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!