For the record, it is hot. In the past few three days, neatly coinciding with my blogging stint, the city has been engulfed by a heat wave. Today the city temperature is set to hit 43 degrees. It takes just that much longer to get from point A to point B. Last night I went, for the third night running, with my 15-year-old son to the bay, about a 30-minute drive from where I live. I realised anew, what I love most about this city, that it is built on the edge of water, both river and sea. Even during a heatwave, there is relief within sight, but a gauntlet of heat to run before getting to it. There were thousands there late last night, strolling, wading, swimming, sitting on benches, chatting, gazing at the water.  Writing is a difficult vocation. Every writer I know has had their periods of self-doubt, their periods of writers’ block, and times when a manuscript stalls, like a boat stranded in the doldrums. I thought about this as we walked on the path that runs parallel to the edge of the beach. What is the other side of the equation? If I were asked what is best about being writer what would I say?  For me it is just this:Life comes first, writing, second. Walking on the path beside the sea comes first. Absorbing the sounds, sights and smells of the city. Being an observer. Being alert to the lights that appear on much of the length of the bay. Being curious about those countless conversations that rise like a collective whisper from the edge of the city; curious about the loners, the couples, the groups that gather like flocks of birds on beachside reserves, stretches of sand. In the late 1990s, for instance, as I was doing research for my novel ‘Café Scheherazade’, I came to know that there were flocks of Russian immigrants, recent arrivals, who loved to gather on the foreshore in St Kilda. For some it evoked nostalgia for their native Odessa, and other towns and cities on the Black Sea. This information made its way into the novel. My partner Dora’s restless father, who migrated from the island of Ithaca, lived in a series of houses close to the bay,  and he was only at ease when he would sail, one of his home-built boats, on the bay at night. It reminded him of nights on the Ionian when he ferried freight and passengers on boats that he built with his brother. These tales found their way into ‘Sea of Many Returns’ where he is transformed into the fictional character Manoli. As I was writing these novels, I had my inevitable periods of doubt. When they arose I sometimes come to the bay for long walks, to try to imagine what it was like to be in the shoes of my characters. Or I would just let go and allow myself to experience the city anew. In this space new ideas are given a chance to grow. I call this state ‘going on alert’, just getting back to the art of observation, to the stream of life and humanity, in other words, to the source. And it is a great way to deal with the relentless heat.