A writing-bush adventure

This is not the book. These are words about how I write the book… or how I don’t write the book.

I have discovered, only four days into the process, that leaving a well paid job that’s going swimmingly, all my friends – any people in fact, shops with fresh food, a regular supply of alcohol, afternoon sleeps in the aircon, a power supply larger than 12 volts, a handy fridge, swapping a house for a tent and driving up a corrugated red dirt road into a remote part of the bush in a dodgy car with a man and a dog, to sit on on a cliff top overlooking the most beautiful coastline I have ever laid eyes on, does not necessarily equal a best seller… or even a shitty piece of writing that ends up at the back of a second hand shop being eaten by bugs.

This is the drastic action plan I made when I discovered I had turned 44. This is too old to be carrying about the foetus of a book. After eight years of intense story telling around the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, I’m ready to drop this puppy. Unfortunately for me, intense production schedules and the logistics of working in this harsh and wonderful part of the world have not allowed a selfish creative space for my own words to flourish. There has been no time for contemplation of phrases and images and no energy left for the imaginings I want to nourish so they can push their way into the world.

Why I couldn’t just slip quietly into a sabbatical at a winery, I don’t know. For some reason, I had to create a completely new world from a block of prickles in the roaring sun. How I ended up embarking on this adventure with my fellow traveller and co-writer is beyond me. What I do know is how lucky I am that his spirit is as lose as mine, and for both of us, the challenge of writing a book was not enough. And so we have thrust ourselves into a constant physical battering that will shake the stories that are airless inside of us out into the world.

The ever prickle tortured dog is here because I brought her food and pat her.

And so it begins, or ends.