As promised below (stupidly - why do I promise anything here? In order to doom it to never be done?) I will now attempt to persuade you that going to a literary festival is an excellent thing entirely and should be done by all and indeed sundry. It's not absolutely compulsory to be a nerd.

Firstly, writers' festivals are not entirely about writing. The one I've just come back from, the Sydney Writers' Festival, was about: crime, the brain, eventology (I know, right?), heroin, conspiracy, murder, morality, death, greed, revenge, obfuscation, corruption, identity, losing things, finding things, betraying people, quantum physics, Peter Costello, orgasms, and why David Williamson is a furious and irrelevant shouty man.

I loved Robyn Archer, who talked about dangerous or weird or interesting or new art deserving funding in a risk-averse society that tends towards (and this is where I provide my own example like a good arts student) reviews like this when confronted with a show that doesn't involve a creaky revolving set built to look like a house in Toorak and clearly meant as a metaphor for society's swirfggmmzzzzzzzzzzzzz sorry, what?

In short, Robyn Archer is one of those rare arts administrators who does not talk about the arts in a way that makes artists wonder what she's talking about (football? physics? apiary?). Instead, I sat there thinking "I've thought that exact thing but haven't yet been articulate enough to say it outside of my own brain". Refreshing. Not to mention funny. Not to mention she got her own standing ovation from a woman in the fourth row just for arriving to the session in the first place.

I also loved Norman Doidge's talk on neuroplasticity. I didn't know I had neural pathways, let alone elastic ones. Read his book. It will change your brain. In a good way.

Of course, the three of us (Stew, Rita, mygoodself) saw many more sessions and learned a giant heap of stuff. That's the best thing about finding out stuff. The more you know, the more the know you don't know.

Hence, nerd.

Dammit. I think I just unproved my own point. This is why I'm not a lawyer.

Okay, so given I went to the Sydney Writers' Festival and plan to claim it as a tax deduction, I might as well spread the love. Right? Right. And as Katie C points out in the comments below, perhaps going blonde because you had a dream about it isn't the best way to move forward, necessarily. So. Here are some Sydney Writers' Festival Major Points I Won't Be Forgetting:

1. The Sydney Writers' Festival is not as much fun without my old friend and Standing There Captain of Industry Melanie Howlett standing in the sun with me waiting in line to see someone we both decided sounded maybe interesting but we were actually also deep in conversation about a mutual friend/wild plan to move away to Paris/the possibility of winning a Pulitzer even if you've never written anything apart from a fine selection of amusing emails. By the way, it should be noted that one of us has since moved to Paris and the other of us has still not written anything remotely approaching a novel, unless you include the facebook chats and gtalks.

2. Nothwithstanding point #1, the Sydney Writers' Festival is still an excellent event, although this year it seemed less exciting and perhaps less well attended, although I can't put my finger on why. The best part, for me, was the fact that I was staying about ninety seconds' walk from the main venues at Walsh Bay in a very cheap hotel with free breakfast and an endless supply of apples, which I ate almost constantly in a Lord of the Flies style survival technique due to the fact that on the day I left Melbourne my car was broken into and I had no money and had to live for two days on twenty-eight dollars. Hang on. That wasn't the best bit. The best bit was that I was staying close to Walsh Bay, by myself, and walking in to the first session in the morning and staying until the last session in the evening (usually a book launch involving free food and drink, which helped make the Lord of the Flies thing a little more Bridget Jones talking to Rushdie or similar). So, there I was, walking in for a day full of head-expanding learnings and I had no one else to talk to but myself. Despite missing Melanie, and being very pleased when Stew joined me on the weekend, I suspect I needed a bit of lonely contemplation after the madness of collaboration and performance that is the comedy festival. That was the best bit. Get it? Good.

3. Here's how the festival works in Sydney: you turn up, you look through the program of events and you go to those sessions that:

a) interest you because of an author

b) interest you because of a topic

c) interest you because it's something you've thought a lot about

d) interest you because you've never thought about it or are blindingly ignorant about it (eg in my case the science sessions, which usually have me stumbling out an hour later thinking things like "Wow - there are other galaxies! Who knew!" etc).

Most sessions are free, which requires lining up so you can get a seat. The sessions that aren't free are usually ten or twentysomething bucks. The free sessions are rarely disappointing, but if you know how to author-shop, you can spend your money very wisely indeed. Jeanette Winterson, for example, when you think about how much you pay for a Laurie Anderson gig, is clearly worth the price of admission and then some. Her presentation was astonishing. Writers these days have to be performers if they're going to do well out of book tours and festivals and I'd be fairly confident in predicting that every single person in that audience that day bought themselves at least one copy of one or more of her books. Which means that the low price of the tickets themselves must be beneficial to the author, as well as to the frenzied, cross and exhausted bookseller who is crouched in the foyer snapping "We don't do receipts I'm sorry" and barking at madam to please feel free to take a complimentary book bag on her way to the book signing.

Jeanette Winterson was brought up preaching The Word Of The Lord to strangers with her evangelical adoptive mother, Mrs Winterson, as she calls her. As a result, she says she is much better discussing huge topics with huge groups of people asking her curly questions (as she did in the session I saw) than she is one-on-one, when she can't look people in the eye and is diffident and weird (her description, not mine. I was so star-struck and in love that I'm afraid I was the stumbling idiot when it came to swapping small talk at the book signing. Also I was slightly distracted by a woman in crutches who had sat herself down next to Winterson at the signing table and was insisting on showing her a selection of her photographs while her dog licked Winterson's face ).

4. I enjoyed the launch and author's reading from a book called Poking Seaweed With A Stick And Running Away From The Smell, which I have since read and enjoyed possibly even more than I would have already due to having the author's voice in my head. I am of the opion that authors should do spoken word recordings of their books more often. It is a brilliant way to get to know an author's work. Anne Enright, who read a short story called Until The Girl Died from her recent short story collection Taking Pictures and whose Booker Prize-winning novel The Gathering I accidentally bought on the way home yesterday and am currently reading, has the most beautiful reading voice and style and I hope I don't forget how to read with it in my head as I get further into The Gathering.

5. There were many other sessions of interest but these were the highlights. I enjoyed a session on the Vietnam War that was populated by an audience of veterans making heart-stopping speeches about their experiences. I was fascinated by a session on writing about grief in which two brilliant women discussed their personal experiences, their writing, and made a few hilarious observations about dogs and middle age that made me think that writing is one area in which brilliant women can do what they like, unhindered by weird perceptions they might come up against if they were on telly, or standing on a stage. They were funny as hell and clever and prickly and opinionated and I was inspired by them, and by many others. Doug, who script edited our kids' TV script that remains in development (I hate that phrase. Might as well call it Limbo) was on a very interesting and very funny panel discussing writing for young adults, including a pearl of wisdom from Doug on using young people's language. Don't ever use the word random, he cautioned. High. Larious.

Anyway that's all I can manage, due to this becoming the novel I should by rights be winning my Pulitzer for. Hopefully more thoughts from the writers' festival will sift through the other more solid matter in my brain (phone numbers, what's for lunch etc) and I will expound more wisdom here. In the meantime, I have put aside the portentious dream of me being blonde and I plan to continue as a messy-haired brunette shambles, writing from the newly revived State Library (I barely recognise the place) and heading on towards a future of uncertain dimensions with the same head I've always had. Conventional of me, I know. But someone's got to be sensible around here.

And then She cometh home from the festival of scribbling and Lo but she was stricken.

Stricken with the throat of fire and the head of death. Yea but I have already been strucken, she retorts to the authorities, cans't thou not spare me a second affliction right when I was supposed to be getting on with things? Seriously, you should see my bank account.

The booming response cometh. "But Lo! What is this column on the left? It doth report plenty of enjoyment and not enough rest! THOU MUST REST ON THE SEVENTH DAY, AND IF THOU DOST REFUSE, THOU WILT BECOME STRICKEN WITH THE POX, OR SIMILAR."

But I'm not even religious, She complaineth.

Pox, retorteth the authorities. Throat of fire and head of death. Get thee to a bulk billery.

And so she donneth the tracksuit pants of hideom and she begat the hell out of here to someplace medical.

Last year, I wrote about the rather baffling "Sydney versus Melbourne" phenomenon. I never believed in it. I thought the two cities both had their charms and that Sydney is gorgeous, fun, accessible for everyone and Melbourne is full of secret corners and fun bars and culture and sometimes, streams of people wearing the same scarf and walking in cold groups from a brightly lit oval to a warm pub, or waving their fists out the windows of passing cars.

But sometimes myths perpetuate themselves. Wearing our normal clothes, ie not a suit, Stew and I just tried to get a cup of coffee in Sydney. We were refused at Young Alfred by a waiter who apparently is the most important person in the world if anyone's been wondering where you mind find him. Apparently, at this cafe, you had to order food. If you had just had breakfast five minutes ago, that was tough luck. Please order a wafer with some goats cheese and a herb infused gonad covered in withered spinach.

THEN, we finally got into a place that wasn't Starbucks (I was actually tempted) and the guy said "Hm. Just wait there, we'll get you a table". He got us an unmade table which he plonked away from the other patrons, whose tables had tablecloths on them and who were looking at laptops. Now, I can look at laptops as well as the next person. And, if I wanted to, I could have a job that forced me into wearing a suit, daily. BUT I DON'T. And I shouldn't have to. And I like Melbourne. In Melbourne, I accidentally didn't have enough money once foa coffee (I had forgotten to check) and instead of taking me up on my offer to hold my credit card until I got back from the ATM, they said "Bring it in next time".

Dear Mr Waiter, you are an ambassador for your city and even if we stick to your bakrupt logic that you only serve rich people, I may be the richest woman in the world. I may not look it, but I have a billion dollars in my back pocket. I heart Melbourne.

During the comedy festival, my head empties itself of all useful information in order to make way for budget considerations, house sizes, other peoples' names, news on whose show is doing well, what's going on with the actors, what's going on with the reviews, how much sleep I can squeeze in between appointments, and whether or not I can stand to eat one more roast potato from the place on the corner.

That's why I love coming to Sydney for the writers' festival. My empty head has to expand (I'm like a lollypop at the moment). There are sessions about war, environment, history, memory, disease, humour, kids, adults, families, wars, fascism, politics, music, science, space and time.

We're about to go and check out the Press Photography exhibition, which is always very sobering. Not sure if the learnings will fit inside my skull, but I'm going to give it a go.

By the way, I'm on timed internets here, so please excuse the shambles.

Until this morning, I hadn't had a conversation with anyone whose name I knew for two whole days. I had no deadlines except session starting times. I had no obligations, no responsibilities, although could I please turn off any mobile phones or pagers and was I aware the writers would be signing their books after the sessions in the bookshop which is to our left.

I've seen hilarious sessions, inspiring sessions, one or two quite dull sessions, and a couple of truly excellent surprises. Today, for the excellent surprises:

Excellent Surprise #1

Last night, just because I liked the title of someone's book, I went to the book launch. When she read from her book, a memoir about her (Scottish) childhood entitled Poking Seaweed With A Stick and Running Away From The Smell, I laughed out loud in the middle of a room full of people who knew each other, and I didn't want the author, Alison Whitelock, to stop reading. Ever. I bought the book despite my limited budget and I read the first few chapters with relish. Not actual, fruit-based relish. The emotional kind.

Excellent Surprise #2

Jeanette Winterson, whose book Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is one of only a few books I have ever read... wait for it... twice... wait for it... out of choice... wait for it... AFTER HAVING STUDIED IT, is as quick-witted, hilarious, well-informed, thoughtful and spunky as I'd imagined. Possibly more so. She ran a session entitled Ask Jeanette Winterson Anything! (punctuation not mine). And people did. Someone proposed marriage, someone asked herto clarify something in her thesis, someone asked whether she'd tried to trace her biological mother (the answer to which was quite moving - Winterson has always believed that her adoptive mother knew her biological mother and could have come forward if she'd wanted to. Winterson now believes she has built herself a bit of a profile partly so her mother could find her if she wanted to and partly because, having no biological story, she had to write her own story. I couldn't be missing, she said. There are clues in several of her books which Winterson believes her mother would know if she read them.

Excellent Surprise #3

Book launches, which are at about the time when you're dying of hunger and wondering if you should just call it a day, serve free food and wine. I know. Seriously. Next I'll find out there's free internet in the cafe in which they don't mind if you don't buy their overpriced coffee. Oh, wait.

Huzzah! (Somebody bring me a hot flanelette and a plate of shucked oysters would you please? Winterson? You're not doing anything. There's a good lass).

I JUST MET JEANETTE WINTERSON.

that is all.