back, asking if we were ready to order yet. It was only when we decided to pay attention that we realised that they had only given us one menu. I thought maybe there was a global shortage of menus, but all the other tables seem to have plenty, so I think the maple tree is to blame. When we pointed this out to the waiter, he was very apologetic, but we still had to wait until he had seated a new table and taken their drink orders before we got any more menus.

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When we finally made some decisions, we ordered prawn gyoza, grilled eggplant and chicken karaage, to start and for mains, a sashimi platter and sizzling pork. While we waited for the food I grilled Marie about her Air BnB experiences. This was by way of research, my new book has a character who hosts an Air BnB, funnily enough, in a quite similar situation to Marie. This discussion soon veered away from the amount of time that tourists spend in showers, and skipped lightly over vanity-publisher rip-offs, our first Japanese restaurant experience (the Fuji Tempura Bar, of revered memory), travel reminiscences, children’s relationships, tertiary education, and the important question of which is more important in a friendship, loyalty or honesty.

Luckily the food turned out to be better than the service. The gyoza were plump and tasty, the eggplant meltingly delicious, and the chicken sweet and crunchy. The sashimi platter was generous and all the fish very fresh. It even came with a side salad that featured a wedge of orange. Always a welcome bonus. The sizzling pork came with lots of veggies and a sweet soy sauce. It was excellent too.

By this time, the first bottle of wine had disappeared. We asked the waiter for a bottle of sauv blanc from the menu. He was very apologetic again, explaining that his staff had only put one bottle of each white in the fridge that afternoon, so basically we could have a warm sauv blanc, or a cold Chardonnay. We went with the Chardy, even though this goes against Strop’s religion, she had drunk enough by this time to be agnostic on the issue.

The disappearance of the second bottle of wine coincided neatly with the disappearance of the last of the food. We took this as a sign and made our way out onto the street, where we battled our way through hordes of scantily clad and sweaty youngsters outside the Enmore Theatre, and paused for a quick dance to a 70s revival band, playing up a storm outside the Hub. A great way to finish our first Enmore Road outing.

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Filed Under: Encore, Uncategorized Tagged With: asahi, beer wars, gyoza, Japanese, sapporo, sashimi, wine

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