I'm back

Hello and welcome back … It’s been a while.

At the moment I am literally bristling with creative energy. I imagine I look like a cartoon character who has been hit by lightning and the electricity is still flickering around and through my body. You know what I mean?

What bolt of lightning have I been hit by? I was lucky enough to get a leave pass from my family to attend the Byron Bay Writers Festival (BBWF) this weekend just gone. For two days I got so sit and listen to some Australia’s best writers, comedians, film directors, actors and musicians talk about their lives, their work, their creative grounding. And don’t get my started on all those beautiful hands …. it was the perfect location to test the assumption that a certain hand shape is a marker of creativity in a person. I can still see Mark Seymour’s (former front man of Aussie band Hunters and Collectors) hands.

It was just the creative top up I needed after a pretty harrowing month finishing up Reclaim Sex After Birth which not only ran my creative well just about dry, it also exhausted any of my energy reserves. In the final week of writing the eBook I had three nights in a row tumbling into bed at 2:30am then dragging myself out of bed and back into the life of mother, partner, home maker …..

I have struggled in the last six weeks or so to find a creative outlet again. My ideas for writing seemed to dry up all of a sudden and I couldn’t bring myself to commit to contribute anything for Fiction Friday. My saving grace was the amazing whirlpool of the Adventures of Captain Juan that allowed my to plug into the creative outpourings of Annie and Paul, to let them wash over me and to surrender to the plots, characters, intrigue and energy created their. I might have contemplated turning my back completely on creative writing had it not been for that.

I was able to anchor myself in that project, and hope, pray and wish that like a tide turning, the sea of creative bliss would find its way back to my shores. And it has.

Last week a friend asked me if I was excited about going to the BBWF and I had to admit that I felt so swamped by life and drained by the eBook project that I had given little thought to the adventure that lay ahead. By Thursday morning, after a better morning dropping Dylan at kindy, I was starting to feel the energy build.

I feel incredibly blessed, and very thankful to Dave and Dylan for giving me the opportunity to go and soak up the wisdom, expertise, advice, life experience, creative idiosyncrasies, anecdotes, tall tales and revel in all those beautiful hands at the festival. I’ll be documenting the high lights of my trip to Byron Bay in a seven part blog series called ‘Not Without My Gum Boots’ over the next week.

Until then, I’m glad to announce that:
* there are more stories of personal and emotional intrigue brewing for the Captain Juan series with a new character about to be introduced … Father Paulo.

* my NaNo project from last year is about to be hauled from the dusty depths of my hard drive and onto real paper, for review in the next month after my characters began badgering the crap out of me on the way home from Byron Bay to be able to see the light of day again. Keep an eye out for new blog postings from there.

* new twists and an ‘in’ have been found for my 2008 NaNo project ‘Adam and Eve’ after a weird but ultimately uneventful trip to Byron Bay’s “Northern Hotel” on Saturday night.

* there are probably half a dozen seeds of stories laying about in my creative conscience awaiting a little fertile hummus, rain and sunshine. Watch this space

* I’m committed to be back blogging full time – though you know how I am. It will probably be as sporadic as ever, but one can always hope …. I miss all the comments!

* Getting a business project properly off the ground after a few months of discussions and exploration. Watch this space because it’s going to be BIG!

* I will be participating every week in Fiction Friday and Musical Musings as a continued commitment to creative writing.

* And I’m about to launch a new writer’s project for August (more in the next few blog posts) to give all writers a kick up the derrière and out of the hole of create, write and file that many (all?) of us fall into.

There is also a very big bright amazing new moon eclipse brewing for Friday evening in the Southern Hemisphere. It is at 9 degrees Leo, so if you know your chart, this is the sector of your chart that’s about to have big doors close and open. I can feel myself humming with anticipation of what the next few months holds. I hope you can all come along on the next leg adventure with me …..