Centred

Looking out at Simpson's Gap (taken in a short lived sunny break in the weather.)

Last week I was at work in the city chatting with my colleagues about how slow the office had become. They told me that this time last year there was a lot of work around but the GFC and a strong Australian dollar have meant clients have cancelled or delayed. I took this to mean that if I wanted work, I would have to look overseas and so I put the feelers out for work ( see China post).

I feel quite lucky to work in an industry ( the education sector) where there are always work and travel opportunities. My job has taken me to large cities and exotic locales, but imagine my surprise when I saw a short term posting in the centre of Australia.

I sent off my c.v with the memory a family holiday into Central Australia rerunning in my mind. The heat, the flies and an infinite blue sky . It was an amazing trip, one that I wanted to do again.  I pressed 'send' and went back to looking out of the office window, below the drone of traffic and above a slate grey sky.

Now, a week later, I am here in the centre of the continent as far and as close as I can be to any other place on this island.

With a camera in hand, I got a car and went out to the mountains. The infinite blue of the sky I remembered was hidden behind a winter haze and it has been raining, on and off, since I arrived. Imposing mountains and geographical features are somewhat humbled behind low clouds.

Rain flowing over the dry flat country and flowing into dormant waterholes and creekbeds

I will have a lot of free time up here to work on my writing, and hopefully, photography.

Like a... like a... like a...

Going back through my work I notice a hell of a lot of analogies. The layout of the room, the weather, facial expressions or behaviour all seem to include an analogy in some shape or another.  This gets me thinking - are analogies a help or a hindrance to creative writing?

Do they really help set the scene or just block some of the reader´s imaginative flow?

Take the following example.

Scene : An old woman and a young boy are sharing a train compartment.

He turned on his mp3 player, the music blaring in the silent compartment. She looked  across at him, her face screwed up like a piece of old newspaper. ¨Would you keep it down!¨.

OR

He turned on his mp3 player, the music blaring in the silent compartment. She looked across at him. ¨Would you keep it down!¨

For me, the little newspaper addition gives me quite a nice visual, however I could probably imagine it without the analogy included.

Anyway, I am looking forward to your ideas. See if you can guess the following analogies. Feel free to post your own!