Make. Believe.

When I was a kid, I loved ‘imagination games’. These were games predominantly in my head, and involved making up a story to act out. I particularly liked pretending to be a lioness, usually making a daring escape from a mean zookeeper with my lion cubs, who were played by teddies. I also liked to make up adventures in fictional, fantastical or historical places. Or sometimes I would use a book or movie to form the basis of an imagination game and would act out a story that could fit in that world. I know lots of kids play ‘pretend’, but sometimes I wouldn’t even act that much of the game out, I would just let it happen in my head.

I had a friend in primary school who was also into imagination games.  The two of us regularly ran a day care centre for imaginary children, or a shop, or other businesses. We had a purse full of coins from her mum and we pretended that 1c was a dollar, 10c = $10 etc., so if we ever found 5 or 10 dollars, for instance, we would be stinking rich and would take a pretend holiday. Sometimes our games were quite dramatic, I remember one in which I was her blind sister and we were trying to pay for my surgery. We never discussed it, but we only ever played these games when it was just the two of us. When we were with other girls, we played at make up and talked about boys and listened to music and pretended to be grown up. Which is sad, in a way, because we were only about 11. I also remember thinking around this time that I should grow out of playing pretend games, but I never really did.

When I was a teenager, I often used them to help me do things I didn’t want to. Bringing in the washing became harvesting fruit, I would pretend that jobs or homework I had to do were part of a race against the clock type gameshow. I remember spending school holidays when I was home alone, pretending that my life was something else. Not because I didn’t like my life, but because hey, I could be eating 2 minute noodles in the backyard OR I could be eating an authentic Japanese noodle dish in the Emperor’s private garden, awaiting his approval of my new kimono.

As an adult, I definitely don’t play games in my head as often as I used to. It’s sort of as if the kid in me has forgotten how. Or maybe that she’s just asleep, because sometimes I still do. She must wake up every now and again because sometimes I’m not walking down the street; I’m a trained assassin, following my next target. I’m not ironing my clothes, I’m ironing the Lady’s clothes, and if I don’t have all the creases pressed out she won’t look perfect at the ball tomorrow and it will bring disgrace on the house.

Actually, I’m very often living out Downton Abbey fantasies… I play them at work sometimes, when I’m setting up for a conference. All the chairs have to face a certain way, and I like to lay the tea cups out perfectly symmetrically, and all the while I’m not Lizzy, I’m Anna and I’m not setting them out for a client, I’m setting them out for the Crawleys.

I’m not sure if anyone else does this sort of thing, but I suspect it is one of the reasons I like writing stories so much. Do you still play pretend? Tell me all about it. 

Newcastle Adventure: Day 2 and 3

Um, before I get into this, I’m pretty sure the TV in the common room next door just said “Sixty Thousand Wizards”, this is an important fact I think you need to know.

So. Wow. How has it only been 3 days? I am having such an amazing time, and I don’t know where to start! The beginning, I suppose, yesterday morning.

My first volunteer shift was kind of a bit odd. I think they’ve rostered too many tech vollies and there was a lot of standing around and “go with those guys and see if they need a hand” – I hate that kind of stuff. I’d much rather be doing something, or be doing nothing, then awkwardly hovering near other people working. For a while I dubbed myself “the official lead gaffer of the 2011 TiNA festival”. 

From there I went to the mentor meet and greet. My mentor Kaylan is pretty amazing and she said the magic words “no, I think going to uni to study writing could actually hinder your career as a writer”. Thank Christ. Because if she’s said she thought I should go back to uni I would have given up the whole idea all together. Go and get a trade, you know? Carpentry or something. I also met some other excellent people, like Joe, who just casually mentioned he has a feature film coming out next week, and Van, who wrote Black Hands/Dead Section, a play I worked on at uni. The mentor meet and greet morphed into the artist meet and greet, which I sort of stuck around for, and hovered on the edge of. There are some amazingly talented people here, some fun and enthusiastic people, and so far, no wankers. The impossible has become reality.

Then, suddenly, there was a group of 15ish of us, and we were walking, and it was so very cold. We detoured by someone’s hostel, and then waited in the shelter of Customs House while the wind blustered until the bus arrived. Then all of us piled onto the bus, much to the *great delight* of the *super enthusiastic* bus driver – it turns out it’s not just a Translink thing… most bus drivers hate everything.

Alex’s house is only the most amazing house I’ve ever seen. It’s like a grown up house with nice floors and a beautiful kitchen and antique furniture (including an old school dentist’s chair) but Alex has filled it with awesome things like Daleks and a H2G2 poster and a pool table. The important stuff. We ate cherry pies in the shape of Tardises …. Tardi? And drank Sonic screwdrivers:

Then we played the most excellent game of fuck, marry, kill – except it was make out with, repopulate the earth with and throw to the zombies. Nathan Fillion was the eventual winner, with Arthur Darvill a close second.

Then there was a taxi adventure home again and a fabulous night’s sleep.

This morning it was the most amazing breakfast – Belgian chocolate crepes at this amazing place with Sian (another new friend I sort of knew from the internet) and Alex and Fin and some of Alex’s friends and some people I didn’t know that I probably should have introduced myself to. It is difficult to be polite when you are starving and there are crepes covered in chocolate and strawberries and also there was tea. That is my excuse. I can probably introduce myself to them tomorrow or the next day, it’s that kind of environment.

Then I went to a Cryptic Crossword workshop – I thought I was going to hate it, but actually I kind of loved it. I’m not going to pretend that my brain didn’t break quite a few times, but there’s a real logic to cryptic crosswords, and a knack, and some fun little tricks, and once someone points them out to you they become more and more obvious. I took some notes, at one point I said “Crossword writers make me angry” and at another point someone else said “Words are so great”. I think those two things probably sum it up quite nicely. Afterwards, team awesome, which consisted of about 6 or 8 of us who’d just done the workshop (having never really done cryptic crosswords before) totally kicking the shit out of the giant cryptic crossword on the wall. Fuck yeah.

Sian and I went on an adventure to find hats for the ball tomorrow night. We were both rather successful, mine has silver sequins. Sian is also from Brisbane, and we have decided to encourage each other to op shop more often upon our return – because op shopping is rad. Yay for new friends.

Then I went to a workshop called “Building Fictional Worlds” which couldn’t have been more different to the Crossword one, yet just as fulfilling. It was a quiet, calm atmosphere and there were only a few of us there. We did writing exercises around building and creating and managing your own fictional world.  I was so surprised by the stuff that came out of my brain. I went it with a mind buzzing full of cryptic crossword clues and top hats and came out with pages and pages of notes about a world I had never thought of before. And it’s amazing how creating geography creates peoples and issues and tensions and hierarchies. My fictional world is a planet made out of space debris; it has 5 moons, one of which is made out of smashed together CD players. The magnetic poles are made of actual magnets.

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus" - Mark Twain 

Right, so what then? Oh yeah. “Would you Rather” at the festival club, which was super fun and ridiculous, but I facebooked all about it, so I won’t repeat. Except to say that “It’s a load-bearing emu” is the best phrase I’ve heard in a long time. I think someone should start a band called The Load-Bearing Emus.

“Lizzy!” I hear you say, “what a packed and busy, amazing day, you must have been so tired you went and had a little nap!” Well, dear reader, thanks for essentially calling me a pussy. SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK and also, I still had a volunteer shift to do. So, 6pm rolled around and I switched back into tech mode. Only this time I actually had a good time, and felt useful. I helped Dale, whose role I’m not 100% clear on, to move sound equipment across 3 different venues. There was some total fail – we lugged speakers and a projector and a screen and a desk and a heap of other shit up rickety stairs only to be told half an hour later that it wasn’t needed, so lugged it all the way down again. Also an ironingboard is being used as a keyboard stand. Also one of the venues is someone’s house. ALSO I totally sprung Dale saying nice things about me on the phone to the Production Manager – so that was nice.

Vollies get one free meal for every shift they do – tonight I had a delicious steak in mushroom sauce with surprise mash potato hiding underneath it. Best.

Oh yeah, at some point in there I bought a belt, lost my EFTPOS card, found it again, met ANOTHER taxi driver – he used to live in New Farm, Brisbane and accidentally bought sparkling water only to tip it down a sink 5 minutes later.

Have I convinced you to come to TiNA next year yet? 

What about now?