the rush

I have been trying to use this internet for all it's worth - connections to other writers in this zone - and finding unexpected generosity. People actually write back! Thank you to the new viewers of the blog and do keep coming back, I feel the novel is about to burst forth.

I remember living in Mogadishu so many years ago, sent home from the embassy because I wrote a circular about pregnant local staff being sacked and nobody being paid for overtime, when I had my first short story published in Australia. ('Elton John's Mother', reprinted in Fabulous at Fifty by Pascoe Publishing) That year I spent ages on a novel while my first born kicked in a basket on the floor, then my first stories started to go somewhere - not that it was very tangible, receiving a copy and looking at it on your own in a huge sweaty house in such a ruptured country. I was always at a loss, and lacked the big push, final determination.

And now this immediacy. It's so thrilling really, if I recall carbon paper and my treasured (and stupid) electric typewriter, that first dot matrix printer that really hurt my eyes. How far have we come! How delicious is this form of communication!

Savouring

One of the finest things involved in the divorce procedure must surely be the celebration meal. You know, the final breaking bread together when all has past, when new loves and obligations are on the horizon and a type of freshness returns..
One realises that the spoils of divorce may be elegant and to be enjoyed.
No more plate-throwing and derision.
No more subterfuge and altercation.

How lovely to grow up.

And merci to the ex for the most heavenly meal on the planet. How an ex-anorexic such as moi can wax about food but perhaps the taste buds are heightened through sheer agony?

No one can touch la Peca, Lonigo. Glorious, glorious, still reeling..

Growing pains

I am stuck for a cover. Photoshop daunts me. I wander to rush outside with a model/friend and make meaningful photographs in broad city piazzas. Or along Venice's shoes. Something essential. Something that represents Marilyn's vast and hampered transformation in Italy. At times I see colours that jag against each other, snapping the reader's eyes. Simplicity. Other times I see a little more douleur, drama, a coercion I have been looking at book covers for months. Italian ones at Feltrinelli in Milan. English ones online and at the American Bookstore there too.

How to convey my message in the crispest visual terms? How not to fumble with the mumlit/chicklit graphics that are so prevalent?