If the writing life is a landscape, then working on my novel, A Deadly Yearning (!) is the best place to be.
It's a sandy cove with an azure sea and smooth white sand surrounded by Pahootakawa trees.
I don't think I've spelled that right but never mind!
I stetch out on the balcony of my rough-hewn wooden beach hut and indulge the imagination. Bliss.
But then I have to visit the brazen, lurid, buzzing city of writing to earn some money.
I have to fund my novelling.
And writing is how I want to pay the bills, so I'll take whatever work is there.
So, this city - let's call it 'New Gotham' - is where I have to go.
It's full of sleazy backstreets where traders tempt you in with their ready smiles.
Some of them just want to slice the writing out of your for free.
'Get your name out there,' they say, 'give me your measly article for free.'
They make me feel like I'm lucky to find them.
They don't want to pay me but they promise that one day I'll be able to charge a few
pennies for an eBook or two.
Then there's the secret citadel of Public Domain.
I found it only two days ago and I can't believe how tacky and glorious and beautiful it is.
It's like an antique shop where everything is free!! Free. Really free.
The temptation sets my heart bouncing.
I download several wonderful, obscure and glittering old things.
I have plans to renovate them and sell them on.
It seems so right and so wrong at the same time.
But it isn't. It really isn't.
Once, years ago when I was struggling on my own with a small baby to feed, I used to buy old white shirts.
I took them home and dyed them. Then I sold them on a market stall for a whole lot more than I ever paid for
them. Was that wrong? No.
So public domain - it's okay to give in. Because in the end, it's the way you rewrite them.
It's the touch of a different colour, a new decorative approach.
It's like shabby chic for writers. I give myself over to temptation and I'm planning an eBook
or two or three for my websites. And I can handle the guilt. I can.
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