Blog beginnings...

I am still debating whether or not to write a blog. After all, I'm supposed to be writing other things while I'm a lady of leisure in Australia. Since I arrived in Brisbane on 2 January, I've written a diary (every day) and a couple of thousand words of my first short story. At the moment it's a short story. It may turn out to be a novelette, a long story, a novella...

The novella... is most often concerned with the personal and emotional development rather than with the larger social sphere. The novella generally retains something of the unity of impression that is a hallmark of the short story, but it also contains more highly developed characterisation and more luxuriant description. Warren Cariou, writer and Associate Professor of English at the University of Manitoba

...or it may be even longer. Does it matter what it is? If it ever gets finished to my satisfaction, it will be up to its readers to decide what it is. It will just be my writing. Labelless, if possible. And will it be fiction, autobiography, memoir, diary, essays, life writing?

So here I am in Bulimba, a lovely leafy suburb on the south bank of the mighty Brisbane River where modern blocks and boxes have largely replaced traditional timber Queenslanders, wharves, warehouses and workshops. The plan is to live here for three years, while my partner helps to improve the infrastructure of this rapidly expanding city. It is an exciting prospect, getting to know 'Australia's New World City', as it likes to call itself, and exploring this vast continent further, but as a resident rather than a vacationer. Maybe I will, after all, share my adventures and experiences with anyone who cares to join me.