I saw The Perks of Being A Wallflower last night.

As one would expect, it was amazing and intense.

And it talked about doing what I'd been doing lately:

Charlie's Last Letter excerpt.

Because I know there are people who say all these things don’t happen.
And there are people who forget what it’s like to be sixteen when they turn seventeen.
And know these will all be stories someday and our pictures will become old photographs and we’ll all become somebody’s mom or dad.
But right now these moments are not stories.

This is happening.

I've been doing that. Living life. No more concerned with making stories.

I've been taking less photos. Going to events and listening, actually listening, enjoying it, not concerned with making sure I have the right quote or rushing home to upload a post about it.

It's ...

Talking on the phone for three hours, and then the next day the other person calls you for three hours - spreading the costs out like you did in high school. Three loads of washing in one night. Learning Gangnam Style for the party shop. Wine tastings, five star hotel, 2am swims, crazy road trips to little German towns, leaving my purse in the hire car and missing the flight home in the Barossa Valley. Discovering Jeremy & Kathleen. Watching Madagascar Three and scoffing pancakes. Homework. Finding a dismembered possum in the back yard. Conferences. Treating myself to new dresses at my favourite shop. Being an adult and seeing an accountant, buying accounting software and booking my car in for a service. Being a kid and swinging on swings, running around playing chasey and dancing to Afro Circus/I Like To Move It. ...

This morning marked my first blogging class.   It went for almost three hours and it was an introductory look at blogs and social media.   I had a small but engaged and active audience who questioned me constantly and really seemed to be enjoying themselves and learning lots.   (Okay, I know they were, I got pretty kick-ass feedback forms!!)   It's an amazing thing being really knowledgeable on a subject. An expert almost.   They were asking questions and I knew all the answers - and more - and it was an amazing feeling.   I did feel a bit bad though as I wasn't practising what I preached.   That whole 'make sure you blog reguarly' and here I am, my last post in August?!   Guess you kids don't want to hear excuses so instead, here's what I've been up to: -Getting ready for this course -Finishing the study period (aka semester) for uni ...

And I only have three things to say.

1) I may or may not have cried in front of Mia late last night (while in the green room at ABC studios). I thought I got away with it, but according to Twitter I didn't. Fail!

2) Mia is the most amazing person you'll ever meet. I was told that I shouldn't get my hopes up, that idols can often let you down once you meet them in real life, without the gloss of the media and all the smoke screens. But Mia has been everything I thought I knew, and more. She is the most dedicated, smart, driven person. It's been an honour just to be here, let alone anything else. Just sitting in the same room as her was... I can't even find the words.

3) I don't want to go home.

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates

I’ve been thinking lately about writing about people – dead or alive – but not as a biography. Merely fiction.

 It’s been done before, and done well: example of Joyce Carol Oates’ Blonde or Michael Cunningham’s The Hours spring to mind (of Marilyn Munroe and Virginia Woolf respectively).

But does that make it right? Should authors be allowed to take living people and immortalise them in a way that might not be 100% historically accurate?

The Guardian thinks fiction is up for grabs, by anyone:

The question of whether authors have the "right" to write about living or real people is not one that should be answered by the caretakers of historical reputation. Fiction is a free-for-all, and as long as an author can find someone who'll publish what they write (or these days, publish it themselves), there are no ...