Words, dreams, voices, places, personalities and ideas. This has been a decade of bringing it all together. Not so much a labour of love as a call to action. This story had no choice. I’ve carried it for what seems like forever. Gathered in one place, dispatched and thrown out into the world, ‘Leila’ I wish you well.
An ebook? What a crazy idea that would have sounded when I sat with a lead pencil and a government issued school exercise book so very long ago. So long ago, that I am not sure that anyone would believe me if I told them that lead pencils and exercise books were provided free in the 50s and 60s.
I loved those books, especially the pleasure of opening that first page, so fresh and clean. I loved bending back the crimson soft cover and seeing the rounded edge of those pages folded into the staples. Was it 36pp? 48pp? With every passing school year, the space between the lines was pressed tighter together. We slowly graduated to 64pp. Being chosen as a class monitor was a highlight. We had the task of filling the shelves in the class storeroom with supplies that we knew as treasure.
And now, my writing is solitary and pounded out on a treasured Mac. I’m not sure I could sustain long hand for more than a paragraph before it would start to unravel.
Are all first novels places where you weave in yourself, your friends and family, someone you met on a train and someone who sits in your head? Where you hope to better understand all your experiences to date and let the Freudian slips do the work for you?
I suspect it does not matter, it is just good to have it done, and to know that your new extra title of author is only six letters away. Interested in a book of global adventures that celebrates love and friendship? Go to http://www.amazon.com and type in Dimity Fifer.
DIMITY FIFER 