On Books and Boys

Over the past few weeks, I have rediscovered my love of reading.  This is kind of funny because since I was a kid, I went everywhere with a book.  I read on the train, in the car, on the plane, while a walked.  There was even a period of time I used to read in the shower, holding the book out with my left hand and turning the pages with my little pinky.  I trawled through books at (I'd like to say breakneck, but okay, I'm not that fast) speed and always had my eye out for new authors.  Walking through a bookshop was (and still is) like walking through a toy factory.  I loved looking at all the covers and smelling the new, just printed paper.  The shiny covers with words trapped between them like fireflies.  The rows and rows of books on every subject imaginable, and the heady notion that I would never get through them all.  I bought books on almost a fortnightly basis, and loved watching them pile up on my bookshelf.   They were candy-wrapped, colourful, paperback sized packets of literary goodness.  Treats that before bed, or on the train, I could devour like chocolate bars.

Then something changed.  In an effort to make headway with my acting career, I started going to the theatre.  Money that was spent on books now became money that I need to save for a $30 or $40 theatre ticket.  The books that I read began to change too.  Instead of novels that spirited my mind away for a good week or sometimes month at a time, books about Shakespeare and Chekhov began to occupy my thoughts.  Plays, dialect books, and essays on personal experience in the industry jostled for room on my shelf.  I began to watch a lot more films too.  Hiring three films for $6 at my local video store was much easier than driving one and a half hours to borrow some books from my university library.  If I look at my lists over the past year, the number of novels I read is 16.  The 30 other books I read last year were non-fiction or plays.  Comparing the number of books overall I read last year compared to the number of theatre shows or films I saw, the result is a paltry 46 compared to 55 films and 48 plays.  Albeit it takes longer to read a book than it does to sit through 2 hours of theatre, and as I am studying drama it is hard not to see theatre all the time (we are also required to watch each other's plays at least once on a quarterly basis), but still I feel however that the amount of time spent living in the literary world compared to the theatrical one is considerably disproportionate.

I am not satisfied with this.  I feel as if I have betrayed my inner child.  All through my childhood and my teens I wanted to be a writer.  I wanted to write the greatest novel ever written, a novel of great beauty and insight.   I still do.   Life came along and shook things up a bit, but still the impulse remains.  For years, I was obsessed about reading the works of every new author, although I've stopped since then.  Yet I can't seem to go by for very many days, especially if I am not acting, without writing something.  I must find a balance.  I am now very settled in my acting life and therefore have time to expand my mind again. Perhaps it's time to get obsessed again.

For the moment I have lists.  Lists to develop my mind, stretch me, make me more disciplined and more open minded.  I have divided up several books of my keeping into books I intend to read now, books I intend to read later, books I intend to read but haven't obtained yet, and books that I've started to read and would like to start again.  Hopefully this will set me off on my new, combined life where many life goals are achievable.  And it gives me somewhere to begin.

Books on my shelf I intend to read in the next few months:

• Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow, Peter Hoeg (I'm currently reading this)
• The Boat, Nam Le
• Slumdog Millionaire, Vikas Swarup
• Why You are Australian, Nikki Gemmell
• Night Letters, Robert Dessaix (Again.  Because I remember being so enamoured with this book as a teenager, and so disappointed to find out that his other books were so mediocre (except for his collection of essays.  They were pretty good). I want to know what makes this book so insightful, and how not to make the same mistake as him - of only having one opus).

Books I haven't obtained yet but intend to read in the next few months:

• Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
• A Fraction of the Whole, Steve Toltz (I'm curious)
• Anything by Haruki Murakami
• Anything by Michael Ondaatje

Books on my shelf I started reading last year but stopped and intend to pick up again:

• Catch 22, Joseph Heller
• Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
• Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
• Brick Lane, Monica Ali
• Coming Through Slaughter, Michael Ondaatje

Books to read some time in my life:

• The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
• In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
• Anything by William Faulkner

There are more, but I will work them out later.  There are also books that I should read...I am reluctant about including these.  I always find books that should be read, or books that I only ever feel vaguely interested in reading, inevitably end up being used as doorstops or extra steps.  And there are many many more that I must read. The other day, a friend commented on the book that I am reading, Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow.  I was rather shocked that she knew it, because I hadn't heard of it before and thought it was new, and disappointed that I hadn't read it before her.  Similarly another friend was telling me the other day that he was reading The Boat, and how great it was.  This time it was more the fact that I was waiting for it to come out in paperback until I read it, so when I saw it in the shops the other day, I snapped it up.  Despite all my cries that I am a writer, I am obviously not as cluey as I think.  I must change this.  If I am to be a writer of any standard any time soon, I must know what is being written and how the industry is working at the moment.  I must read and read and read.  And read and read some more.  And after I've finished reading, I must write.

The other thing I've been thinking about is how to balance these two lives: acting and writing.  I know it sounds strange, and people keep asking me why I don't find the two compatible, but really struggle when it comes to trying to balance the two.  They really both require a lot of energy and focus.  I always thought I'd be able to do both at different times, but when I am doing one it seems almost incomprehensible to ever be doing the other.  And then I get scared that I'm going to lose the other one and start doing lots of the other one all-consumingly and the cycle starts again.  It's a self-perpetuating circle that I can't seem to overcome.  I really find it very unsettling.  And on top of that, they're both incredibly different disciplines.  One requires a group of people and can only ever be done during planned times, and the other is a solitary event, that can be done whenever.  As a result, the acting takes forever to organise and the writing never gets done.  I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like trying to do both.

In the past few years, I always thought that I would do acting as a profession, and then because there is so much down time in acting, I would write in my time off.  But as I've discovered recently, each profession is a full-time thing.  One must always be thinking of one's career.  If one spends more time moving forward in one career, then that is time away from the other.  Simply switching off and writing is damn near impossible, especially without a deadline.  The only writing tasks I completed last year were for drama school, and I did not complete anything in my time off of any use.  Likewise, in my holidays I find it near impossible to even begin thinking of trying to organise a group to work together for a bit of fun.  The effort is too magnanimous and it feels detrimental to my time at drama school.  So in terms of acting this holidays, I have done nothing.

But I am determined to find a way.  I am getting to the stage in my writing where I can no longer just view it as a simple hobby.  Although I have not chosen to focus on it as a career for the moment, if I don't pay it any attention, all the potential that I showed in during my schooling years and beyond will crumble and die.  My skills will quickly slide into mud and every good knot I've been carefully sewing over the years will become undone.  On the other hand, I can't not complete drama school at this particular time.  The amount of years and preparation it took to get into this school was gigantomachous (I made that word up.  The real word is gigantomachy.  It is the word that describes the struggle between the gods and the giants).  There is no other time in my life that I can attend drama school, this being the oldest I can realistically enter the industry, and the youngest I could have attended to have found my life experience useful.  And to be honest, being at drama school has been a great release for me not only in terms of my acting, but in my writing as well.  For years I didn't realise that I was actively blocking myself.  Everything I tried to write was strangled and unsure. Now it is no great pain to write (generally.  I still have my moments!).  And likewise with acting, I will never again be straightjacketed into my body.  From now onwards, my body and my mind are free.

So, the solution?  For the moment I am going to do both.  When I am not ensconced in drama school or performing, I will be writing.  I will be focussed and disciplined and work hard to make both real for me. Last year I was so heavily ensconced in the life of a student in Melbourne, I woke up, went to drama school, ate food and slept.  This year, I have to be able to do more.  I used to think that life was only possible and pleasurable if one thing was tackled at a time.  I have no time for this any more.  Over the past few weeks, I have found a great pleasure in waking up at the crack of dawn and writing for a good two-three hours before I go to work.  In another life I would sleep in till 9 and then go to work from there.  Not any more.  I'm tired but I'm happy.  When I return to drama school I will allow myself a couple weeks of respite, then I will begin to fit writing in again.  It is the only way to achieve things that I want this year.  And by the end of this week, I should have the gift of a story that I can offer up to the world on my humble plate.  And by the end of the year, a platterful more.

Oh, and a quick vignette from work yesterday...

He had the nut brown skin of an exotic mixing of cultures.  Indian, Aborigine, possibly Middle Eastern, I couldn't be sure.  He had similar dark, softly wavy hair and a few inches taller than me.  By other's reports, he was wearing a white T-shirt and slim-fitting navy jeans.  He was standing by the suits, running a trapezoidal palm across them.  I wished him a good afternoon.  Not looking at me, he wished me a good afternoon back.   I noticed how his nose was wide and flared.  Then, as we both passed a mirror on our way out of the suit section, his gaze locked onto mine.  His eyes were lapis lazuli blue.

I walked into the changerooms to offer a pair of pants.  When I came out again, he was gone.

As the shop filled again, I ran between requesting customers.  Finally when the shop was quiet, I wandered over to N, who was folding shirts in the corner.  Quietly, I asked her if she had noticed anyone particularly interesting today.  Especially in the suit section.  Possibly with dark skin and dark wavy hair?

Her eyes sparkled.  'Oh yes,' she said brightly.  'The guy with the blue eyes?  He was divine!'

When working in a place that can only ever be a casual occupation, it's fun when you can share a giggle with your workmates.  What's even better, though, is when you can giggle over a mutual appreciation for the SAME GUY!