The Sixth Key by Adriana Koulias

We have reached our destination and the final sixth key to writing The Sixth Key and I couldn’t end without speaking about Don Quixote, Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe.

When I was a young girl, my birthdays were celebrated in my house by going to the movies. On my twelfth birthday I was taken to see the film, Man of La Mancha, with Peter O’toole and Sophia Loren and I enjoyed it so much that for weeks I couldn’t stop singing, ‘To Dream the impossible Dream’. My Spanish father was so excited that he bought me my first copy of Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, which I would have thoroughly enjoyed, had it not been printed in old Spanish making it a tad tedious to read! Even so, I was very excited to come to Don Quixote again through Otto Rahn, the main character in The Sixth Key, because, as it turns out, he was quite a fan.

Sherlock Holmes had been a favourite of mine for years; in particular I loved Basil Rathbone’s portrayal of him. So when I realised in researching The Sixth Key, that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was not only a Freemason but had also visited the south of France and come into contact with one of my characters, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was also amazed to find out that Edgar Allan Poe’s Monsieur Dupin was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, because his macabre stories were so delicious and fit so nicely with the overall theme!

So there you have it. I have only scratched the surface of what is locked inside the pages of The Sixth Key  – adventure, romance, conspiracy, mystery, crime, murder, not to mention magic. Have I lived all these things? Of course!

As Edgar Allan Poe says, ‘all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream’.

The Fifth Key by Adriana Koulias

In a story written by Schiller, a young acolyte sneaks into the temple and steals a peak beneath the veil of the Goddess Isis. He falls down dead. What was hidden behind the veil? Something beyond time and space, something very dangerous…ourselves, or rather, what we were in past lives.

In my latest novel I play with the concepts of time, space, life, death and even reincarnation. Like that incautious acolyte I wanted to take a peak behind the veil, but unlike him I didn’t do it alone.

The first time I came across a philosophical approach to the study of reincarnation was in the work of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. In fact, his work changed my whole outlook on life. Many years later, I read A Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I was amazed at how easily he had incorporated spiritual ideas in his novel by cleverly moving from magic to realism. I realised that authors are the Gods of their own books and as long as they are skilful enough they can do anything they want.

These were important influences, but when I discovered the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges, I knew I had found the fifth key, the key to incorporating the concept of reincarnation into my new novel. Borges wrote amazing, puzzling short stories and like me had a penchant for playing with time, space, life, death and immortality. In particular, The Library of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths and The Book of Sand, provided me with the literary devices I needed.

And so I did take a peak behind that veil and I haven’t fallen down dead, but one never returns completely unscathed from daring to look into the face of the silent Goddess Isis.

Would I do it again? You’ll have to wait for my next book to find out!

The Third Key by Adriana Koulias

The Third Key to writing The Sixth Key has to do with the fact that some people belong to their time and others do not. What do I mean by this? Like Otto Rahn, my protagonist, I realised at an early age that I didn’t belong to the Australia of the 1970’s but to the America and Europe of the 1930’s and 40’s.

I didn’t fit in at all. While my friends were listening to the soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar, or the music of Jimi Hendrix, I was enjoying old recordings of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Billy Holiday.  Skirts were getting shorter, hair was becoming straighter and longer and the shoes were growing chunkier, but I wanted to dress in flowing silk gowns and beautiful stiletto heels like Ginger Rogers, with my hair short and curly, like June Allyson. And when my generation was flocking to movies like Mash or The Godfather, I snubbed my nose at them, preferring to stay at home to watch The Maltese Falcon, Frankenstein or Alfred Hitchock movies on TV. I even recorded them with my little cassette tape recorder, so that I could practice the lines. I was such a dork!

So when the time came to write The Sixth Key, it is not so hard to see why I was drawn to set it primarily in the late 1930’s, with a protagonist who is a mix of all the sensitive male heroes to have ever graced the silver screen, partnered by a heroine who has the moxie of Katherine Hepburn, the intelligence of Lauren Bacall, and the vulnerable, ethereal beauty of Louise Brooks.

I know my parents worried about me in those days, when I wanted to spend half my life in ‘hot rollers’, trying to speak with a husky voice like Greta Garbo. But as you can see, not belonging to your time can sometimes come in handy!

The Second Key by Adriana Koulias

I’m often asked how long it takes to write a book and I have to restrain myself from answering, ‘How long is a piece of string?’ There is so much more to a book than those hours that a writer sits plying the craft in glorious abandon. But I’m not talking about those nights one can’t sleep because a particular plot line isn’t working, or a character just isn’t developing. I’m talking about the deeper influences, that long before one puts pen to paper or finger to key, mould the thoughts and feelings that will one day surface as the epiphany I spoke about in my last blog.

I was born in Brazil where Catholicism mixes easily with magic and the occult. Some of my earliest memories include lying in bed listening to the sounds of the Macumba drums while my grandmother told me stories of the martyred saints; they include hearing whispers about people who attended these magic rituals in order to debunk them but returned forever changed. My atheist father was always looking for conspiracies and rejected all religion and superstition with a passion. Conversely, my mother was a religious seeker and exposed me to a cornucopia of faiths. At one stage, I had a mother who was not only sanctioned by the Catholic Church to conduct exorcisms, but who was also, incidentally, a Freemason. Interesting!

As you can expect, this mystical milieu did have an effect on an impressionable child: I was very afraid of churches and anything atavistic for a long time, but it did have the effect of stimulating my curious nature and opening my mind. It is not so hard to see how all of the above would come bubbling out of me when I began to research and to write The Sixth Key: a book about the occult, corrupt priests, heretics, black magic rituals, conspiracies and secret masonic societies.

As Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘Elementary, dear Watson!’

The First Key by Adriana Koulias

My latest novel The Sixth Key is published and in bookstores and now, as I bask in the warm afterglow of past labours, I find myself turning philosophical. You see, its my habit to retrace my steps, to search beyond those numerous drafts, sleepless nights, moments of self doubt and, of course, the usual last minute panic, to find the impulse that led to the book: the epiphanic moment – the birth of the idea.

James Joyce was the first to apply this word epiphanic to literature – a moment of insight which briefly illuminates the whole of existence and makes time stand still. For me these moments always come in the middle of life: while I’m on the way to driving my daughter to the mall or when my son is physically moving the house with music – everything is normal one moment, and the next – Eureka!

So what was the epiphanic moment that led to The Sixth Key? It came the morning I had a meeting with my agent and publisher. I was locked in dense Sydney traffic, and all at once the world faded away and three things popped into my head: Hitler, the Grail and the Apocalypse – I had my book!

In reality such a moment is only the tiny peak of an enormous iceberg and the very first key to what lives in an author just waiting to bubble up as an epiphany. As a literary device I will say there were six keys to writing The Sixth Key and in the coming blogs I will explore them with you. Are you ready for an adventure? Bring your rope and your flashlight, because as my protagonist Otto Rahn says, one has to dare to travel to hell if one wants to find heaven – I dare!

Rejection and criticism by YA Erskine

As a would be writer, there is more advice out in cyber space regarding how to handle rejection, than possibly any other topic you want to google. Well, apart from Harry Potter and Twilight of course. That said, it’s great to know you can soothe your screaming, ripping, suicide-prone self by reading stories of rejection from the very greatest of the literati. It doesn’t make it any more pleasant when you receive ‘that’ letter, but nevertheless.

After receiving my own fair share of rejections for a few years, I found myself in an alien universe where, God forbid, my manuscript was accepted and about to become a book. Now, being a bit of a sensitive soul, not to mention a bit of a ‘glass half empty girl’ when the mood strikes me, I got to thinking. Not everyone is going to like my book. In fact, some people will detest my book. There will no doubt be negative reviews, because let’s face it, there always are. Even the most brilliant of novels such as Tsiolkas’ The Slap, generate criticism.

The more I pondered this, the more it worried me. Could I handle it? How do I handle it? Just when I thought I had time to mentally prepare myself, the first ‘not so complimentary’ comment marched up and slapped me in the face.

Even before the book had been released.

In response to one of my interviews.

The commentator had, I believe, taken umbrage at how I’d described my own policing journey, how I ended up bitter and twisted, how I hated the system and felt let down at every turn. He essentially felt that I’d gotten it wrong, that policing had changed and was more positive now and that my own comments weren’t a good look for policing. At first, I was mortified. Interviews are tough, particularly when you’re an introvert who is, by nature, a writer – not a talker. You don’t have the luxury of going back and editing a radio interview.

So after a few hours of stewing on his words I began to apply a few of the principles I’d mentally put into place in order to help me deal with criticism. And I’m pleased to say I felt a whole lot better for it.

They might seem a bit obvious, but here they are anyway.

• Take a long walk to clear your head
• Remember not to take criticism / negative reviews personally
• Remember that not everyone will (a) agree with your own points of view (b) like your work
• By becoming a public figure, you are opening yourself up to all forms of scrutiny
• Unless you’ve gravely erred (and by that I mean being incredibly politically incorrect), suck it up and don’t feel that you have to apologise to everyone for offending their sensibilities. They’ll get over it. (If, however, the said gaffe is grave then a heart-felt, well placed apology will hopefully do the world of good)
• Remember that even the genius’ in their field have copped it from time to time and that it’s going to be pretty much impossible to keep everyone happy.
• Most of all, pull on your big girl panties and get over it.

One final thought on that topic. Elbert Hubbard once said ‘in order to avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.’

To the commentator who didn’t appreciate my interview, I’m sorry, but I choose to be something.