Willow's Weekly - Week 23 - Robert-Michel Gao

Robert-Michel Gao is Niua Simoa's most famous writer. Unfortunately all the books he wrote before the last SimQuake got lost - they're still on his bibliography, but nobody seems to have a copy of them anywhere. He even tried ordering all his own books online, but the older ones (mostly 'trashy' novels) were lost.

Robert-Michel spent most of his time flirting, dating, and getting a tan.



I interviewed him this week to talk about his work. The serious interview is of course in our local paper - and it's dull as dishwater.

I do believe his story that all his poetry novels were collections of poems he'd already written over the past years (he doesn't strike me as a man who writes trashy novels unless he really needed the money). But still, eight volumes of poetry. And they all got published. One has to wonder whether the "patronage" of Queen Elesabeti helped convince the publishers of Mr. Gao's genius...



Anyway, Robert-Michel is trying to balance his love life, his home life and his writing - and it isn't going too well. He complained (off the record) about dating calls that he has to turn down, his computer breaking down every other novel, and to top it all, his cat Snowball came home with fleas during our visit, and we had to suspend the interview.



I think he was really embarassed about it - which is silly, because cats do get fleas, and you can't help it.

Anyway, I asked Robert-Michel about his recent books, which seem to be all over the place. He told me that what he really wanted, was to get a contract to write a vaudeville novel.

The publisher told him he needs to write two Science Fiction novels, so that's why he wrote 'Stargazer: Poet of the Galaxy', and 'Worldbuilder: Poet of the Galaxy 2'.
He told me he spent half the night writing on both of them. He'd written SF before, but that book is also lost.



Then his publisher asked for drama. So after writing 'The Olive Tree' and 'Salt Cedars' (really, those are drama books? They sound like botanical guides!) Robert-Michel tried again, but the publisher felt that he needed to increase his writing skill. Maybe some mysteries?
Robert-Michel told me (again, off the record) that he briefly considers writing 'Death of a Publisher', but decides that this may just be against his better interests.
Instead, he wrote two mystery novels about two sleuthing sisters: 'The Nakamura Sisters and the Secret Vault', and 'The Nakamura Sisters and the Hanging Maiden'. I begged him for one more (I love the Nakamura sisters!) but he said he definitely wouldn't revisit that series.

Of course he can't neglect poor Snowball. He isn't a great cook, but he decides to try his hand at gourmet pet food while we talk.



I had some great sushi while he cooked, and played with Snowball - who is a gorgeous odd-eyed white Persian. She does make a lot of noise, and Robert-Michel told me he thinks she may be deaf. (White cats with blue eyes often are...)



Anyway, to get back to the story, the next books Robert-Michel wrote are of course The Funny Man, 'Funny Bones' and 'Sleeping with the Fishes'. Especially that last one was hilariously funny.
He wrote his next novel, a satire, just to hone his writing skill just that last little bit further. He told me he called it 'Lies about Llamas' just because his publisher - whom he apparently thoroughly dislikes - suggested 'The Truth about Llamas' would be a good title.

With his writing skill now at its peak, he tried his hand at some Romance novels - which seem like a more 'literary' version of some of the trashy novels he wrote that I remember from my teenage years (I wish I still had them now - they would be worth a fortune).
Anyway, I personally didn't really like 'The Gigolo' and absolutely hated 'The Stars in Her Eyes', which was (in my eyes) very pretentious.

Be that as it may - Robert-Michel now finally has a contract for a vaudeville novel. It might be a while before he writes it, though, he seems to be just a tad overworked.

* * *

And by now we're in the middle of week 24. Tim and Hina Chin have a new baby boy and call him Hani. I guess that's one way of sort of naming your child after his mother?

And a few days later Salote Tau gave birth to twins. She named them Butterfly - which is just weird, and Royal - which is either very strange, or maybe a not-so-subtle hint about the father?

Salote now has four children - Maise Tau (whose unknown father is Salote's mysterious (or even mythical?) ex-husband), Laione Ota Ika (whose father is Topou, of course) and Royal and Butterfly Puriri (who got their mother's maiden name - since Topou doesn't really want to legitimise them in any way - if Salote ever dumps him, he'll pay or Laione, not for Henry's brats - whichever Henry it is...)

It's quite crowded in the Tau household now, and even Salesi and Arama don't quite know what they want to do. Salesi would like to get the children away from his a-moral sister and her criminal boyfriend, but there's no way he could feed THREE extra mouths. Or afford triple the court (and bribery) costs.

Anyway, that's quite enough for today's blog. A ton has happened the rest of this week, but I'll talk about that later.

I've not been feeling well lately, I hope it's not the zombie bug coming back for a revisit!