Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Taurus Dark Moon


Today was a dark moon, ebbing energy, in Taurus ... and I went on a cleaning rampage in the kitchen. I even took down the curtains, washed, ironed and re-hung them. When I told Dave what I had done - he asked if I was ill. No - I'm just guilty about the fact that I haven't done ANY house work since he's been in the Northern Territory - nor done much cooking. So in addition to playing Sadie in the kitchen, I also cooked up a pasta bake and some scotch broth (that will be all the better for having sat in the kitchen over night!)

But the big bang for the day came just after I woke up - switched the computer on a discovered an email discourse that had gone on while I as blissfully asleep (early) last night. Let me back track for a moment though.

Sunday Annie and I went to a world building master class run by the Queensland Writers Centre. It was something that we almost didn't go to - got our dates mixed up etc - then discovered this error on Friday, rang up immediately and booked. The masterclass was held by Sonny Whitelaw. This was a huge step for me as a writer - to go along to a masterclass in a genre I know very little about. For my NaNo this year I want to explore the world and the stories that I've briefly presented in my Adam & Eve short stories. To do this I realised I had to know how to build the world in which they live in - which is set about 30 years from now. Thus - I decided to do the workshop.

We got an opportunity to take along 10 pages of manuscript for Sonny to read - which I did rather sheepishly because my 'manuscript' is a collection of four short stories that don't really flow in any order. And upon reading the first few pages - I realise just how far my writing has come since January this year when I wrote the first installment. But I did hand in my work for comment.

The masterclass blew my mind - so much stuff to consider ... but at the same time, so many wonderful story possibilities. The thing that struck me the most, was Sonny telling us how little sci fi nowdays explores social themes and issues, like old school sci fi did. This allowed me to say at our second break, how Annie and I weren't sci fi writers - per se - but we have some themes and issues that we wanted to explore and we needed to create worlds in which to do so.

Last night, while at Annie's, the phone went and it was Sonny. Good news - we don't write crap! That was the biggest thing I thought that I could have heard. She suggested that Annie and I consider collaborating - that our styles are very similar and the issues we want to explore are on the same path (there's no suprises there) ... our strengths and weaknesses balance out ... if we could get over our egos. EGO? I don't think I've had one of those since I pushed a baby out into this world. Motherhood doesn't leave much room for ego. So to collaborate we're not going to have to climb over our egos, or deflate them, in order to do it.

With this wonderful news hanging in the air, and the invitation for us to use Sonny's name when we were submitting work to some sci fi magazines she suggested ... you wouldn't think it could get better than that. It wasn't a matter of feeling like 'I'd arrived' as a writer... it was desperately needed validation (because you don't realise just how much you need that validation until you get it) of myself as a writer, and my abilities to write within the sci fi genre (as any of you who are regular readers of my blog and short stories - that's not really the direction my writing has taken).

And it did get better. While I slept - Sonny emailed an editor friend of hers in the States as a means of introducing Annie and I, saying she believed that we had the makings of good writers. Glad to know someone believes in me. I found out this when I logged in and downloaded my email this morning. It's wonderful - but it drags up for me a whole raft of issues that I have - best explored through my morning pages for the time being.

Among them is 'But I dont write sci-fi' - apparently I have the capacity to. It's just getting myself onboard to believe it.

With the dark moon hanging around - I should bid goodbye to all those doubts I have ... and welcome in a whole swath of new beliefs tomorrow ... that don't begin 'I can' ... but with 'I will!'

2 comments:

Rebecca Reid said...

I think that's the key to writing: abandoning doubts.

Wild Iris said...

I'm still trying to figure out what my NaNo project will be this coming year. I'm still deciding between Fiction and Non-Fiction.