Hemmingway came down to Melbourne with me...

I have recently picked up A Moveable Feast by Hemingway and I am enjoying it immensely.

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." (Ernest Hemingway to a friend in 1950).

It is so easy to read his first person style. It flows well and is very relaxed not like some of Hemingway's short stories that can be aggressive and abrasive. But this little book is enjoyable and also very powerful. I loved Paris when I was there in 2001 just after September 11, it was as if nothing dramatic had happened in the world and nothing would touch that city.

It is amusing to read about Gertrude Stein criticising Hemingway's style of writing and saying that he was of the Lost Generation. It talks about how Hemingway and his wife deal with their poverty and about their everyday lives and about the fisher people on the Seine River. It is candid and charming.

"Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat it back so that it would seem that it would never come and that you were losing a season out of your life. This was the only true sad time in Paris because it was unnatural...Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light. But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again...When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason. In those days, though, the spring always came finally but it was frightening that it had nearly failed."

There are other observations of his relationship with his wife and how they spend their time and money. I can really relate to what he is talking about. He seems like a friend of mine, someone who understands how an artistic person feels about life.

It is unlike any other Hemingway I have read. He is a free spirited and generous person in this book. It is refreshing to hear about his life in Paris with authors such as F Scott Fitzgerald, Joyce and others. To me it is a gem of a book, beautifully and soulfully written.

Present Tense...

Recently I wrote a short story for an ABC competition. I decided after researching tenses, to write it in present tense because I thought it made it more exciting and immediate. Present tense is not used very often, normally past tense is used for narrative but in a short story it can be a useful technique to create a sense of suspense and energy.

Anyway, I read some information about tenses and

From Nicks Writing Blog: http://www.mywritingblog.com/writer/2007/07/tense-in-fiction.html

"And finally, if you write in the present tense, you need to be very careful when referring to events that occurred in the characters' past. In ordinary, past-tense narration, we use the pluperfect tense to introduce such "flashbacks":

Mary smiled and sipped her tea, remembering when they first met. It had been a cold November morning...

I never knew about pluperfect tense but there you go. Very interesting.

Novels are better to be written in past tense, especially for a novice, that is the advice I have read.

Anyway, just some thoughts on tense that I thought was interesting.

Bob Dylan in Melbourne

Hey everyone

As anyone would know that reads my blog I am always talking about Bob Dylan, amongst other people. When I found out he had been in Brisbane last week and I didn't know about it, I felt completely demoralised. I had been getting updates from his website about tour dates however I noticed the other day how one of them had been deleted as if it was spam, so obviously the one telling me when he was in Brisbane was deleted.

Anyway, long story, I am flying to Melbourne on Sunday to see him on Sunday night. I missed his 1997 show at Byron Bay and since then I have really gotten into his music. I believe he was here in 2003 as well.

I may go down and be disappointed but I have always wanted to see him in concert. A lot of people come away disappointed but I am prepared for this. It would just be good to see him in person on stage.

Anyway, I am very excited and thankful that I am able to do this. I will report back about this experience if anyone cares to read and even if they don't.