Jodi Cleghorn: Productive Nostalgia

In my previous post The Lunar Writer: 10 Tips for Using the Dark Moon Energy I wrote about productive nostalgia. I posed a list of questions to consider and rather than scribble them in the back of my morning pages, I decided to publicly post my answers and then tag some writers that I know to indulge in some productive nostaliga.

In the past month what have you started?

It seems to have been more a month of tying up loose ends and finishing the intial stages of projects, rather than starting things. Annie and I launched the Date Night Challenge - but at the moment that's the only thing that comes to mind.

In the past month what have you finished?

I have finished an article a week for Write Anything and Type A Mom, including a couple of extra articles on the Type A Mom site.
Paul and I finally finished the hunt for the final male member of our Chinese Whisperings team. Funny how Dale was probably always meant to be the final member - thus the place could never be filled!
And I think I've finally finished work on Mercurial.

In the past month what have you edited? What did you want to edit but never got there?

I've finally got around to rewriting and editing my short story Mercurial which is the flag ship of the Chinese Whisperings.
I wanted to keep editing the stories for my anthologies but HUGE block about that. I have a pretty good feeling that's about to be changed seeings the paperwork for the short story critiquing circle I signed up for arrived this afternoon in the post!

What fantastic ideas were you gifted?

a run of health related ideas for my breastfeeding column.
to apply the elements of how to prepare for a change in career, to breastfeeding and entering into motherhood (it's a work in progress!)

What concepts fell on their face? What got up and ran? Any idea why?

Chinese Whisperings has finally found it's feet and I'm waiting to see it run, hard and fast in the coming months.
Hitting Facebook where it hurt - well I learnt more about what hurts than Facebook. It was a clear lesson on putting my professional writing career ahead of loyalty. Enough said!

What people did you meet and who did you say good bye to? What impact might they/did they have on you?

I met up with the wonderful women who are my writing circle after many months of absence - some through holidays and some through my own blocks. It's like coming home sitting there sharing our work, ideas and cups of tea. It made me realise how far I have come as a writer in a year. This time around they reaffirmed my ability to write and my choice of flagship story for Chinese Whispers. Without their affirmation Chinese Whisperings would still be loitering around in a forgotten folder on my hard drive.
I met a wonderful woman Kerry Townsend the co-owner of Mother's Toolkit who found Annie and I through a mutual business friend and shared a ticket to an International Womens Day Networking Luncheon. In the half an hour before the luncheo we chatted and found we had a shared passion. I'm looking forward to being able to contribute to Kerry and Kylie's new project. And following up on the contacts that I met through the networking luncheon.
The Facebook Nurse In v2.0 got me networked in with an amazing group of women who continue to blow my mind. I'm eternally grateful to have become friends with these women and understand that I will grow as a woman through these friendship.
I'm in personal contact now with writer and parenting advocate Pinky McKay and see big things coming of this for the Reclaim Project.
I also met up with some really interesting and talented writers through a QWC workshop on short stories.

What progress have you made?

This week just gone feels like a week from the Twilight Zone - a week where my to-do list shrunk rather grew. I don't remember having a week like this in years. I hope it means something.
I've been working through my own personal snobbery issues with fiction and non fiction writing and slowly coming to a place of peace with them.
Reclaim has taken on a life of it's own and the month of March looks like the highest traffic month since the website went live in July.
It's week eight of the The Artist's Way and I feel that even doing it for the third time I'm learning things and breaking down blocks. Peeling back the onions skins so to speak.

What opportunities were presented and what did you do them?

I had the opportunity to submit an article to the Sydney Morning Herald. Instead of putting my needs to progress my professional writing career first - I put loyalty first and had it back fire in my face. My article wasn't published with my loyalty first website and I missed the chance to have it on the Fairfax wire. This all happened while we were away on holidays!
The opportunity to write for Mother's Toolkit hasn't been followed up - note to self!

What work was rejected and what was published? What never made it that far? Why not?

My facebook/lactivist article was rejected - the worst kind, where it was published for 12 hours and then disappeared!
My Graceville short story got a very interesting critique and now I'm considering slicing it up into smaller parts and submitting the two seperate stories for publication. Or just leaving it as it is, doing the rewriting necessary and submitting to Hecate.