When I started writing and then published this ‘about’, I was less savvy about ‘about’ pages. They are, mostly, boring. I get that now.

Writing is neither safe nor secure. It’s one letter after another and hope for the best.

Poetry is not a historical fad or teenage scribblings in the back of a VCE school diary (you know, with love heart dots on top of all the i’s?) except when it is. Then, it is.

My first verse novel – ‘It’s Your World’, is a verse novel. Not quite poetry. Not not poetry.

Etcetera.

In retrospect, perhaps this was brave.

Taking a sharp left off the Nullarbor into the who knows where, somewhere near the Great Australian Bite, fits the definition of either brave or stupid. It’s a fine line between the two. But I made a decision, some time ago, not to be too bothered by lines. On a page. In the sand, on a face. I also don’t think much of the lines of paint in carparks.

My first child was dark and calm. Olive green eyes. A tad alien-ish. The babies in the rooms, on either side of my hospital suite, screamed constantly and sounded like possums fighting.

Life complications lifted me from dreams of a Masters…wait, no, I did that…eventually.

Submission, submission, submission. Rejection, rejection, rejection. And, finally, ‘It’s Your World’ was published by Guillotine Press. I was an author. The manuscript: a book. The story continues but I’ll save that for creative non-fiction of the future…

My second daughter was not at all dark. She was a surprise of blonde hair and the bluest of blue eyes. She screamed her head off.

It’s been a while since I warmed baked beans on a roadside fire or lost a pillow in a national park.

My husband does this thing when he showers because we have two shower heads and I was all over that rubbish about dual shower heads that only have one mixer so you can only ever use one at a time anyway. What the..? Nah, we have two shower heads and two mixers. So, my husband, Oliver (occasionally Seamus ‘the laughing squall’ but only really when he wears the hat my mum got him from the Hebrides),showers (for hours) and then blasts himself with cold water. It’s very amusing because he makes funny noises. Eeha, Ahh, rrrgh.

It’s very serious stuff.

No expectations. Occasional monkeys…

• apologies to Adorno for all the crappy punctuation and hyper-punctuation.