Lucky Country

Today is my first ANZAC Day as an Aussie citizen.

This is my home. I chose it. I will likely live out my days here. As an American, I always understood the importance of defending the way of life of your country. The pride of living in one of the best countries in the world, the honour of those who successfully defend it.

For me, it's not just about Gallipoli, but about the coming-of-age of Australia. After WWI, Australia said: We matter! We have a culture! We are a country in our own right!

I don't want to lose that culture now any more than Australians did in 1915.

My circle of friends is a diverse group of mostly expats. We've collected individuals from India to Israel, Sri Lanka to Seattle, Adelaide to Amsterdam. Black, white, yellow, brown and pink. Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, Hindu and Muslim. You can find just about any background in our group.

The reason I stick with this group of friends is simple: We all appreciate each other's background, but we live in Australia. Our values, our culture is based around the mores and values of Australian society as a whole.

We obey the laws. We walk on the left side of the footpath. We watch the football. We hold down jobs. We respect Australia.

There is no better day than ANZAC Day to reflect on the culture of Australia. It's about Mateship, and a "fair go." I welcome everyone into that culture, and I'm here because I think it's the best way. If everyone coming to Australia understood the importance of that, I think those opposed to immigration would have a different view.

One Australia is Multiracial within a single Australian Culture. We can all celebrate our heritage, as long as we live our Australianism.

Get out today to honour and celebrate your Aussie-ness! Thank you Diggers. Lest we Forget.

Assimilation

14 July 1788. The Borrowdale, Alexander, Friendship and Prince of Wales sail for England from Sydney Cove. Three of these ships carried convicts, and the fourth brought stores for the settlement. In my historical novel Letters of Duty, the Prince of Wales transports the heroine to Australia, and sails away with her hero.

Though the story is fiction, the event actually occurred 221 years ago today. I actually felt sad thinking about it. I feel for the heroine and everything she has to endure without her beloved. I feel the sense of pride in the hero as he takes his dutiful place in the ship's command.

This story has become a part of me. The characters are my friends. And my enemies. Their actions make me worry. Will they be happy with their choices? Who will comfort them? How do I help them?

What's more is that I am somewhat cautious of completing the story. It feels like I am getting ready to move house, shifting my gear to another far off location. Once published, I will only be able to visit my friends, and not really be a part of their lives. This is my only chance to be an influence on them and make a mark for the rest of my life and theirs. I'm not ready for them to be out of my life.

But they need to move on and so do I. They have another 6000-7000 words left to tell their story. Then I will shift house to another task of getting them published. Their fate in the hands of editors and agents.

I wonder if anyone else has assimilated their characters and story so much that they found it hard to let go. Share your comments.

Sydney Writers' Festival

Well, it's true, I am published. There was the letter in the Sydney Morning Herald about Obama. I've had photos published and used in websites, marketing material and album covers. But there is something daunting about getting a request for 500 words. The fear of not getting it. The fear of getting it, then having to write it. Maybe I should give in now and stick to my Project Management roots.

I enjoyed the Sydney Writer's Festival. I attended for the first time, and expected thousands of skinny, bespectacled, Emo uni students with French cigarettes and Macbooks. While there was a fair share of those, the majority were baby-boomers, at or near retirement, looking for their next reading feast. They came to meet their literary heroes; become a a part of the scene. This was my audience.

Historical fiction is not often found on the New York Times Best Seller List. But one only has to look at the overflowing venues at the SWF for writers such as David Hill and Kate Grenville to know that Sydney, and Australia loves to read detail of its own stories, true or fiction. The packed house for Kate Grenville's discussion of her novels The Lieutenant and The Secret River based on the founding of Australia as a penal colony proves that Aussies love their home-grown fiction.

But as I have often mentioned to people that I am writing a novel based on the First Fleet, many of them remark, "What does a Yank know about the settling of Australia?" The answer: probably more than most Aussies.

When we are in school the historians dig up the facts. The educators then translate the facts to palatable stories for the correct age of the children. The curriculum and the constant re-telling of this "history" water down the adult truths. I was never taught the "education" version of Australia's history. I researched the actual documents left by the people who were there, aided by some translations by popular modern historians like Tim Flannery, Robert Hughes and David Hill.

It is with this Ground Zero and Plus One focus that I have attacked my first novel. It is a tale of love, honour and duty, set in a time and place where happiness was elusive, but the dream of starting anew was truly alive.

The story is complete. I am now checking the landscape for the details that will make the story alive and give the reader that same sense of wonder about the time and place as I have. Maybe everyone will be able to picture Sydney Harbour with the eleven ships of the First Fleet firmly anchored in Sydney Cove.

In the coming months I will blog excerpts from the book Letters of Duty. I hope you will enjoy it.