Writer’s block? No problem for Kit Fennessy By Liane Arno
Kit Fennessy sweeps into ArtSpace like someone out of one of his novels. A man in black, from his boots to his cowboy hat. Jeans and a thigh length trench coat seal the picture.
I, wearing the Covid-19 uniform of trackie dacks and floppy jumper (well at least I changed out of my slippers for the occasion), feel somewhat underdressed.
This whirl of energy stalked through the gallery drawn to some of the more (naturally!) flamboyant items on display.
I must say it was wonderful to show off some of the work of our artists given we had been closed for many weeks now.
Kit Fennessy sweeps into ArtSpace like someone out of one of his novels. A man in black, from his boots to his cowboy hat. Jeans and a thigh length trench coat seal the picture.
I, wearing the Covid-19 uniform of trackie dacks and floppy jumper (well at least I changed out of my slippers for the occasion), feel somewhat underdressed.
This whirl of energy stalked through the gallery drawn to some of the more (naturally!) flamboyant items on display.
I must say it was wonderful to show off some of the work of our artists given we had been closed for many weeks now.
As a child of four Kit was challenged by his mother (who was exasperated by his cries of boredom as he lay on the floor when his three siblings were at school) to write something. He had already grasped the letters of the alphabet but had no idea how to string them into words. When his mother sought to make sense of the jumble of disconnected letters, his fate was sealed.
He moved on to create a Christmas edition of short stories and cartoons for his family and friends called Disco Valente (I now know this to be flying saucer in Italian) which he describes as a cavalcade of whimsy.
It was not writing that put him before an audience in the early years of his adulthood but music. He was in a number of rock bands playing guitar, bass and mandolin. He even played as part of the band on the ill-fated Mick Molloy show. Could their playing have resulted in the early demise of the show? Surely not.
Nowadays his tastes have moved to folk, jazz and country music. I ask him if this is because he is getting older. “No – I just don’t want to get hot and sweaty any more.”
When he was 35 (already happily married with the girl he first kissed on her 20th birthday, “got a present of a lifetime”) he went through a mid-life crisis and decided he needed to write his first novel - Flotation Tank. Here is the introduction to it:
Every three thousand, two hundred and twenty four years the planets of our solar system fall into alignment with each other. Every twenty four years Jupiter returns to your birth sign. In 2006 Mars came closer to Earth that it had been for millennia. Magnetic poles play off each other in this interplanetary ballet and, when combined with gravity waves of a certain frequency, can alter cosmic destiny.
What do these astrological titbits have to do with this novel? Absolutely nothing. They may, however, have been the driving force behind you picking up this fantastic story of complete strangers caught up in a rollercoaster of politics, intrigue, the media, cults, pyromaniacs and floatation tanks.
He got early advice from a bookstore owner. “There are 3000 books published every year in Australia and if you are going to make any money you need to be in the top 10 of sellers. And we are a very small fish in the global market – you need to crack America.”
That spurred Kit on to do two things. One was to create his own publishing company, Blue Vapours; the second was to try and write an American book. He had lots of fun with it – bins became trashcans, footpaths morphed into sidewalks. I was frightened to ask but could there have been a Hank and Peggy Sue in the list of characters? (No. Though there was a Thor Thorson and a Hilary Maynard-Keynes ~ Editor)
As he went to flog his book, he was told by Kerrie Window of Dymocks Melbourne, “Dare I compare thee to Roald Dahl?” – or as Kit describes it, “sort of the way that the restaurateur eats the guests for fun.”
Kit writes books that he would enjoy reading. His philosophy is like that of the Penguin Books’ founder, Allen Lane, that books should be cheap enough for all to enjoy. (In fact, the idea back at the founding of Penguin in 1935 was that great reading should be available at same price as a pack of cigarettes. Kit’s books retail for only $15 – so are in fact cheaper!) He hoped his favourite authors would like his first book and so wrote a list of everyone from Raymond Chandler to Douglas Adams in order to send them a copy. Much to his chagrin he found that only two remained alive. And that didn’t last long. Only two weeks after Kit received a note from George Fraser who wrote the Flashman books, George was dead. So too Sir John Mortimer who wrote the wonderful Rumpole of the Bailey books. Kit now refers to his first book as “The Book that Kills”.
He does of course write his books based on his experiences. So, imagine when he was working at a particular institution in which he was responsible for the $150,000 marketing budget when he was asked, “Hey Kit! If I told you that there was a single line item in the firm’s accounts of $1 million for an advertising campaign – what would you think?” The reply to this resulted in the revelation of corruption and embezzlement at the highest levels, shifty deals, cars full of flowers (don’t ask!) and dignitaries caught short and making use of hotel closets. The whole sordid story is now written (the truth is often stranger than fiction) and under embargo. He tells me he will publish only once the main characters have moved on from this life and so can’t sue him!
Kit and his wife Jane McPhee bought their place in Cape Paterson in 2007 – but had been coming down here for many years prior to that. Just a couple of years ago they decided to give away their place in inner Melbourne and their office in Fitzroy and work from Bass Coast. Kit decided to let his hair grow and write a book. He knocked out a book in three months relying greatly on gin which he found to be, “a fantastic writing companion”. He continued his role as Jane’s pimp (i.e. her marketing director) to ensure she is paid adequately for her work as a graphic designer. They love the fact that they can lie in bed in the morning with no desperate rush to start the day with no employees to worry about finding work for, listening to the call of the birds. International friends cannot believe that an echidna is burrowing under their home, that a koala is perched in their tree and that a kangaroo comes to gaze at them from their driveway.
He loves the art in this part of the world. He particularly enjoys the way in which John Mutsaers not only exhibited his Infinite Birdcage series but invited Mark Finsterer to compose music for it and a writing competition in which writers were asked to draw inspiration from the paintings. Kit and the other authors recorded their work for 3mfm and editing is under way now. The recordings will be broadcast by the radio station, and also available on the ArtSpace website. Listeners will be asked to nominate their favourite for the people’s choice award. Kit hopes that it will be only a couple more weeks before people can vote for HIS work!
He is in the final stages of writing his fifth book – The Cornerstone. Always trying to ensure that every aspect of his living on this planet is tax deductible he arranged to nip over to London to visit the British Museum so he could incorporate a tale of archaeological digs. His story already included a setting of an abandoned Italian palace whose riches had been looted in the years shortly after WWII when there were no public funds to guard public buildings. I can’t wait for it to be released.
And his tips for aspiring authors? Kit has a theory that there is little point in waiting for people to pick you out. There is no need to ask permission and have someone allow you to do something. Instead of saying, “I want to …”, better to say “I am …”. He is always encouraging people to write and says to budding authors, “Don’t say ‘I want to be a writer’, say ‘I am a writer.’”
He says writing a first draft is like driving through the fog; the second draft is trying to show people you knew where you are going the whole time (both pieces of advice he lifted from a Masterclass ad). And then there is the final review by his ‘readers’ – currently a dozen or so who enjoy being given permission to critique Kit’s work – not to mention enjoying the bottle of wine that accompanies the debrief. Readers are a necessary evil when writing as Kit finds that he is so engrossed in his imaginary world it often doesn’t find itself of the page in words but only as a trigger to the mind.
Objectivity and coming back to the manuscript with fresh eyes and a sounding board (or two) are key to fixing the drafts. “Oh – did I forget to mention that he was missing a leg? Or that the building behind them was on flames?”
His next challenge is to join the Board of Writers Victoria. He quips, “Mostly because I want to get invited to swanky openings with champagne, though I don’t know if they do that or just have cask wine.”
But is he wealthy? “What I have decided is that wealth is not money – well, money is one type of wealth, but not all. There is the richness of life, of experience. And I think a writer’s life down here, in such a beautiful part of the world, is a very wealthy experience.” And so I am now the wealthier for having met Kit.
Kit’s work, along with other local authors, is available for sale from ArtSpace. To contact Kit visit www.kitfennessy.com.
He moved on to create a Christmas edition of short stories and cartoons for his family and friends called Disco Valente (I now know this to be flying saucer in Italian) which he describes as a cavalcade of whimsy.
It was not writing that put him before an audience in the early years of his adulthood but music. He was in a number of rock bands playing guitar, bass and mandolin. He even played as part of the band on the ill-fated Mick Molloy show. Could their playing have resulted in the early demise of the show? Surely not.
Nowadays his tastes have moved to folk, jazz and country music. I ask him if this is because he is getting older. “No – I just don’t want to get hot and sweaty any more.”
When he was 35 (already happily married with the girl he first kissed on her 20th birthday, “got a present of a lifetime”) he went through a mid-life crisis and decided he needed to write his first novel - Flotation Tank. Here is the introduction to it:
Every three thousand, two hundred and twenty four years the planets of our solar system fall into alignment with each other. Every twenty four years Jupiter returns to your birth sign. In 2006 Mars came closer to Earth that it had been for millennia. Magnetic poles play off each other in this interplanetary ballet and, when combined with gravity waves of a certain frequency, can alter cosmic destiny.
What do these astrological titbits have to do with this novel? Absolutely nothing. They may, however, have been the driving force behind you picking up this fantastic story of complete strangers caught up in a rollercoaster of politics, intrigue, the media, cults, pyromaniacs and floatation tanks.
He got early advice from a bookstore owner. “There are 3000 books published every year in Australia and if you are going to make any money you need to be in the top 10 of sellers. And we are a very small fish in the global market – you need to crack America.”
That spurred Kit on to do two things. One was to create his own publishing company, Blue Vapours; the second was to try and write an American book. He had lots of fun with it – bins became trashcans, footpaths morphed into sidewalks. I was frightened to ask but could there have been a Hank and Peggy Sue in the list of characters? (No. Though there was a Thor Thorson and a Hilary Maynard-Keynes ~ Editor)
As he went to flog his book, he was told by Kerrie Window of Dymocks Melbourne, “Dare I compare thee to Roald Dahl?” – or as Kit describes it, “sort of the way that the restaurateur eats the guests for fun.”
Kit writes books that he would enjoy reading. His philosophy is like that of the Penguin Books’ founder, Allen Lane, that books should be cheap enough for all to enjoy. (In fact, the idea back at the founding of Penguin in 1935 was that great reading should be available at same price as a pack of cigarettes. Kit’s books retail for only $15 – so are in fact cheaper!) He hoped his favourite authors would like his first book and so wrote a list of everyone from Raymond Chandler to Douglas Adams in order to send them a copy. Much to his chagrin he found that only two remained alive. And that didn’t last long. Only two weeks after Kit received a note from George Fraser who wrote the Flashman books, George was dead. So too Sir John Mortimer who wrote the wonderful Rumpole of the Bailey books. Kit now refers to his first book as “The Book that Kills”.
He does of course write his books based on his experiences. So, imagine when he was working at a particular institution in which he was responsible for the $150,000 marketing budget when he was asked, “Hey Kit! If I told you that there was a single line item in the firm’s accounts of $1 million for an advertising campaign – what would you think?” The reply to this resulted in the revelation of corruption and embezzlement at the highest levels, shifty deals, cars full of flowers (don’t ask!) and dignitaries caught short and making use of hotel closets. The whole sordid story is now written (the truth is often stranger than fiction) and under embargo. He tells me he will publish only once the main characters have moved on from this life and so can’t sue him!
Kit and his wife Jane McPhee bought their place in Cape Paterson in 2007 – but had been coming down here for many years prior to that. Just a couple of years ago they decided to give away their place in inner Melbourne and their office in Fitzroy and work from Bass Coast. Kit decided to let his hair grow and write a book. He knocked out a book in three months relying greatly on gin which he found to be, “a fantastic writing companion”. He continued his role as Jane’s pimp (i.e. her marketing director) to ensure she is paid adequately for her work as a graphic designer. They love the fact that they can lie in bed in the morning with no desperate rush to start the day with no employees to worry about finding work for, listening to the call of the birds. International friends cannot believe that an echidna is burrowing under their home, that a koala is perched in their tree and that a kangaroo comes to gaze at them from their driveway.
He loves the art in this part of the world. He particularly enjoys the way in which John Mutsaers not only exhibited his Infinite Birdcage series but invited Mark Finsterer to compose music for it and a writing competition in which writers were asked to draw inspiration from the paintings. Kit and the other authors recorded their work for 3mfm and editing is under way now. The recordings will be broadcast by the radio station, and also available on the ArtSpace website. Listeners will be asked to nominate their favourite for the people’s choice award. Kit hopes that it will be only a couple more weeks before people can vote for HIS work!
He is in the final stages of writing his fifth book – The Cornerstone. Always trying to ensure that every aspect of his living on this planet is tax deductible he arranged to nip over to London to visit the British Museum so he could incorporate a tale of archaeological digs. His story already included a setting of an abandoned Italian palace whose riches had been looted in the years shortly after WWII when there were no public funds to guard public buildings. I can’t wait for it to be released.
And his tips for aspiring authors? Kit has a theory that there is little point in waiting for people to pick you out. There is no need to ask permission and have someone allow you to do something. Instead of saying, “I want to …”, better to say “I am …”. He is always encouraging people to write and says to budding authors, “Don’t say ‘I want to be a writer’, say ‘I am a writer.’”
He says writing a first draft is like driving through the fog; the second draft is trying to show people you knew where you are going the whole time (both pieces of advice he lifted from a Masterclass ad). And then there is the final review by his ‘readers’ – currently a dozen or so who enjoy being given permission to critique Kit’s work – not to mention enjoying the bottle of wine that accompanies the debrief. Readers are a necessary evil when writing as Kit finds that he is so engrossed in his imaginary world it often doesn’t find itself of the page in words but only as a trigger to the mind.
Objectivity and coming back to the manuscript with fresh eyes and a sounding board (or two) are key to fixing the drafts. “Oh – did I forget to mention that he was missing a leg? Or that the building behind them was on flames?”
His next challenge is to join the Board of Writers Victoria. He quips, “Mostly because I want to get invited to swanky openings with champagne, though I don’t know if they do that or just have cask wine.”
But is he wealthy? “What I have decided is that wealth is not money – well, money is one type of wealth, but not all. There is the richness of life, of experience. And I think a writer’s life down here, in such a beautiful part of the world, is a very wealthy experience.” And so I am now the wealthier for having met Kit.
Kit’s work, along with other local authors, is available for sale from ArtSpace. To contact Kit visit www.kitfennessy.com.