People who’ve read my novels Geography or Bird will know that I haven’t written much at all on my own city, Melbourne. But I’ve been thinking about it alot (by which I mean about the city; but also about why I might find it hard to write) and gearing up to write a book(s) set much closer to home. Alot of writers  use diaries as a prompt, but I often use my own photos. I have, in the last couple of years, began to try and learn a bit about photography.  There are several reasons for this. One is that when I take words so seriously, and am always whipping myself about how they should be used, photos are a liberation for me.  But in another way, taking photographs is very similar to writing in that you are in the moment when you take a photo: you are trying to be present to what is going around you; to observe  without judgement, or  static.  And you are, to some extent, positioning yourself as an outsider or onlooker.

Anyway, today I took possession of  a Nikon D80. It’s quite different from the D70 and I didn’t really feel on top of the differences when I took these photos - but they are all taken within 10 meters of my house, as the storm was coming in this afternoon and for that reason alone capture the intimacy of my street even if they aren’t all technically great.

The general chaos that is my life continued today as I sat down to write my first blog post and saw that in fact I should have begun yesterday.  Apologies all round.  The excuse is that I was in meetings for a total of ten hours yesterday - oh how I dream of sitting home and actually writing - and then went to the SPUNC (Small Press Underground Networking Community) Christmas drinks. To drink.  To make up for that I got a new camera today and later this afternoon plan to try it out and, if they’re any good, share the first results.

I am, I confess, in a state of yearning - mainly for the Christmas break and that sometimes bleak sometimes sweet feeling of a city that’s shut down for a couple of weeks.  People disappear. Favorite cafes close down. People with children head off to beach houses, people without wait until the school holiday season is done before they take their break.  The streets are quiet.

Yearning too , as I said above to have the time to read and to write without the pressure of work.  This Christmas break I am off to Vietnam and already have my books organised (yes, The Quiet American).  The writing will probably just be jotted notes, emails maybe blog posts. And hopefully those disorganised observations will bloom into something more substantial later on. That said, I’m not going to vietnam with a book project in mind and there is  a freedom in that.  Often my travel is more directed to an outcome and that can be both good and bad. 

I travelled to India a few times when I was writing Bird - and obviously that country is on my mind this morning.  There have been bombings throughout Mumbai and the Taj Mahal Hotel is burning. That is the place I had my first Indian meal in what was then known as Bombay.  It was January 1983, and my friend and I went straight to our divey hotel from the airport, and  then dutifully went to the Taj to try their Indian buffet - as recommended by our travel guide.  It was great food - and very expensive by backpackers standards ($20 -25 years ago) but it was such a treat. One of those nights, as a teenager, that I felt very grand and grown up - though India can often have the opposite effect.  The point of these bombings seems to have been to target tourist areas, but as is always the case, it is mainly the local people who’s lives are lost, or turned upside down.