finding inspiration in the city

My boyfriend's mum is here on holidays from New York - or should I say 'mom' - , and I've been playing tour guide all around Melbourne. Today we woke up early and went for breakfast before the heat settled. We went to Degraves Street in the CBD, which is lane-way full of people, cute cafes and boutique stores. After, we went to the State Library and just ventured around the streets. 


I love Melbourne. I've had this idea of moving to London to find literary inspiration but I haven't appreciated what's right in front of me.

I would love to take a month off work and go every day to a different cafe, in different suburbs, take a few photos and write for a few hours. 

I have returned

Blog! How I’ve missed you!

The truth is that life has taken my sleep and my words and has left me almost robotic, studying and working. (oh, and I moved houses!)

The fact now is that uni has finished for the year (half way to being a qualified publisher/editor), I’m settled into my new home – photos to come – and I’m returning to blogging.

NaNoWriMo is coming up in just over a week and I’m frantically planning my novel so that I’m ready to write my little heart out. My characters have started having conversations in my head at the most awkward times. I’ve been in the shower, driving my car or watching a movie, and have had to stop, pull over or jump out and write their conversation out. It’s taking on a world of it’s own.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, too, however I’m a bit worried that the company I need to research won’t help me with information, which could throw me off slightly, but hopefully isn’t too detrimental.

Here is what I’ve read in August and September. Not as much as I’d hope but I was overseas, had exams and was moving houses…  I have 8 books in the mail from Book Depository though, which is exciting.

Simone Elkeles - Perfect Chemistry

Simone Elkeles - How to Ruin a Summer Vacation

Courtney Summers - Cracked up to be

Sarah Dessen - Dreamland

Sarah Ochler - Twenty Boy Summer

David Nicholls - One Day

Jenny Han - It's Not Summer Without You

Veronica Roth - Divergent

Jenny Han - We'll Always have Summer

Here is a quote I found recently, from one of my favourite writers of all time, Etgar Keret. 

(interviewer) DH: Last night at the reading you said something very interesting. You said you were interested in “creating something out of something” as opposed to “creating something out of nothing.” You said, “Anyone can create something out of nothing.” First of all, am I interpreting this correctly, is this directed against the Judeo-Christian creation myth? Did you even have that in mind? 

(Etgar Keret) EK: I was talking about the artistic mechanism. Creating something out of nothing means making something up. But when you make something out of something, you take things that are already there, like an emotion, and you turn it into a narrative. The nature of literature is not to invent things, but to articulate what is already there. When you read a good book you don’t think that the author is making up lies, but you say, “Oh, yes, I know what he is talking about.” The fact that you know this means that it isn’t made up. 

taking pieces of people lives.

I went to the Camberwell Sunday Market today. It was a real variety market; lots of hand-made jewellery and soap, as well as lots of antique collectables and vintage items. 

I couldn't help but think that I was walking through the remnants of peoples lives, taking and rejecting. 

I was imagining 

            what everything looked like in a home once upon a time ago,

                 the people who bought and used those tea cups,

                       who took those old photographs and wrote in those postcards,

                             and who travelled with those suitcases.

There were old wind up phones, type writers, old fragile lamps, fur coats, cow boy boots and records. 

I bought some old Men in War magazines for my boyfriend, who has a love for history and the military, as well as a framed picture of a military plane flying over a base. 

For myself, I bought some old written-on postcards and some black and white family photographs. They were too beautiful to resist and I just felt like there was a story radiating from them, wanting to be heard and recorded. I couldn't help but wonder who those people were, where they came from, and how their family photos and personal postcards ended up at the Sunday Market. 

The Writer's Life

When I first told my mum that I wanted to be a writer, she said that it wasn’t a good idea because writers lived a lonely life. At that point, I was 14 and often closed myself in my room to write, knocking back movie nights with friends. I didn’t know anyone else who wrote so I was pretty much on my own.

As I’m getting older and understanding what it really means to be a writer, I’ve realised that my mum was completely wrong. Half my social life stems from my writing - especially since all my uni friends are writers, too.

• Going out for coffee with writer friends.
• Work-shopping with groups of people.
• Going to literary festivals and events.
• Going to weekend writer retreats with uni groups, that end up a combination of words and wine.
• Researching for stories - often very interactive.

 ... just to name a few.

And not to sound schizophrenic, but when I'm really into a story, I find that the characters are always in my mind. They become people I know and trust, people I want to help, and be helped by. So in that sense, it's not so lonely. 

As a published writer, part of the job is to market and promote the book and yourself. This involves having an active online presence, being interviewed, touring, etc ... 

So while the physical process of writing is exclusive, I just find that there are so many other aspects of being a writer that are social. 

I usually think that my mum is always right. Not this time though. Sorry Mum!