I began posting about the Fringe on this blog initially because I wanted somewhere to link and store all of my public output. I have reviewed before, and there are smatterings of my work out there in the big wide world, but it made sense that as I’m (finally) consciously trying to make my voice more public, it would be great to store it all in one easy to access place. But as I began linking my reviews, I found that I couldn’t help but narrate them – I suppose because that’s what I’m drawn to doing. And so it’s been making me think about what it is that this blog is, what I want to achieve and why I feel compelled to write it.

Firstly, I feel so extremely at home in all this flitting – this flirty fluttering from Fringe show to Fringe show – and the engagement I’m having with other artists and creatives as I’m doing it. Perhaps it’s an Adelaide thing – a symptom of little city syndrome, where all these bright lights and riotous babbling has me dazzled. I’m unaccustomed to finding extraordinariness in so many ordinary places, and so it is exciting and energising. It is astonishingly refreshing too, to be writing in my own voice. My Own Voice. What a concept. When did it get so far away from me? And how did it happen? I am writing a novel, a novel which I love, and am constantly excited by, but, for some reason, currently has me stuck. There’s an intense inertia that is puzzling and anxiety-riddling and, until the Fringe began, had me in a downward spiral of Oh-God-What-Am-I-Doing-With-My-Life-I-Can’t-Write-For-Shit-ness. But then this flittering and flirting and fluttering happened and suddenly I have that thing, this weird thing that used to happen to me every single day where all I can think about is writing. Imagine it! A writer who can’t stop thinking about writing? What a concept! But the weird truth is that it really is an uncanny feeling, one that hasn’t possessed me quite like this in such a long time. Is it simply a case of academic and long-form fiction fatigue? Is it because I feel less pressure on this blog for words and sentences to be perfect? Is it simply a matter of uncaging this natural voice – this me voice – for this is what this is – and letting it loose upon a world it so feverously (or so it seems) wants to ravish? But it is thrilling and so I feel like I have to finally just run with it and see what happens.

And so that brings me to the secondly: I like this idea of continuing my engagement in this vague arts and cultural musings style which seems to be where the blog is naturally heading, and so that is what I shall continue to do. But what is important to me is for this blog to act as a vehicle for this, my natural, personal voice. Along the way, I would also like to consciously address the question of writing – what am I writing, why am I writing, how am I writing it – because I certainly do not live in any kind of remotely special anxious writer bubble, and if there’s scope for engagement with other anxiety ridden (particularly local, though of course not necessarily) writers, then that sounds worthwhile to me. I also find it very interesting to examine the sources of creativity and inspiration. Hopefully there is something fruitful here. Or so I’d like to think. And so, without boring my miniscule (and perhaps non-existent) audience, I shall leave it here. Hurrah for writing!