Books, novels, have always grabbed me. Worming their way into my head. Whether they are good or bad, I would plough through them and immerse myself in them. And if not, they would have to be really crushingly boring. Seriously. I mean ridiculously, claw-your-own-face-off boring. They have been a comfort and an escape but at the same time, scary and confronting. What I love about them the most is they are so accepting, so effortless, not in the writing of them no, but in the reading. All you need do is pick one up and skip through to the first page. That’s it. No fiddling about with technology, no procrastination or conversation, no convincing or arguing, they just are. They accept you. They don’t mind if you accidentally smear pizza sauce on one of their pages or drop them on a bus when you’re standing, crunched between people, simultaneously concentrating on the words and clutching the hand rails for dear life. They don’t mind if you go away on holiday and leave them on your bedside table. They don’t mind if it takes you six months to get through them. They don’t care if you are employed or a drug addict or a rock star. They don’t care if you work at centrelink and spend your time making people’s lives miserable. Even if you’re homeless, you can still have a nice book tucked inside your jacket. I don’t see you lugging around a T.V, DVD player and a DVD, huh?

A book just is. Regardless of who reads it or what they think. I love that they are so solid, so secure.

So, in my everlasting quest for security, it made sense that I write one. Or rather, try. Because writing a book and trying to write a book are two very different things aren’t they? One says, “Hey, I’m quirky and intelligent, with an air of mystery. But I have a purpose.” The other says, “I am on the dole.”

Though to be honest, depending on how good the book you wrote or are writing actually is, you probably flit between both extremes whether you’re published or not.

I think it’s fairly easy to make the decision to write a book. The difficult part is deciding what to write about. I never have the ideas; I just have the idea to have the ideas. So really my process is that I get the sudden urge to write but instead just end up staring blankly at the computer screen for an hour trying to think of something witty and charming. And even if I do come up with something. Even if I get to the point where I am least putting ideas into dot points on the page, i.e.:

(poss.) about a girl

(poss.) lives in Sydney

(poss.) keeps goldfish...

(poss.) loves playing tennis...

And... And...

(poss.) Drinks heavily (?)

Even if I get past that, then I am confronted with the task of thinking of some smooth and winning line with which to open with. I am exceedingly paranoid about that. Mostly because I once watched an episode of one of my favourite comedy shows wherein there was a publishing character who could supposedly judge an authors talent and subsequently the quality of the book on the very first line. This I subconsciously took as gospel even though logic suggests that it is crap.

So in this instance, when I am stuck for ideas and my imagination has gone on out to lunch (only raising its head to do exactly the opposite of what I am trying to do, for example, when I want to write a song I find myself with the irresistible urge to draw and visa versa) I think that the easiest thing for one to do, would be to write about what one already knows. And just to get to the point, that is precisely what I intend to do.

I know Harry Potter.

I also know Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and the Mighty Boosh, but Harry Potter is where my heart sits nice and comfortable. So while I sit around, on the dole, procrastinating about my original novel (which, mercifully, is actually doing quite a nice job of writing itself right now) I'll write fanfiction. Because it helps and because I love doing it.

It make me so happy, euphorically happy in fact, that I get to share it with all of you. So thank you for that and enjoy.

xx

Desdemona