Ben Hobson's Blog

I’ve always wanted to visit America. And, on October 20th this year, I will!

Sort of…

I’m of course talking about Snake Island’s North American release. It’s a big moment and I’m still not sure I’ll ever believe it really happened, unless I see it in person.

I’m also going to get one of my books in a hardcover for the first time ever. That’ll go straight to the pool room…

I’ve received a few early reviews, which have all been wonderful, including a starred review in publishers weekly.

[image error]How awesome! I want to read this!

So I thought I’d map out here what is ideally going to happen after launch day. I’ll check back in later to see how it all aligns….

1. Huge groundswell of word of mouth. America devours this book. Reprints in DAYS

2. Invites to at least seven writing festivals (I know I know, COVID… but a guy can dream!)

3. Lots of cool messages and pics of people over there reading it! I can’t wait for this!

4. Somehow meet Cormac McCarthy.

5. Netflix series. Starring Tommy Lee Jones. We become beat friends.

Look I get some of those aren’t realistic. But damnit neither was getting anything published in the first place. So…

There’s been a bit of a theme in my life I hadn’t really thought about until now. I’ve actually mentioned this in a few interviews, here on the First Time Podcast and here on Words and Nerds. And this is the theme of backing yourself.

When I was a younger man, I wanted to get into the film industry. It was the first creative enterprise I’d ever really focussed on. I wrote scripts in my spare time, and I devoured films. And I put my hand up to work on any film set that would have me. But none wanted to.

Until I was asked to come in for an interview to be a gaffer on a short film, starring an Australian comedian whose name escapes me. But it was a big deal. I interviewed really well, and they told me they’d be keen to have me. They were going to give me a call with more details.

A week passed, and no call. I figured they had other priorities, so I wasn’t fussed. Another week. I sat by the phone. Soon enough the shooting date for the film was approaching and I still hadn’t heard. I didn’t know what to think. I thought about calling. I thought a lot about it.

But I didn’t.

And this, I feel, this rejection and disappointment, this whatever-the-opposite-of-seizing-an-opportunity-is, burned me right down in my guts. I learned a valuable lesson I’ve taken everywhere with me.

You gotta back yourself.

There’ll be enough people telling you how you should spend your time. They’ll tell you to give up your daydreaming. They won’t understand what you’re doing. There’ll be so many of these people; you really don’t need to add to their number.

I write this because I often see writers on twitter talking themselves down, or being self-effacing. I get it. But you gotta back yourself. Fight for opportunities. Put your hand up again and again. Keep knocking on that door until somebody lets you in. Then knock on another one.

If you don’t back yourself, you’ll regret it.

[image error]One of the first times I saw one of my books in a book store. A lot of self-belief went into this, you best believe.

Hey all!

Thought I’d write a quick update, as I haven’t touched this blog in what feels like forever!

First: I’m very happy to announce that Snake Island will be released in America in October! I’m so excited for this. It has been a goal of mine for a long while. I’ve never been to America, but now my words get to go! Thank you Skyhorse! Check out this link for more info. https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781950691715/snake-island/

One place I have been visiting, is Nepal! I’m over here for a month. It is such an interesting place. It’s beautiful one moment – you’ll be gazing at the mountains, or talking with a friendly citizen – and then you’ll see a garbage dump in the middle of the city, open sewers, etc. It has really opened my eyes to what a blessing my life is.

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I’ve also been working on a new book… but that’s all I’ll say here about that!

Love you all!

“You’ve written a book, have you?” says a very kind looking, older lady, as she walks passed my little signing table.

“I’ve written two, actually!”

“Well good on you!” she says. She’s very encouraging.

Then she walks away.

I’m currently sitting at a little red table in the middle of a shopping centre. Stacks of my books surround me. I’m choosing to type this rather than sit here looking awkward because in reality I feel very awkward.

It’s profoundly humbling. If you’re not a huge marquee author people often won’t even make eye contact. It’s hard to blame them. To them I’m like one of those stalls in the middle of the walkway trying to derail them from their shopping mission.

Books are very personal. It makes me despair, actually, about anybody ever picking up my book and taking it home. If I can’t sell it and I’m actually here, what chance does it have on its lonesome?

I’m very grateful I get to do this, don’t get me wrong. But man it makes me question everything. My life. Books are profoundly vulnerable and this, sitting here smiling, feels so naked. Being actually naked would only be slightly worse (plus illegal).

Bloody hell. I just turned around and chatted with a very nice lady about her buying Lee Child and I managed to sell a Michael Connelly!! What am I doing? The pit of anguish.

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Snake Island has entered the world, and what a reception! Reviews have been very kind and most people have really responded to the strange, bleak, violent world of Vernon and company. It’s a joy still to read all of the responses. Thank you so much if you’ve written to me about the novel. It never gets old. Here are a few quotes from reviews I’ve loved…

“There is such a weight to the narrative, such a sense of impending doom, that the final chapter is incredibly tense and you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.  This is a very violent novel, and breaks more than one taboo of reading crime fiction, so steel yourself for this and you will be sucked into such darkness that you may find it hard to imagine how it is all going to be wrapped up by novel’s end.” – Andrea Thompson (https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/snake-island-ben-hobson)

I was extremely grateful to receive this review, as I’d often wondered before release if Snake would find a kind response from crime readers. Crime readers I imagine bring a real sense of genre to their reading, but I’ve been so delighted that, time and time again, they’ve spoken of how they actually enjoyed the way Snake plays out. It was also a real aim of mine to have those last pages be that intense, and it’s great I’ve managed it. Thank you Andrea!

“I was able to recognise several places in the rural landscape by their descriptions alone and this added to my reading enjoyment. The novel moved towards a tense and action-packed finale that left me pondering the motives and lives of those living alongside us.” – Tracey (https://www.carpelibrum.net/2019/08/review-snake-island-by-ben-hobson.html)

I loved this review because Tracey grew up in the same small town as I did! It was so great to chat to her, too, about the setting of the novel, and it was so satisfying to know it had really been brought to life through my prose.

“The book’s greatest strength is, paradoxically, also its greatest weakness. Hobson has a wonderful ear for character and he takes a leaf from George RR Martin’s book, with every chapter of Snake Island told from the point of view of one character only. This allows us to be given an intimate portrait of each character and hear their internal dialogue at the point we need it most. However, this style of narrative also places a burden on the author, who must decide what the reader should see.” – DC White (https://glamadelaide.com.au/book-review-snake-island/)

There’s more to this review which really examines what is worded here, but I thought this to be such an interesting comparison. Many reviews have discussed the different characters in Snake Island, and many of them have mentioned just how difficult it is to like some of the characters. Some reviews have even flat out stated that they hate all the characters. I find this so interesting, and I’m so glad for people’s responses. I would never want to create a flat character – somebody who you don’t have any response to. All of the characters, it seems, for most people, stir a response, even if the response is not something I’d intended. I love that.

“A strong start that got sillier and sillier as the story progressed. and yet it was so strangely compelling! Very badly written character wise, it read like the worst acted episode of a budget Australian production.” – Leah Cripps (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3016595511?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1)

I thought I’d also show one of the worst reviews I’ve received (two stars, so not really that bad!) – I’m not sure how but I really don’t mind reading bad reviews. My book will not be for everybody. I think my favourite part of this is “strangely compelling” – I must’ve been doing something right! I disagree with the second part of the review of course. I give this review three stars out of five.

Reviews are so interesting from an author’s perspective, as they are, by their nature, so subjective, yet when people read them they can start to form an idea of your novel before they even open the first page. There was a review of To Become a Whale that was not overly positive, and the number of people in the comments section who said something along the lines of “thank you! I know to steer clear of this one now!” was, it seemed to be, quite huge. At the same time, though, people will simply just not like your books, and they will tell their friends about their dislike. You just hope the proportion of people who do like what you’re doing outweighs the ones who don’t.

I’m genuinely grateful for every review I read, good or bad. It’s still utterly magic there are people out in the world reading my words. Thank you so much if you’re one of them.

I actually got to visit A&U, my brilliant publishers, on my book tour road trip! It was AWESOME, and they plied me with merch. Love A&U, and honoured to be a small part of their roster of talent.

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The fist fourteen years of my life I spent growing up in a little town at the bottom of Victoria named Yarram. Population around 2,100. We were surrounded by farms. There was one main street. I rode my bike to school each day, picking up my friends on the way. When I was a kid and playing too much Nintendo my mum made us ride to the other end of town to collect a leaf from a tree and bring it back for her to witness, just to get us out of the house (by the way, this brilliance of this I now understand as a parent – invariably we’d get caught up in doing something and Nintendo ended up being forgotten more often than not). The journey on bike from one end of town to the other was around thirty minutes. Twenty if you floored it.

It was pretty idyllic. Crayfishing with dad, cricket out the front of my house with friends at Christmas time, Christmas beetles encircling our heads. Finding a black snake slithering beneath a communications box out the back of my house and swearing for the first time, out loud. Going to the pool. Knowing everybody.

So how does this fit into Snake Island? Snake Island is actually the name of an island near Yarram. The main action of this novel takes place in Yarram and its surrounding townships. I changed the names of all of them (except Snake Island because come on…) because many of the characters are corrupt, and because it is such a small town I didn’t want to risk offending anybody (I’ve been very careful with names, but you can never be sure). Many of the details are different, but the core of both places is the same.

Here’s the thing though: my idyllic childhood does not marry up with, as Simon McDonald put it in an early review: The small town ambience is real enough to smell and taste; a good thing too, because I’m not sure I want to visit.

Because while Yarram is beautiful, and I love visiting now whenever I can (my grandparents and parents still live there), there were a few things that were difficult for my young self to navigate. Primarily, the way people discussed things. There were a lot of broken friendships and relationships in Yarram, and a lot of stubborn people holding onto a lot of anger. Snake Island is about forgiveness and redemption, and a lot of people in small towns can struggle to forgive. Grudges are held onto, and the resentment flames are fanned with their apathy.

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Yarram, like all beautiful things, could also be quite dangerous. It’s a rough place. It’s a farming community, and there isn’t a lot of room for softness. The people are born and bred tough, and if you don’t fit into that tradition, then you need to have a cup of concrete princess.

At the same time, small town communities can be very supportive. I have fond memories of competing in the Eisteddfod as a child. I was in grade four, and I recited a poem. I remember the entire old theatre being absolutely packed with people. I remember being cheered as I left stage. I’m not sure how often such open encouragement happens in larger communities. The people of Yarram are bred tough, but they stick together.

This became a huge part of Snake Island, and it was really helpful. It’s one of my favourite things of my childhood – somehow feeling both alienated and accepted is such a small town thing, and such a juxtaposition, that it became rife with the possibilities of dramatic tension. I hope you enjoy and loathe Yarram – or Newbury – as much as I did. I hope the sense of it is a strong as the one I have in my guts. This place was truly my home, and whenever I go back I feel its warm embrace and strange coldness all at once.

 

I’ve made the (maybe) controversial decision to omit an acknowledgements page in Snake Island. This was a difficult decision, and mostly stems from my inability to thank every single person that helped Snake Island become what it is. Once I start walking down a track I find it really hard to stop. I end up thanking the bully in high school who used to force me to do his physics work in addition to my own for making me toughen up and giving me material for Brendan in the novel who is a huge jerk. And the acknowledgements end up being ten pages long. So. I’ve decided I would like to pay a bit of an homage to the people who helped make Snake Island here! This way I can keep it brief, and add people as they come to mind later on. I want to list three today.

Adam Byatt. Adam is a tremendously kind individual, in addition to being a very gifted writer. I sent a tweet out into the nether asking if anybody would be interested in helping take a look at a very early Snake Island manuscript, and Adam, gratefully, said yes.

Now. Here’s the thing. Adam didn’t just read the novel and give me general ideas. He laboured over a, from my memory, at least a seven page document, listing each character in their strengths, and areas for improvement. It was a massive help, and Snake Island wouldn’t be what it is today without his help. Find an Adam in your creative life.

Adam’s first novel, written in conjunction with Jodi Cleghorn, is a cracking read you should all take a gander at. Postmarked Piper’s Reach will be published in late July 2019. The thing I like about it most is how it is unflinching in presenting a difficult relationship – just like real life, there are no easy answers. It is authentic and vivid and worth checking out.
Tim Causbrook. I met Tim a very long time ago, during my Sounds Like Chicken years. We lost touch after I moved to Queensland, but he emailed me out of the blue when he heard my question being read out on the BBC World Book Club Podcast (it was very strange – it’s the Marilynne Robinson episode if anybody’s curious!) – since then we’ve had many chats about writing in general, and bounced ideas off one another. Tim is probably the most like-minded individual I’ve met, and I find talking to him helps me get my compass bearings right. If I have self-doubt, or questions, he’s always available for a chat. I really value his friendship, and look forward to seeing his debut novel published (agents bookmark this name right now) because it’s supremely my cup of tea. He also has a keen dress sense. And he’s a musician. In your creative life, you also need a Tim.
My friend Paul Stephens. Paul is not an aspiring novelist. Nor is he really that into reading. But you know who travelled with me for forty-five minutes the other night into the city to watch QUT students read out their works at a bar and then travel back with me? You know who read the first drafts of both my books and also many of the ones that weren’t published? You know who wrote and starred in a terrible kung-fu comedy I directed straight out of high school? You know who versed me in Goldeneye64 and held the controller really strange and could never quite learn how I’d memorise all the spawn positions in Facility and grew super mad that I’d be at his new spawn point before he spawned to shoot him before he could begin? You know who I’ve known since bloody kindergarten and am still great friends with? That’s right. It’s this bloke Paul Stephens. Paul has an innate story-sense and is one of the smartest movie reviewers I know (he doesn’t write them anymore, but if you’re keen, here’s a link to his 2013 blog) but what makes him valuable is the way he supports me, even though I know he’s not super-interested in the things I care about. He’s the guy who goes with his mate to the footy-game, even though he doesn’t really like footy. He’s always been there for me, and he’s a total champ. Get you a Paul, too.

In an effort to prove to you all that I really have known this bloke my whole life, I’ve decided to show you one of the worst photos of me in known existence. This was us heading to Big Day Out 2001. This. This. I can’t even look at it really. I hope you understand my bravery. Ugh all of my choices.

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I haven’t actually ever met Adam in real life, and Tim I haven’t seen in probably a decade at least, so I’m really hoping when I travel with Snake Island that we can catch up. Paul I still see nearly every week. Inseparable, we are. But golly. I truly thank these three. Without them Snake Island wouldn’t exist at all.

When I first started writing I aimed to please as many people as possible. I was that friend at a party who wasn’t sure of himself and so got everybody else’s drinks and felt rejected when nobody wanted to talk to him. I changed what I did to suit this imagined reader I had in my mind.

I guess I have trouble sticking up for myself, or what I believed to be the best way forward. This type of attitude makes it difficult to take notes – if you’re unsure of yourself, you’ll never really stand for anything and so let everybody walk all over you. I’ve been blessed with some of the best editors in the world on my two novels – but imagine if I hadn’t been.

I group writers into two different troubled types when it comes to taking feedback. They are:

Everybody else is right about my story because I suck so bad – woe is me, I’ll never succeed as a writer – everything I write sounds like the textual equivalent of dog diarrhoea.
My words are precious gemstones and everybody commenting is probably stupid – you don’t understand the story, you don’t understand that characters, your comment is from a place of privilege, you are wrong.

The best way forward, like so many things in life, is right in-between these two extremes. Both are thin-skinned – the reactions are just different.

When a person offers you a note, first of all, thank them for taking the time to think about your story. Second, listen. Third, take a look behind what they’re saying. If they say a certain scene doesn’t work, they didn’t feel excited by the final shootout, this could mean many things. Maybe the character work isn’t deep enough preceding the shootout. Maybe your descriptions of action could be tighter. Maybe you could use more crisp, shorter sentences, to arrive in the reader’s mind like gunshots.

How does this apply to Snake Island? Snake Island is the first novel that I got a note on that I didn’t take.

A very well meaning, very intelligent, very kind early reader gave me a note: they felt a certain part of the story was unrealistic. Sorry to be so un-specific, but I don’t want to give away spoilers. And I saw their point. It is unrealistic. But it was also one of my favourite things. So instead of removing the scene I loved so much, I set the scene up better. I added things so that when the time came for the lack of realism, the reader was already set up. I listened behind the note, you see. And it’s now one of my favourite moments from the novel.

Speaking of the novel, reviews have started to trickle in. So exciting seeing it enter the world! Check out Simon McDonald’s review here. In this review he likens Snake Island to No Country for Old Men, something I’m holding dear to my heart. All that effort for such kindness. It’s so rewarding!

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Look, it’s actually in somebody’s hands!

You can also pre-order the novel in a variety of places, including The Nile, for a really great price.

Thanks for sticking with me. Would love to hear your comments and thoughts below! Have you ever taken a note poorly? How do you approach the difficulty?

I’ve been keeping this one under my hat for nearly a year now. Very exciting to announce that Snake Island will have its own original soundtrack, composed by a very talented Christopher Dicker.

I first met Chris as he was touring with his old band, House Vs Hurricane. My friend Mike was filling in for them on drums, and I got to spend some time with Chris, as he recorded some vocals on a demo I was putting together (which has sadly been lost to the decay of old computer systems and no backing up). He struck me as a very kind, very thoughtful bloke. And then we parted ways.

I was facebook friends with Chris but we never really interacted (which seems all facebook is really good for) but I saw him leave House vs Hurricane and eventually start writing piano compositions.

One day, in September last year, I was working on building some shelves for our kitchen and in the background I’d opened up Christopher’s Spotify page. His music was moving, beautiful, quiet, moody, all the things I value in piano music. And it struck me. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have some original compositions for Snake Island?

So I thought; what the hell! I’ll email him. Couldn’t hurt. I emailed him and he very quickly answered with excitement.

Thus began a series of emails, back and forth. I sent Chris a draft and he immediately responded to it (phew!) and soon sent back some demos of some songs he had written. Man, opening those files was something else. Just recordings on his phone, sometimes, sparked so much in me.

I purposefully didn’t give Chris much direction. I didn’t want to. I didn’t think it would be a good project if I came up with a series of moments I wanted him to write to. Instead I just sent him the text, and asked him to just see what sparked in him. What came out were a series of songs I would never have expected; moments that spoke to Chris I couldn’t have foreseen.

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In fact, Chris wrote an entire theme for a chapter that’s no longer in the book! During edits a chapter was excised for plotting purposes that Chris thought was so moving he wrote a song for the character it featured. This song will still be on the soundtrack. I love this! It’s like a ghostly remnant of a thing that no longer exists.

After Chris sent me demos it was time for me to get stuck into the structural edits that Allen & Unwin sent me. So, while I rewrote and tweaked and got stuck and got through, I was listening to Christopher’s music! My book inspired his music, which in turn inspired the book.

As I write this now I’m listening to a new recording Chris sent through on a preamp he’s purchased for the final recording and it is ear ice-cream. It is so rich and good. And you can hear all the little fragments from the piano. It sounds like a real piano! Authentic and immediate. What I was aiming for with the novel.

I’m really proud now to name Chris as a true friend (as in – not just facebook acquaintances) – the novel has sparked a series of conversations between us I hold very dear. Love, life, theology, hope, morality – he’s a true gent, and I’m so stoked to be partnered with him in this endeavour.

Below is a sneak peek of one of the tracks, one of the early demos Chris sent through. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Can I just say, in closing, out of all of this, that most of the great things that have happened to me in my life have happened because I’ve just given things a shot. It couldn’t hurt to ask. That sort of thing. And this is no exception. My life in Queensland, my marriage, my children, all hinged on one decision to give this beautiful girl I’d met in Queensland a call – it couldn’t hurt. My entire career – both of them – are hinged on one decision to pick up a bass guitar and start playing. My playing bass put me in a band, got me into university (where I also read all the creative writing books I could get my hands on), got me my current job as a music educator. It couldn’t hurt to just pick it up – what was the worst that could happen?

If you’re facing something in your life right now you’ve been putting off because the timing wasn’t right, or some other hedging excuse, just jump in. Sincerely.

What’s the worst that can happen?

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My agent, Gaby Naher, is invaluable. For so many reasons. Let me list just a few.

She is the very first person who was willing to take a chance on the To Become a Whale manuscript. After sending through my manuscript pdf, and waiting a few weeks, at work one day I received an email. I still have it. Here it is in almost its entirety:Dear Ben, 

I’m reading this now and am captivated. Can you please confirm that you’re still looking for representation, and can you also please tell me a little bit more about yourself.

You can imagine my reaction. After years and years of banging my head against the publishing industry door, this was the first big thumbs up (I’m going to post the smaller thumbs up – which were equally as important – at a different time). I put the email away back in my pocket and just sat with it for a minute. Just enjoying the feeling. I felt like I had a secret superpower.

So Gaby needs a huge amount of credit for this point alone.

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After my very first phone call with Gaby, where she said she’d send through some paperwork so she could represent To Become a Whale, I opened this bottle of wine. I’d been saving it for years. It was a huge moment.
She named Snake Island. It’s about time I come clean about this. Gaby has a knack for titles. Snake Island wentthrough a lot of title changes. I’ll list them here, and you might see why Gaby’s title eventually won out… I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts!

Meaningless! Meaningless! I still like this title. Exclamation marks and all. It’s literary for sure. Taken from Ecclesiastes, which has a lot to do thematically with Snake Island. Plus Hemingway did that. A lot. Problem with this title was the reviews kind’ve wrote themselves…
The Sea is Never Full – Same deal as above. I actually managed to sneak this phrase into the first page of Snake Island, so keep an eye out for it. This title is from Ecclesiastes again, and to me, talks about the idea that no matter how many things we fill our lives with, we’ll never find meaning. Problem with this title is that it’s super pretentious.


Gaby helped shape Snake Island significantly. She did with To Become a Whale also. She has a great eye forparts of the manuscript that could be even better. Chapters written from the perspective of a character were removed from the manuscript and inserted more organically into the narrative in other ways. One very significant change was the change of one of the characters.This novel discusses the very real, very important topic of domestic violence, from a variety of viewpoints. However, as Gaby noted in an earlier draft, the reader never really experienced the effects of this violence, and only heard characters talk about it obliquely. To that end, one character was changed from a male, into a female.

This meant rewriting from the beginning. I think, looking back, that I’d always avoided writing from afemale perspective because I was nervous. I was nervous I would get it wrong on an innate level, of course (we’ve all read some truly horrible male writers attempting to write from a female perspective) but I was also nervous that I wouldn’t be able to handle the topic well. Domestic violence is such a traumatic, awful thing – I didn’t want to handle the topic without nuance or sensitivity, nor did I want to accidentally paint over its effect. Hence, my nervousness.

I hope, in the end, that I’ve done well. I was certainly pushed creatively, regardless. And that’s all thanks to Gaby.

This entire post reads like an advertisement for Gaby, and for agents and general, and it kind’ve is. My books wouldn’t be what they are without Gaby’s guidance, and they certainly wouldn’t be in people’s hands. She opened these doors for me, and I’m incredibly grateful.