Diving into Deep Water
A tri-fold screen with hand-painted hot-air balloons rises above my desk. It invigorates my instincts to think and write freely, untethered from life’s invasive minutiae.
Long ago, a loftier soaring sense of freedom came from flying light aircraft and leisure-sailing on Sydney Harbour and Pittwater. They brought inexplicable joy while commanding certain self-evident disciplines. Both now out of geographic and economic reach, they return viscerally – and tauntingly - beneath New England’s genuinely awesome blue skies, and those wacky majestic captive balloons above me.
I came to discipline in my thirties, a late and unexpected newbie to corporate advisory. Before then, I could never decide which of what to do; and we know how that works out! The Managing Director asked about my goals. I hesitated, he swiftly cheekily challenged me with, ‘Okay! How will you know to turn left right or go straight ahead when you leave the office?’ Though obvious, the effect was seminal!
I had finally switched on conscious discipline (monumentally late). Voila! My restless centre-brain was paradoxically liberated, although corporate advisory and I tap-danced ambivalently around one another for nearly three decades. Then life inverted my plans. On leaving my beloved city life to return to the New England, a friend insisted I was returning for a reason, be open to it!
‘It’ revealed itself in January 2019, on the long-tail of friends and colleagues nagging me to ‘Give up the corporate stuff, write your stories!’ A close friend, also a returner, referred me to Michael Burge, another New England returner. On meeting, we found two-degrees of separation through our parents’ old friendships; serendipity! We quickly launched into talking retreats and festivals. Now in our seventh year, we are talking and walking book imprints under the banner of High Country Writers, and latterly including the High Country Writers Group - authors of Diving into Deep Water.
At my best when focusing, exploring, excavating and cogitating, I am in perpetual threat of war under multi-tasking’s invasions. At the High Country Writers Festival in November 2022, a well-known journalist and author kindly and wisely counselled me to garner my discipline; to shut-away every one of my writing projects, bar one. Ever-conscious of my overloaded and aquaplaning brain, I listened, heard, and continued hearing! Discipline returned.
A mere two months later, Jude suggested the group might write micro fiction. Discipline roared, ‘Do-not-go-there!’ Something else nagged that we are a small group; join in or get out but don’t sit on the side lines! I blurted, ‘I’m in!’, I’m sure in dichotic tones. When I commit to others, I commit (barring extremes). Bizarrely, I reasoned the plan would be good-practice in excruciatingly tight word counts. Hadn’t I had enough in the past!
The group’s only goal was to keep us writing new material each month; we’d see how it goes. Fifteen months later, allowing for a mid-term break, we had up to a dozen stories each. I wanted to test one more and the group agreed.
The same day, our founder, journalist and author Michael Burge, proposed that he and Richard Moon (both of The Makers Shed and High Country Writers brands) would like to publish the collection. I am quite sure that none of us saw that endorsement coming!
Elsewhere on this site, I declare that ‘corporate advisory was always challenging, often stimulating, and demanded discipline, but it was rarely creative for a centre-brain thinker’. Creative writing is my answer, although a light touch into those old ways still thrill occasionally. Michael and Richard’s offer didn’t stop at ‘hand over your manuscripts and we will put them in a book!’ We would actively participate in the publishing processes. Those corporate disciplines flickered with anticipation: old dogs!
Few if any authors, let alone fledglings, have access to these kinds of hands-on opportunities. They are foundational gifts. They experientially prepare us to assert our individual rights throughout our authorial life, particularly for those dreaming of solo dives ahead.
The collection’s title Diving into Deep Water (two words) asserts the group’s agency. It burst out of our hopper in a poly-nod to The Makers Shed’s base in Deepwater (one word), to exploring the depths and crevices of our imaginations for each tight story, and to making the scary dive into being authorially exposed. It is true that our fortunate fast-track spared us the endurance tests of finding willing publishers and being rejected by the many unwilling kind; but then, we had been proving ourselves from fifteen months to years.
The analyst in me obsessively plucked out the major elements in the stories; from objects to places, events and activities to flora and fauna, behaviours attitudes and emotions to people – famous and not. These tiny sixty-seven stories retrieved and polished an astonishing number of close to one thousand elemental treasures for you to savour! They invite you to let your imagination roam freely in this trove, in two minutes at a time or a total dive on a lazy afternoon.
I would not change the title for anything. Apart from its relevance already noted, it makes me smile, it is stimulating, reinforces courage and freedom, and it reminds us that we should never — never — dive into shallow water. Most of all, it is a testament to how two people generously open their space and share their knowledge with an eclectic group of once-strangers, to free their courage to write, and to share the collaborative beginnings of wading into the deep.
For those of us whose sights are on high, we will tread on until we have five metres below us and platforms ten metres above: tempting us. By the time we get there, the group’s bonds and experiences will have primed us well, reaching for the sky.
I cheekily changed course in 2023 after committing to not. If I had listened to my roaring self, I would have missed this shared experience. Shortly, I will return undisturbed to pick-up The Waterloo Series again, richer for having a collaborative group of writers and all-important beta-readers, each supporting one another on our individual quests.
What better ways are there for writers aspiring to become published authors? All power to Michael Burge and Richard Moon, their gorgeous The Makers Shed / and their latest courageous High Country Books venture, along with its wading-diving team: thank you!
As the book’s strapline declares, this is a book for time-poor literary lovers. It invites you to take two-minute plunges into an array of genres and styles! The book will be available at its launch, and online at The Makers Shed on and from Saturday the 19th of July 2025. For more, go to The Makers Shed’s Bookshop, Imprint and Contact & Buy pages. In the spirit of their artisanal and bespoke business philosophy, and ‘keeping it real’, enquiries and purchases are made directly with Richard or Michael.
