There is a fearlessness to good writing that I am yet to fully embrace. I only write what I know, so if I write anything that is not about me, it is inevitably about someone real. And I am not fond of the idea of writing about someone I know purely from my point of view, because it somehow seems untrue to their history. There is a variously attributed (and edited) quote that suggests ‘mediocre writers borrow, great writers steal’. That idea sets my teeth on edge, but I must add more characters than just myself to my writing, so I frame each story of a friend within my own story, so it can clearly sit as my own experience of that friend, not some truth of their own, discreet life. A lot of my memories are about the quality of the light I travel into. When I drive back home from the farm, I usually come down Greenmount Hill into the sunset or into the dusk. I descend into orange or grey light, and my thoughts turn to orange or grey thoughts. Things to do, things to face, the work ahead