24 March, I have changed the working title of this project from Escaping Well to Breaking Free.

This book will run as a companion to Holding On. It’s not exactly a sequel, but it follows the story of one of the secondary characters of Holding On about six years later, around 2010. (Do you remember that year?)

When Em graduates high-school, she decides it’s time to break away. No more shaming from her mother, no more fish and chip shop customers, no more living from paycheck to paycheck. She might even find a good man! University in Melbourne is a long way from the hills of Adelaide, but no matter how she tries, to escape the inertia of her past, it just won’t let her go.

It’s a book for a slightly older audience, and its theme is how we find it so hard to escape repeating the patterns of earlier generations.

Here’s a possible first few paragraphs:

Some girls peak at seventeen and Em wasn’t one of them. They rolled their school uniforms up at the waist, showing off their long, honey-coloured thighs to whoever would look. They laughed a lot and breezed their way through class, then pouted prettily at supply and demand curves during lunch when Mr Young-and-Single offered them a little extra tutoring in Economics. They went to the beach on the weekend, flashing belly studs on flat stomachs, knotting their long, thick hair into perfectly formed ponytails before running into the surf with their pretty ballerina steps. They had exam study sessions in cafes with their boyfriends. They had it made!

Em, as I said, wasn’t one of them. She had thick, orange hair that dismantled hairbrushes. She had freckles. Her school uniform fell from her fleshy shoulders like a shapeless pup-tent and the buttons gaped at the front. The best bit about finishing high-school was not having to wear that thing ever again. She walked across the stage when they called her name, took her certificate from the dignitary, shook his hand, gave a tight smile to the camera and moved away.

When she got home that night, she threw her school uniform and school shoes into a metal drum, poured half a litre of metho over the top and dropped in a match. Two days later, her Dr Martens Purple Jadons high topped boots turned up in the mail.