Update

So here I am on my third draft and the frustrations are getting me down. I keep going down rabbit holes, writing dialogue that sucks, I change one small detail and it reverberates into one giant rewrite further down the line. I have the beginning, middle and end in my head but some of the characters don’t want to move… so that tells me they are wrong and need to be changed.

I have one important suspect who I need to have a relatively low paid job and as its set in Melbourne, I thought he should be somehow involved with the MCG, but I can’t get my head around the MCG as it’s been a while since I sat in the seats or when to a function in the second floor, and I have forgotten how to access the stairs, and what it feels like to touch and smell the steps… what statues sit outside, have any more been added.

Then I had this massive inspiration. I need to get to Melbourne and walk my novel… I can’t do this from the confines of Nelson and looking over the bay towards the mountains isn’t helping me visualise the MCG, Port Melbourne, nor under the Princess Bridge arches near the opera house. I am losing the sense of place and I need to get it back.

Please let me get longlisted for the Ned Kelly awards so I can come over in September… in the meantime, the story is coming along. Not at the rate, I expected, but progress is made and I am writing or researching at least four to five hours a day.  It will be good.