The traffic pushes politely into the roundabout at Byron Bay. We complain on cue, it’s July, and cold rain as fine as fairy piss is wetting the streets and making the tourist town look a bit blowsy and hung over. I watch as young girls pause in the mid stride to drag at this year’s short shorts which have wedged themselves (yet again), firmly into butt cracks, while au contraire, the guys try not to trip over the forks of their baggies. Some walk their surf boards towards the beach; others are shopping for gear and talking to their i phones, the coffee shops are already full of observers. But we’re in town on business, we old ladies in our stockings and comfortable undies. We don’t come here often, our hunting days are over and the scent of testosterone and the shops that specialise in rainbow anything have lost their allure. No – we’re after a different kind of talent. The kind that emanates from the kaleidoscope jelly mind of a writer. The kind that transforms dry paper pages into scripted dreaming and lights up millions of rapt eyes as they follow the print across their devices. We want to tell our stories, to play with words, to mess with people’s minds and make them want us to!We pad into the Community Centre, coffeed up and full of enthusiasm, stumbling up the stairs and pausing at the entrance a little abashed. Here at last our muse and mentor, the feisty Ms Deveney, flashing a generous welcome, casting a discerning eye as we fuss like guinea fowl over seating, making nests of coats and bags and little statements with our writing apparatus. The air is genial, we start to relax as we do the intros’ and pat our sticky names on. Clearly there are no serious nutters or agro’ to contend with at this workshop – except perhaps the facilitator… Most of us have seen Catherine in action, we know she has attitude and we know she catches flack for it. Nor are we disappointed as she laughs off the possibility of any form of God, the hairiness (and fuckability) of (some) eight year olds, the misogyny of journalists at the Melbourne Age (andpoliticians almost everywhere) and proclaims the inevitability (indeed desirability) of an affair or two to make monogamy bearable. We wonder how she takes the heat and fret at the thought of public censure. We complain about the exigencies of our lives – the lack of time and money, the distractions, the family, the dog, the housework, the surf, the gardening. We wring our hands at the challenges of IT and exposing the grimy details of our meagre lives to the slavering public. And yet we long to be writers?Catherine’s smile turns sharky… “So simple”, she cries “get rid of them! Kill the kids! Sell the house and garden! Break that board … No really… It’s not all that hard – just write first! The surf, the garden, the friends ……. are just a reward for the writing you did first”. First we must write – and write – and write. Write with baby on our arm, write in the toilet, write before lovemaking – during lovemaking! Write for 10,000 hours, write our way through hell, write as if our lives depended on it. We hear the truth in there; we know that we must do our time. Catherine sparkles now because she bore the silent audience, the crass slurring, the snide critiques, the refusals, and she has earned her stars. She kept on writing regardless.Somewhat abashed, we pick up our papers and devices, pack up our nests and say our goodbyes to our crimson clad mentor. She flashes that cheeky smile and I hit the street ‘Deveneyed’ and spoiling for a write.