Home

One has left a version of oneself at the place of departure and it waits for us at the point of return - but she is not me when I get there.

Kirsty Gunn. My Katherine Mansfield Project.

I went out wandering with Mari Lena, a new friend, an Italian staying here too.  And we found these beautiful flowers growing on the side of the road.  It's so lush here in Rarotonga.

The notion of home is coming at me from all over, in my reading ... in my everyday life too, as I head home after 6 years away, after 8 years away before that.

I'm about to buy an e-book.  This extract came from it ...

It's an idea that has always preoccupied me - that notion of creative process as a making, a willed brick-by-brick, word-by-word building of a place on the page that might let a story inhabit it - to create a home of words, where I, the writer, may also live.

Kirsty Gunn, from My Katherine Mansfield Project.

In These Days ...

These days find me consumed by a writing course that I'm doing ...

Consumed.  In a way that I haven't been since those rare occasions when school or uni were teaching me things that I was passionate about. 

Writing was my first love, closely followed by photography, way back in my childhood.  But it was writing that took most of my attention when I lived in New Zealand.  Then I flew, I was teacher for while, I wandered some, and I mostly misplaced my writing ... in one sense. 

In another way, blog-writing arrived and I started out on a different kind of writing.  One that I probably didn't really consider as 'writing' ... it occurs to me now, as I realise I have never stopped writing.  I only stopped writing that novel.  I only packed away my manuscript of interviews with climbers.  I only stopped the book-orientated writing.

But anyway, I am writing again.  I have book I want to finish soon.  It's complicated.  I almost made it simple but that would be silly.  I like complications ... why would I write a simple book. 

All that to say, if you're thinking you have a book in you, if you want to explore the whole process ... from the idea to the publishing (including all the tiny details along the way), then I highly recommend you take Christine Mason Miller's course, The Conscious Booksmith.

It's consuming, and fun, and satisfying, and exciting ... it contains all the elements of a damn fine adventure actually.

Oh!  And adventures.  I'm off road-tripping to France next week.  My Belgian bloke has surprised me with a small pilgrimage, in honour of one of my favourite New Zealand authors.  Really surprised and delighted me.

In July, I'm road-tripping, with Helen, to Italy.  Oh the adventures we have planned.  I shall be blogging that road-trip.

August is Norway and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to spending time with Ren.

For now ... it's all about waiting for this special couple's little girl to arrive in the world. And there a ballet performance and a poetry reading planned for tomorrow.  Dank u wel, to the lovely Ruth, who organises some of my best adventures here.