When I was twenty three I “moved” to Australia. I didn’t have much of a plan beyond wanting to get out of Vancouver and do something different. I’d spent most of my life up until then living in and around Vancouver, and so I figured I’d take a shot at living in the countryside.
My mum’s side of the family is Australian, and from the early nineteen eighties up until she passed, my grandmother lived in a small house just outside of a town called Yarrawonga. When I moved in, it had been fairly quiet for a while. The bore water was undrinkable and the place was crawling with mice. There was no wifi, no cable, and if I wanted to get service on my cellphone I had to sit outside. The rabbit ear antenna meant I could watch the occasional rugby league or aussie rules game, and Gilmore Girls was on quite a bit too actually. These days my partner has me on the annual Gilmore Girls cycle – we watch it every fall – but back then I’d just watch whatever was on.
Another part of the reason I moved to Yarrawonga was because I wanted to be a writer.
I’ve always really enjoyed writing. It’s funny though, because it still feels like such a chore to sit down and actually do it. I just reread The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, and it made me feel a lot better about how lazy I’ve been about it. I won’t spoil the book, it’s a great read.
It’s part of the reason why I’m doing this daily writing test, shaking out the cobwebs a little.
Next, I think I’m going to revisit The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I never got through the whole program, but morning pages have been a part of my daily routine on and off (mostly off) for the last few years.
When I was in Australia I read a lot. I was in a big Haruki Murakami phase, so I read Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, Sputnik Sweetheart, and my favourite, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I keep meaning to pick up a copy of 1Q84, but I’m afraid I’m past my Murakami era.
That was also when I read Hemmingway for the first time! For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms.
Simpler times! That was ten years ago and now I’m an old man, rapidly creeping up on thirty three. I still want to write though.
It’s kind of scary trying to pull something from nothing, isn’t it? Writing is daunting when so many great stories already exist. The greats that stood before us set standards so high that it feels like it would be arrogant to even try to join them.
But then, is that sense of self-doubt part of the process? Pressfield calls it Resistance, and he argues that we have to fight Resistance every day.
I don’t know. And I only ended up spending about seven months in Australia before getting bored and moving home.
But I’ll keep doing these short little journal entries I guess, and leaving them on the blog. Hopefully the practice is good. This is four days now.