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.

I have discussed, in a previous blog, the mystery of how ideas are sparked, how a story or novel may be conceived. I would love to hear from you, how you have been inspired, how a story was triggered, how a great project came your way. The inspiration however is one thing, but how do we sustain it? There is persistence. A writer has to be tenacious, especially when it comes to inevitable brick walls on the way. There are other challenges. In particular, there is the issue of how the story is to be told. There are so many ways to write a story. Is it to be fiction or non-fiction, memoir or autobiography, short story or novel? This is an issue that I may discuss in my next blog. Here I wish to touch on structure. In each of my books, I have been faced with the question, what is the best way for the story to be told. In ‘Jewels and Ashes’ a non-fiction account of a journey to Russia and Poland to trace my ancestry, the structure seemed obvious from an early stage. The book is based on the journey. The tension is sustained by the fact that the author is on a quest. It begins and ends in Melbourne. The journey takes place in 1986. But each structure creates its own demands. To do it well I had to learn how to move fluidly from the present to the past, from Poland back to my childhood in Melbourne. Whenever I am in this situation, I go to other writers to see how they deal with these challenges. The master writer of our times when it comes to moving freely in time and space, is Gabriel Garcia Marquez – especially his classic ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’ In every project of mine, other writers have helped me out. With ‘Café Scheherazade’ the entire novel is built around a real life café in  St Kilda where refugees meet and tell stories. It was a wonderful way to tell a story, but once again it produced challenges. I had to work on being able to move from the café to the past, from the streets of St Kilda to old world Russia and Poland, war-torn Shanghai, the forests of Vilna, a night club in Paris, and so on. Once again other writers helped. With the novel ‘Scraps of Heaven’ it took longer to find a way to write a book based on my childhood in post-war immigrant Carlton. I finally decided to write it in third person, to encompass many points of view, and many characters. And I set it all in one year, 1958, in four parts, each one representing each season. I did this, among other reasons, because I wanted to take the reader through the seasons in an inner city suburb. In my most recent novel ‘Sea of Many Returns’ I faced a more demanding challenge. How could I write a novel that encompassed so many stories I had heard on Ithaca and Melbourne, that covered over a century of contemporary Ithacan migrations, against a vast historical backdrop of war, poverty, coups, and so on? After playing with a few ideas, and a hitting a few dead ends, I decided to tell the entire story in the first person, through the eyes of two characters. There is Xanthe who comes to the island in 2002 with the aim of writing the family story. She decides that her first task is to translate in English her maternal grandfather, Mentor’s manuscript, and in-between, tell her own tale of journeys to the island. In this way I am able to encompass four generations, and over a century in time. Once again, other writers came to my aid. I have briefly. There is much more that can be said, so many ways in which to structure and tell a story. But the most important thing is this: It takes time. Once the idea comes, it can take a while to work out the best way. This can only be done by entering into the story, without hesitation. Only in doing it, only by writing, can we find our way. Only by writing that first sentence, the first paragraph, does the journey begin. And read other writers, and come to see that there are so many ways to tell a story.

In thinking of how to use my stint as a blogger, I have decided to focus on some of the major challenges I have faced as a writer, and how some of my books have been conceived and taken shape. I invite you to join in and share your own ideas about creativity, whether as a practicing writer, or as a reader responding to the work.
First, there is the issue of how the idea for a story or novel is sparked. I have been asked on a number of occasions how is it, that although I am not of a Greek background, the leading characters of my most recent novel, ‘Sea of Many Returns’ are Greek, and its stories and themes encompass many of the key moments in modern Greek history and migration. In a way the answer is simple. Hemingway has famously said, write about what you know, what you love or hate – or words to that effect. I have been visiting the island of Ithaca since 1987. Situated in the Ionian Sea, between Italy and Greece, it is the island where my partner, Dora’s, father and four grandparents’ were born. We have stayed on the island at various times, usually in the ‘patriko’ the patriarchal house, in the northern village of Ageos Saranda, sleeping in the same room where Dora’s father was born. Over the years, both on the island and in the company of Ithacan friends and relatives in Melbourne, we have heard countless stories of Ithacan journeys. Who could not be inspired by the name of the island itself – Ithaca, home of the archetypal voyager, Odysseus, who made his way to the Trojan wars, and did not return for twenty years? So many of the stories of contemporary Ithaca replicate Homer’s epic – tales of individuals who set out for journeys to the ends of the Earth, expecting to return in the not too distant future, but who, like Odysseus returned decades later, or never returned at all. On Ithaca, the stories can come at any time, in chance encounters while walking the roads and paths, on the inter-island ferries, and above all, in the old Kafeneoin in the largest northern village of Stavros, where the retired fishermen  and seamen play cards. The stories come ones way, just sitting there, over a coffee, on the patio, overlooking Polis Bay. Someone joins you at the table, and soon a new story is born. The island is full of tales. To be a storyteller, it seems, one must first be an attentive listener. But there is something else, when it comes to creating a short story or a novel, and that is acting on that distinct feeling that a great story has come your way. I had that distinct feeling from the moment I first set foot on Ithaca, that I would one day write a book, whether fiction or non-fiction, about the tales I immediately began hearing. I wonder how many of you have experienced this sense of inevitability, or that moment when you know that a great story has come your way, a story that is crying out to be told?  Each of my books has been initially sparked by such a moment, when it became obvious, this is a story meant to be told. Stories may be inspired in many other ways of course. The very landscape of Ithaca, its winding roads, mountains and cliffs falling away to the Ionian Sea, suggest epic stories.  An earlier novel of mine. ‘Scraps of Heaven’, was triggered by a conversation I had with a friend who like me, grew up in Carlton. I recognised instantly, that by drawing on my childhood I had a great story to tell. Another novel, ‘Cafe Scheherazade’ was inspired on a winter’s night in the 1990s, when I sat down in the real life cafe called Scheherazade, and began listening to the tales told by the owners as to how the cafe got its name. By the time I left that night, I knew that this was potentially a novel. How to then shape it into a story that works is another matter, and that includes doing the research  that fills in the gaps, that provides the historical backdrop, and provides the details that give texture and authenticity to the telling, and so much more. Above all it requires persistence, endurance, and infinite patience. More on that in later blogs.