Jane Routley

Three mobile phones

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One skill I’ve developed over the years of working on the railways is the ability not to scream the words “Are you insane?!!!” the minute they come into my head.  This was useful this week, when I saw someone walking down the cutting beside the tracks.  There’s not a lot of space in there and while not actually deadly, it’s certainly not “minimizing the risk” as the Occ. Health and Safety folks say.  Also it upsets the drivers who are inclined to be jumpy over people walking beside the tracks.

I was surprised to discover the trespasser was a young woman.  They usually have too strong a sense of self-preservation for such hi jinks.

“Hang on,” she replied, absent-mindedly poking around in the bushes when I went down and yelled “Hey get off the tracks it’s not safe.”

At length she came up and handed me three mobile phones to hold while she climbed up onto the platform.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, thinking I could help.

“A Pokemon!” said she.

Hence the jaw-dropping moment when I discovered the Pokemon-Go craze.  Apparently my station is a Pokemon-Go point of interest.

Oh Joy!

http://fullact.com/pokemon-go-players-looking-for-pokemon/

Best wishes to all you Pokemon-Go players.  Glad to see you around.  But stay safe.

 

 

Alison Goodman

Lady_Helen_final-2

Alison Goodman first hit the New York Times Best Seller list with the Eon books. Now she’s back with Lady Helen and The Dark Days Club.

From the blurb –  London, April 1812. On the eve of eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall’s presentation to the queen, one of her family’s housemaids disappears-and Helen is drawn into the shadows of Regency London. There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few who can stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons infiltrating every level of society. Dare she ask for his help, when his reputation is almost as black as his lingering eyes? And will her intelligence and headstrong curiosity wind up leading them into a death trap?”

If you like the sound of this, read on …

 

Tell us about The Dark Days Club.

The Dark Days Club (the Australian title is Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club) is the first book in a supernatural adventure trilogy set in the Regency. I think of it as Georgette Heyer meets the paranormal girl power of Buffy. Each book is set in one of the society seasons during 1812: Book 1 is set in London for The Season; Book 2 is in Brighton during the summer Season; and book 3 is in Bath for the winter Season. The trilogy is also historically accurate with some cameos from historical figures such as Lord Byron and Beau Brummell.  However, I have to admit that the demons I have created, called Deceivers, may not be so historically accurate.

What initially inspired you to write it?

The idea for the book came to me while I was on a tram coming home from a writers’ conference. I had been to a session about researching the Regency era, and as I sat looking out of the tram window, I idly asked myself what kind of Regency novel would I like to read now? The answer came in a rush: a mix of everything I loved about Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer together with the excitement and delight of a supernatural adventure. I scrabbled for a pen and paper and by the time I got to my tram stop, I had the outline of The Dark Days Club.

What are you currently working on?

At the moment, I’m waiting for the copy edit of The Dark Days Pact, Book 2 in the series, which is due for release this coming Christmas/New Year. I’m also working on Book 3, and I’ve just completed a novelette from Lord Carlston’s point of view (the main male character in the series), which will be available soon.

How do you start out with your stories?  In the middle, beginning or end?

I write from beginning to end, and don’t jump ahead. My books always have an element of suspense to them and I find that I can build that more effectively if I write the book chronologically.

DarkDaysClub

 

What’s your writing process for your solo books? Do you throw a lot away?  Do you write every day?  Are you a planner or do you fly by the seat of the pants?

Before I actually start writing, I spend a lot of time working on structure and building a strong through-line of cause and effect. Alongside that, I also spend quite a while researching. In fact, for the Lady Helen series, I researched the Regency era full-time for over eight months before I began writing the first book. So, while I am working out structure and doing my research, I also write the first chapter to develop voice and build a solid launching point for the novel. Once all of these three elements are in place then I am ready to roll. Generally, I write every day, even if life gets in the way and I only have time to fiddle with a few sentences. That way I keep the momentum. Of course, when a deadline is approaching, then I can be at the computer for ten hours!

I remember hearing your talk about your interest in gender relations in the Regency Romance.  Did you manage to explore it in The Dark Days club?

Yes, female empowerment and gender relations are two of my passions, and the Regency is a great setting in which to explore these themes. Women were, legally, chattels and were thought to have little intellectual capacity although there were many women at that time whose writings, art and social endeavours countered these misogynistic beliefs. In The Dark Days Club, the character of Helen’s uncle is a man who holds these beliefs, and I have based his attitudes on the writings about women that appeared in major newspapers and journals of the time. They are at once hilarious and absolutely awful.

 How do you go with social media?  What do you do to increase interest in your work and how much time do you spend on it? Any tips?

I have a website, a Twitter account, an Instagram account and Facebook author page. I’m not constantly on any of these platforms, but I do offer a writing tip of the day on Twitter, and post photos regularly on Instagram. I also post a journal of what’s been happening, book wise, on my website as well as maintaining a calendar of upcoming appearances. I don’t like to post minutiae about my life (I don’t want to bore everyone senseless) so I generally post when I have some news or I have an interesting picture to share. My focus is on writing the books. My tip would be to choose which of the platforms suit you best and post on those rather than try do them all. Also, if possible link the accounts so that posting on one will post on the others as well.

For anyone interested, here are my platforms:

Website: www.darkdaysclub.com

Twitter: @Alison Goodman

Instagram: @alisongoodmanauthor

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/AlisonGoodmanAuthorPage

 

What 3 artworks (books, music, visual arts, films) have most inspired you?

Only three? Okay, let me try and narrow it down.

Anything by Joss Whedon, but in particular the Buffy TV series and Firefly. Genre blending at its best.

Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels. So much fun.

The art of Francis Bacon, which is seriously disturbing, and the beautiful Regency portraits of Lawrence.

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Preconceptions

 

Noisy miner in the waiting room
Noisy miner in the waiting room

When working at the railway station or even just with the public, its important to keep an open mind. Last week I was giving the stink eye to a tough looking group of young men in hoodies and tattoos on platform 2 because I thought they were hanging around waiting to do a drug deal. I mean it’s the Zoo station!  There are children here!

I considered it particularly low that one of them had bought a baby capsule with him – clearly to hide his stash.  So I felt kind of mean when the train came in bringing a newcomer and one of them started showing the newcomer how the capsule worked.  I am so middle class!!  The capsule owner showed up later with his partner and toddler-in-pram and confirmed that yes, they had all been hanging around to pass the capsule on “to my cousin whose fiancée has just fallen pregnant.”  Just because someone is close to twenty and has tattoos doesn’t mean he can’t be a responsible family man, Jane.

On the other hand earlier this year a zoo-visiting Buddhist monk surprised me, by indicating I should use my broom to chase out the birds roving round the waiting room. I had expected him to be all “animals are my friends – all life is one” not “get that grubby bird out of the indoor space.” Another preconception bites the dust. Maybe I’m better off without either of them.

What is CLI-Fi?

 

 

This week I asked Cat Sparks about to define (Climate Change fiction) in an interview in SFFWorld.

Cat Sparks TBP-cover-art

Interview with Cli-Fi author Cat Sparks

Cat Sparks is a multi-award-winning author, editor and artist whose former employment has included: media monitor, political and archaeological photographer, graphic designer, Fiction Editor of Cosmos Magazine and Manager of Agog! Press. In 2012 an Australia Council emerging writers grant enabled her to participate in Margaret Atwood’s The Time Machine Doorway workshop in the U.S. She’s in the final throes of a PhD in climate change fiction. Her short story collection The Bride Price was published in 2013. Her debut novel, Lotus Blue, will be published by Talos Press in February.

Cat Sparks

 

Trial of an ex-Metro employee.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-01/nicholas-archer-pleads-guilty-to-train-derailment-sabotage/7467344

Bad luck for Metro and the CFA! Glad they finally caught this guy.

Metro has around 3500 employees and in that number there are sure to be a few bad eggs that make you look suspiciously at the rest of the carton.  Most of my workmates are lovely highly decent people.

HOWEVER …

My first week at my first station a man rang and asked for X.  I’d never heard of X so I asked my station master who took the call.  After he hung up he told me that X was no longer working for us.  He was in jail having held up 8 service stations!

“Startling” news when you are just fresh out of working in libraries, where assigning the wrong Dewey number is the worst offence you get from other staff.

But I stand by my assertion that my workmates are mostly lovely decent people.  2 in 13 years among 3500 is pretty good odds.

Clench!

One of my regulars, a lady in her early 60’s, is always telling me about her exercise regime.  Apparently these exercises, relayed to her father by a Chinese doctor, have cured her of leukemia.  Her skin has the yellowish tone of someone who’s very ill.

Her exercise regime is to do two thousand arm swings every day.  They’re exactly like the hundred arms exercise in Pilates only standing up.  I don’t blame her for being obsessed, but sometimes when I see her outside the station swinging her arms, I suddenly think of something I have to do in the office. I‘ve known her to miss trains because she hasn’t reached two thousand yet.

Being so ill must be a lonely business.  So today I’m listening and so are a couple of social workers up from the hospital waiting to catch the train who want to hear all about this life saving exercise.

“Clench your bottom,” cries the lady. “And tuck in your belly.  Clench your bottom and swing your arms.”

Such is the authority in her voice that I see the social workers begin to swing their arms and, I suspect, clench their bottoms.  Oh no!  I’m doing it too.  As the train rolls in, there are the four of us swinging our arms in the autumn sun while the lady yells “clench your bottom.”

I see less of M and C now but this is a good thing. An NGO has found them a place to live.  http://www.hanover.org.au/

C is pregnant and I had terrible visions of them being homeless with a newborn. I suspect they did too – though they made tough noises about it. M is delighted with his new backpack and wears it everywhere.  A profound thank you to the people who offered them.

 

Difficult lives.

Melbourne Street Art by Kranky.  It doesn't have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.
Melbourne Street Art by Kranky. It doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.

 

Looking back over my blog posts, I’ve noticed the station stories are much darker these days.  In the old days it used to be about getting cakes from men in wheelchairs.

This Thursday when I got to the junction they were running all the trains through Platform 4 until the ambulance came for the man who had passed out right on the edge of Platform 2.  The police arrived and recognized him as someone they’d just booked for assault, which made the ambo’s a bit jumpy.  But when he woke up he went away quietly enough, though with a police escort in the ambulance. The trains switched back to Platform 2

The saga of M and C continues.  C has disappeared again and M has reported her missing to the police.  He used my phone to call her father who denied knowledge of her whereabouts but said he’d look. M worries that she has gone back to her violent ex.  I worry full stop. Who knows what goes on between a couple?

I like them both especially M who is outgoing and personable in a kind of larrikin way. He seems to have a tremendous urge to take care of people which is sad because I see in him a nurse or elderly care person wasted.  I’m not sure how he comes to be living on the street and can’t find out without seeming to pry.  Perhaps it’s the lunchtime bourbon and cokes.  Certainly from the stories he tells me it seems that when he has had choices to make, he’s always made the wrong one.

Still this is a judgement free zone so I give him change for the phone and store his spare iced coffee in my fridge (the kind of thing lots of station staff do) At the moment I’m asking around to see if I can get him a new backpack because the straps on the old one which holds all his worldlies is broken.  I have a strong sense that you should be the change you want to see, as the saying goes, but if I was a truly good person I’d invite him to live in my spare room.  I want to be helpful but at the same time I’m worried – about not crossing boundaries and about whether I’m being a fool to trust M as much as I do.  My bosses would certainly not be pleased if he set up house in my waiting room.

A Moment of Stardom

This picture by chopalop comes from the Reddit, Melbourne subreddit https://i.reddituploads.com/a39cba295bdf4df8ab124f5a7d7842f4?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=c20cdacd14f8545e07ec75ad081314b8
This picture by chopalop comes from the Reddit, Melbourne subreddit
https://i.reddituploads.com/a39cba295bdf4df8ab124f5a7d7842f4?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=c20cdacd14f8545e07ec75ad081314b8

On Tuesday a huge TV crew were at the junction filming scenes for a new Channel 10 series called The Wrong Girl starring Jessica Marais.  They needed someone qualified to wrangle the escalators so I spent an hour and a half pushing the stop button every time the location man tapped me on the shoulder.

The patience of film people!  They did the same 20 seconds of scene half a dozen times with the stunt double, a couple of times with the actress, and then they did it all again from a different vantage point.  They had to stop, and I had to restart the escalators, every time a train came in.  I never realized how many trains come in on Platform 1 before.

The customers were startled to reach the top of the escalators and find a middle-aged Metro employee hiding cross legged behind the railing, but my knees are shot and it was much easier to risk being trampled than get up and down.  The film crew were lovely. They kept offering me cushions to sit on and bringing me tea.

Of course I forgot to take a picture but luckily someone going past in a train did and you can see Jessica Marais and her stunt double behind the extra in the purple top.

The location man assured me that my big moment was a pivotal scene and wouldn’t wind up on the cutting room floor.  When you see the escalator stop, you won’t see me, but you’ll know I’m there pressing that button!  Watch out Jessica Marais!  I’m on my way and I’ve got stars in my eyes.!!! 🙂

 

Wouldn’t a nice cup of tea be better?

This week’s star customers were the three teenagers I caught drawing with red pen on the poster cases. I was “somewhat peeved”.  Does being nice to people when they first arrive count for nothing?!!

“Hey stop that! Someone’s going to have to clean that up. I yelled.(not to mention that I have to report it… in triplicate.)

“Oh sorry Miss” said the girl with the pen.  And then she made it all worse by coming up to me with an incredibly cheeky grin on her face and saying, “I’m very, very sorry. I couldn’t help it.  It’s been a stressful day.”

I was confounded by this.

“Um Fair enough!” I muttered.  But the grin sent a bright red bullet of fury into my brain.

As she turned to go, I called out “Hey” and as she turned back to face me, I lifted up my mobile and clicked it at her.

By then I realized I’d done something rash. There were three of them and one was a very large lad.  So I took myself off and locked myself in the office till the train came and took them away.  As I closed the door behind me, I heard her friend say,

“Did she just take your picture?” so they knew what I’d done. Result! (pumps fist in air)

(I didn’t actually manage to take a picture – I’m a complete Klutz in these matters)

They haven’t been back.

But honestly. Since when has graffiting been a cure for stress.  What happened to a good book, a nice cup of tea or a lie down?!!!!

Station Stories – where we ask all the hard existential questions.