Two Things I Took Note Of from “Garth Nix In Conversation with John Birmingham”

Last week, I ventured out into the streets of Brisbane to see Garth Nix in conversation with John Birmingham at the Brisbane Square Library. The in-conversation was nominally about Nix’s new book, Angel Mage, which got described as “Three Musketeers meets Joan of Arc with Angelic Magic and Kick-Ass Heroines.”

As these events are wont to do, the conversation took a turn through inspirations, process, and industry lore, courtesy of two career writers digging into one another’s work and trying to figure out how they did what they did. Nix is largely a make-things-up-as-I-go-along writer, and Birmingham is not, and the disconnect in their respective approach proved fascinating.

I walked away with two quotes from the event, both marked in my notebook so I wouldn’t forget them.

Nix got the first of them, when talking about “research” and the slow filtering of everything he reads into his process:

“We are all descendants of everything we’ve ever read.”

Which is one of the best ways of describing the ongoing research process of writers I’ve ever come across (Historical novelists used to confuse the heck out of me–how in hell did they do that much focused research?–but then I sat down with a couple of historical writers and listened to them talk, and really they’re immersed in that stuff all the time. They live and breathe it for fun, then take what they need for fiction when it becomes relevant.)

Later in the event, Birmingham nailed one of the great things about being a writer in the early stages of the 21st century, and how that’s different to the film and TV field.

If we write something, and we do our jobs right, it’s going to get published. It’ll go to our publishers, and if they don’t want it, we can publish it ourselves and take home that sweet 70% self-pub royalty.

In screen, there’s still a line of two hundred people between you and having a show come out, and if any one of them says “nah, not for us,” you’re toast.

I am, of course, going off rough notes and the text of the quotes may not be 100% accurate, but the gist of them is right. And they’re both things that I’ve logged here because I wanted to remember them long after the current bullet journal is retired.