Musing

I've taken a break from the computer today.  There are factors to digest.

There's a local book publisher who advertises a 'pitch day'. Last week I sent info about a novel I'd begun in the nineties when Ariel was a young cat living in Melbourne with Anna. I mentioned my essays and radio scripts too, but it's the fiction they asked to see.

I don't usually write fiction but I was fascinated by the machinations of the local music industry which had recently changed radically here in Australia at that time. I did a lot of voluntary work in music back then and I  the range of characters I met was extraordinary. Therefore it was easy enough to transpose the intensity of such a world onto wholly imaginative people.

The reason for launching into the tale of a young singer and her manager was simple. There was a very juicy prize available, several thousand dollars, a CD Rom, a Dictionary  and a case of French Champagne.

I remember now that my friends, (including my musical friends) liked the work and were asking for the new chapters to an extent that I got well into the story.

My essays have always been the main focus of my work, so when I found the novel during one of my sorting days, I was very surprised. I thought at first that some long ago person had shown me a manuscript. 

I began to read it and then I remembered.

I remembered how all my old jobs had dried up in those times and that I'd been mad for some kind of project where I'd both feel functional and earn some livelihood.

It's clear that the novel knew where it was going. It's not Patrick White quality, but it's pretty good and I had to wrack the brains to remember why I stopped working on it on that occasionally borrowed computer. 

The competition details were with the manuscript and as soon as I checked the dates, I remembered. The judging dates were in the year and the month when my younger sister died, an awful, awful time, an event which meant everything else had to be put to one side.

When such things occur, it may be years before a certain lightness of heart returns.

Funny, I've had dreams of her reading a book of mine.

I'd like the book to be published and if it is, she will be remembered in a dedication. 

I thought I'd start publication with my autistic memoir which is more literary as it were, but there you go. The music story and with its pictures of early nineties Bondi is interesting. The email was very cheering and I'll be spending a few hours per day on this project from now on.

I'm listening to some new music at present, David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new album out and I'm listening off MSN. It's pretty good.

A few updates. Last night, I discovered that I left my Organiser at my next door neighbour's place a few days ago. It was a relief to find it. I had to ring and ask the dentist for another appointment though.

It's bad enough being on the pension, but to travel without a card and face the probability of those Railway cop people was too too much.  

I made a grovelling apology to the dentist.

I haven't found the folder relating to my counselling yet, the next session is on Wednesday next week.

I borrowed a book on the founding of Melbourne's Montsalvat Artists Colony from the neighbour.  He's related to the founders of that amazing place.