Doug Macleod answers some questions......

Doug Macleod recently visited Hawthorn Library and was kind enough to answer some follow-up questions for our blog......

"If you didn't live in St. Kilda, where on earth would you like to live?"

I haven't spent long enough in other cities to judge. St Kilda suits me because I like our community. It's very uncool to be judgmental in St Kilda, and I especially like that. We have a diverse population. Kids run businesses, fifty-year-olds ride skateboards. There's a community vegie patch next to Luna Park and we even have penguins. Keith is a little old man who lives in our street and he seems to have found out the secret to life. He loves people, and they love him. He's great to talk to, and knows everyone. He isn't a bore. Everything he says is interesting. This is a remarkable achievement in a built-up area. One morning I went to the ATM on Fitzroy Street, collected my receipt but forgot to take the cash. (It was an intense writing morning. I really shouldn't be let out when I'm like that.) When I realised my mistake ten minutes later, I returned to the ATM, and of course the money was gone. But two English backpackers came up to me and asked if I'd just done something stupid. I said I had. They handed me my money and refused to accept a reward. Even the backpackers are good.

"Are there any foods that help your writing process?"

I do most of my work in the morning, so breakfast is a vitally important meal. It's usually fruit and cottage cheese, because I'm trying to get my blood pressure down. (This is a new thing for me. Apparently having a job where I sit in the front room in my pyjamas typing stories is bad for my blood pressure.) Nectarines are amazingly good for creativity. You can write as many as two thousand words after eating a single nectarine. Bananas are good for comedy. Grapes for historical fiction. Roald Dahl always had the same morning meal - Norwegian prawns and half a lettuce - and insisted that it helped him to write for kids. I've never tried a Norwegian prawn. Victoria Wood said they swim around sewage outlets with their mouths open. It's a potent image, and a good example of the power of the written word.

"Could you write a serious book or does the humour always come through?"
My next book is serious. I've never done one before and I didn't think it was any good, but Penguin gave me a contract for it. I hesitated to sign but my editor kept reassuring me that the manuscript was fine and that he would help me turn it into a book. And just today I have learned that my editor has decided to leave Penguin. It's horrible news. Just thinking about it makes my blood pressure go up. At the moment it's 250 over 3 but I've lost faith in that blood pressure gauge that I bought at Aldi on Inkerman Street. Don't you think it's interesting that there's a shop where you can buy a bag of nectarines and also a blood pressure gauge?

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