Jodi Cleghorn

Moved House

2010-02-25T21:13:00.002+10:00

This blog languishes because I'm too lazy to pack up and move, and make a clean break. You can find all my new blog posts at Writing in Black and White.

[Fiction] Friday: The Rain

2009-06-05T12:26:00.002+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for June 5th, 2009

“Don’t sit there,” she commanded. “That’s the cat’s chair.”

Benjamin stood looking up. Up to the top of the building and the turbines of the water mining units, capturing the moisture in the air, turning it into water. Water from the air running down pipes – not up pipes like it had once.

Propellers spinning round on the same trajectory. Turning, turning. Caught. Stuck.

As a kid he thought it looked as though the city was trying to escape. Somehow the buildings would gather enough lift and would fly away. Helicopter Buildings enmasse flying to Somewhere Else. Maybe somewhere it rained. A place the rain would wash away the sins of the city instead of allowing them to become ingrained. Where the wounds would be salved. A chance to heal. The building would take him and Clarice away with them and they would start again. A new beginning – in the rain.

Clarice had loved the rain. Always reminding him how cathartic it was to cry. Mother Nature cried and she never got it wrong. Even now, knowing the flood of good hormones which would follow, he could not bring himself to cry. To cry would admit it was over. And the battle was just beginning.

Clarice had never got over the fact it would never rain again. The atmospheric aqua mining had upset the balance of condensation and evaporation in nature. Precipitation became a thing of the past. A meterological relic. Clarice was 10 the last time it rained. The last time she pulled on her pink gumboots and jumped in puddles. Clarice had said she wished she’d stayed out playing longer. If only she had known it was the last time. Is she had playd on maybe it would not have stopped raining.

Benjamin knew all about last time regrets.

If only the City would cry it had a chance to redeem itself. That is what Clarice had said. But the City finally swallowed Clarice. She had been too good for a place like this. A job like her’s. Maybe if only he could cry something would move inside him. His heart might actually break so it could heap. Or the lump in his throat after years, choke the life from him. What life it was.

Benjamin turned his attention back to the street level. Hartog was haggling the fare down and finally allowed the flustered drive to scan the back of his hand for payment. Hartog stepped away from the taxi and glanced at the digital tickertape NewsFeed above the door of the bar.

“Slow news day.”
“Depends on what you call news I guess. Once it was meaningful. Now it just clogs up the brain with irrelevant details.”
“But you somehow still get stuff up there.”
“A drop in the ocean. Who cares anyway.”

Benjamin stepped into the bar, scanning the back of his hand, followed by Hartog how repeated the scanning routine.

“Hey you. You can’t come in here with that.”
The shout came from a middle aged woman behind the bar. Hartog turned to see what Benjamin was wearing which was in breach of the dress code. Looking about it didn’t seem there was any sort of dress regulation.
“No you pretty boy. You can’t come in here in that coat.”
Benjamin smiled. Two could play at Hartog’s game.

“There is a cloak room just off there.” Benjamin pointed to a tiny window with a red button beside it.

Hartog hesitated. He looked about the bar. Looking beyoond what people were wearing he saw the knives, guns, stunners and a few targeted biological weapons lying forgotten beside their owners as they argued, laughed and drank. Just another bar on the other side of town. One way to avoid a blood bath in your establishment. He was simultaneously annoyed and impressed.

Taking a deep breathe he pressed the button and divested the coat of the most important bits, stuffing his hologram badge into the back pocket of his jeans and the InfoCap into the front pocket.

The window shot up and a teenage girl snatched the coat before he could reconsider, scanned the back of his hand and slammed the barrier down.

Benjamin was surprised to see the Detective was well dressed underneath the tattered coat. A clean pressed white shirt clung with tailored perfection to his wide shoulders and narrow waist. No signs of creasing or sweat stains in the arm pits. The jeans looked new, no fraying at the pockets or hemmed and they too looked ironed. On closer inspection however Benjamin saw the shirt was perhaps just an inch longer and the jeans a shade or too darker than current fashion.

Hartog stripped naked strode to the bar and tried to park his butt on the nearest bar stool.
“Don’t sit there!”

It had been a long day and Hartog wanted to yell ‘Why the fuck not?’ On the other side of town the bar wenches knew who he was. They didn’t scream across the room to take his coat off. They came to him with smiles and his usual order.

He paused with his butt midair. If he had wanted to be ordered around he would have kept his posting in the Regular Army. As it was he wasn’t going to be pushed around by a woman with badly died orange hair and a lip stick smudge masquerading as a mouth. Fanta – Fan-fucking-tastic. He placed one cheek on the bar stool.

She lent over the bar. Her tuckshop lady arms taunted him. He tore his eyes away from the cussing mass of pale cellulite pitted fat.
“I said you can’t sit there.”
“No you said don’t sit there.”
“That is not your chair.” Come in Tokyo – the message was being received loud and clean. “That’s the cat’s.”

It was all the prompting he needed, twisting around to pull his badge. He didn’t care if there hadn’t been a single infringement of a health related nature since the Department of Civil Welfare consumed the Departments of Public Health in a hostile take merge. The by-laws were still on the codex though – a live domesticated animal on a premise where food preparation took place, including a bar, was illegal and punishable with large fines and imprisonment for repeat offences. Faded Fanta looked like a repeat offender.

Benjamin grabbed his hand before he could pull the badge and hissed into his ear, “Leave it. You want to go down as the first officer in 10 years to charge someone with a public health violation.” He got the irony and the rapid fall of grace which would accompany such an action.
Hartog made a mock display of tipping a hat. “As you wish ma’am.”

Benjamin walked off to the furthest booth.
“Are you always a prick?”
“Are you always so uptight?”

The same young girl from the cloakroom came to take their order. Mickey flashed the digital name badge pinned to her flat chest. Her mouth working hard at a lump of greenish bubble gum. She grunted something Hartog construed as “Can I get you something.” But it could have been anything. This side of town was not his side of town.

No smile. No whiff of customer service. Just enough metal pierced in every conceivable location as Hartog’s eye took in the proliferation of studs, spikes, rods, guessing the piercer’s showpiece waiting in other regions. It must hurt. Pain playing at being pleasure. Disfiguration traded as cool. Should he point out they had a way to fix her condition too? He’d be a cranky bitch too weighted down by all that hospital grade stainless steel.

“You got surly on the tap here. I reckon I could go a pint.”
Her hand moved as reflex to the old style tazer clipper to her filthy café apron.
“Excuse my friend. He doesn’t get out much. We’ll have two pints of your home brew.”

Hartog leaned back into the torn vinyl of the booth couch.
“You think drinking something brewed here, with animals on the premise is a good idea? I’m a bit of a health nut. I was thinking of an orange juice.”
“Freshly squeezed genetically modified … I’ll go with homebrew any day.”
“I’m on duty. I don’t drink on duty.”
“Then stare at the head and watch me enjoy mine.”

Hartog took the InfoCap out of his pocket.
“You know what this is don’t you. This InfoCap?”
Benajmin reached across to take it. Hartog closed his long fingers around it.
“It’s show and tell. Didn’t your mother tell you to look with your eyes and not with your fingers?”
“My mother died before I was old enough to have that sort of wisdom imparted to me. Our Aunt wasn’t big on moral education.”
“Let me connect the dots as I see them. You have a degree in neuroscience. Clarice had a degree in Engineering.” Hartog emphasised his point by drawing imaginary dots on the table top and dragging his finger between them. “I’m wondering - is this InfoCap the point where two sibling’s ideas collide – given one is now a feedo and the other is, I mean, was, a prostitute. Both in the information gathering business – one way or the other.”

The young waitress dropped the two pints on the table in front of them, grunted in the direction of Hartog who returned the social pleasantry with his characteristic disarming crooked smile. His face falling in all the wrong direction – probably in need of some of the waitress’s metal pins to hold it all in place. The waitress rolled her eyes and stalked away.

“How does it work?”
Benjamin took a long drink of the beer, licking the froth moustache away with his tongue.
“You’re the smart guy. Why don’t you keep connecting the dots. Or do you need new crayons?”

“Let me put it to you this way Benjamin. Someone likely killed your sister for something she saw, something she had, or someone she knew.”
“Well you’ve got a good grasp of the obvious there Detective.”
“And she had this. She saw something, had something and knew something.”
He took the InfoCap out and held it between this thumb and forefinger.
“And she was the favourite consort of the Minister of Defence. And into the pot you commented, “I told her not to.””
Benjamin drank on as if he was ignoring what Hartog said.
“Well it is obvious Clarice did and now she is dead.”
“And you probably will be too if you flash that thing around in public. You really have no idea Detective.”

Benjamin lent in. “See the guy at five o’clock. He just recorded everything you said and did. As I speak all of that information is being uploaded into the big NewsFeed databank, or if I was to be totally accurate, an off shoot of the databank where all types of information are stored and sold. You have just been placed with me and the InfoCap.” He paused and considered what to say next. “If someone killed Clarice for the InfoCap they would have cut it from behind her ear. I’ve seen the file and I know she was cut up badly. Whoever killed her knows there is more to it and they’re going to want to get the Cap back.”

He eased himself back and picked up the beer again.
“I don’t think I can trust you Detective. I suggest for your own good you give me the InfoCap and disappear out into the crowd in the street. Or else you might find yourself in a difficult situation. Find some thug to take the fall for Clarice’s murder and shut the file. Walk away.”
“I don’t accept bribes.”
“This isn’t a bribe Detective. I’m offering your life in exchange for the Cap.”
“Threatening an officer ..”

Benjamin slammed his fist down on the table.
“You don’t get it. This is big. This is so much bigger than you. I’m guessing someone in the Deparment of Civil Welfare purposely assigned you to this care to get rid of you. Think about that.”

Benjamin clambered out of the booth shooting a filthy look at the feedo sitting at five o’clock. Hartog pushed out and chased after him, stopping at the door, remembering his coat. He pressed at the button as he watched Benjamin cross two lanes of taxis and stopping a taxi in the fast lane. Benjamin was going to the end of the line and fast.

Hartog jabbed at the button again. As Benjamin climbed into the taxi the window slid open and Metal Mickey passed him his coat, adding “Have a nice day.” Pulling his arms through the coat, as he ran out the door, he knocked into an eldery man. He looked up to apologise and froze in recognition

“I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry Cardinal.” He hated it when we stammered.
“Detective Hartog.”
“You drink here?”
“You could say it’s my local. You looked shocked my son.”
“It’s just…”
“I’m a Catholic – not a Puritan. Nothing wrong with a cleansing ale or two. Will you join me.”
“I’m sorry Your Excellency. I’m..”
“Busy I’m sure.”

Hartog stood for a moment longer than necessary, watching Cardinal Ambrosius Tennyson exchange small talk with Fanta from the stool he’d been earlier barred from. Shaking his head, he stepped out into the fading daylight, his stomach growling, calculating the time it was going to take him to reach Dah-Jeerlings.

If you liked The Rain there is more. The first two instalments in the Hartog Series:

Hartog

Derby

[Fiction] Friday: Derby

2009-05-29T22:54:00.004+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for May 29th, 2009:

Put this into your story – “Time out! Time out! We can call that, right?”

This week's story follows on from last week, where we had Detective Hartog investigating the murder of high class call girl Clarice and the mystery of a a strange metal capsule known as an InfoCap.

“Zero one hour and fifteen minutes … and holding.” The bass thundered and the retro nineties dance mash up began, pumping the crowd, who needed no additional priming. But it was tradition.

The semi final bout had brought out a capacity crowd of fanatics and another record bidding match for the broadcasting rights. Hartog had pulled in some big favours to secure the two tickets. He was hoping the gamble paid off.

The ref’s amplified whistle shot outward from the centre of the rink like a line of gun powder racing towards the keg. A cheer exploded from all sides of the stadium as the Jammers, skating ten feet behind the main pack accelerated forward to make their first jam.

The Scarlet Penetrator’s Jammer in her diamante encrusted red tutu and black leather bustier nudged ahead with two huge strides. A naughty peek of ruffled black lace knickers showed, as she bent down. Her fishnet clad legs criss crossed as she cut directly across the path of her rival, tacking for the outer most edge of the pack. Hartog caught a split second flash of the blades on the hubs of her wheels.

His guest beside him remained unnaturally still, in the seething maelstrom of Penetrators supporters, hands folded in his lap, knuckles white in the roaming strobe lights.

The Betty Buster’s Blockers at the centre of the pack, in skimpy lycra nurses get ups barely containing their iconic large breasts, drove at opposing points in the centre of the pack, forcing open a rush space. The Buster’s Jammer hurtled through but was caught at the last moment as the Penetrator’s pivot threw herself against the Buster’s block, forcing both of them into the Jammer’s path.

The Pivot and Block won the battle to stay upright and the pack sped past the fallen Jammer. First blood! It spilt out onto the pristine floor and splattered the white uniform. The howl of protest at the opposite end of the stadium was reflected and amplified on their side by cheers.

“This should be interesting,” Hartog said, leaning into his companion’s ear to ensure he was heard..

The injured Jammer clambered to her feet and after a few wobbling glides, gained her equilibrium. The blood flowing down her leg pooled at the top of her boot and then down the sides, leaving red tracks as she sped towards the pack. The blood slick made the bout even more interesting.

“The lame duck flies again.” Hartog got to his feet and rooted with his arms in faux animation, taking the piss more than finding solidarity among the Penetrator’s fans.

On the opposite side of the rink a Penetrator was down and from the huge real time screen above the score board it was obvious she wouldn’t get up. The tide of blood beneath her was spreading quickly.

The fans were on their feet screaming out in protest and outrage, then in encouragement. Her injuries had the potential to be fatal. The seat beside Hartog was suddenly empty.

“Time out. Time out. You can call that?” He looked hopefully down to Hartog who shrugged his shoulders. “Surely you can call time out. TIME OUT.”
“Shut up dickhead,” the guy two seats up yelled, shoving Dirk’s visitor back down in his chair. “Our girls ain’t pussies.”

Hartog smiled a wry smile which made his mouth look like it was affected by Bells Palsy. He could have chosen to have it repaired – just like the roller derby girls who would be fixed up after the bout and ready to skate the following weekend, but he’d chosen not to have the nerve damage repaired. Gene manipulation, stem cell mechanics, accelerated skin grafting. It was a quick fix society who didn’t tolerate sickness or disfigurement. It meant guys like him could literally wash away the scars – on the outside. He liked to be reminded. And it made others uncomfortable.

Anything and everything could be repaired. You just had to keep the heart pumping long enough. Sometimes the ref’s whistle came too late and all the blood had drained away, the heart stuttering to a heroic end. Or the girls were caught out in the Danger Zone.

“Never been to the blood derby?”
BenJin shook his head with a violence more emphatic than any words he could have mustered. His pale face stood out amid the red faced sea of fanatics surrounding him.
“It’s barbaric.”
“Only if you go down in the first minute and your team mates can’t or don’t want to defend you before you make it to the Blood Zone.”

There had been two reasons to bring BenJin to the blood derby. Firstly he had a penchant for girls in short skirts, legs and big boobs. There was plenty of those here tonight. Secondly he was counting on the sight and smell of the blood to loosen BenJin’s tongue about his sister’s death.

Hartog kept smiling.
“You know they can fix that.” BenJin’s eyes strayed to the massive electronic bill boards encasing the inner fence of the rink, advertising the two major sponsors – leading biomechanical firms.
“I was going to say the same about our razorblade belles there. Just as long as you keep the heart pumping right?”
“I hear the fans show their loyalty in the number of pints they donate.”

Hartog was certain he heard BenJin snort.

The injured Penetrator inched her way across the rink, one hand pressed hard against the gash in her thigh, blood leaking from between her fingers and the other fist clenched, as she used her forearm to brace and drag herself towards the inner sanctum of the rink. The Blood Zone – where she would be able to bleed free of the fear of further injury. If she could make it before the pack returned.

Hartog imagined Clarice had employed the same manoeuvre trying to escape broken and cut up from her attacker. The finger tips on her right hand had been torn – down to the bone on one digit. Soft pink fingers scrambling to make purchase on the coarse grey concrete. Dragging herself away as she bled to a terrified death. Whoever had murdered her had meant her death to be a painful and undignified end.

BenJin shifted in his seat. Hartog was certain BenJin knew enough details of Clarice’s death to be disturbed. He had the technology and the expertise to find out if he wanted to. And Hartog knew BenJin wanted to know.

Hartog could not have shaped the bout more perfectly had he personally scripted it.

“She’s haemorraghing.” The Penetrator’s movements were slowing as the pack sped towards her, the pool of blood behind grew. “Why don’t her team mates do something? Shit.”

Hartog was pleased at how unsettled BenJin was – so early on in the bout too. Team mates, regardless of personality clashes and disparity in corporate sponsorships, kept each other safe in the finals series. The blood letting always happened in the opening rounds when scores were settled and sponsorships were still in flux.

Two Penetrators cut from the pack to run defensive sorties across their injured team mate’s path. There would be no sudden blood in the semi final.

“They both exposed themselves to an unwarranted attack to protect her.” BenJin’s eyes were fixed on the bleeding woman crossing into the blood zone. “You just don’t understand the intricacies BenJin.”

Hartog noted with satisfaction his guest flinched at the use of his name.
“It’s Benjamin. I’m not here in a professional capacity.”
“I thought this was the sort of thing you scum of the earth feedos got off on.”
Hartog put his hand into the inner sanctum of his trademark overcoat and wrapped his fingers around the InfoCap.

“That’s where you braindead coppers don’t understand the different between hype, voyeurism and integrity. Look at any of my news feeds and you’ll know I’m not interested in this -” waving his hands about at the rink “ propaganda of the irrelevant. It’s just another fucking Coliseum.”

Without shifting his eyes from BenJin’s Hartog lay his hand in the feedo’s crotch and allowed his fingers to open like a defiled lotus blossom.
“What the … Shit!” BenJin’s voice softened. “I told her not to.”

Hartog’s fingers closed around the InfoCap.
“Shall we go somewhere quieter to talk.”
BenJin nodded and was on his feet, forcing his way through the baying crowd.

Author's Note: all constructive criticism welcome!

Fiction Friday: Hartog

2009-05-23T12:27:00.004+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for May 22nd, 2009

"A high-priced prostitute suspects that one of her best customers is falling in love with her."

Hartog stood at the door to the brothel holding the tiny capsule between his bent pointer finger and thumb. He turned it over allowing what little sun penetrated through the smog haze to bounce off what he guessed was titanium covering, then slipped it back into the inner pocket of his jacket.

It was too hot for the jacket but it was one thing Global Warming couldn’t make him give up. Hartog felt naked without it. Hot and smothered in it. Still he wore it. Good thing, he thought as he pressed the buzzer on the intercom.

He spoke before the receptionist could get a word in.

“Detective Hartog here to see your boss. She knows I’m coming.”
“Good morning Detective Hartog.”

So polite. He wondered what she was wearing. He couldn’t help himself. A French maid in vinyl - or leather. After all this was an up market establishment if his research was correct. A flimsy silk nothing with cheeky nipples peeking out at him or a gushing black creation of lace revealing a lush expanse of cleavage.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm for you work Detective, but I will just confirm your appointment with Miss Amanda.”

Damn it! The woman had summonsed him. And here he was loitering at the door like some common Joe. He pulled himself up again. This was an establishment, not a brothel and the door looked like any other door on the strip. He could easily have been waiting for his accountant or lawyer or style guru to buzz him up.

“Thank you for your patience Detective Hartog. Miss Amanda will see you now.”

He glanced at his watch and waited for the door to click. It was a good he’d never had an interest in getting on the Vice and Device team. His mind was too fertile, too active to allow sex and breasts and legs up to here to bleed into his thoughts. Cloud his judgement. Women were always his downfall. Dead was the only way he could cope with them.

The receptionist was waiting for him at the door, in a simple black suit, a flourish of scarlet beneath the jacket. Fumbling with his holographic badge, he mentally dropped kicked himself – caught up in his own fantasies. No lace or leather here. Purely business.
“May I get you something to drink Detective Hartog? Coffee, tea or perhaps something a little stronger?”
“Water will be fine.” He’d given up the hard stuff. His doctor telling him it was booze and an early grave, which for a while had seemed the better option.
“If you take a seat Miss Amanda will be with you in a moment.”

Ten minutes later Miss Amanda appeared in an almost identical black suit, this time with a violet blouse beneath, plunging to unbusinesslike depths beneath the tailored suit jacket. Hartog dragged his eyes from the cleavage and rose from his seat. She towered over him and that was saying something. Even without the heels she was a giant. And he knew, that she knew it.

“I appreciate your expediency Detective,” she said, striding down a corridor to a large, sun drenched office with lush tropical plants at strategic decorating points. “I was just tying up a loose end. I apologise for the wait.

It had to be a trick of lighting. There was never that amount of clean, clear sunshine in the city. Everything was painted in the tawdry shade of pollution – but in here, the den of iniquity it was bright. No shadows dancing in the corner.

Miss Amanda motioned to a spartan leather chair to the side of her desk and settled herself opposite him, a pitcher of water between them and two crystal glasses. No expense here. It was more comfortable than it looked. Many things in this place were more or less than they seemed.

Miss Amanda, the Madame was one point in question. She was neither young nor old. Her dark hair rolled into a timeless French bun at the back of her head and her long legs casually crossed. Neutral make up enhanced her simple beauty. She could have been stunning but she chose not to b.

“I am interested to know how the Clarice’s case is progressing Detective.” She poured and offered him a drink.
“It looks like the case of another whore being cut up.” He took a long gulp at the ice cold water and winced the pain freezing his frontal lobes for a moment.
Miss Amanda uncrossed her legs and lent forward. “My girls are not whores Detective. Let’s get that straight from the beginning. Clarice was one of my highest paid call girls. She has a Masters degree in Engineering and was studying for her PhD.”
“And her death is bad for business.”

Miss Amanda lent back and recrossed her legs. Hartog took out tiny recorder and placed it on the table in between them.
“You don’t mind if I record this conversation.” He couldn’t bring himself to call her Miss Amanda and she didn’t fit the title of Ma’am. And he wasn’t really asking her permission any way.

“Clarice came to me about a month ago and told me she had a problem. It appears one of her clients had taken an unhealthy interest in her.”
“It’s a rather unhealthy business you dabble in.” He narrowed his right eye and looked hard at Miss Amanda – no surname that he could find on the City’s database.
“I told you Detective my girls are not whores. They are paid for services other than sex. They are sought after because they are intelligent and beautiful. Clarice was worried he was falling in love with her. That it would complicate things.”

“Don’t mix love and business hey?” Miss Amanda didn’t bite. She didn’t even twitch. “Who was this client Clarice was upset about.”

Miss Amanda’s eyes lowered and held the warp and weave of her suit pants in her gaze as she contemplated her answer.
“As you can appreciate Detective – my business is of a delicate nature and we normally protect the identity of our clients. But in this case..” she broke off and poured herself a glass of water. Long pale fingers curled around the crystal glass. She drank slowly. “Clarice had a number of high profile friends through our agency.”
“Miss Amanda,” the words fell out his mouth before he could catch them. He felt like he was addressing the old bitch who had taught him third form algebra. “Either you tell me now or I come back with a search and seize warrant.”

“Let me remind you Detective you were invited here for this discussion and that my friends sit in places much higher than you.”
“Touche.” Hartog stood, reaching out for the recorder and turning it off. “Strictly off the record, who was Clarice concerned about.”
“She told me Howard McClean was in love with her.”
“The Minister of Defence!” Hartog sat back down in the warm leather, allowing it to cushion and comfort his skinny frame. “You are telling me the Minister of Defence, the former leader of the Puritan party is one of your clients. That he’s implicated in the murder of a call girl.” Hartog laughed. “I’m sorry Miss Amanda, but I just don’t believe that.”

“Mr McClean has a penchant for smart, witty women. He likes conversation. Clarice was good at conversing. You only have to look at his wife to know he’d be seeking stimulation outside of his marriage.”
“Are we talking double entrendes here?”
Miss Amanda ignored him. “I am suggesting to you Detective that someone got to Clarice as a warning to the Minister. And I imagine that would be of interest to you and your colleagues at the Department of Civil Welfare.”

Hartog turned the recorder back on and placed it on the table between them.
“Was there anything special about Clarice?”
Miss Amanda reached out and switched the recorder off.
“You insult me with such a question Detective. Perhaps I called the wrong person.”

Hartog stood again, slipping the recorder into his deep coat pocket.
“Thank you for your time. I will keep you updated as to the progress of the case. And I do appreciate our little chat.” He emphasised the words, mimicking her faux politeness. Smiling a crooked smile and let himself out before she could get out of her chair.

As he rode down in the elevator he slipped an ear pod in and waited for the phone call. He sat further down the street drinking a bad coffee when the call finally went through.
“They have Hartog on the case.” “Did he mention anything about the InfoCap?” “He said nothing about anything found on the body and I didn’t want to venture with leading questions.” “Did you really think someone like Hartog would whip the InfoCap out onto the table and ask if you knew what it was?” “I did as you asked. I feed him the information. Now what?” “We wait and see. Did he mention Clarice’s brother?” “He’s got no idea. He never mentioned her surname. He thinks it is just another whore being cut up – quote unquote.” “The department would not put Hartog onto a whore slashing. Sit tight. You have done well Amanda.” “My pleasure sir. Would you like me to book you someone for this week.”

Hartog smiled and took the tiny capsule out of his pocket again. So it had a name. An InfoCap. He charged his coffee streaked mug in mock toast to Miss Amanda and waited while his notebook brought up all the information the City’s database had on Clarice, wirelessly programming the last known address for her neurologist brother Benjamin into the NavMan. It was only when the photo of Benjamin came up Hartog smiled with genuine heart for the first day. Benjamin, aka BenJin was the city’s most notorious feedo. The day was getting more interesting by the second.

The recently added part two in the Dirk Hartog series is Derby

Unsent Letters #8: The Sun

2009-05-19T08:20:00.001+10:00

Dear John,
The sun was out today. I took myself out with a book and lay there for hours. It was like I was a depleted battery sucking up the energy. It felt good to be warm again. I took a book out with me but couldn't concentrate. Which doesn't surprise me - I didn't think I would be able to concentrate, but like the sun, it felt good to just hold it in my hand.

Smal touch stones my mother would say. Small things that anchor us in the here and now. Who would have thought she would go all new agey.

I'm sending you some beautiful sun John - breathing the gorgeous rays of light into every word as I write them.

I hope it is warm where you are - somehow.
Love Sissy xxxx

Unsent Letters #7: Parents

2009-05-18T16:06:00.000+10:00

Dear John.
I should have known that by some weird 6th sense my parents would have known about yesterday and descended. Which of course they did today.

I tried to assure them I was ok - which was pretty hard given I don't remember the last time I slept for more than two hours at a stretch - nor went to sleep before the small hours of the morning. It seemed I spent more time trying to ease their worries that the reverse. I didn't dare tell them about the police coming over yesterday. It would have really set them off.

What they have done - which hopefully will help with the worry and the stress - Dad will pay the rent until I am back on my feet. I wanted to assure him I would pay ever cent back once I got back on my feet but I just smiled and said thank you. I have no idea when I will get back on my feet.

Mum told me I need to take it one day at a time, one hour, one minute. Sounds like she's been reading some weird Louise Hays stuff - or Buddhist. That sort of stuff is Buddhist isn't it. So I worked at it while they were there. One minute at a time until they were gone.

Mum begged me to come home and stay with them - they were really worried about me and my safety. I told them I want to be in my home, surrounded by my stuff. I don't want to be fussed over. Just left to get on with it as best I can.

They were so careful not to mention you John. After the mail incident I took all the mail and hid it. I should have asked Mum and Dad to take it over to your parents - but I didn't want to put them in that position. I might ask Larissa if she will drop it over to your parents. They will know what to do with it. But at the same time - I don't want to make it any worse for them than it already is.

What would you do John? Would you're parents have fussed and carried on the way mine are now if our places were reverse. If you were here and I was there?

Unsent Letters #6: Anger

2009-05-17T21:34:00.003+10:00

Dear John,
I'm angry. They say that it's cathartic. They say that it is good for me. Someone has even tried to tell me that it is a compass and I should look to where it is pointing to get my answers. To find some healing.

Well if my anger is a compass it is pointed squarely at the police.

Two of them turned up here today and stood at the door expecting to be let in. I looked down at the pile of mail growing for you on the table by the door and wanted to scoop it all up and hide it before they came in. But of course there was no time.

They of course stared at it and stared at me. No one made a comment though. It was like there was a huge pink elephant doing the macarena in the loungeroom that everyone pretended wasn't there.

They said they just wanted to ask a few questions. I told them I wasn't feeling up to asking any questions - perhaps they could come back another time. They told me they had been patient up until now and they really had to ask me the questions. I could feel the sear and the crack in my head.

Told them I had a head ache to come back another time but they insisted. So much for community relations.

I don't know why they bothered. I couldn't tell them anything they didn't already know. I don't know what they were expecting. Me to tell the truth or something? Assuming that I actually knew the truth? I have no idea what was going on in your head at the time. I thought maybe they were trying to pin it on me - given they can't get to you. When I kept saying I don't know they treated me like I was being obstructionist - that's the word I'm sure they used. As if I was purposely feigning a mental lapse.

So now they've got nothing more than they had a few hours ago and I've got a head ache which feels likea canyon is cracking open down the middle of my skull. The medication they've given me makes me puke - so it's have the head ache, or try and keep the stuff down long enough to have an effect then hope the vomitting doesn't bring it on again.

Wish I had have known what you would have done in my circumstances. Gone and hid somewhere quietly like when the Jehovah's came around. Remember the dude that knocked on the door the first Sunday we slept at the new place - before there was any furniture and the three of us just drank and passed out on the shag pile carpet? Who puts shag pile down on the floor in the tropics and thinks it's a good idea.

Remember the guy knocked on the door, 'happy first morning in the new house - as per the jehovah's' - he took one look at me and said 'a picture tells a thousand words and I bet you've got a good story to tell.' I don't remember now if I just shut the door in his face of tried a wise crack.

At least I'm smiling now - even though my head hurts!

We were good together - weren't we John. Bad, but so good at it!

Love you
Sissy xxxx

Life Is Sweet

2009-05-17T17:33:00.003+10:00

In honour of Mercury Retrograde (active until May 31st) and on the heels of my Write Anything column this week 10 Writing Tips for Using Mercury Retrograde Energy here is some old writing I've dug up - circa 2001! Thankfully my ability is weave fact and fiction has become a finer art form rather than an act of being clobbered over the head with a sledge hammer. It is a first draft and probably littered with errors! Let the embarrassment begin ...

Lily was a mathematical genius she decided. One bottle of chardonnay, plus one bottle shiraz and a bottle of bubbly tossed in for good measure equalled one bloody sore and swollen ankle – even when the total volume was divided by two – half for Lily, half for Wil.

She looked down to the contortion of swelling and mulberry coloured bruising that had been a slender ankle five days earlier. They said that you learnt from your mistakes and she had learnt an important lesson – the consumption of large amounts of wine did not empower one to think that they could take the dog for a walk at midnight, if your mobile so chose to have no service in the particular area that you were partaking in these large amounts of wine .. and further more … if this midnight wander was for the quest of mobile service so one could ring a friend in England to track down one’s ex boyfriend’s new work number – then - one should just stay at home, crank the music up a little louder and start on the Black Label Bundy. The result may be one hell of a headache in the morning, but in retrospect a far better option than the consequences currently being endured.

Lily scribbled out for the fourth time that evening the sketch that she was working on for her dress for the Moulin Rouge party. The dull throbbing in her ankle was sweeping into a grand crescendo of pain. Mind over matter, she told herself … mind over matter. There was nothing worse than self-pity and she wasn’t going to wallow in that. It had been her own stupid, drunken fault and she would just have to endure the pain, the inconvenience – and – the loss of pay.

“Fuck off!” she swore savagely, as an obese ginger cat, grazed past the crutches neatly stacked against the utility bench in the eating area, behind where she was currently sitting – aimlessly doodling now.

The cat threw her a distasteful look and commenced rubbing against the crutches.

“Fuck off you stupid cat – are you deaf as well as fat.”

Screwing one of the discarded sketches into a ball she turned awkwardly and hurled the pink craft paper in the direction of the cat. It missed by a wide margin and the cat continued to rub its wide head against the crutches, pushing harder against them as they slipped further from it’s pleasure pressure until a moment later they clattered loudly to the off white coloured tiles.

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” swore Lily, pulling her injured foot from the chair across from her and preparing to hop after the much hated feline … and then …

“Is everything OK?” Wil asked calmly emerging from her room, an untidy longhaired Terrier trotting along behind her

“Eeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr,”
“I’ll go get the cat and lock it out side.”

As usual the fat feline had not ventured far and within a minute it was duly banished from the house. Wil picked up Lily’s crutches and replace them against the utility bench.

“Are you sure you are OK?”
“I’m fine,” lied Lily in a strained voice, sneaking a look at the equally annoying Terrier out the side of her eye.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Nope I am fine.”

Wil stood there taking in her friend knowing she was lying through her teeth and probably did want a drink but was so exasperatingly independent that she would rather forgo a drink than ask someone else to get her one.
“Well if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure!”

“Are you in much pain honey?” she asked, looking down concerned at her friend’s normally calm face that was forcing the fakest of smiles,
“I’ll be fine. I think I’ll go back to bed and put my foot up. Put some more ice on it.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Now you are sure that you’re fine.”
“YES!”

Lily dragged herself to her feet, gathered up her crutches and gracelessly made her way to the freezer for the ice pack.

“Hey Wil,” she called. “You know how fat cat’s name is Primrose Mary – and how Frank’s into his old boats and stuff.”
“Yeah.”
“Well what do you reckon that if Primrose Mary was a boat that - say sank – do you think he would see the funny side of me drowning the cat in the fish pond.”

Wilbur laughed heartily.
“I think it might be difficult to explain.”
“Yeah. But it was it would but it would feel so bloody good!”
“I know it would babe. Why don’t you grab the ice pack and go rest.”
“Even for medicinal reasons …”
“No Lil.”

At that moment there was an electronic bleep from the adjoining room – Wil’s bedroom.
“I’ve got mail,” Wil quipped happily and disappeared to her email program.

Lily rolled her eyes, slumped against the fridge door and resisted the urge to cry.

“It’s not for me?” Lily called, but she could already hear Wil’s fingers hitting the keyboard in response. “Never mind,” she mumbled, organised the crutches just so, then hauled on the door, got the ice pack and terry towelling cover and fumbled her way down the hall to her room.

The room was reasonably large for a spare bedroom, sparsely furnished with a single bed, an ironing board, a small ? table, a CD tower and a small beside table that held a clockradio-come-cd player. The floor looked like the after math of World War III in a Chinese laundry. Wil had laid a towel down over some of the clothes so when the dog came into her room it wouldn’t sleep on her clothes – just on the towel that was on her clothes. Grrrrrrrrrrr!!! Muffy the bringer in of dirt, grass and burrs.

Lily clamped her eyes shut, tightened her fists on the rung of the crutches and tried not to scream out in sheer frustration. The tiny taps of toenails on the cold ceramic tiles, snapped her out of her inner explosion. She glared at the small dog that looked up at her with big sad eyes from beneath long dishevelled hair. In an instant Lily believed in spontaneous human combustion and that was she about to be the next casualty, as she felt the pressure build up inside her. The dog tentively stepped into her room and look for a comfortable place to lie down.

“OUT!” Lily screamed. “OUT OUT OUT you stupid mongrel. OUT!”

“Muffy, c’mon Muffy” Wil called from her room, in a sickly sweet high pitched tone that just added fuel to Lily’s fire. “C’mon out of Lil’s room.”

The dog gave one last traumatised look and trotted back down the hall. Lily accidentally/on purpose let the door slam, then set about negotiating her way through the mess of clothes, plates, empty coke cans and books on the floor. She just wanted to go home! House sitting with Wil had lost its charm.

When she was an able bodied bi-ped capable of cooking, cleaning and hanging out washing, driving, showering standing up, putting her dirty clothes in the washing basket and generally just being normal (if that was a possible classification for her!) – it had been great. Now it was just a nightmare. She looked distastefully down at the plates on the floor from last night’s salmon risotto that she couldn’t carry back down to the kitchen – that was if she could find a square inch of bench in the kitchen that wasn’t covered in the after math of Wil’s cooking to put it.

With well skilled fingers, she strapped the ice pack to her ankle with one of Wil’s long woolly khaki army socks and propped it up on the mountain of pillows at the end of the bed.

Everything had gone pear shaped and she just wanted her own bed … and Mum.

Now there was a complete cock up if she’d ever seen one.

Saturday morning she had woken with an ankle twice it’s normal size and so painful she could barely move. Wil had still been over the limit to drive Lily to the doctors so in desperation Wil had messaged Lily’s Mum on the internet that Lily had hurt herself.

Like the dedicated and loving mother she was, Lily’s mother had driven the half an hour into house sitting and had then driven her another half an hour back out to her GP, waiting with her, driven her to the hospital for x-rays, back to the GP, to the pharmacy for a cold pack and then back to house sitting. It was three hours that seemed to be three days to Lily, especially as her hangover started to descend on her like an ominous black throbbing cloud. Yes, she had been less than pleasant to her silently suffering mother, and yes, she had snapped at her – but hell she’d been in pain – lots of pain.

Back at house sitting her Mum had wafted about the kitchen looking for ways to help. That was when Lily’s resolve broke.

“Mum – just GO HOME!” she had stormed.
Wounded, her Mum and turned and walked out the door.
“Mum, I’m just tired and in pain,” Lily had tried to explain to soften the blow of her words. “I just want to go to bed and I do appreciate you taking me to the doctors.”
Then her Mum was gone, hurtling down the road in her little Nissan Pulsar and Lily felt like a complete shit.

Sunday night, merry from State of Origin drinks, she’d rung to commiserate with her Mum on the thumping of the Maroons and got the answering machine. She’d left a somewhat garbled message, thought not a lot more of it and sat down to watch the end of “ET” which ended up being a more interesting and exciting option than the football. Monday afternoon it was the answering machine that greeted her and then she began to worry. Her Mum always rang back – fearing the worst she rang her sister.

“You’re an ungrateful and selfish person,” her sister had attacked. “Of course Mum is pissed off with you. You were so rude to her. She’s not talking to you and I don’t blame her.”
“What! I told her that I was tired and sore and that’s why I wanted her to go.”
“No you didn’t. You yelled at her to leave.”
“No I didn’t – what would you know.”
“She came home and told me how nasty you were to her. You’re so selfish.”
“You’re a fucking bitch. Fuck off.”
…….and down the phone had slammed, proving yet again that Lily and sister did not get along.

Lily had sent an offline message to her Mum that morning trying to explain without being a sap, what had happened and that she had not meant to offend her – and still there was stony silence from her mother. It made her feel violently ill – she was never on bad terms with her mother – never! Now all she wanted to do was go home and even that option seemed like a mirage in the current climate of family love.

The chill of the ice pack cut into the traumatised skin. Lily tried to relax, but the tension inside, combined with the morbid feeling from the falling out with her mother left her wondering at which point the bomb inside her would go off. Reaching behind her, she turned the CD on, fast tracked to song 6 and lay there listening the to surreal voice of Dido.

Where was her phone call that made everything better? A week ago she was almost over the broken foot she procured at Easter time, John was happily writing to her from Tennessee once a day, work was finally looking up and life was sweet.

The bottle was always half full in her opinion, but she had to admit to herself that it was becoming increasingly difficult not to see it as half empty – especially when you were now a tri-ped (one good leg and two crutches) your charming e-mailer was off screwing the recently moved in next door and divorced young woman – who was coming to terms with life – and you had no more sick leave to cover you absence from work.

With a rueful grin, Lily did admit all would be bearable if Wil would just give in and let her sacrifice Primrose Mary to the goldfish in the pond out the back.

Unsent Letters #5: I'm sorry

2009-05-15T23:01:00.003+10:00

It's all my fault. I'm sorry John.

I was talking to Larissa today. You'd be proud of me - I actually picked up the phone. No screening calls and no procrastinating about calling someone back.

I told her it was all my fault. She drove straight around here. She says it is not my fault and I'm not to think like that. I'm suspicious though. Larissa hugged me. When was the last time she hugged me - ever?

I kept on though. I said it was my idea ... I encouraged you to do ... and this is where we ended up. She was quiet then. I know she wanted to say something but you know Larissa. What would she say. It wasn't something you could just joke about, fob off with a silly smile. She hugged me again.

It must be my fault. Larissa never hugs. It was like she was saying yes it was your fault but you're still OK with me.

Should I ask her if that was the case John?

I want it to be my fault ... but I don't want to have to be responsible for the guilt and pain. I want to say sorry - but first I have to admit I did wrong?

Help me!

Sissy xxxx

Unsent Letters #4: Toothpaste

2009-05-15T22:50:00.003+10:00

John,
I'm tired!

How many times did we say that to each other. I dont' remember now what your record for the most number of days strung together without sleep. Mine was three I think - over that Christmas weekend with the English backpacker and the bouncer. It was when I was hanging out with the crazy girlfriend of yours while you were off back home sorting yourself out. Sad it never worked out you between you and Dallie ... but then again, in the end I didn't like her, so perhaps it was a good thing after all.

I was thinking on your name today. For some reason my body is tired but my mind can't be reigned in. I was thinking about all the Johns. The first one coming to mind was John in the colgate add. Remember:

*bash bash bash on the bathroom door*
"Let me in John I bet your using my colgate gel!""

I never asked you if you used colgate gel - or aim. We used Aim at home. How is it we never talked about toothpaste. Did we argue once about the toothpaste we used to get? I don't remember now - but I seem to remember so many other things? I remember we used to get Aim toothpaste and for some reason remember it was the toothpaste which first cracked the 'gel' market - before we knew gel was something you put in your hair to make it stick up like you had put your finger in an electrical socket. I remember when Aim toothpaste came in the pump pack for all the families who lost their lips. Yes - toothpaste once had screw on lids - not flip tops like they have now.

Just like cans of drink (and beer) had ring pulls - now they have the other sort. I remember Bill getting a ring pull can from the vending machine at the beach and us all howling with laughter and daring him to drink it - it was probably old and off. Actually it was everyone else howling with laughter and daring him ... I was just hanging back like always.

You weren't there - it must have been some other holiday other than Easter.

I don't even know what toothpaste you use now John?

Sissy xxx

Only My Heart Calling

2009-05-15T21:36:00.003+10:00

This is the prequel to Fiction Friday's Summer Girl.

Rob stared at the photo in his hand, dogged eared and soft with age. He remembered the day they got together infront of the brick wall. Their friend Gordie with his camera and the black and white film they'd all chipped in for.

Four faces staring back at him. Four faces in various guises of cool, detached, brooding and goofing off. That was the four of them then. Before it all fell apart. Back in the days when they were going to be rich, famous, in the top 40 and together forever.

He shoved it into his back pocket and knocked on the door. When no one answered he knocked again. Behind the sage green door he could hear the mumble of Julia’s voice. He assumed it was Julia's voice. “Julia, it’s me Rob. I know you’re in there.”
He waited a few minutes and tried again.
“C’mon Julez, open up … please.”

The guitar felt like a lead weight in his hand. Coming down the hallway didn’t seem as good an idea as it did half an hour ago.
“Go away!”

His knocking became more urgent. “Don’t be like that Julez.
The door opened a crack. Instead of looking at him, she looked down on the floor and frowned when she saw the guitar.
“I’m not up for a sing along. Go to bed.”

Rob forced his foot between the door and the jamb.
“Get your foot out or I’ll go and call security.”
“Can’t I come in for a few minutes and talk.”
“There’s plenty of time to talk tomorrow. You’re drunk. Go to bed.”
"You think I'd have to be drunk to do this?"

Rob threw his weight against the door catching Julia off guard and took a couple of steps into her room. The first thing he saw was the bottle of gin.
“You brought gin with you?” Rob glared at her.
“It’s not what you think.”

Her face was red but her eyes sad. The flash of anger gone leaving a wash of melancholy in it’s wake.

Rob leant the guitar against the wall and snatched up the bottle of gin, screwing the lid off as he strode to the bathroom and poured it down the shiny stainless steel plug hole. He thought about the first time he’d done it to Julia – her screaming like a banshee, lashing out at him with her finger nails and biting him. He knew she was an alcoholic even back then. He thought she would have got herself sorted out by now.

This time she leant against the door frame watching him, resigned and tired – a once graceful yacht with the wind taken from its sails. Rob held the empty bottle over the sink longer than necessary, rescrewed the metal lid on and handed it back to her.

“As I said, it’s not what you think.” She dropped it in the bin and folded her arms. “I’ve been on the wagon for ten years now. I was on the phone to my sponsor Marty while we were banging on the door to get in. It was a dumb thing to buy coming in through customs. I just thought … So you got in.” She smiled at him, the first smile he’d seen in an eternity. “What do you want to talk about at midnight?”

Rob was silent. He didn’t really want to talk. He wanted to stare at her face – look for the familiar contours and quirks – the face he once knew like the back of his hand – which like the back of his hand was now older, wrinkled. The youthful glow gone and a hard determination left in its place.

He had sat in his room a few doors up and remember what it had been like once to hold her in his arms, their naked bodies pressed together. His finger winding the russet strands of her hair. Remembering the way she would look at him when she pulled her sunglasses down on her nose, eyes twinkling. The way she looked in his PJ top, her long legs gorgeous beneath the striped flannelette. But he couldn’t tell her that.

“You brought your guitar. You planning on serenading me?”
“I never serenaded you. It was more like you caught me in the allure of your voice. Like a siren.”
“Poetic Rob.”
“What do you think a song writer is …. Jim Morrison was a poet first and foremost in his mind.”
“And dead now.”
“He was dead when you worshipped him.”
“You grow up. You live and learn.”

The room was chilly. Even though it was June, Julia had the air conditioning cranked, pumping out frigid air.

They stood staring at each other, Rob trying to work out where the hell the girl he had once loved had gone. Julia trying to fight the old pull towards him. She understood now why she had exiled herself on the other side of the world. Desire. Guilt. Regret.

She shouldn’t have come. But she didn't have a choice.

“I’m sorry for being snarky.” She unfolded her arms and walked across to where the guitar hung out by the door – like a groupie, watching and waiting. “Play me a song. You could always put me in the right mood with your guitar.”

Rob took it reluctantly now, and sat in the door way of the bathroom, his back braced against the frame. He remembered the moods he could get Julia into with his guitar, but he hadn’t bashed down her door to seduce her.

She sat across from him, sitting as she had always done, kneeling with her feet neatly tucked under the bum. He picked at the strings. He knew what he wanted to play, what he wanted to hear her sing. But now sitting with her across from him, her face unreadable he wasn’t sure he had the guts. It seemed stupid, petty - so long ago.

Twenty years ago, after she’d slept with Zac she had just disappeared from his life. Cleaning out the meagre savings she had, boarding a plane to London. No note, no good-byes. No nothing. Then a message a month ago from Jason saying UQ were holding the 20 year anniversary of their Battle of the Bands – wouldn’t it be fun to all get back together a play again.

Maybe for Jason, thought Rob who had always just wanted to be up on stage with legions of nubile girls adoring him and inviting him back to their place. After the band busted up Jason had tried stand up comedy – he’d gone to his first couple of open mics but couldn’t bear any more. Jason had no sense of keeping face and Rob could only cringe so much on his behalf. Then he’d tried acting – unsuccessfully so and finally gave in, after dropping out of uni, tried carpentry and ended up as an agent. He's seen his name occassionally. It would be impossible not to be owning the biggest digital indie music house. The Australian music industry wasn't that big.

It wasn’t Jason’s harebrained enthusiasm for the band’s reunion – but Jason’s assurance that Julia was flying back home from London to play with them again. And Zac.

As Rob’s mind wandered, his fingers picked out the tune they had come to play and when he looked up, he could see the tears, cold and wet on Julia’s face. He pushed the guitar aside and crawled across, taking her in his arms.

“I’m sorry Julia. I …”
She cried and Rob held her tightly until the shudders died down and all that was left was his damp shirt and a few sniffs. She looked up at him through her puffy eyes and asked, “I never understood why the fascination with Margaret Urlich. Seems so – so Un-Cureish.”

Rob laughed and squeezed her tight.
“It’s not Urlich – it’s the song. It was the first thing I ever heard you singing. Up on the stage in the refect. You must have been a first year.”
“Seems a million years ago but somehow appropriate now." She wiped a finger under her nose. "My heart’s been calling to you for twenty years but I’ve never been brave enough to come back and face you. That night with Zac…”
“That night with Zac was twenty years ago. Let’s just be happy in the here and now.”

“But…”
“Twenty years in London seems like penance enough.”

Fiction Friday: Summer Girl

2009-05-15T21:25:00.005+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for May 15th, 2009:

Four college bandmates who haven’t seen each other in years travel back to their former campus for a reunion.

Jason looked terrible – prematurely grey, wrinkled, over weight and still pretending to be young, beautiful and cool, when he’d never been any of them in the first place. The picture on Facebook had either been photoshopped or was a good ten years old.

Rob didn’t want to judge him, they had once been brothers in arms, if not friends in a weird musical kind of way, but he couldn’t help but stare into the face of what he may have become. Hanging onto a dream that died years ago.

The small talk dragged on as the three of them tried to find common friends, common incidents – anything in common to talk about. Anything but the band.

“Fuck – this is so middle aged,” Jason said, with an over exaggerated sweep of his arm. They were sitting in the Coffee Club on the Queen Street Mall. “When did we ever have a band meeting in a café. I remember getting together in that fucking dive you lived in Robbo – up there on Petri Terrace. Flagons of port and goon. Pissing the old ladies off next door jamming until all hours. Man – those were the days. Now we’re doing lattes. There must be somewhere open at 10am for a beer.”

“You really think that going into a bar at 10am in the morning is a good idea when Julez is a recovering alcoholic.”
“Shit Julez. Sorry man. I had no idea.”
“It’s cool.”

Jason’s phone went off, blaring “We Are the Champions” and he picked it up.
“Yeah babe, sure. Yeah yeah. I’ll pick you up later on.”

Julia grabbed his hand under the table and squeezed it. He could feel her rubbing the indent in his finger from the wedding band.
“Sure. Later babe.”

He tossed the mobile across the table and lent back in his chair. “She’s a babe. Leg’s up to here and just 23 years old. Half your age and add seven years. That’s the formula I go by.”

Julia shot a look sideways at Rob – he’d seen it before. Rob pulled his mobile out of his pocket and sat the brand new iPhone next to Jason’s battered Nokia, as a waitress stopped at their table.

“I’ll have a corona? You don’t mind do you Julez honey?”
“Go right ahead. I’ll have a macchiato please.”
“What the fuck is that?”

Rob looked down at his watch.
“Make that two.”
Zac was meant to have joined them fifteen minutes late. Julia squeezed his hand and forced a smile that looked all wrong on her face.

“So you guys together again. That’s sweet. That’ll knock Zac’s socks off.” Julia pulled her hand out from under the table. “You know I never understood Julez – why’d you knock me back .. I mean first Zac, then Rob, then back to Zac.”

Rob’s chair squealed as he pushed back.
“I’m not sitting here and listening to your shit Jason. You know what – I’m sorry you didn’t get to be a big rock star, or movie star and you haven’t managed to find the next big someone -“
“Rob!” Julia reached out and grabbed him on the arm. “This is tough on all of us. Sit down.”

Rob stared down at her and then across to Jason, lowering himself back in his seat looking as if at any moment he would just stalk off.
“Cool it Robbo – I was out of line. I was always pissed that she did everyone in the band except me.”

He reached across the table to shake, but Rob didn’t move.
“Shake his hand,” Julia said, forcing a smile that didn’t suit her face. ‘We’ll drink our coffees-“
“Beer!”
“We’ll drink our drinks by which time Zac will be here.”

They sat in silence until the waitress brought their drinks. Jason took a long swig of the beer – draining almost half of it before he slammed it back down on the table.
“Hair of the dog man. Gotta do it!” He winked at Julia and Rob rolled his eyes. “I gotta say I never thought I’d see us all sitting around shooting the breeze. Hell if it weren’t for you ringing Julia I would never have come along.”

“You Julia?” Rob looked at Julia and then to Jason. “Isn’t this something you sorted out Jason?”
Jason shrugged his shoulders.“Shit no! This is lady luck here’s idea. Get us all together.”
“But you rang me and told me about the Battle of the Bands.”
“Battle of the bands – what the hell are you talking about?” Jason said, picking up his beer, letting it linger on his bottom lip. “Has your brain gone to mush with all the techno shit you do?”

Rob leaned forward. “You rang me a month ago and told me UQ were having a battle of bands reunion.”
“No way man. This is the first time I’m talking to you since the band split.”
“Actually since you were doing stand up down in the Valley.”
“Fuck yeah – I’d forgotten about that.” He took another swig of beer. “I couldn’t care less if I never saw the hairy motherfucker again. He promised he’d take me with him to Sydney when the band split – going to make it big. Fuckwit lied.”
“You knew he was planning on busting the band up?”
“Fuck yeah – he wanted to go to Sydney. Said he’d need a good drummer.”

“Did you steal them?” The chair screech backwards again, followed by Jason’s. “You stole my songs. You had a key to my place? You did it so Zac would take you to Sydney with him. And he doubled dealed you.”
“I didn’t know anything about your fucking songs Robbo. I didn’t steal them.” But neither Rob or Julia were convinced.
“You knew they were good, you knew they were destined to make us famous. All you wanted was to be famous. So you stole my songs.”

The table fell to the side as Jason lurched across the table, grabbing for his shirt.

“Stop it,” Julia yelled, forcing herself between them, where the table had been.
“And as for you. Zac fucked you to break the band up. And you couldn’t wait to spread your legs for him. He was right when he said it would be easy.”

Julia slapped him. “You take that back!” Tears stung her eyes. “It didn’t happen that way.”
“Of course it did.”
“I was drunk.”
“Weren’t you always.”

Rob held Julia back, putting his arms around her.
“Fuck off Jason. You’re a waste of space.”

“Is there a problem here?” Rob turned to face the manager. “It’s all good. He’s just leaving.”
Jason spat on the ground and picked his wallet and mobile up from among the broken crockery and the smashed salt and pepper shakers.

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Height’s soared from Julia’s hand bag, lying on the ground. She broke free from Rob and riffled through to find it. The screen came up with ONE MISSED CALL. ZAC. It beeped and she accessed her message bank. When she stood up, clutching her bag and her mobile she saw Rob handing the manager and fifty dollar bill and picking his iPhone up from the mess on the ground.

“Let’s go,” Rob said. He took her arm firmly and led her out the door, into the cool morning air. She shook free and stood blocking his way.
“It’s not what you think it is.”
“Who called me?”
“A friend of mine. I had to make it look like I wasn’t the one organising it or else you wouldn’t have come.”
“I only came because Jason – whoever – said you were going to be here.” Rob shook his head. “At least it explains why you had no gear in your room last night.”

Julia hooked her arm through his and towed him into the flow of the Mall.
“If I called and said Zac wanted to see you-“
“I wouldn’t have come. Not even for you. He screwed me. I can’t forgive the prick for what he did.”
“You never sued.”
“I had no evidence those songs were mine. I can’t believe Jason stole my songs and gave them to Zac. Explains why he was so damn cagey around me back then.”

They walked on in silence.
“I admit I lied to get you here.”
“And Jason?”
“He’s beside the point. I needed him to make it look like a band reunion. Zac felt bad about lying to him, using him, he wanted to say sorry – but it was you he wanted to see.”
“I don’t understand Julez. Are you saying you’re in contact with Zac?”

Julia looked away.
“You are?”
“I’ve always been in contact with him. He got me my first singing job in London. You’ve got no idea how it was when I got there Rob. His star was rising and -”
"He stole the song I wrote for you. You are Summer Girl. And all these years he's sung it. Made a name for himself with it."

Rob pushed her hand away and started to walk fast. Julia grabbed at him.
“Twenty years with no word from you but all the time you had Zac.”
“I ran away for 20 years and I’m not letting you run away now. This is important.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
“Last night it didn’t matter to you what happened between Zac and I and now it does.”
“So you did.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“I’m over this Julez. Go back to London, go back to wherever just get the hell out of my life.”

“He’s dying,” Julia called as Rob strode off. “Zac’s got pancreatic cancer and he’s not going to last the month out.”

Rob stopped but didn’t turn around.
“He was coming this morning to sign the rights of Summer Girl and all the other songs to you. He wanted to do what was right. When he dies you’ll own the copyright of all your songs and all of his … and the royalties that come with it.”
“I don t believe you.”

Julia stuck her hand in her bag and pulled out some folded papers, tapping Rob on the shoulder with them.
“He just brokered a deal with Coke. A multi-million dollar deal.”
“I don’t want his money.”
“You’re money actually.”
“I said I don’t want the money. I don’t need the money.”
“But you want your song back – don’t you.”

“You say he’s dying?”
“They wouldn’t let him out of hospital to come this morning. He wanted to do it in person – but –“
“He sent you as his messenger. Always the go between. Saint Julez of the Arseholes.”
“Don’t be a stubborn bastard. Don’t let your pride get in the way of granting a dying man his last wish.”

Julia pulled a small card from her bag and handed it to Rob.
“Go to him. Go make things right. Then you and I can try and make things right between us."

The prequel to this story is Only My Heart Calling. Decided it was too long to post as the one story.

Unsent Letters: Affogato

2009-05-13T23:47:00.002+10:00

Dear John,
It's better here today.

Larissa came over and dragged me out for coffee. You know what Larissa is like - I couldn't say no and she agreed to just walk around the corner. She also "made" me try something new - says it is time to live a bit and I didn't even take offence at that. How can you ever be mad with Larissa?

So I had an affogato - expresso and icecream. Weird and wonderful all at the same time. It made me think of the night we went to the casino for my birthday and you "made" me try a Black Velvet. While coffee and icecream go together (though technically the temperature difference makes it a bit wrong) - I have to remind you that the Guiness and champage did not.

I thought about global warming as I watched the icecream melt. If I can grok the whole icecream melting in my expresso metaphor of global warming - why can't others. We need someone to come down and slurp up all the excess water. But then we'd probably just have a drought and it would be worse than a 6m rise in global sea levels. Guess there's no easy answers.

Larissa found out I'd never had take out coffee before - meaning she "made" me go and get a long black to take away with us. I have to admit I felt just a little bit cool wandering out with the coffees in a carrier - Larissa ordered a caramel latte just so I could carry them all out. Like I was some office wench doing the coffee run. Why I would think being the office wench would be cool I don't know. How is it we never took coffee out? I guess coffee always meant sit in - why would you want to waste good coffee rushing around between point A and point B in life?

We walked around the block, then people watched at the bus stop for a while. Larisa can be so filthy at times. It took forever for the coffee to cool which meant having to listen to more of her comments than I would have otherwise chosen to. She thinks it's funny whenI blush uncontrollably. It must have been the expresso.

The hits of expresso were just what I needed - though now I'm feeling a bit shakey and wired. Remember when we drank five short blacks and then went to see Romeo and Juliet? It feels a little like that - only I didn't return home to discover I'd been wandering around the street with a huge rip up the back of my dress and my bare arse hanging out. Thankfully I was wearing jeans and the seams are pretty sturdy - well at the moment.

Larissa says I need to speak to my folks about money. I don't want to bring it up if they haven't offered. You'd think they'd have offered to help. As if there isn't enough to deal with already. I want to see if there is another option before I ring them for help.

I got out Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness and played the rat in a cage song over and over again. I wanted to feel angry but there's nothing. No sadness, no regret, no guilt - just emptiness. And at night - fear? Maybe I'm not a lost cause if I'm afraid.

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

Do you feel like that rat John? Is it like being in a cage?

I miss you.

Sissy xx

Unsent Letters: The Darkness

2009-05-12T23:16:00.003+10:00

Dear John,
It's dark. So dark. They tell me it won't always be like this - but how would they know. They tell me that like night, day finally comes ... but really, what's the point of day. It's just walking death.

I wish I could hear your voice - something tangible, something real to hold onto in the darkness. You'd think I would have grown out of my fear of the dark but it seems more real now than when we were kids.

I'd blame you - but it's not your fault. I'd give anything now for you to be hiding around the corner from the toilet door - ready to spring out and scare the shit out of me.

Well I am scared. More scared than I have ever been.

Are you scared too John?

Sissy xx

Unsent Letters: Dear John

2009-05-11T20:37:00.002+10:00

Unsent Letters is a writing exercise I started over at Write Anything. For the next 21 days I will be posting a fictional letter from one character to another.

Dear John,
I can’t help but think that one day it might be ‘one of those letters’ every time I scribble those two words at the beginning of a letter. So ingrained in the cultural vernacular those two words are. Perhaps I should change your name – could you be Johnny – Jon? Jim Jude. I wonder if Jude is a shortening of Judas?

I’m sitting here listening to the Rolling Stones as I write this. Anything to fill the void up with. I can’t stand the silence. I once thought the silence was lonely – now it just feels like a terrible vortex that will suck me in if I let it through the door. So I fill the flat up with noise. Guess it is not terribly nice of me to call the Stones ‘noise’. Guess also that anything turned up loud enough becomes noise?

Is it quiet where you are?

What are you listening to John?

It’s getting late. I should try to get to sleep. I never seem to be able to drift off before the CD ends. If only there was enough money for an iPod and I would have a week’s worth of music at my disposal. Maybe then I would actually sleep.

Hope you are sleeping wherever you are John?

Yours,
Sissy

[Fiction] Friday: Lea

2009-04-17T18:34:00.005+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for April 17th, 2009:

Include this line somewhere in your story: “I’m never doing that again.”

The drums pounded in Lea’s head. An impatient finger jabbed at the elevator button as the rhythm began to build, from a quiet throb easily ignored to an insistent pounding. An hour earlier she’d washed down a handful of aspirin with the warm dregs of a bottle of mineral water in an attempt to quash the pain in the early stages.

How could I have missed the warning?

Lea understood now, staring defeated across the empty office space she had left it too late. The only light left on her floor was the single energy efficient bulb at elevator landing. Lightning flashed and Lea imagined the boom following closely behind – the plate glass windows absorbing the sound.

So focused on completing the evenings wires, tidying up all the lose ends Lea had failed to see the storm building out to the west until the final transaction was going through. A month without rain had made her blasé.

A month had passed since the impromptu visit with the healer at the psychic show. She’d wandered in passing the time between talks at an International Monetary Conference – treating herself to a walk through the freak show only to be compelled to actually speak with the woman in the simple white pants suit.

She’d pushed it all into the back of her mind. Committed the unsettling conversation to a mental strong box and piled it with the rest of them, where they could not touch her.

Lea jabbed unrelenting at the elevator button again, as the drumming in her head built.

Where the hell is the elevator?

According to the numbers above the doors the elevator hadn’t moved from the ground floor, despite her best efforts to rouse it from its slumber.

She lent her fevered forehead against the chill of the metal elevator door. Now was not the time to panic, even though she recognised the cold, winding its way through her bowel and up to her stomach. Screwing her eyes shut she hammered on the elevator door. She could risk a guard – after all it was Friday, she was leaving work late, as she always did and no one would consider asking difficult questions. All anyone ever asked her on a Friday was whether she’d join them for drinks at the Jade Buddha.

The answer was always no.

She had not come this far to choke, but as each second past and the drumming grew more insistent, pounding on the backs of her eye balls, the possibility grew. The cold had reached her stomach and was groping around the edges. The squeeze would not be far away.

It was her own damn fault for not pausing for a moment to stare out the tenth floor window and see the storm building. For fucks sake she’d paused long enough to force the Panadol down her throat.

Why the hell did I not look up - look out?

Looking down at the overnight bag at her feet, Lea seized it in a shaking hand, her lap top still strung across her shoulder. She couldn’t wait. Giving a final stab at the button she moved unsteadily towards the fire exit.

This was the first time she’d lost her balance. All the other episodes had been mild in comparison.

“Miss Lea.”

The voice seemed to come from impossibly far away. She turned and found a security guard striding across to her. It looked as though he moved through a fun house of crazy mirrors. Lea rubbed at her eyes. She needed to be able to see straight.

“I’m not feeling so well,” and the guard caught her as she swayed on her feet. “I’m having trouble with the door.”

“Your security tag Miss Lea.”

The security tag!

The guard swiped his tag and the numbers began to light up above the elevator door.

“Are you joining the rest of them down at the Jade Buddha?”

“No.” Lea didn’t even recognise her voice.

“Probably best to go home. My wife and kids have had what you’re coming down with. Make sure you take yourself off to bed love, warm chicken soup and lots of water.”

Lea was certain that the guard’s wife and kids did not have what she had.

The doors slid open and inside the elevator, away from the prying eyes of the guard, Lea slumped against the wall, dropping the over night bag. Her episodes had never been this bad. In the past there had been a disconcerting disconnection from reality – as if viewing the world through a telescope, or on a TV screen – other times the resistance that comes with moving through water. A sickening feeling of deja vu. And there was always the drumming, pummelling her brain into submission. Then the rain would start to fall.

This time the drums were louder, and the rhythm had shape and cadence. It was as though the drums were singing to her, beckoning her forth.

It was irrational. She knew it and the healer – she would have to have known too. She could not really believe the drivel she imparted to the unsuspecting. Lea didn’t believe in clairvoyants and their sisters.

I'm never doing that again - putting faith were none deserved to be.

Lea had been caught off guard and sought answers where there could be none. Suspending logic. Mistrusting her rational calculation and understanding of the world.

Lea didn’t believe in past lives much less energetic patterns reincarnating looking for resolution. She was not caught in some psychic scratch – like a record needle getting caught on vinyl.

“A door once open can not be closed. It is up to you if you wish to cross the threshold.”

It was as though the woman with her braided hair, heavily highlight with grey and her intense green eyes was in the elevator - so clear was the voice.

She was tired, over worked. Stressed. Living every day on the brink of losing everything. She could feel the kiss of the gun muzzle on her space between her manicured eye brows.

“A door once open can not be closed. It is up to you if you wish to cross the threshold.”

No wonder she was hearing things, seeing things. She rubbed at the space between her eye brows, wishing the drumming would stop.

Lea ran her hands through her short hair and turned to look at her pale reflection in the mirrors. The image swum and for a moment her auburn hair was braided – like the healer’s, with white flowers threaded through it. Lea blinked, rubbing at her tried, dry eyes. She looked into her red rimmed eyes, dark circles encasing the lower part of her eye sockets. Her olive skin seemed to have a deathly pall shimmering just below the surface.

Dead woman walking.

But hadn’t she always been?

You grow up the way I did and you know life is cheap and death is even cheaper.

She stared closer at her forehead, at the red spot between her eye brows where she tapped unconsciously as waited for wires to finalise. Manoeuvring money in the ether – making illegal money, legal, but dirty money could never be clean.

The healer had said her third eye was closed – the space she nervously tapped with her pointer finger. She had lost her ability to tune into her intuition – her higher knowing. But Lea was more in tune to her intuition and her higher knowing than she had ever been. The nervous tendency was testament to that. You never forgot a gun pressed to your forehead.

But the door was closing, regardless of what the healer said – doors do close and new ones open. The end of this chapter of her life was so close. It didn’t need to rain. It was hard enough without struggling through another episode to get to the airport.

This time tomorrow I’ll be in the Caymens.

“Ground floor.” An impeccable English voice broke through her thoughts as the elevator doors slid open.

Author's Notes
This is the second part of a story written a few weeks ago The Stamford ... and there will be at least two more installments to come.

Please feel free to leave constructive criticism. I will be going back to tweak the oncoming weather and removing all the word repetitions :)

The Belgium Beer Cafe

2009-04-11T21:04:00.004+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for April 10th, 2009:

A dentist is stabbed while he waits in line at the movies.

Roly’s face paled and his jaw dropped a degree, giving him the hang dog look he was so famous for at university. To Lawrence it just made Roly look brain dead and he’d often imagined a silver line of drool escaping the corner of his fleshy mouth.

“Seriously dude, that’s bad.”

Lawrence wondered if Roly spoke to his clients like that–looking up from an income tax summation which revealed a client owed thousands to the tax department. No matter how hard he probed his imagination Lawrence could never see his chartered accountant speaking or behaving like Roly. Lawrence didn’t joke about impacted wisdom teeth and he expected the same professional courtesy of his accountant.

And that was just it. Roly never took anything seriously – except for bad mouthing Gloria. Lawrence felt like he’d finally caught Roly on the back foot and pressed it to his advantage.

“I can’t listen to any more of your paranoia. Your paranoia is giving me nightmares and I have to sleep at night. I can’t turn up to surgery half wacked from sleep deprivation. I have to have steady hands."Lawrence twisted the platinum wedding band on his finger. "If you think that Gloria is a gold digger, if you think that she’s not trustworthy, if you think that she’d never go for a guy like me, much less marry me, if you think I should hire a PI, if you think I should go through her phone records, her diary, her lingerie drawer… I want you to keep it to yourself. No more …. I’m serious Roly.”

The nightmare had sealed Lawrence’s decision to take Roly to task over the diatribe which accompanied their Friday luncheon’s ever since Roly had first introduced Gloria to Lawrence and they'd fallen head long into what Roly called a shot gun wedding.

How it had taken Lawrence so long have the Roly epiphany he didn’t know - was just be glad at 4:26am this morning, recovering from his nightmare, he realised with friends like Roly he didn’t need to covet enemies. Most people after all were terrified for dentists.

While mild mannered for most part and in no way into metaphysical weird shit, like his twin sister Lorraine, Lawrence could not ignore the obvious meaning of his dream.

Standing in line, with tickets for the three of them, waiting for Roly and Gloria to see “This is Your Life” and the shattering blow from behind – the knife blade penetrating between his shoulder blades as he sank to his knees sobbing, groping behind to pull the knife free of his flesh.

Well he was pulling the knife free now. The back stabbing would stop.

“Sure, sure. I get it. No more stuff about Gloria.” He took a long draught from his black frothy pint. “Hey remember when you ripped your biceps working out to look like the dude on the Oral B add.”

“Yeah only to discover that he wasn’t really a dentist and that’s why they didn’t show his face on TV. I couldn’t write and no doctor would give me a medical certificate to cover my stupidity and I flunked scientific principles of surgery and lost my perfect grade point average. Yeah I remember it. And I remember that it was your idea that I work out. You said it would do me good to no longer be perfect. I had to go back to uni for an extra semester to do the subject again while you were doing the horizontal tango with girls in London.”

“Hey dude. I’m sorry. And for all the other shit that I badgered you with at uni about being a feeb. Look at you – you turned up to be the one who snared the girl huh?” He took a long drink of his Toohey’s Old. “No hard feelings.”

Lawrence had the unsettling feeling that Roly was being genuine – though he couldn’t be sure. There had never been single moment in their friendship when Roly had given any indication he had a sincere bone in his body.

“You’re not off to have open heart surgery of something Roly?” Lawrence looked down at the overnight bag at Roly’s feet, snuggled compactly under the table, wondering at the subdued tone in his best friend.
“Just a boring CPA conference in Canberra. Heart surgery sounds like a blast in comparison – at least they knock you out. You know what I’m saying.”Lawrence nodded and drained the last of the mineral water from his highball. “What you got planned for the weekend?”
“I’m going to take Gloria up to Mooloolabah. One of the other surgeons I know has an apartment up there he’s lending us. It’s a surprise.”
“Sounds like an action packed weekend.” Lawrence didn't need to see the wink to know that the sentence was punctuated with one.

Lawrence looked at his watch and remembered the cheques in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

“I gotta run. I did mates rates for a friend and have to bank the cheques. The girls refuse to go to the bank since everything is done by electronic transfer now.”
“I'd love to see that Olivia tottering up the Mall on those three inch heels.” The lewd look on Roly’s face made Lawrence cringe – especially considering Olivia was yet to reach her 20th birthday, making Roly almost chronologically challenged enough to be her old man.

Roly rose and extended his hand. Lawrence grasped the bear paw in his long elegant surgeon’s hand, grateful Roly wasn’t taking the opportunity to emphasise his power and strength in a single bone crushing squeeze.

“Take care bud.”

As Lawrence walked off he stopped to look back at Roly, beer in one hand and a client brief in the other, the manila folder destined to soak up either errant grease or beer from the table top. Lawrence kept on, through the swirling menagerie of the raucous Friday lunch time crowd; he felt seven foot tall – viewing all the banality from afar, having finally risen above it. Stepping out onto the pavement at the Mary and Edward Streets Lawrence was relieved for having spoken his mind to Roly, for putting his foot down. For being a man!

For too long he’d allowed Roly to run rough shod over him, belittle him and his relationship with Gloria. Too late, as usual he remembered the joke he’d intended to use at some stage over lunch to attempt to put Roly back in his place, “What do accountants use as a contraceptive …. Their personalities!”

Lawrence smiled to himself and whistled a nameless tune, as he made his way to the ANZ branch in Queens Street, along Eagle Street for a change, flowing with the tide of pedestrians rather than fighting his way through them. There was a moment when the sun peaked out from behind the heavy steel grey clouds that had been crowding the skies for days – doing nothing but threatening rain.

Standing at the Eagle-Elizabeth-Creek Streets intersection Lawrence thrust his hands in his pockets and discovered they were empty except for a few silver coins – he’d left his keys on the table in the reverie of having won against Roly. The cheques would wait until Monday. He rang Roly, but his call diverted to voice mail after three rings. Lawrence stepped up the pace, back tracking to the Beer Café and in through the side door directly into the beer garden.

At first he told himself it wasn’t her laughter, there were plenty of women patrons, wine glasses in hand, designer handbags slung over designer shoulder pads. Gloria was spending the day at the Japanese Bath House in Newstead. As he neared the table he’d recently vacated, leaving Roly to his chips and his half drunk pint of Old, he knew it was her. Her neck, her gym sculptured shoulders and arms in the sleeveless sundress he’d bought her last week. Her platinum blonde hair recently retouched at the roots. His Gloria sitting in his seat with the gorgeous red Manzoni carry on at her ankle.

His legs felt dead, like they had in his dream as the unseen assailant drove the knife between his shoulder blades.

And he understood now, as he saw Roly’s hairy paw clasp her French manicured hand and kiss it, why he’d been left waiting in line in the dream. Gloria and Roly were never coming. The knife wedged between his shoulders twisted and he felt his legs threaten to collapse.

This is your life Lawrence Pehngilly, said a voice none too like Morgan Freeman’s, that swirled in from the ether. If only you had actually listened to what your best mate had been telling you all along.

Author's Note: please feel free to give constructive criticism!!

Light Years

2009-04-04T22:58:00.004+10:00

This week's challenge: "A married couple sets out on a six-month adventure, living on their boat while sailing from port city to port city. By the fifth city, they are thoroughly sick of each other and their relationship takes a serious turn for the worse."

Liv gasped, “faster” and pushed her new body to keep pace. Wind cooled her sweat drenched body as it swept past, leaving faint traces of crushed grass and dew laden earth. She looked up and saw the clouds parting above her and the path in front of her lightening in the weak dappled light. Every nerve in her body screamed, she’d long ago hit the wall and had the rush of endorphins that followed. She needed to stop but she ploughed on. Running was the only thing that kept her mind clear, that gave her a sense of freedom. It allowed her to use the boundless energy that youth infused her body with.

This time it was so different and she was struggling to cope. She didn’t want to think about why she wasn’t coping. Jarred told her that she thought too much - she needed to relax. After all the intention of this trip, was to have fun. The last hurrah.

But it was all false.

“Stop!”

The word was barely audible but the running simulator recognised it and the treadmill came to an immediate halt. Liv ran two faltering steps and then hunched over, each gulp of air searing her throat and her lungs.

The lights flickered on and she was standing in a small bare room. Like everything else on the ship, running was just a replica of the real thing; an expensive fake.

Liv crumpled into a sobbing heap, her tears merging with the perspiration to flow in thick rivulets over her flushed cheeks and down her neck. Tears she had tried to run from. Tears she had to hide.

Running was no longer a salve for the imprisonment she felt. You couldn’t simulate freedom – no matter how hard Jarred had tried to make it like the real thing for her. The dream had died and she didn’t have the heart to tell Jarred. He was busy ensconced by day in his book lined den and by night in the home theatre.

She wanted to go home.

But she was never sure. After almost 400 years she could not be certain of her own mind any more and it was disturbing. She had read voraciously about the Methuselah Method before they had agreed to take it for the first time and she had made it her responsibility to keep abreast of the latest developments – not just the scientific research by also the anthropological studies. She knew in the final stages that there was often significant degeneration of the mental faculties before physical deterioration began. That was why she kept her anxiety, her disenchantment and her yearning for home from Jarred. It was uncharacteristic and it would make Jarred suspicious first; then he’d worry.

Jarred deserved better from her.

This was their last time together. Finally they were perusing the dream they had had so many centuries ago conjured, wrapped in each others arms spent from making love and working 18 hours days between uni and part time jobs. Fantastised of when they were living on two minute noodles in run down share houses. They had dreamed of having the money to travel in style around the world. But almost four centuries the world had expanded out into the solar system and beyond.

The body could only take six treatments. Despite the technological advances in her extended life time, age regression therapy still only opened six windows of opportunity before the body rejected the manipulation. The body held stasis for a shorter period each time and the aging process hastened.

She and Jarred had six months maximum enjoying the youth and vigour of being 21 before they would slip into an accelerated aging process. They would both be dead in two years. Liv had always liked the idea that she would not live forever that biology would always put science back in its place. Now she wished for more time. She’d never imagined she’d be wasting the last of her youth like this.More and more she was preoccupied with how long it would last; days wasted stuck on the luxury interstellar cruiser Catalina.

Jarred laughed and dismissed the end with a churlish grin. He took it in his stride, like he did everything. Every case was different. There was no set forumulae to determine individual deterioration. Even the two year cap was a pie in the sky mark, with many patients dying well before the two years and many more after.

But they had wasted no time after the final treatment. Jarred suggested a six month voyage, taking in eight different space ports and without giving it a second thought she’d agreed.

Liv picked herself up off the floor of the simulators, grabbing a towel from a hook by the door and wiping her face and arms as she walked back to the sumptuous bedroom suite. It was all a masquerade though, the canopied four posted bed, the dresser and its accompanying ornate mirror, another chaise lounge and the immense wardrobe that took up one whole wall.

Punching a code into the wall a concealed door opened to the side of the mirror. The safe housed the holographic passports and travel documents of Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, the marriage certificate of Lombard and Gable and the identification chips of Liv and Jarred Greene.

On the black market outpost of Sinope, a tiny moon of Jupiter, they’d had their identification chips removed and refitted, and passports and travel documents procured. Liv remembered the thrill of doing something illegal at her age – it was the same rush as smoking pot for the first time at uni with Jarred. They stayed on Sinope long enough to indulge in some cosmetic changes before jetting to Elara to be remarried as their Hollywood idols on a dramatic outcrop over looking the largest crater of the tiny moon..

It seemed insane now, to do have allowed herself to be swept up in the romance and spontaneity, without giving any thought to what six months in space would be really like. And it was crazy to do what she now intended to do, if Jarred found out there would be day’s long argument. But she had to know.

Right at the back was the tiny Methuselah chip.

In a drawer, beneath piles of bright, expensive lingerie, Liv found her hand held computer and eased the minute titanium chip into the dock at the rear, waiting as the computer accessed the chip. She touched the screen and brought up her treatments, transferring the data into a mathematical modelling programme. It was only then that she saw the discrepancy.

There were only five treatments logged.

Liv reverted to the original screen and stared in disbelief. Beside each treatment was the date, the name of the processor and the clinic and an estimated return date. Beside the latest entry was a return date seven years into the future.

Leaning into the mirror above the dresser Liv searched her face. Tracing her finger around the smooth skin around her eyes, where a month earlier there had been deeply etched crows feet. Her tawny eyes were bright and clear – gone the shadow of age. Her lips were full and plump and the flesh around devoid of laughter crevices; the skin on the back of her hands and throat tight and clear of liver spots. She had thought this was the last time she would be 25. Jarred had told her this was their last time.

Accessing Jarred’s information Liv wasn’t surprised to find the same discrepancy. How was it possible that Jarred, as meticulous as he was, had made such a grave error?

Returning the Methuselah chip to its protective covering and replacing it in the safe Liv tried to keep her mind focused on logic; the irrational threatened to run the gauntlet of her mental processes and destroy any hope she had of thinking, rather than reacting. While she had the wisdom of someone nearly 400 years old, she had the impulses of a 21 year old. It took all her self control not to fly into the library and slap her husband, demand an explanation.

She needed time to process her discovery before she confronted him.

After a hot shower Liv dressed and made her way down the long central corridor to her study. She paused at the portal of Jarred’s study to find him sprawled on his back across a chaise lounge with an ancient paperback copy of The Brothers Karamazov clutched in one hand and his other arm folded under his head. He was the yang of her yin. Without saying a word she continued on.

At her desk she pulled out the fountain pen, heavy grade paper and bottle of green ink Jarred had given her on Europa as they’d both laughed that writing had come back into fashion after falling out of favour 350 years earlier. The retro revival of every 21st century made it a good time to be young again.

Liv wondered now if Jarred had not sabotaged the Com Deck and purposely but them out of contact. She scribbled a quick note to her best friend Marla and sealed it in the off white enveloped, then locking it in the top drawer.

They were headed for Reitsema, the exotic capital outpost of Larissa. Liv’s head was clustered with conspiracy theories about the trip, and counter conspiracy theories. She saw Jarred’s aloofness in a whole new light. Cold dread ran down her back. Three hundred and eight one years of marriage, one of the longest recorded nuptial arrangements and she felt like she didn’t know her husband at all.

How foolishly she had slued off her identity, readily disappearing into the shady genetics lounge on Sinope to have her thick lustrous black locks converted to the honey curls of her idol Lombard. And Jarred with his slicked black hair and dashing moustache. She’d been caught up in the romance that she’d missed the details.

She wondered about their hasty departure from Europa, then the sudden destination change from Phoebe to Hyperion. Then there was the moment on Pandora where she was certain the woman sitting at the bar had been taking more than a casual interest in them. Finally there was the decision to abandon the rest of the scheduled trip to strike out for the next solar Perseus arm of the Milky Way.

Warm lips caressing the throbbing carotid pulse on her neck snapped Liv back to the present. She contained the impulse to shudder realising she hadn’t heard Jarred enter the room.

“You seem stressed darling.”
“Cabin fever. How long until we reach Reitsema?”
“If the conditions hold up we should be docking in time for martinis at the Pelagus Bar.”

He pulled her to her feet and wound his arms around her.
“I’ve been elsewhere since we left Phobos. It’s a bit of a shock to the system to be retired from Greene Environments so suddenly and I’ve treated you abominably in the process. Let me make it up to you. We’ll drink martinis and dance until the sun comes up. I’ll buy you a new dress and a string of diamonds. And we will go to Ceres. I’ll take you horse back riding, we’ll camp out.”

He flipped her back into one arm and looked deep into Liv’s eyes and in his best Gable impersonation. "You're a woman after my own heart. Tougher than wagon leather, smarter than spit, and colder than January." Liv tried not to recoil when she remembered that line was from The King and Four Queens.

As Jarred slept off the martinis, Liv pulled a red trench coat on, stuffing a packet into an inside pocket. She hurried through marina, scanning the back of her hand at the gate and stepping out into the busy street.

The internal argument continued to rage as to what she should do, even though the letter in her pocket to Marla outlined exactly what she was going to do. The post office was easy enough to find and Liv lined up with other early morning customers, tapping the envelope against the side of her hand. The line moved slowly and she cast an eye over the paraphernalia that was straight of out a 2009 post office, back when she and Jarred were first dating.

When it was her turn she smiled and placed the envelope on the counter. I’d like to send this to the Moon please?
“That’s cute. Which moon love?”
“The Earth’s moon.”
“Ahh yea, the Moon. Sorry love, just had to double check. We get lots of smart arses in here.”

The elderly woman processed the transaction, scanning the back of Liv’s hand before she threw the letter into a bag behind her.
“How long will it take to get back to the Moon?”

The old woman laughed.
“Love this ‘aint a real post office like in them old days. We take your letters out the back, open, scan and send a digital impression to the recipient.”

The NewFeed screens above the counter had caught her attention as she was leaving.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY CHARGES JOIN CORPORATE AND ECOLOGICAL NEGLIGENCE AS HUNT EXTENDS FOR GREENE ENVIRONMENTS BOSS JARRED GREENE IN THE WAKE OF HELLAS PLANITIA DISASTER.

A man beside her muttered under his breathe as Liv pushed past him in the narrow isle between the kids books and the game CDs. Her eyes were glued to the screen as she stumbled along in disbelief. Numerous photos of Jarred through the last three centuries as the building and development magnate were flashed up on the screen.

MISSING ALSO IS GREENE’S PHILANTROPIST WIFE LIV GREENE.

Shocked, Liv saw a current shot of her, appear next to one of Jarred was her photo. She was old in it. There was a moment of animated suspension where she could not will her legs to move and she braced for someone in the post office to knock her to the ground and perform a citizen’s arrest. Then the man beside her said, “Terrible business that.” “How so?” She turned, immediately defensive and then getting a hold of herself. He looked at her bemused, then smiled into her gorgeous face.
“You been livin’ under a rock? The entire residential dome development at Hellas Planitia imploded killing more than two million people at the start of the month. They say it was substandard building…”

But Liv didn’t hear anymore as she turned away from him and propelled herself out of the claustrophobic shop and back into the flotsam of the street, sucking in huge lung fulls of the sweet atmosformed air. She wished Jarred had a secret lover, even a lover in every port. She even wished that the trip had been a plot to kill her.

The vomit caught in the bottom of her throat when she thought of all the dead refugees and the work that she’d done to bring them to the safe haven of Hellas Planitia from war zones across the galaxy. Jarred - he had personally backed the project - bankrolled and built it from the ground up. She stopped walking for a moment. Jarred had lent his support despite his protectionst beliefs and his long abiding distrust of the galaxy’s jetsam.

So much for believing in a love that could ride out several life times.

Liv wasn’t going home to Phobos, like she had planned, too late to retrieve her letter to Marla. She wasn’t going back aboard the Catalina either.

Carole Lombard knew she’d be OK eventually - she was tougher than wagon leather, smarter than spit and colder than January.

Author's Note: Please feel free to offer up some constructive criticism as this is a piece I will be reworking for magazine submission.

[Fiction] Friday: Wall Flowers and Corner Kicks

2009-03-28T20:02:00.004+10:00

This week's challenge:

Setting: An office building - A secondary character says: “Look, somebody has got to make a decision.” Your main character offers a solution.

Rod pushed back further – testing the limits of the chair to accommodate his recline. The fluro light above his desk flickered. He’d requested that someone from maintenance fix it - that was two weeks ago. He was sure if the managers knew the manner in which the flickering of the light interfered with their productivity levels someone would have been up at once to fix it.
He counted the time between each visual tic, silently creating a visual base beat – his own psychedelic doof; the discussion interlacing like sampled tracks.

“You’re not taking this seriously are you Rodney?” Rosalind was on her huff. Like his mother she only called him Rodney when she was pissed at him, incrementally increasing the level by adding names – first his last and then his middle names.

There was a moment’s silence as all eyes turned to him. Taking his feet off the desk and sitting up properly in his chair, he lent in a little, to show his eagerness to participate. It was all about body language.

“Now that we have Rod’s attention…” but his mind was already wandering. Lost in a cerebral landscape dotted with glow in the dark version of his work mates , pulsating to electric tribal sounds; a rave like no other in existence. Occasionally a voice would cut in – like a DJ’s embellishment I think the Crystal Twig .. something classy … Kookaburra Queen … the river is so pretty at night … she’ll be back soon. Somebody has to make a decision.

It was a call to arms Rod was loathe to refuse. He bounced up out of his seat, threw his arms open like the consummate show man his high school teachers insisted he was and looked down at his workmates; Rosalind with her picture perfect hair and cloying oriental perfume, Gretel with the daring flash of cleavage – oh how Rod loved Fridays, and Lois wrapped up in her beige cardigan covered in a rash of lint, chewing on her pencil.

“We’ll hire a stripper!”

Rosalind’s jaw dropped low enough for her chin to kiss the ever present crucifix at her neck. Gretel giggled behind her hand and then glanced sideways to check if Rosalind had seen her. Lois’s cheeks flushed and she worked to shred the entire end of the pencil.

“Rodney Hollows, you are disgusting!” He was certain Rosalind would have added in Leonard Parberry if she was privy to middle names.

Rod smiled. He loved it when Rosalind talked dirty to him. “C’mon it makes sense.”
“May to you – as some whose mind is permanently in the gutter – but to us sophiscated ladies-"
“You all agreed that you wanted to do something that was special for Meryl. Something unique. Well?” He had purposely chosen the exact words that Rosalind had said half an hour earlier when Meryl had left to get lunch and the discussion had kicked off.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Gretel ventured.
“It’s not a bad idea - it’s a terrible idea, the worst ever suggested. We’re going to forget that Rodney ever mentioned it. Strike it from the list Lois. Now!”

“Hold on. Let me explain.” Rod extended his hand to them. He was losing his audience.
“There is nothing to explain. Strike it from the list.” Rosalind was emphatic.
Rod could see Lois’s masticated pencil hovering above her spiral bound note book. He sunk slowly back into his chair and leaned it – as if to tell a secret, drawing the two of the three women in with him, but Gretel got in first.

“I think Meryl would get a kick out of it.”
Rod turned to look at Gretel, who flushed for a moment.
“Girls your age might enjoy that kind of frivolous entertainment - but not Meryl.”
“Hold on.” Rod let his eyes fix on Rosalind’s and then burrowed in. “I didn’t pick you are being age-ist.”
“I’m not!” Rosalind’s hand flew upwards to attend to an imaginary fly away strand of hair.
“So you agree that it’s perfectly OK for either Gretel or Meryl to have a stripper if they want. It’s a woman’s choice? Right?”

Rod loved cornering Rosalind in her own antiquated feminist argument. Rosalind’s hand was working over time to replace the hair she was certain had broken free from the lacquered ranks above her left ear. Lois smiled and put down her pencil.

“I could talk to a friend of mine. Her brother is a stripper. He might do it for mates rates,” said Gretel growing bolder by the moment, her cleavage rising delectably giving Rod a flash of pink lace on milky white breast.

“I have it on good authority that Meryl would not choose a stripper to celebrate this milestone of hers.”
“Really. On good authority?” Rod took a moment to relax back in his chair. “You can say that after the distress Meryl went through last year when Bob – a hum, had his – a hum, operation,” he paused for dramatic effect, “and he didn’t want to have sex with Meryl anymore.”

Gretel giggled again, until Rosalind silenced her with a daggered look.
“Meryl told you that?”
“Yes Meryl told me that.”
Rosalind blanched and Lois remained sitting stock still, a faint pink blush lingering on her pale cheekbones.

Rod leant in again. “Because Meryl, is well – Meryl, you assume she doesn’t have needs and wants like any other woman. You have to admit, she’s a bloody good looking woman.”
“That’s gross,” said Gretel, as though Rod had just suggested being sexually attracted to his mother.
“You know what Gretel – you’re not going to be young, gorgeous and nubile all your life. At some point-“
“Shut up Rod. Just shut up.”

She put her hands over her ears until she was certain Rod had stopped, then reefed her arms around her chest, emphasising the rise and chasm of her cleavage. Rod tried not to stare too long, fixing his gaze instead on Rosalind who was smouldering, incensed at the proposition.
“I for one am NOT paying for a stripper! Much less sitting by, to be offended by indecent gyrations and fake suntans.”

“I have the solution.” Lois’s voice was quiet and a little husky. Rod couldn’t remember having ever heard her speak. “We get Rod to strip for Meryl. I think he’d like that and I know Meryl would love it. And Rosalind, you wouldn’t have to contribute a cent to it. What do you say Rod?”

Rod found all three women staring at him. Rosalind looked smug and had stopped trying to rearrange her nefarious hair. Gretel’s pout had turned to an expectant grin and Lois’s face shone with triumph. She, Lois Gribble had trumped Rosalind La Muire - finally.

It was Lois Gribble who sorted out the quandary of how they would celebrate Meryl’s retirement.

Productive Nostalgia

2009-03-26T15:12:00.005+10:00

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.

Now to tag some people ... I tag for productive nostaliga:

Karen from Write From Karen
Annie from Annie's Musings
Paul from Once Upn a Time in the West of London
Sarah from Keeper of Books
Dale from Rough Draft
Jason from Moult World and Other Stories
Danae from Danae Sinclair

Cartoon is compliments Savage Chickens: cartoons on sticky notes by Doug Savage

The Lunar Writer: 10 Tips for Using the Dark Moon Energy

2009-03-25T16:20:00.004+10:00

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Anything website last month. The original text can be found here. Today and tomorrow are the darkest parts of the moon!

As a child my Uncle worked on a horse stud and the phases of the moon were listed on the calendar that hung on their toilet door - new moon, full moon, quarter moon and so forth. The same calendar adorned the back of my grandparent’s door, so I stared at it quite a bit, intrigued, wondering what it was all about.

It was only after my son was born and I had a friend who was interested in astrology, especially the influence of the moon, that I got to understand better about the cycles of the moon and those horse stud calendars all made more sense to me.

That’s all good and fine for horse breeders, star gazers and company, but what’s this got to do with writing?

Working with the moon is a great way for writers to attune themselves with the natural world, to work with the ebb and flow of energy and to create thirteen unique project pockets (unlike 12 month calendars, there are thirteen lunar months in a year). As someone who is rather useless at personally creating deadlines that are meaningful, working with the moon phases gives me a framework that resonates.

This week begins with the dark moon before the moon is new midweek. Mystic Medusa suggests it is a good time to relax, apply some productive nostalgia and declutter.

Declutter? And it’s not just about shifting all that crap off your desk!

Nury Vittachi, author of the Feng Shui detective series shared at the Byron Bay Writer’s Festival last year how easily writers collect clutter around themselves in the form of dead energy and why it is so important to shift it.

Each piece of correspondence we receive is an energy transaction. Once received we need to do something with it. What do we do with each piece of paper we receive? We file it in a pile on our desk, and when the pile grows unweildly, we take the pile and put it under our desk.

No wonder writers working in such an environment, with so much dead energy around them, struggle to find inspiration. In this age of the paperless environment the 2500 emails in our inbox cause the same congestion of energy on our computers”

Following are my 10 tips for clearing the space - physically, mentally and energetically during the dark moon.

1. Clear, Clean and Reorder your Work/Creative Space

Dust and run a damp cloth over your desk (mine is always inch thick with dust and cat hair)
Check and clear whatever has accumulated under your desk during the month - both a scary and fun task
Empty the overflowing bin
Take any cups, plates and glasses back to the kitchen
Return whatever doesn’t belong to you or in your space, to who or where it does belongs (this is usually my son’s toys, especially lego)

Ask yourself what works and doesn’t work in your space. Do something to rectify the situation so that your space is somewhere you love being in. If your dedicated space is an unmanageable mess (as mine was just a few days ago) you will seek out other places to work — and those we live with can be less than tolerant of our writing when we’re claiming the master bed, the couch or the kitchen table as work areas.

2. Repatriate your Books

My books tend to congregate on the bedside table and in random piles on my desk, until it reaches crisis point. Attending to them each month makes the piles manageable and allows the books to live where they are best cared for - away from spilt drinks, cat hair, dust, the direct sun and so forth … and where you can find them!

3. Clean your Computer

This means in inside and out, and also applies to your peripherals and hand held devices.

Dust down the key board and clean your computer screen
Defluff and dust your mouse
Run a cloth over your printer
Run a defrag
Dump those temporary files that are clogging up your hard drive
Resave or delete all the things you saved to the desk top in lieu of a better place
Do a virus scan

Create some order on your C Drive. It’s the appropriate time to organise your folders (whether that is to create more or delete unnecessarily ones) and refile stories/articles in a logical place. For instance I have two folders that cover all the material for Reclaim Sex After Birth and the associated website but I never go to the correct folder first! This month I’m combining them all in one place.

4. Back Up your Work

Use the dark moon to back up your files monthly - preferably in two places. It is something we all mean to do and put in the ‘to do later’ pile, which incidentally is the same mythical place missing socks wash up! We’ve heard too many horror stories of writers losing work, not to be terrified of the same thing happening to us. I admit to being horrendously slack at doing this and intend to do it as part of my cleaning ritual from now on.

5. Empty your Inbox

Seriously - how many emails have you got in your inbox right here, right now?

Decide what can stay and what can go

Keeping emails is basically welcoming dead energy, therefore be frugal. When I first started doing this it took more than three hours to go through my two email programs. I was ruthless and thorough!
Consider all those emails (a friend of mine admitted to over 3000 in her inbox last week) as tiny potential blockages to your creativity. If you doubt me, re-read the wisdom of Vittachi above and tell me it doesn’t resonate somewhere in you?
If you insist on keeping them ask yourself - what are you really holding onto all those emails for?

Create rules to file your email

If your email program/client allows for it - do it!
Rules reduce the amount of email clutter in the generic inbox and help you when trying to track down a specific correspondence.

6. File

If you have any papers lying around - file them. If like me, the filing draw is stuffed full of other miscellaneous items, (reams of paper etc) clear it out so there is room. ‘Papers’ include:

Drafts that have been critiqued or marked up that are now gathering dust on whatever horizontal surface you can find for them
Bills that you may have paid or are meaning to pay
Newspapers or magazines
Information or research you’ve printed out
Emails you’ve printed out

They all need a home - or they need to go to the bin (not your drafts of course!)

7. Check your Pens

Are you my scary twin? Do you seem to horde pens that never work? Consider the fact that we’re not always attached to our computers, lap tops, blackberries etc. Go through your pens and jettison any that don’t work. There’s nothing worse than grabbing for a pen and you’ve got to try half a dozen before you find one that works. If the mood takes you - sharpen your pencils.

8. Revisit your Blog/Website

Is there anything that you have been meaning to update?
Is your profile information up to date?
Do all your links work?
Are there links in your blog list that you no longer visit? Links that you’ve been meaning to add?
Is there anything you want to get rid of?

Spend ten minutes running through your online pages to make sure your blog/website is working just the way that you want it to work.

9. Write Down your Ideas

Write down any ideas that you have been carrying around in your head

Always waiting for the right time to space to put them down - do it now! While I am reasonably good at ‘holding that thought’ often phrases of prose and snippets of conversation that come to me, don’t stand the test of time mentally filed. I found this weekend past that I was livid with myself for not having put down a particular conversation. This month I’m downloading to paper.

Take an inventory of your notebooks that you store your ideas in

Do you know where they are?
Are they in their appropriate homes (the glove box, your bag/back pack etc)? If not put them where they are meant to be!
Have you got a functioning pen or pencil with them?
Do you need a new book or pen?

10. Reflect, Renew, Refocus

Productive Nostalgia

Mystic reminds us that the dark moon is a productive time for nostalgia. I love the notion of productive nostalgia! Take time to think about what’s played out over the month:

What have you started?
What have you finished?
What have you edited? What did you want to edit but never got there?
What fantastic ideas were you gifted?
What concepts fell on their face? What got up and ran? Any idea why?
What people did you met and who did you say good bye to? What impact might they/did they have on you?
What progress have you made?
What opportunities were presented and what did you do them?
What work was rejected and what was published? What never made it that far? Why not?

Purge so that you can renew

If there’s anything you really desperately want to get rid of (a bad habit, criticism, feeling towards a piece of rejected work, writers block) I have this great little trick. Write on a piece of paper what it is your want to get rid of and burn it. That simple. I use the mortar we grind our spices in to do this, on our back verandah. It is both cathartic and a wonderful way to release unproductive energy - literally watching it go up in smoke and drifting off into the ether.

Refocus

Consider what you want to manifest in the following month. It’s the perfect time to think about what goals you want to work towards in the coming month (wait for the new moon to begin them though!)
Check your diary for up coming dates - critiquing circles, deadlines for competitions or submissions, workshops, courses or talks.

Paul reminded us a few weeks ago, about the importance of simplifying and downsizing, to focus on what is important. That’s what a monthly clutter can achieve- clear the forest to see the trees so to speak.

This is a long list - lots of ideas. You don’t have to do them all - but try a couple. Different things work for different people. Experiment and share. I’d love to here your experiences.

For the new comer, the mere suggestion of working with lunar cycles can sound like hocus pocus, yet it is the way our ancestors got on with life before the advent of clocks and calendars. While I’ve always said someone with a tidy desk has far too much time on their hands, I now have to admit that keeping my creative space clean and ordered is a way of honouring and respecting myself as a writer. If I can’t honour and respect myself, I shouldn’t expect anyone else to.

The attribution to the beautiful photo has been lost in the blogosphere - and yes, I realise that it's not a dark moon, but a full moon. Dark moon pictures seem to be few and far between! I originally found it at Iris 39

Smiley Saturday: Fascinatingly Shit!

2009-03-14T23:28:00.013+10:00

Fascinatingly Shit wass the comment made at the end of Marc Fenell's review of Friday the 13th on the radio as I drove home from the supermarket this morning. I loved it ... so much so that I actually remembered it long enough to sit and write this blog post! And yes it put a smile on my dial which is always a nice start to a Saturday morning.

You have to agree - we've all seen movies like this? They're crap but there is something about them that intrigues us.

Fenell says the Jason remake is so bad that you rapidly don't give a shit about the life expectancy of the teenagers being picked off, and instead begin to wonder who, where, when and how? Fenell says it sneakingly puts you into the shoes and the mindset of a serial killer without you even realising. Thus the fascinatingly shit rating.

I think Annie will probably agree with me (after the conversation that occurred in the car last night on the way home from the Adam Hills gig) that Mystery Men falls into this category - about an ensemble of super heroes who have NO super powers (or fancy lyrca suits for that matter) But apparently the one liners in it are quite brilliant even though the concept mostly sux (a quick peek at Wiki says that most of the dialogue was improvised by the cast!)

But my pick? Yep it's a slasher/zombie flick that would be pushing it to be classified as B-Grade.

My fascinatingly shit vote goes to Nudist Colony of the Dead.

A group of nudists take their own lives after being forced to close down their campgrounds by a church group and, years later, come back to haunt the grounds and take revenge.

What makes it fascinatingly shit for me - is the fact it's a musical. You did read correctly - a zombie slasher film where they sing and dance their way through multiple stupid murders. There is a memorable scene were the bunch of do-gooder christian teenagers sit in their mini bus singing about the fact that their all going to die. Oh and the bit where the sethered head continues to drink the can of coke. But to get the idea I leave you with this ...

So what movie gets your vote for being Fascinatingly Shit?

Marc Fenell is Triple J's movie reviewer.

Smiley Saturday comes to you from Lightening's Smiley Saturday blog game.

The Stamford

2009-03-13T13:21:00.004+10:00

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for March 13, 2009:

During the third night out of town, a travelling businessman discovers a voodoo doll in his hotel room.

Her voice trilled in his head as he rode up the elevator and his face loosened into a smile. There was a definite musical quality to the upward inflection when she was speaking to him. A tinkling if one listened hard enough. Yes – he decided that was the case after being unsure on his other visits.

The classical music seeped into his thoughts as the elevator rose from the ground floor. It reminded him of the Crowded House lyric: “I don’t know what tune that the orchestra plays, but I find it sickly sentimental” and this place was stifled with a romantic ambience of a bygone era. It could easily have gone with something chic and post modern minimalist. And the elevator muzac said it all. Cloyed, last century.

Why bother build something new if you just want to emulate the old?

He’d always wanted to hack into the hotel mainframe and reprogram the elevator music to something inappropriate for a high class establishment such as The Stamford. The Sex Pistols. The Living End. Nine Inch Nails. He’d lie awake at night stretched out fully clothes on the King bed, trying top his previous mental suggestions. Imagining the outraged looks of sixty year old business women when confronted with the invitation of being fucked like an animal.

He grinned a twisted smile and watched the numbers above the doors light up one after another.

Ahh – but Katrina.

He’d observed her conducting business with other guests and noted that only with him, was there a flirtatious underpinning of her uber professional but friendly demeanour. Only a consummate professional such as himself would note the subtle shift, the slight voice modulation and the thinnest of sheens on her brow. She would gently rub at the same right hand side point of her jaw bone when she processed his booking and asked him to sign the credit card. An almost unperceivable tremor of her hand when her manicured hand brushed against his.

Once, arriving late and alone with her in the foyer she’d gambled on asking him for his business card … a slow creeping rose hue spreading across the upper reaches of her elegant cheek bones. Without missing a beat she’d qualified that it was to put on file – obviously. He’d played along, reaching into the breast pocket of his suit coat, then wallet, coming up empty handed – then asking her if company policy allowed employees to join guests for an after work drink. He knew full well it didn’t, otherwise he would never have asked. She’d never mentioned that night but always singled him out for special treatment, as a ‘high rotation guest’, despite the fact he would never qualify as such.

As the elevator doors slid open, with a style and grace that could only be afforded to a mechanical process within somewhere like the Stamford, he stepped out, inhaled and smiled. Clean and with the lingering scent of honey suckle. No harsh cleaning chemicals here or cheap air fresheners that made him sneeze.

He had to admit, as he swept the keycard through the lock and entered the spacious room on the 21st floor that Katrina was the lure that kept him paying outrageous nightly charges here. It went against standard operating procedure to stay in the same place more than once. Dangerous. This was his sixth visit in the last two years.

A city like Brisbane afforded plenty of places for an itinerant to stay. To be just another businessman passing through. If anyone ever asked questions he was sure that Katrina would know the correct thing to say. That’s what he told himself anyway.

He looked forward to the rush of blood, when he caught sight of Katrina behind the huge oak concierge desk, especially when she was in profile with her strawberry blonde hair twisted into a French roll, exposing the length of her alabaster neck. But it wasn’t really Katrina that he wanted. Why he continued to torture himself he had no idea. Katrina was really just a poor substitute that could never be completely or perfectly replicated.

Placing the retro leather overnight bed at the foot of the bed he pulled a pair of soft leather gloves from his pocket and made a sweep of the room. With meticulous and careful attention he ran his fingers over every surface, including opening the toilet cistern. One could never be too careful. Just tearing the drawer open as housekeeping probably had, would shown just the Gideons.

His fingers grazed the small lump of material, pushed up the back of the top drawer of the bedside unit – in behind Gideons.

That made him laugh. He imagined the person who placed it there had a similar wry sense of humour as his own.

Gideon’s try to squirm away from the thing but locked within the four walls of the drawer, wanting to emancipate itself from the taint of voodoo that was brushing against it. Infection and poisoning the good word.

Obviously he was not the only person to have stayed in the room with an interest in pest control. He picked up the voodoo doll and took it over to the window, casting a look out over the river before turning his attention to the doll now he had better light.

It was one of the better made ones that he had seen. Each long, honey brown strand of hair had been sewn individually into the scalp of the doll. He gave up counting after 50. Meticulous and in no hurry. The doll had a full head of hair. Pressing at top of each hand he could feel a nail clipping. The feet were the same. Whoever made it knew exactly what they were doing.

Perusing what was on offer in the mini bar, he was thankful that he chose to come here. The scotch was always good and it meant that he didn’t have to seek out a bottle shop. And the little voodoo doll. It seemed to bless this assignment – if he allowed himself a moment of superstitious hypocrisy.

It lay beside the condensating glass on the table – looking both evil and beautiful in the muted afternoon light. The ice cubes melted fast in the close humidity and he drank faster than he would normally.

After two scotches he sighed, feeling at peace with the world. He hauled his feet, still in their expensive leather shoes onto the outdoor table resting them beside the doll.

A storm was building in the West. Another good omen – not that he was in the business of counting signs from a God he didn’t believe in. He made a mental bet with himself at what time the first rain drop would fall. It was a bet he never lost.

He loved strolling through the streets when the storms broke here and was glad that he’d been assigned to the Easter Seaboard Clean Up. The Autumn rain here was preferable to the Spring rain in St Petersberg. Plus Brisbane had one other advantage that no other city in the world had.

Aurellia.

Maybe this time synchronicity would bring her back into his life. But he’d been hoping that for the past ten years.

This is a pre-story to something that I've been in the process of writing for almost a year. A short story based on the Liam Finn song Second Chance.

For more Fiction Friday fun check out the other entries at Write Anything.

Lactivist vs Facebook: update coming soon

2009-03-13T11:15:00.004+10:00

I can't believe it has been TWO weeks since I published the Face Off article ... and so much has happened. I'm in the process of rounding up bits and pieces, and tying up some loose ends before I post an update - to bring the 'then' and 'now'. But I assure you that it is coming.

Since then I've been doing lots of spring cleaning with Annie over on the Reclaim site and writing more blog posts there, writing my weekly column for Write Anything and articles for Type A Mom. I've also started this week, venturing into a semi daily journal blog over at Shine A Light. Oh and ploughing my way through The Artist Way. No rest for the wicked hey?

For my fiction readers - there is new fiction on the way - hopefully a Fiction Friday post before bed tonight. It's brewing - I just need to stop being distracted by the internet. I think I need to consider banning certain sites during my working hours (as I was informed by my friend Fiona is possible with Firefox!)

Until then, if you're hooked on Captain Juan, there is a new installment in the saga and if you're not, then there are several 'story to date' posts that will bring you up to speed.

Face Off: Lactivists Shut Down by Facebook Dirty Tricks

2009-02-28T10:48:00.002+10:00

On February 10, I wrote about the run away success of the first Virtual Nurse-In, again protesting Facebook’s removal of breastfeeding photos that the administration had deemed ‘obscene.’ Last Saturday was the follow up Nurse-In and came with surprises that no one could have anticipated.

On Monday morning, I logged into the Mothers International Lactation Campaign (MILC) event page and scrolled down to find the attendees for the Saturday Nurse-In to write this column. I was aghast to find the number clocked at 4,181. I did a double take – thinking somehow the numbers had not been updated or I was reading the wrong part. Should there not be another digit in there?

With the group Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is NOT obscene numbers edging towards 220,000 it seemed like I was reading the wrong number. Quick calculations, based on the December percentages would have set a similar percentage at around 30,000 participants, with the rapidly growing group.

But the number on the event page was correct.

A visit to the lively discussion board on the Hey Facebook… group or the Terms of Services discussion threads (relating to breastfeeding) show that the passion and the commitment of the lactivists is not waning. So where was everyone Saturday?

Joint event organiser Emma Kwasnica believes that the low numbers of participants in the weekend Virtual Nurse-In was due to a concerted effort by Facebook administrators to sabotage and shut down the protest; part of the ongoing effort to censor and silence breastfeeding women. Kwasnica believes that the poor numbers are not a reflection of the MILC running out of steam in their fight against Facebook’s antiquated and discriminatory policies. One has to remember that the Hey Facebook… group is an official petition with almost 220,000 ‘virtual signatures.’

There’s more than a grain of truth in Kwasnica’s suspicions of foul play.

For one, her account was summarily deleted on Sunday morning, with no prior warning (the first of a number of breastfeeding women to fall). This is not the first time Kwasnica has been caught with her account gone. On January 1, a few days after the inaugural Virtual Nurse in, she was accused of posting obscene breastfeeding photos. This time she was accused of abusing posting privileges on the Facebook discussion boards – where she is a prolific, magnanimous and generous contributor.

It is interesting to note, this same, swift censure doesn’t exist for the numerous trolls on the Hey Facebook… discussion boards who harass and cause trouble among the users there. Kwasnica’s account was reinstated forty-eight hours later. She believes the catalyst was not the numerous emails of protest and demands for the account to be reinstated, sent by Kwasnica and other users, but a direct result of rumours circulating of a lawyer being invited to look into her case.

Kwasnica and her other friends on Facebook were appalled that the deletion of her account also removed all the discussion threads that Kwasnica had begun, virtually wiping out a raft of important information available to women looking for support and education on informed choices in breastfeeding, birthing, pregnancy and parenting.

Of greater concern to the administrators of the Hey Facebook… group was that members were singled out by a virus that could only have originated within the official Facebook servers. The attack began around 3pm Friday. The virus masqueraded as an error page informing users that others had been trying unsuccessfully to view their profile, instructing them to click a link to see the errors. The page came with a yellow triangle and exclamation mark we are all familiar with.

The virus was a reverse form of a denial of service (DoS) attack that stopped users being able to access Facebook’s pages. The underhanded technique is more commonly used by unscrupulous internet companies to slow down their competitor’s websites. Not surprisingly - it is illegal. It has been likened to a bad house party – where you let one bad person in the door and they bring a horde of friends, who you can’t keep out. End of party!

And destroy the party they did.

It’s a rather nifty means of sabotage if your intent is to keep users off your website. Either Facebook sanctioned the attacks, or their servers are not the secure places they maintain they are. Because of the style of virus and the fact that it only affected members of the Hey Facebook… group, it’s hard to believe that it wasn't a endorsed assault by Facebook.

But it doesn’t stop there!

For a period of time Friday and possibly at other times during the actual protest, the official MILC event page came with a warning that the page ‘may’ contain images and content regarded as obscene and it’s believed that Friday between 1pm and 4pm the MILC page was completely off line and inaccessible. Bad luck to anyone getting in early to register their support or for those in time zones ahead of the US, moving into Saturday morning.

There were also issues with the link to the events page. Many supporters found that the last four digits of the link were blacked out, making it useless. This prevented supporters from sharing the message through posting the link to their status, websites, blogs or including it in emails. It’s interesting to note that none of these problems arose in December when almost 12,000 users flooded the event page.

Kwasnica said there were also reports that the button that registered attendance on the event page did not work, basically stopping users from registering their support for the protest – the only way in which numbers could be calculated. There is an unusually large disparity between the number of RSVPs received and the number of people who actually attended.

Facebook integrity has been called into question in the past week on a number of fronts. First there was Facebook’s attempt to change their Terms of Service, to own user’s information even after their departure from the Facebook, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg back pedalling today on the proposed changes. Now there are the reports emerging that Facebook continued to accept advertising money from known fraudulent get-rich-quick schemes.

Which makes one wonder would Facebook really go to such extraordinary lengths to silence lactating women protesting their ability to assert agency over their own bodies online? What could possibly be in it for Facebook? The December virtual nurse-in attracted media attention from across the world. While the lactivists were not the ones that came out of it looking bad, any publicity is good publicity right?

Or is Facebook concerned about the implication of their actions and policies? After all, breastfeeding in public spaces is protected by law in the State of California where their head office is based. Facebook is a public space. Would Facebook want a class action bought against it by its breastfeeding users testing the application of California’s breastfeeding legislation? Existing legislation is slowly but surely being applied and tested in cyberspace incidents, birthing new precedents and spawning new laws across the industrialised world.

So the question begs to be asked, what potential, real or imagined, threat do a quarter of a million lactivists present to the social networking giant? And does the means justify the end?

You may not agree with the Facebook lactivists, but everyone has an ethical obligation to support the freedom of choice and speech (the later protected in the US Bill of Rights!). The powerful pick on the weak ones first…mothers with babes at breast. If Facebook is allowed to continue to bully and win…who will be next in the sights of their scope?

Another nurse-in is planned for March.

Originally Posted at Type A Mom as my weekly column

UPDATE: this article was taken down from the Type A Mom site late Saturday.

I've been away on a four day break with my family to the beach and have only returned today (Tues 3 March) I'm about to commence discussions witht eh site owner at Type A Mom to have my article reinstated there. I have been told through my editor the original article was removed due to concerns about the legal ramifications for running it. I had the original article looked over by a friend of mine with a legal degree.

If you are, or know of a lawyer would would vouch for the 'safety' of this article, please leave me a comment below and I will get in touch with you.

And thanks to everyone who has thrown their support in behind me to keep this article alive and kicking. I'm back now!

Facebook and Reading Deprivation

2009-02-27T21:08:00.007+10:00

This was week four of The Artist's Way for myself and the cluster. Week Four is the week we all dread - reading deprivation week. At the beginning of the week I made a list of all the things that I could and couldn't do, considering how things are going with the creative projects that I am working on and the writing committments I now have to meet with my Write Anything and Type A Mom columns.

I decided that I could go onto the internet to research the two columns that were due this week ... but not surfing, no Facebook (other than to go on the MILC event page to get the stats for the Nurse-In over the weekend), no personal emailing and no recreational reading. Sad to say - I've broken all the boundaries that I put in place. This is the week that I could not even have imagined, in my wildest fantasies.

Across the week I have been chasing a story about Facebook and the Virtual Nurse-In that was a dismal failure last weekend. When I started to dig I discovered lots of little things that didn't seem to add up. I had a moment as I was hanging the washing out Tuesday afternoon where I decided that I either chase the story and find out the truth, I pretened that it didn't exist and find a 'safe' topic to write my Type A Mom article on.

Never one to shy away from a challenge and believing that I had a fantastic article staring me straight in the eye - waving at me ... I asked the Universe for forgiveness and blessing as I chased down the story. This included getting my head around jargon and understanding the ins and outs of denial of service attacks, conducting a skype interview at 4:30am yesterday morning, wading through a daze of sleep deprivation to make the words and argument fit together. That's on top of juggling contacts in three different time zones to myself make motherhood look easy! As an aside - Paul you rock! Just in case I haven't mentioned that publicly for a bit.

Then today I was faced with a decision. I contacted the Syndey Morning Herald who have been running a series of articles on Facebook taking advertising money from known fraudulent get-rich-quick-schemes. Asher Moses was interested in my story. But I wasn't prepared to just
'give' my story away - as Dave reminded me, I'd done all the leg work, got up in the dead of night to speak to Canda, I'd written the article ... so I tried to sell it. The Editor said there was no freelance budget.

When it was a no go, I decided that if I was putting the story out and doing it for nix, I'd patronage Type A Mom, the site that's had faith in me and my editor Alyssa and site owner Kelby. It also means that I get to say what I want to say without having to dumb down or change my language, my thoughts or conclusions.

I'll provide Asher Moses with the link. He intends to follow up the story next week and he's promised to provide a link on his article citing my column as the original source. We'll see if he comes good on that promise ... and what Facebook's comment will be!

You know what - I feel like my head is going to explode. When I wrote on Wednesday evening in my new moon wishes:

I want easily trust in my ability to know what is right and wrong for me

I honestly had not idea that this is the sort of scenario it would be applied to. I may look back and regret the decision that I made - but I decided to go where my loyalties lie rather than getting blinded by the possiblity of having my story, my name on the Fairfax newsfeed!

Sometime in the next few hours the story will go live ... at a time when I will be walking along the beach on the Sunshine Coast two hours away from my computer, an internet connection and any furore that kicks up from it. Possibly another bad move. If I get desperate there's always an internet cafe I suppose or friends with access who can call me on my mobile.

So that's my week! I've been told I've taken on a Herculean task and I'm to be commended for raising my voice - but it doesn't at this point really seem that big. Even if we are talking FACEBOOK! Just exhausting. If you're a friend on Facebook and I disappear - you know Facebook isn't impressed with what I've had to say and had my account deleted all with all those breastfeeding Mums with so called 'obscene' photos.

I may suck big time at reading deprivation but I hope that it wasn't for nothing. I will be doing my reading dep this week coming. My head space and my soul space need a rest after this week. And I need to plug back into my family - who've been amazingly supportive of me and enjoyed all the takeaways they've had for a change.

UPDATE: You can find the link to the story here if you're interested to see what consumed my week!

New Moon Wishes: Pisces

2009-02-24T22:46:00.005+10:00

I've got my trusty New Moon Astrology out again - in preparation for the new moon in Pisces tomorrow lunch time.

Pisces is a big theme in our household with my partner a Pisces and my son's moon in Pisces. It's always been a challenging part of the astrological wheel for me, with three prominent Pisces women in my life causing quite a bit of grief over the years.

It's only recently that I have discovered how well I gel with Pisces men (I'm not surprised now that I have come to share my life with one!) and that there were some close Pisces female friends in my adoloscence.

I've come to the decision that perhaps those Pisces females I clashed with were not given the love and security they needed as young girls and that's what spawned their high maintenance natures and their terrible need to control/manipulate? Discussions late last week seem to show that Pisces, like Sagittarians also seem to flock together.

Personal musings aside, Jan Spiller's book suggests that the Pisces new moon is a good time to make wishes associated with:

- imagination
- inner happiness
- psychic sensitivity
- trust
- mystical awareness
- spiritual healing
- compassion
- releasing helplessness

It's also a good time for asking for healing with colds, feet, the lymphatic system and poisoning/toxicity. I've been doing pretty well with my no sugar life style - but perhaps asking for some extra support wouldn't go astray?

I'll be back tomorrow after the new moon to share my wishes for this lunar cycle.

Image: Pisces by Kirk Reinert

Good Fiction Makes Bad Reality

2009-02-18T18:11:00.006+10:00

Dale Challener Roe concluded his post at Write Anything yesterday with:

sometimes the things that make good fiction make for a bad reality

My regular readers will have noted that there was no Fiction Friday from me last week and that it's been pretty damn quiet around here. It was one of those moments for me that Dale was referring to, going in and reading the prompt.

"Your character hears this on the answering machine: "Sorry to have to deliver such bad news on the phone, but I thought you would want to know as soon as possible. Your whole department is being phased out. Downsizing, you know."

I had two stories come to mind - firstly going back to that nasty character of Graham from Blackest Black or reworking a story that I never posted about a scientist having his project canned from lack of funding. They were both fleshing out nicely in my head, but I just couldn't get them down, because playing in the background was my own personal story.

Friday was the day that my partner finally got his official redundancy letter. It seemed a little too close to home to be writing about the downsizing of a department, when Dave's department (the Engineering arm of Alcan - which was absorbed into the Rio giant with the take over at the end of 07) was reduced from over 300 employees down to just 26. And this was aside from the other 14,000 jobs that Rio is stripping across Australia.

At least we know now (the finish date is Friday 13th March) and that we'll be provided for in the interim. But the uncertainty doesn't end and that's perhaps what's wearing at both of us. The job hunting process seems to have tripled in it's complexity since he was last job hunting - prelimary interview, second interview, psychometric testing, the prospect of a site visit ... before they can decide on who gets the job. It seems like a waste of time, energy and money on behalf of all parties - but you have to dance to dance.

A paid writing job would be nice ... however writing is never going to make up the short fall of a job during the mining boom, downsizing to a job in the biggest economic downturn of our professional lives.

I trust in the Universe, because at this point, other than believing in my partner and his abilities, that's the only other thing that I can trust in.

Picture This #10: Sandals

2009-02-08T21:51:00.009+10:00

This was an entry written for Write Anything's
Picture This #10 and is currently being reworked for entry in a flash fiction competition.

[Fiction] Friday: Blackest Black

2009-02-06T18:12:00.004+10:00

This week's challenge from Write Anything's Fiction Friday prompt:
"Write about a Valentine’s Day without mentioning these words: Valentine’s Day, Cupid, love, roses, hearts, flowers, February."

It’s all black. My mood, the music in my ears, the vibe I’m emanating as I walk down the street to pick up my coffee. This morning everyone gives me a wide berth. It feels good.

The coffee is black – long and black. And that’s how this day feels, stretching out before me.

I’m oscillating between pretending it’s a day like any other day, ignoring the blokes carrying naff presents they would never normally be seen dead with or going in hard from the denial angle – which in my mind, as I scald myself on the coffee – is a completely different perspective.

“Someone die?” pipes up a voice from the sea of cubicle as I step out of the elevator alone. Late again. Immediately I regret taking my earphones out and unhappy that I need my last sick day this month to go to a concert next weekend.
“Not yet! But if you keep up with the daft questions you can go straight to the head of the line.” It sounds like I’m talking to myself because I don’t address the reply to anyone in particular
“Touchy touchy.”

There’s a murmur, that breaks behind me like a wake but I pay no attention. Black was a bad choice this morning. I wanted to be impassive but my shade of black is brooding and volatile. It makes it look to others like I care, when I promised I wouldn’t let this day get to me. To react is to be complicit and I want to distance myself from all of this consumerist crap and false sentiment.

I stride faster than usual down the walkway that divides accounting from stock control. There’s a proliferation of twee balloons floating above some desks and a floral scent laces the air, competing with the usual mix of foul aftershave, overpowering perfumes, coffee and someone’s runners.

My desk is just as I left it yesterday. And I start to breathe again. A neat, but small pile of papers in my tray, the out tray is cleared. A half melted blue candle sits to the side of monitor and I can see where I’ve traced the runes in my own spit on the screen to keep my computer humming. Slumping into my seat I feel as though my morning ritual is somehow wrong today. I don’t want to manifest abundance today, just a rock to slide under and wait until the date flicks over to the 15th.

There’s a squeal of delight somewhere in the sea of desks and I jam the earphones back into my ear sockets, turning on the computer and watching the flickering screen.

Black.

I wonder if grey would have been a better colour – or beige. Nothing happens when you think beige. I’d bore myself into a stupor and fall asleep at my terminal.

As I’m opening the top drawer a too familiar face appears at the top of divider. A face with acne so bad I gave up eating pizza after I started work here.

“So?” Even though the Rolling Stones “Painted Black” is scorching my ears I know what he’s saying. He’s got the eager anticipation of a puppy and I visualise sinking my high heeled foot into him and listening to him yelp. He motions for me to take out my earphones and for a minute I pretend, like I do every morning, to not understand what he’s asking me to do.

“So?” he repeats for my benefit when I finally relent and take the music buffer away.
“So what?”
“Sooooooo….”
“Graeme I’m busy.”
“You haven’t even typed your password in.”

My fingers fly over the keyboard to rectify the situation.
“As I said I’m busy.”

He hangs over the top of the four foot temporary wall and stares at me. A large, angry pimple stands to attention on his chin looking as though it’s aiming to blow in my direction. I cringe back, trying to work out the possible trajectory of the pus.
“Aren’t you going to reach in and get your morning Mars Bar from your top drawer?”

That’s where I had been heading when his appearance interrupted the smooth execution of my arriving at work routine. At present, reaching back in puts me in the cross hairs of the pimple. I’m not sure what repulses me more; the pimple or the fact that Graeme knows exactly what I do when I arrive at work.

“Graeme you’re creepy. Don’t you have something else to do other than spy on me?”
“You haven’t said what day it is yet?” There’s an unusual tone in his voice – it’s a pitch higher than normal.
“It’s Thursday Graeme,” and I take a deep breathe and try to ooze every ounce of bitchiness into what comes next, “– and no I can’t go bowling with you tonight. Just like last week and every other week for the past year.”

Part of me wishes that Graeme would make a proper pass at me so I could report him for sexual harassment to our line manager. As it is, sheer aggravation isn’t enough to warrant being sacked here – even though I dream it is! Sandra sitting across the walkway from me smothers a giggle behind a well manicured hand and I scowl at her.

“No … today is special.” It’s a statement that makes my blood go cold. So much for hoping Graeme’s radar missed the media build up and the marketing campaigns.
“Oh, you’re not going to ask me to go bowling with you?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well that does make it special,” but my voice is frigid.

Graeme’s face breaks into a lopsided grin, putting more pressure on the pimple than I’m comfortable with.
“See you later.” He winks, adjusts his shirt collar and saunters off. I swear he’s deluded and thinks he’s God’s gift to women.

As I reach into my drawer I feel an envelope sitting on the last two Mars Bars. My stomach goes cold. I knew it was too good to be true. It’s low key, it can be hidden. I'm talking myself through it as though I’m disarming a bomb. I keep the envelope low, under the desk and ease my finger into the hole at the side. A sudden unusual hush descends over Floor Five. I tear open the envelope as quietly as possible.

I slip out the card – hand made, from a Rice Bubbles pack. Go the expense! I read the front and feel a tremble go through my body. I fight it, try to suppress what is about to erupt from me. And when I’ve lost the battle and can’t hold it in any longer, an insane peal of laughter tears out of my mouth and rips through Floor Five.

My eyes pool with tears. I look down again, knowing that it will be worth the possible blow back to me of putting it up on the notice board in the tea room. Graeme will keep away from me once I’ve humiliated him, then I remind myself that he wrote the card. All kudos for embarrassment go direct to Graeme and his …

“Be my Ballantyne”

Treading Water

2009-02-04T21:45:00.004+10:00

The last few weeks have been utterly frustrating. I'm not getting the amount of writing or editing work done, and the new writing gig that I have as Type A Mom's breastfeeding editor (which involves a weekly column/article) has already lost it's shine.

Combine this with a two month long school holiday for my son and I feel as though I'm going around the twist. I feel like a caged animal. My sleep is interrupted, I'm nasty and crabby and in the last two days my mind has clouded and I'm struggling to put together coherent thoughts ... all the time just reminding myself to breathe and that this will soon pass - just not fast enough for me.

I'm terrified that I will fall into a writing funk like I did in the middle of last year. Is it wrong to want to sit down (to be able to sit down!) and write and for something, anything to come out? Is it wrong to need to sit down, with a clear head and try to make a piece of work better?

Part of me wonders if I was just too damn ambitious to think I could put together an anthology of my short stories. And then to have infected my fellow writers with the idea?

It's probably a good thing that I'm doing The Artist Way and that I have the support, encouragement and love of my cluster if I really do hit rock bottom (which I'm hoping wont happen this year - seeings I've got a few Plan, B's C's and D's to get me through.) And the focus is one breaking through walls and barriers. Perhaps I'll find the reason behind these creative melancholies. Maybe it will be passing thing with the end of the school holidays and the return of some personal space. I'm dying for my Artist Date on Friday and already becoming precious about my time again, as I was last year when my son first started kindy.

For now - just write something every day ... no matter how small it is. Just to write something every day. In doing that I will tread creative water until I can begin to move forwards again.

Image from Mesart.com via Peanutbutterandcigarettes

A Vision in Perpetual Motion: Professional Development

2009-02-03T09:32:00.004+10:00

Number 10 on my action plan (which I have renamed my list of intentions!) was a committment to professional development in 2009. When I wrote it as a dot point I had in mind a couple of things.

The Artists' Way
The first thing that I wanted to do to support, nurture and allow myself to grow as an artist and writer was to do The Artist Way again. This will be the third time and I looking forward to busting through some more of my blocks. I've already revealed one - which I'll write about in another post. I'm also hoping to do Vein of Gold or something else by Julia Cameron, and I've also noted Paul mention Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones: freeing the writer within. Sounds like an interesting read.

Queensland Writer's Centre
Looking through the Queensland Writer's Centre's booklet of course for 2009 I was drawn to a couple of courses - in February the Short Story and Critiquing Master class, and Kate Eltham's Short Story development series that kicks off in April. I haven't booked in yet - but have it on my to do list. I was also intending to get myself on the Novel of the Year course - to assist me in getting a manuscript finished, but I wasn't organised enough to get myself a spot. It wasn't an imperative and it wont stop me from finishing a manuscript this year.

Byron Bay Writer's Festival
I'm also intending to go to the Byron Bay Writers Festival again this year. Definitely with Annie as my partner in crime and possibly also with my soul sister Karen to celebrate her 40th birthday. I learnt so much from being there last year, plus it was a great time away from my family to recharge and enjoy time by myself, to immerse myself with others who love to write and read.

National Novel Writing Competition
While this is a dot point in itself on my list of intentions for writing this year - I also view it as professional development, because each year that I do it, I learn something else about myself as a writer, the craft of writing and the committment to write. Therefore it deserves a mention here!

I'll also be continuing on with my writer's circle here in Brisbane (if I'm welcome back!) and any online support system that grows out of this round of AW. I'm also trying to commit to networking more on line, reading more blogs and forming new association through this. However being time poor, I do what I NEED to do first (and reality that is write) and then I'll try to get around to reading and meeting new people!

For me, professional development is about continuing to push myself and break through the blockages (and for writers and artists there are so many!) that keep me from realising my dream to write, to be read and for others to pay for the enjoyment. And also to keep honing and improving my skills as a writer.

What professional development are you considering to support yourself as a writer this year?

[Fiction] Friday: Date with Denton

2009-01-30T08:53:00.002+10:00

This weeks challenge:

"Pick three of your characters from different stories. They are all invited to be guests on a talk show. They are all sitting in the green room waiting for the show to start. What happens next?"

Shet looked up from the couch and the small espresso cup as the door opened. She knew there would be others joining her in the Green Room, waiting to be called up for their dialogue with Denton, but she had no idea who any of these people would be.

The woman who peeked in was tiny, short unruly bed hair that Shet guessed was fashionable. She didn’t bother to be a slave to any type of trend or style, preferring to keep her blonde hair cropped short for practicality.

“I thought it would be green.”
Shet grinned. “Yeah so did I! I hung out in the corridor for a while thinking I’d been led to the wrong room. Come in there’s coffee … or beer if that’s your thing.”

Shet was beginning to wish that she’d chosen the beer. The espresso was causing her heart to race and amplifying the nervousness. Talking from the moon back to earth via a telelink was one thing, but being invited to speak on a top rating talk show, beaming out to millions was an another.

The diminutive young woman closed the door behind her and looked around the room with the pique curiosity of a child.

“This is amazing.” She put her hand on fridge and stared for a long time at the espresso machine.
“It’s all rather archaic really.” Well it was compared to where she came from originally, but there was nothing like this on Th’Urn. And from the look on the young woman’s face there was probably nothing like it where she’d come from.

“Don’t you find all of this a bit odd?” Shet asked, getting up from the couch to put the dirty cup by the sink.
“How do you mean?”
“Coming here is like being transported to another place. Almost like I’ve gone back in time or something.”
“So you’re not from here.”
Shet shook her head. “And you?”
“No. But you speak Spanish?”

“So this would be the Green Room!” The voice silenced the existing conversation. “It looks pretty much like other Green Rooms.”

A well dressed woman strode across the room and thrust her hand at Shet.
“Senator Abigail Hamilton, but my friends call me Abby.”
Shet took her hand and shook it firmly.
“Nice to meet you Senator. Shet Harmon, recently of the colony of New Brisbane and the planet of Th’Urn.”

The Senator took a step back, her face darkening.
“I’m Ruby Mendez-Fernandos.” But the introduction fell on deaf ears. “You two look like you know each other.”
“Know of,” corrected the Senator. “What is this – a collection of NaNo – past, present and future? The producer didn’t tell me that when she booked me.”

The three women stared at each other.
“What is this NaNo you speak of?”
“The National Novel Writing Competition,” the other two women replied in stereo.
“You haven’t heard of it?” added the Senator.
“I don’t think so. I think you’d call me itinerant. I’m usually the last to know about anything.”
“I think you mean illiterate.” Ruby glared at the Senator.
“No I meant that I travel a lot Senator. And communication in the 16th century isn’t quite as fast or reliable as your telephones and mobiles.”

“Hold on, hold on.” The Senator rubbed at her temples, squeezing her eyes shut. “You’re from the 16th Century? But you’re not from NaNo.”
“Lately of the Port of Lisbon.”
“So I’m not caught in some warped version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.”
“Not unless you want to be Senator.”

“But you’re one of Her characters are you not Ms Mendez-Fernandos?”
“I may be thought of as a character, mainly an undesireable one by most of the crew of the La Gongoozler and possibly an exciting irritation to my husband, but I am my own person Senator.”
“And you Shet Harmon. You’re one of her characters. You stole my place.”
“You were the one that was meant to be sent to Th’Urn Senator?”

The Senator growled.
“Are you both dumb – don’t you see it. You’re figments of someone’s imagination. Of Her imagination. You Ms Mendez-Fernandos – you’re from the Adventures of Captain Juan and you Shet Harmon, Blue Melissae. Me – I’m from Finding Aphrodite, her National Novel Writing project from 2007.”
“You are telling me that you just suddenly appeared in this world in 2007?” Shet asked, leaning against the bench.

“Not this world – in my world.”
“But you know about me?”
“Of course I know about you – she chose to create you for NaNo last year rather than finish off my story. My life, my story has been on hold. And it’s all your fault Shet Harmon.”

“Hey hold on Senator. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She wanted to add that the Senator was talking like a lunatic, but there was an uncomfortable resonance in what the Senator’s ravings.

“You feel it too,” Ruby said. The other two women looked at her. “There is a common thread through the three of us.”
“Why bring the three of us here?”
“You love two men do you not Shet Harmon? And you too Senator?” said Ruby, feeling the connection deeply not just with her lovers, but with the other women and their lovers. It sent a shiver through her.

Relunctantly the other women nodded, the Senator fidgeting with the bottom of her tailored jacket and Shet thrusting her hands into the pocket of her jeans.
“And you Ruby – you’ve killed someone and Senator?” Shet stared hard at the Senator.

The Senator’s cheeks flushed in a rare show of public emotion. “I was never implicated in the disappearance of Jeff Harrington. And his body was never found.”
“But you don’t deny it do you Senator.”
“You can’t lie to yourself,” added Ruby, crossing her arms. “You think this is all about fiction don’t you. You think Sh just plucked you out of her imagination and we all just happened to be invited here at the one time. Don’t you see?”

Shet and the Senator looked at each other.
“Are your worlds real to you? I know mine is real, I feel it, taste it, smell it. I don’t just see it as a two dimensional picture. I experience my world with every fibre of my being, every flicker of my emotions. It’s real. Just as your worlds are real.”
“But ..”
“Why deny it Senator. Would you like to blame her for your weaknesses or the things you don’t like about yourself, rather than be responsibility for it all.”

“But where are the men? Why aren’t they here. Why wasn’t Alex invited to be here with me. Or your men?”
“Is She a man?”
“No but she creates male characters.”
“You really can’t let go of that notion that you’re someone’s character can you Senator,” said Shet. “I agree with Ruby. My world is real, the bits of it that I remember that is.”
“You say I’m in denial – but what about you two – aren’t you in denial that you’re not real.”

“I’m real!” Ruby walked up to the Senator. “So are you and so is she,” turning back to Shet.
”But what about Her. Is she a figment of my imagination?”
“She’s real too,” it was Shet this time. ‘I feel her as much as she feels me – and as much as I feel the two of you.”
“I think we’re different manifestations of Her.”
“Living in parallel worlds?” Ruby smiled at Shet.
“You’re suggesting that I’m you, and Shet and Her. We’re all one and the same?”

The door opened.
“It’s time ladies.” They’d all lost track of time and looked up at the clock. “Andrew’s waiting for you all on set. Let’s hustle we’re running a bit behind schedule.”

“Isn’t that John Simm?” asked the Senator as the four of them hurried along the corridor past a good looking man walking towards the Green Room.

Forthose non Australians - Andrew Denton hosts a talk show called Enough Rope and he often has a segment where he invites three ordinary people along, with common jobs to share their experiences. Interestingly, Finding Aphrodite starts with the Senator being interviewed by Denton!

Hello, good-bye: Prequel

2009-01-29T09:03:00.001+10:00

This is what comes before Hello, Good-bye and was cut out to make last week's [Fiction] Friday a more manageable read!

I wish I’d got the window seat then I would have been able to watch the headlights grow from the distance and wait for the flash to kiss my retina as my eyes and the light collide head on. Mind numbing stuff like that.

But Maz has the window seat. She’s almost asleep. Opportunities like this rarely present themselves when I need them. Her head bobs every now and again. This is my one and only chance to break someone and get the information. In her sleep befuddled state I’ll harass her and until she caves in.

“Maz. What are you guys going to do to me?”
“Nothing.” She yawns and stretches, trying to get comfortable.
“Steven’s coming - isn’t he?”
“No. He isn’t.” Even though she is on the edge of sleep, the words came out consolidated in the sort of way that tells me she won’t capitulate.

I know she is lying – they all are. I had heard Rachel scream out Steven’s name and something about him coming two days earlier as I’d walked into the school foyer. Then she’d told a heart breaking lie – she was going out with Steven. But I didn’t believe it. It all has something to do with Thursday. If I could just get it out of Maz.

“My lips are sealed.”
“Maz?”
“I said my lips are sealed. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”

There is the occasional snore and mutter. It was dark and late and we’re probably the only people other than the bus driver who are awake. The play we’ve just seen is now being enacted in my head with Steven and I cast in the leading roles. If only I knew for sure.

“Star crossed lovers Maz. That’s what we are – Steven and I. Just tell me if we’re going to meet up at Maccas on Thursday.
“There’s nothing much Capulet or Montague about either of you.”
“He is from the West.”
“True.”
“So he’s coming on Thursday to my going away party. Isn’t he Maz?”
I said no.”

“Please Maz,” The confident interrogation is disintegrating into a pathetic round of begging. “Tell me if Stephen’s coming.”
“No.” Another yawn and more stretching from her.
“I promise I’ll act surprised if you tell me.”

“OK.” She sighs. “If you’ll shut up and let me get to sleep.”
“Sure.”
“He’s coming.”
“Oh my God!”

One of the teacher’s head shoots up, searching for where the blasphemous exclamation had come from. I’ll never got the hang of all the Catholic stuff.

And there it is. Confirmation – finally. My best and worst nightmares realised in the same moment. I’m cursed.

I hadn’t believed that they would actually do it – that they would ring and invite Steven to my party. What the hell did Rachel say to him when she rang? I shudder to think, knowing what a loose cannon she is most of the time and what I’ve heard come out of her mouth.

“Don’t tell anyone. They’ll kill me if I they know I told you. It’s meant to be a surprise.”
“I promise I’ll act surprised.”

I felt sick.

“You’re still coming aren’t you?”
“I’m staying at Michelle’s house on Wednesday night. How the hell am I meant to get out of it?”
Maz answers with a slight snore and I am left running the scenario that’s presenting for Thursday through my over active imagination.

New Moon Wishes for Aquarius Moon

2009-01-26T22:16:00.007+10:00

Today was the super charged new moon in Aquarius - coupled with a solar eclipse. Sadly it couldn't be seen in Australia (China was the best place to view it this time around) and I was asleep and missed the opportunity to have a little ritual I'd planned. So be it.

Jan Spiller, author of New Moon Astrology:using the new moon power days to change and revitalise your life, writes that new moon wishes for the Aquarian moon can include requests for:

inventive solutions
seeing the future
humanitarian attitudes
revelations
humour
friends
avoiding excessive detatchment

Here are the writing wishes that I've made (personal ones are over at Shine A Little Light)

I want inspiring new ideas to occur to me regarding my dream of being a paid and published writer.
I want to easily find myself courageously and successfully following my dream to be a paid and published writer.
I want clarity in seeing those long range goals that give meaning to my life.
I want to greet unexpected events as positive opportunities for growth.
I want to easily find myself open to attracting exciting revitalising experiences.
I want right insights that lead to my dream of being a paid and published writer come true.
I want to easily find myself graciously accepting help, love and support from others.
I want to find myself easily networking with other writers and publishers to manifest my dream of being a paid and published writer.

This time around I've really spelt it out - being a writer isn't enough any more - I want to be both published and paid. Call me greedy! These wishes, combined with my list from earlier on this month (which I will rename a 'list of intentions' - thanks Karen for the reminder!) should have me set for the creative year that lays out before me.

My intention is to work with the lunar cycles this year. I have lots I want to accomplish and 13 lunar cycles seems to be a good way to attack it. It is also a natural way to use the energy - this was how our forebearers created their lives, under the waxing and waning light of the moon.

I feel as though I am dropping and leaving behind all the things that no longer work for me - thus the Remedios Varo picture to accompany this post. Very Ecplise-ish! It's a brave new era and I do feel brave!

I'm also feeling refreshed, recharged and full of courage! What better place to be?

Thank you for the Year of the Rat

2009-01-25T16:51:00.002+10:00

Today is the final day of my creative year. While the Western calendar runs from 1st January until the 31st December and that’s the way life goes if you live in a Western country, I choose however to run my creative year as a writer, to the Chinese Calendar.

As a lunar calendar, the Chinese Year seems such a better idea to work with as a creative type. I guess you could say this is almost the darkness of the new moons for the year – the last one of the year. Tomorrow not only does a new lunar cycle start with the new moon, but a whole new lunar year.

I have been cleaning out my inboxes and getting rid of emails that have been sitting there unread. While I have taken to doing this on a regular basis to stop everything being jammed up (I’m certain now that creative qi on your computer gets trapped in old emails and the likes) – it was an all out clean up today. Once I have posted this – I will go and attack my desk – strip out all the books, move my printer, and clean down everything. Later on I’ll give the whole area a thorough smudging.

While the house was quiet, and my son and partner were out having an adventure, I took out the coloured blank greeting cards I’ve had for about six months and made some thank you cards. I wanted to give thanks and to show my gratitude to those who have really been a tour de force for me in my first creative year as a writer.

At the end of 2007 I did a Thirteen Thursday recognising the special people in my life for that year. This year I would be struggling to add 13 people I had regular contact with. It’s been one of those years.

This year my thanks go firstly to my loving and supportive partner Dave, and also to my ever patient son Dylan, who both encouraged me and were enthusiastic about my writing pursuits. I tease Dave, good naturedly about being a patron of the arts, but I am grateful for him allowing me the space and the opportunity to write – while he sits 50 hours a week in a crappy office (though it does have a nice view over the river!) and commutes with a bus full of people rain, hail or shine to get there. I know there are other places and other things that he would prefer to be doing. I am grateful darling to allow me to do want I want to do.

I know my influence as a Mum and a writer is rubbing off when yesterday Dylan told me that he would be writing an article every day from now on with the new pen and notebook that he won in pass the parcel at a birthday party. His first article yesterday was a cutting piece on hop scotch!

Secondly my thanks go to my partners in crime Annie Evett and Paul Anderson, who I have had the joy and challenge of collaborating with this year. Annie and I co-wrote and then designed and built the website for Reclaim Sex After Birth, as well as sharing crazy moments writing Captain Juan. The Reclaim Project pushed my buttons in all types of ways, but I grew not only as a writer but as a woman as a consequence and I’m feel so blessed to have had that opportunity. I’m also appreciative of the space that opens to write when our kids get together to play and generally leave us to it. I’m also glad for the trips to Dalveen and the writing that has come out of sitting drinking red wine at the kitchen table at Annie’s parents house. For those regular readers of Captain Juan – that’s how he ended up naked and sunburnt in the crows nest.

Paul shared not just his Captain Juan character, but also another character Dr Pietersen from one of his podcasts with me for my NaNo project Blue Melissae. I honestly don’t think there is a greater gift a writer can give. Captain Juan for me is like lollies to a kid – it’s fun and it generally requires no effort on my part.

I remember Paul commenting on Intercontinental, saying that I write best when I go to places that are uncomfortable and I used that insight to really push and probe myself as a writer – which in turn allowed me to experiment and discover stories and new writing styles I would have missed out on. Thanks for that Paul. I’m also grateful for Paul’s ear and patience, when I’m on a crazy rant at 1:00am in the morning – time differences are sometimes useful.

Paul has also shared coming on 12 months now, two wonderful business/writing plans that I know will see the light of day this year. It’s been a pleasure and thrill to watch these plans grow, blossom, go to seed and to again be waiting to shoot into something even more wonderful this year.

Thirdly I give thanks and my heartfelt appreciation to the ladies in my writing circle Edwina, Marion and Janette, who have read my work, offered critical and insightful feedback, been my friends, offered encouragement, celebrated my triumphs and bemoaned my failures with me. I didn’t realise how wonderful a writing circle could be until I was a part of one. Thank you ladies!

Fourthly I would like to acknowledge Karen at Write Anything and all the writers there for the inspiring and thought provoking posts and to Dale for Fiction Friday. I also want to acknowledge those as the Office of Letters and Light who run Script Frenzy and the National Novel Writing Month. Special thanks to Brisbane Municipal Librarians for the effort and energy that went into the Brisbane meets. Finally in this category – thanks to the organisers of the Byron Bay Writers Festival and to the staff at the Queensland Writers Centre.

Lastly I want to give thanks to my very special friend Danae Sinclair. It was through Dan that I first learnt about Fiction Friday and it was at her invitation that I ventured to do The Artists Way in late 2007 and then again in 2008. Without Dan being the catalyst for both these, I may not be writing now. I could still be plodding away producing Down to Birth and denying my inner most passion to write. Thank you Dan ... my love and appreciation and gratitude will always be coming your way.

So 2008 was my year of authenticity, but I understand that it was also a year of composting … of the breaking down of my old life, my old ways and habits. When you garden, you mix the compost in with the soil, to make new and fertile ground in which to plant seeds. That’s what 2008 was for me. 2009 and the year of the ox (which is my year as a little grey ox!) is going to be my year of growth. I originally conceptualised it as my year of action – but that seems too harsh and somehow sort of reckless. So instead, I am dedicating the 2009 year of the ox to growth.

May yours be a happy, fulfilling, prosperous and loving one.

PS: apologies to all who missed out on having links inserted here - my internet is very temperamental and posting this is a trial in itself!

Image from Kim Falconer's astrology website.

Fiction Friday: Hello, Good-bye

2009-01-24T11:36:00.007+10:00

This week's prompt from Write Anything's Fiction Friday is:

Tell us about a memorable blind date.

Steven!

He was the first thing to slam into my consciousness as I blinked awake this morning on the makeshift mattress of couch cushions on Michelle’s bedroom floor. He’s the thought that accompanied me into the shower as I washed my hair with Wella Balsam’s brand new shampoo with Chestnut extracts for brown hair. Only briefly was he displaced when I locked myself in the toilet, the sliding door having jumped the runner and I was too embarrassed to call out for someone to come and let me out. All my mental reserves were occupied trying to get the door back on so I could get out.

The hour of our meeting is dawning. I’m paranoid - I think my shoes are whispering his name as they hit the concrete, one foot after the other down Sturt Street towards the Mall, closer to MacDonalds and Steven. And I can’t share my torture with Michelle. This is meant to be a secret.

I try to knock thoughts of meeting Steven out of my head by humming Fairground Attraction’s “Perfect”. All it does is remind me that there is nothing perfect about this staged meeting. I’m taking second best by allowing my friends, I correct myself, by allowing Rachel to organise this. It’s doomed to be disaster.

I long to be on a dodgey looking barge, sheltering from fake rain under a brolly, floating down the Yarra far away from MacDonald’s Bakery Hill just like the chick in the film clip of Perfect. Now that would be perfect! Instead I’m walking towards my own version of destiny. After all, you don’t long and yearn for the love and adoration of the St Paul’s boy on the backseat of the Wendouree West bus without harbouring secret plans to one day meet him. And for him to fall in love with you – but that’s rather pointless now that I’m moving to Geelong.

STEVEN is printed on the back of my Mr Men ruler and I have documented in excruciating detail all his comings and goings, facial expression, conversations (with other people),changes of hair style etc in numerous diaries hidden in a plastic bag in the top bunk amid a collection of used tissues. I remember all the effort that went into finding out his name. And it’s come down to this.

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my duffle coat to stop them from shaking and try to keep up the small talk with Michelle

Michelle and I meet up with the rest of our friends out the front of MacDonalds. Maz is trying not to look sheepish and I give her a brilliant smile. I’m as prepared as I can thanks to Maz spilling the beans, half asleep on the bus back from Melbourne two days ago. Mel is looking stunning as usual and Regina is standing beside her. Kate’s got a thick scarf wrapped around her neck and her abundant curls pulled back in a piggie tail. Kim’s sporting a groovy new bob that’s long on one side and short on the other. Then there’s the other hanger-ons that I wouldn’t have invited – but I didn’t organise the party.

There’s no sign of Rachael. And there’s no sign of Steven. Yet!

By midday we’re all inside waiting on Rachel and it’s so obvious to me what’s going to happen – the sly smiles that are being swapped around the table. But no one would dare publicly cave in now and tell me.

Five minutes later someone yells, “He’s here!”

The secret’s out and the bottom falls out of my stomach. I have talked myself into believing that I can meet him, that I can do this with style and grace but now I just want to run and hide in the toilet again. Wish that it had a door that ran off the rails.

How anyone could have thought this was a great idea is beyond me – they are meant to be my friends. This is a hybrid social experiment that combines the worst aspects of Perfect Match with public executions. A blind date I would have coped with – it would have just been Steven and I, without the addition of the baying peanut gallery. This is my karmic debt for having bored them to death for two years with stories of Steven.

Rachel strides up the steps resplendent in her victory, followed by Steven and another boy I didn’t recognise.
“Hey Mel, isn’t that Peter Bolger?”
The only person this means anything to is Mel is elegantly trying to drain herself from her chair to a space under the table where she’ll be hidden from sight. There is a small amount of satisfaction that someone else feels as uncomfortable as me.

I stand up and I’m not sure what possesses me to do such a thing. Do I really need to point out that I’m the other helpless victim here? Rachael has her annoying little school case in one hand and a crazy grin on her face.

The introductions are short and simple.
”Steven this is Jodi.”
“Hi,” he says, trying to offer me a smile. He’s deep in this crap as well.
“Hello.” The word comes from somewhere deep inside me and barely makes it out my lips. “I think you know my sister. She was the one who got caught in the bus door.” It was the only common point of reference I could think of between us.
“Yeah I remember.”

Rachael jabs her elbow into the fleshy part of his arm, and he takes a small, smartly wrapped parcel out of his pocket. All the bits of me that have been frozen against this occasion melt away. He went to the trouble of buying me something.
“Remember what to say.”
The defrosting halts.
“Hope it fits,” and he hands me the present.

It is a joke. Another little embarrassing thing to throw my way – as if forcing me to meet Steven this way isn’t bad enough. It’s a whoopey cushion – or something else crass and vulgar. It’s definitely too small to be a packet of condoms.

I sit down and try to conceal the unwrapping until I can work out just what is in there. I pull out the note first.

Dear Jodi,
See! Now you can be just like Miss O’Mara. Hope it fits.
Luv your friends from SHC xxx

I know immediately what makes up the bulk of the present, but I pull enough of the lacy bra through the wrapping paper to confirm my suspicions. It is periwinkle blue, so technically not a replica of the jade green bra strutted out by our English teacher under her white cheese cloth blouse months ago.

“What is it?” Peter should have known better to say something and in that moment I can see Steven is doing a double take on his decision to bring him along.
“A bra!” erupts Rachael, loud enough to inform all levels of the two story fast food complex. She is laughing hysterically at her own cleverness and how the humiliation factor has just been ramped up a few more notches.

I grab my purse and go for lunch. Food will fix it all. It will take the steam out of the bra incident, but when I return with my luke warm burger and chips my bra is flying, sling slot style from one corner of the room to the other. Putting my tray down, I venture out to intercept it and stuff it into the pocket of my duffle coat. Game over, everyone else goes down for lunch.

Steven’s been strategically placed next to me and he asks me if he can have a look at my card. A year older, and planning to leave school at the end of the year to take up an apprenticeship he seems more socially adept than I am to traverse this quagmire of a social landscape that I am sinking in. It is also unlikely that he’s been harbouring secret desires for me for the past two years. That gives him the obvious edge.

But the card. I can’t give him the card. The envelope is bad enough. It has things like “What will you do Jo is someone in Geelong knows Steven? FREAK!” Another ‘thanks guys’ moment for me.

I pass him the card knowing it would be rude and slightly suspicious to snatch it up from the table and hide it away in my pockets. Someone would just get it out and give it to him. I may as well execute the last phase of my social demise. As soon he has the card in his hand, it unleashes a torrent of stories from my friends, who can’t help themselves but tell him everything that I have ever told them about him.

I guess I’m to blame really since I introduced the now famous hero moment where he freed my sister from the bus doors as it was pulling away from the central bus stop with her half in and half out. I’d ignored her screams and carry on, thinking it was another of her drama queen moments designed to impart the highest degree of embarrassment in the vicinity of Steven. Little sisters are like that when they discover which boy you like.

It’s the story telling that really turns the party into something tragically immature and something I don’t want to be part of any longer. Peter says something to upset Mel and she upends her thick shake on his head. Steven starts setting everything combustible on fire. Rachel knocks her thick shake onto the floor, pulls the cup off and laughs at the solid mound left behind that’s more like a sandcastle than a beverage. Then the hair mousse comes out.

I retreat to the toilet and when I finally come out take up residence by a window where I can hear the laughs and squeals, but pretend to focus on the traffic whizzing down Little Bridge Street. I’m torn. I want this to end now, but at the same time I want it to go on forever. I want to leave, but I don’t want to go. I hate my friends and in the same heart beat I love them with every fibre of my being. I can’t imagine life without them – even after this.

Tears start to well in my eyes. Maz is at my shoulder, squeezing it gently and letting me know that the story telling is over and everyone’s got rid of their rubbish so Steven can’t set anything else alight.

Steven asks me about where I was moving to. “Geelong’s a cool place. I might just come around and see you.” I’m pretty sure that after this afternoon’s fiasco he’ll be glad that I will be sequestered in Geelong, far away from him and safe from my fanatical friends.

It’s time to say good-bye.
“Are you going to kiss her good-bye.” It is Peter again. I’m certain now he’s been secretly working as an agent for my friends or enjoying the rather bizarre circumstances his friend has found himself in.

Saying good-bye was meant to be easy – why did Peter have to suggest a kiss. I want to be kissed by Steven more than anything else in the world – but not here, now – infront of all of them.
“No way guys.” This is not the way it plays out in my daydreams or the novel that I wrote with a fictionalised Steven and me.
“Come on.” It is a chorus that threatens to break into a chant sports day style.

I shake my head. “No.”
“Are you sure?” It is Steven asking this time – giving me one last chance to change my mind. Does he want to kiss me? Does he want to kiss me here? Rachel’s got to have paid him to do this.
“Yes!” I am confident in my answer. I’ll bemoan the lost chance in the lonely hours that stretch out in Geelong in the months to come. “Good-bye Steven.”

I walk off, thinking I’ve recovered a few shreds of my dignity, until I discover I am being propelled by a mob towards Steven. This is not the way it was ever meant to be. I tear free and run. Hellos are mandatory - good-byes in this case, optional.

Authors Note: If you're wondering - this is a true story circa 1987, based on a story written for Year 10 English!

Books Galore

2009-01-17T21:14:00.002+10:00

Today was the first day of Lifeline’s twice yearly Bookfest. The first time we went – about three years ago now I was astounded by the sheer number of books. Since then we’ve been to every Fest and come home loaded with new books.

The proceeds of the Bookfest go to financially supporting Lifeline’s 24 hour Help Line and it is estimated that around 1 million books are on sale at each event (the January event goes for five days) – I’m not sure how many of those million books actually get sold.

I got a few books that I went specifically to look for (Lolita) and got a couple of others than flesh out existing collections (I now own Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon to go with my copy if Magician). Dave found me a fabulous looking book on Pope Joan which I can't wait to sink my teeth into.

I also got some books that will be good resource books for the Reclaim Sex After Birth site. Additionally I grabbed a couple of breastfeeding books that I don’t already have, again as resources, as I’ve just been offered the editorship of the Breastfeeding pages at Type-A Mom. Last but not least I also got a couple of extra Sarah Ban Breathnach books including a beautiful visual folder for drawing.

Now I’m looking forward to a changing of the guard in my book cases – there are books that deserve to be shelved elsewhere and others that need to be brought out.

On the funny side – our housemate Phil found Interview with a Vampire housed in the Religion section and Dave found Barbara Cartland in the Literature section (as opposed to the paper or fiction sections!) Interesting interpretations of both genres!

Hmmm – Dave’s just going through my collection of books … I think I’d better disappear and explain a few of my purchases!

PS: I shall post some photos once I have my internet issues sorted out. Mercury Retrograde is hitting my hard this time around!

Checking In

2009-01-13T15:45:00.004+10:00

When you do Julia Cameron's The Artists Way, each week you are asked to answer a few questions - to check in with the progress that you've made in the last seven days. I thought it was a good idea, given that I've got a relatively comprehensive programme to achieve this year, to keep track weekly of where I am at.

The past two weeks have all been about editing. I should take a photo of just how repulsive I am finding this - but at the same time, when the redraft finally comes together, the seperate parts gel and I can call it a final draft reading for feedback and proofreading - there is a fantastic rush ... the sort that comes with a major accomplishment.

Finish one 1750 word piece shouldn't be such a great achievement but it feels like that.

The process other than being a weird interplay of being pain in the bum and providing a great feedback loop for achievement, it is a really important and educating experience. To be able to see where your writing was situated at the start of the year, and where it ended up at the end of the year. To be able to see your growth as a writer over the year.

The stories that I am currently working on came from the start of last year. They're lacking the depth of character and story development that came later on in the year. So I keep telling myself, to just keep plugging away at it ... there are (hopefully better) and easier stories on the horizon.

To date I have two stories at the almost finished stage and two that are two thirds edited. I also have another two that are complete. That means I have touched half of the material for the anthology. By tomorrow I am aiming to have six stories at the finished or almost finished stage. Then I'll attack the second half.

I've also kept up with my writing schedule of writing something every day. I'm not in a position to shift into the three pages a day mode yet (thinking it would probably be better to ease in one page, two pages and then three pages) but I'm glad that for the past 13 days I've written something.

I've also registered and organised web hosting for the Chinese Whispers project and have started to look for some other writers to work with. Additionally I've found a template for the website that Paul and I are agreed upon - but I'm staying well away from tweaking and playing with the template. That joy awaits at the end of the anthology process.

How are you tracking with your projects/resolutions/action plans?

Do writers have Green Rooms?

2009-01-10T23:37:00.007+10:00

Every writer has characters that they’ve created, stories that they’ve begun but never got around to finishing (I actually have a folder on my computer titled ‘unfinished’ and two partially completed NaNo manuscripts) We’ve also got some characters who we’ve seen brief flashes of and we’ve noted them down to return to at a later date.

Where do these characters go when we’ve given them the creative equivalent of being put into moth balls? What do they do out there in the creative ether, in a holding pattern, waiting for the control tower to bring them down.

Originally I conceptualised this creative purgatory to be a bank vault-ish – sort of a safety deposit process for storing characters away … protected from being pawned and reclaimed by another writer. This seemed like a pretty grim place to send the wild bunch that I’ve cavorted with in the past.

I realised that my characters-in-waiting have their very own Green Room. To pass the time they’re sharing beers, coffee, M&Ms and conversations (maybe even some bodily fluids).

So who’s currently in the Green Room?

Side by side on a couch are Adam and Eve (of the Adam and Eve concept), stuck in a perpetually awkward moment. For Eve it feels like de ja vu she hasn’t recovered her memories yet, but feels a strong connection to Adam and a need to drag him into a dark space. And there’s Adam, who has recovered the love of his life, but can’t tell her who he is, because they’ve been warned to allow her memories to resurface at their own pace. They’re probably talking about safe topics like the weather and giving themselves a chance to relax from relentless Government pursuit. Eve’s wishing someone would put on some decent music.

Sitting in single arm chairs that have been turned to face each other are Alex and Abby (from Finding Aphrodite). Since they weaselled their way into a sex scene (compliments of a 3am Epiphany exercise about this time last year) they’ve been pretty quiet – and sated I guess, having finally stripped off and got it on. Abby has her shoes off and Alex is rubbing her feet. This is causing a bit of a stir because technically their relationship hasn’t been outsed – and well he’s a political satirist and she’s one of the newest members of parliament. It’s also a little uncomfortable for Abby’s husband Calum who was last seen heading for the toilet with The Australian under one arm and a grim look on his face. He was gone before Vi could catch up with him.

Stalking about in the shadows waiting for his next hit is Jeff, the junky freelance journalist from Finding Aphrodite. He’s being watched with a mixture of repulsion and envy by Huxley, (also from Finding Aphrodite) who has cleaned up his cocaine habit, turned Christian but is slowly going crazy seeing Abby with Alex. He’s searching for a foam football to toss around to relieve the boredrom.

The Voodoo Cowboy is talking to my unnamed female character (a 3am Epiphany creation) about love, regret, guilt and salt rings. He’s missing Patience his horse, who for work place health and safety reason had to be left tied up in the parking lot.

Aurelia and Caleb from Second Chance are waiting for destiny to come and visit, and biding their time as best they can. They’re enjoying an espresso together and trying to avoid talking business – even though they both have in common that they work for the mob. After all he is an assassin and he’s been contracted to kill her, it's best to keep things simple. Aurelia is hoping it doesn’t start raining.

There's been a stir lately in The Green Room created by the most recent arrivals – the crew and cast of Captain Juan who have been forced into a Green Room hiatus over the Christmas break, waiting for their serial to resume. There’s a collective swoon from all the women in the room and there’s a tussle between Juan and Intaglio over who can pull the most virtual chicks. Intaglio was seen carving notches into the door frame, though Juan maintains he's got the longer sword.

Domenica is at the toilet door, waiting to preen herself and in doing so met Vi and the two of them have settled down at the toilet door to scheme and bitch. Ruby and Father Paolo have been drawn to the Voodoo Cowboy and the unnamed character for a philosophical and theological discussion – the cowboy and Ruby finding a common ground in voodoo and paganism and Father Paolo is trying to console the Catholic guilt and angst in the unnamed character. Dante’s lurking in the corner and finds himself side by side with Jeff, both of them thinking of torture and unnatural deeds.

Pablo’s washing up all the dirty coffee cups and collecting up empty beer bottles, while Pete follows him around giving him grief about being uptight. Bruno and the boys have just discovered disco since Eve finally worked out how to tweak the music system and someone just broke the coffee table and sent the M&Ms spilling across the floor.

Calvin’s been spotted sneaking beers from the fridge and is now bemoaning his boyish frustrations to Adam, who has frustrations of his own. Then someone calls out ‘fire in the hole’ …

This article was inspired by Paul Anderson's short story Literati & Sons, Metaphysical Pawnbrokers.

Image: Broken Glass by Abandoned Alaska via Flickr

Fiction Friday: Sam

2009-01-09T23:55:00.006+10:00

This week's prompt:
With ten days until payday, your character discovers his/her account is overdrawn (adjust as necessary to fit your timeline or world).

The bus engine roared to life, purging huge black clouds from the exhaust. The doors shut and with a grinding in the over worked gear box, the metal monolith pulled out into the deserted main street. Sam stood watching, until the bus swung left and headed toward the high way.

“I thought you were going.”
He knew it was a question more than a statement and there was only one other person in town who wanted to be on that bus more than him.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But you’ve been working weekends out on the Wilson Property.”
“I said it doesn’t matter.” He turned and saw her standing a few paces behind him, looking awkward and uncomfortable in her uniform. “What about you? You’ve got a job.”
“I’d still be cutting up roast chickens and frying chips on my 21st birthday and not have the money to go.” She put her hand in her pocket and checked the time on her mobile phone. “Even if I had the money Dad would never let me go to the City.”

Sam turned back and looked down the main street, wondering why he’d tortured himself and come down to watch the bus leave.
To never forget just how angry I am. And the I'll never forgive her. That’s why I’m here.

“There’s a party at my house tonight.” Sam turned back to look at her.
“Is that an invite?”
“It’s nothing big – just my brother and some of his mates are home from doing block in Griffith. They’re planning on having a few drinks out the back in the old shearing shed. You’re welcome.”

It was the first time since they’d arrive six month ago that anyone had bothered to invite him to a social event. He’d worked every weekend he could, saving his money. That’s why they never invited him – that’s what he told himself on the cold nights, lying alone in the donga on the Wilson’s property wishing his mind would shut down and let him rest.
“What time do you knock off?”
“8:30pm. Do you want a lift?”

Sam shook his head and kicked at the cracked concrete with the toe of his runner.
“I’ll find my own way there.”
“Just come round the back – you’ll hear them. See you then.”

She smiled and walked off toward the roadhouse.
“Hey Laney,” Sam called out and ran after her. “It’s just that …” he wasn’t sure how to say that he was broke without stirring up a hornet’s nest of questions he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to have to lie. “About tonight …”
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want Sam.”
“No it’s not that. I just don’t have anyway to buy some grog that’s all. Don’t want your brother to think I’m free loading off him and his mates.”

Laney laughed.
“Don’t worry about that Sam. Jeez, you must be the only guy around here who’s worried about being a free loader. I’ll bring some bottles of coke from work and you can be the one who provides the emergency supply of coke.”
“Thanks Laney.”
“See you tonight Sam.”

.... The light on his bike worked sporadically making it impossible to see with any certainty what was ahead of him on the high way. Just a tiny light blinking on and off on the Kidman Way. Road trains roared past him, buffeting him and almost knocking him from his bike into the yellow dust on the side. But he pedalled on. The tears that stung his eyes blurred what vision was left to him and part of him wished that a truck would run over him and end it there and then.

He pedalled harder, pumping his legs up and down. The wind whistled through his ears, his helmet clipped onto the back of his bike.

The feeling of devastation hadn’t left him, although it had been two weeks now since he’d discovered his money was gone. The money he had been hording from his work on the Wilson property. A small portion would pay the final downpayment on the trip to Sydney, the rest would tide him over, help him find somewhere to stay until he could get a job. Get settled.

The final payment on the school trip was due on the Friday morning and he’d lifted his mattress up enough to slide his hand under, his fingers searching for the slit in the material where he’d been stashing the cash Old Man Wilson paid him.

He should have put it in the bank. Made it safe. Kept it away from her, but he didn’t trust banks. He needed the cash in his pocket.

“You took my money.”
She’d looked up from the chipped laminex table and the Take 5 magazine she’d been reading. The look of innocence was so well practiced he almost believed it.
“You stole my money.”
The silence was what gave her away. She could look innocent but the moment she opened her mouth it would be obvious what she’d done.
“You promised me what we came here that it wouldn’t be like it used to be.”
“I borrowed your money. I’m going to pay it back. Next pay day. Like a line of credit.”
“There was $2000 there. Where the hell are you going to get $2000 from?”

She refused to look up at him.
“You blew it on the pokies didn’t you. You put my money through the fucking pokies.”
His voice was breaking.
“You’re no different than you were before we came here. You stole from me – your son. Your own flesh and blood.”
“I said I borrowed it Sam. I’ll have your money back to you in 10 days. Just give me a chance.”
“I don’t want your stinking money.”
“It’s not like that Sam.”
“You’re a liar.”

Even if she had have been able to give the money back it was too late. And now he was trapped. But there was Laney – his own tiny beacon in the sea of nothingness.

If you're here from Write Anything or another link for Fiction Friday, please take the time to comment once you've read the story. All feedback is welcome and appreciated!

A Vision in Perpetual Motion: Everyday Writing

2009-01-06T22:41:00.006+10:00

What I really wanted to set down in concrete - like God scribing the 10 Commandments was 'You shall write three pages a day', but it seemed like setting myself up to fail dismally from the start. That's not what I'm into this year. This year is about nurturing and growing sustainable writing habits. Sustainable in the sense that I am actually able to do them in the short, medium and long terms and that they naturally become part of my daily writing craft. This year I'm starting out with the goal of writing something every day.

Last year I was sporadic at best at putting anything down in words - other than keeping to a strict routine of three handwritten pages in my journal (but having established that writing habit it's exempt from the word count this year!) I struggled with being plugged into the creative ether - going as far as believing my creative flow was being spirited away - but that's a whole different story of paranoia I'll save for another post. As I watched other writers around me flourish, I stagnated. I wanted to write, but I couldn't. The worst bit was I got out of the habit of writing, which made it even harder to get back on the bike to start writing again.

This year, tackling at least two big writing projects I'm confident that I wont be stuck for material to write. I believe the lack of an ongoing writing project was partly the problem last year. Writing short stories sucked me dry - coming up with new characters, new scenarios, twists, turns, hooks and the likes - it was exhausting and I clammed up. At the time I wished that I had some established characters, a chortling story on which I could jump on the back of and whip out my three pages. I know better this year. I have learnt something from the tribulations of last year.

Currently I'm in training for the three pages a day gig. While I'm training my write anything is committing to writing a blog post (or two on a good day), a few pages of Blue Melissae, a new short story or edit/rework an old story. The last item is where the three page rules gets a bit difficult. How do you gauge how many pages you've written, when you are editing and rewriting the same three or four pages for hours at a time?

Last night I was reading a number of blog posts on new years resolutions in writing - the pros, cons, costs and benefits of such lists. One piece of golden advice (and this is where my editing clause comes in) was from Jennie Cromie of The Golden Pencil:a freelancers resource. Jennie's post No Fail Freelance Resolutions: How to succeed in 2009 deals with planning in advance for low motivation days. She writes:

"There will be days when you wake up all motivated and ready to tackle your daily goals, and then several hours later—for some inexplicable reason—you’ll feel like throwing your hands up in the air and chucking the goal, the novel, the article, or whatever you’re trying to accomplish. I call these the “F*&k-Its.” You have to decide how you’re going to handle these moments ahead of time. Because no matter how much you think you want to achieve that dream of yours right now, I guarantee that there will come a time when that shiny new goal of yours becomes a pain in the you-know-what .. For example, if you have the goal of writing a novel and one week into it, you start thinking: “No one’s going to want to read this anyway. Why am I wasting my time? Why even bother?” Then you have to pull out that strategy that you’ve mapped out ahead of time ... The key is to maintain the forward motion toward your goal, no matter how imperfect that forward motion is."

I have decided then on the days when I can't face writing or I'm not motivated - there is always editing to do and if I can't cope with editing my own work there are plenty of other writers that I can do editing work for. And this is where the crux of my success lies on this bullet point.

Other back up plans to stay writing include:

* Julia Cameron's suggestion to use wide margins and large fonts to achieve those three pages on the days when it seems like you wont make it over the line (something to keep in the back pocket as another of those back up plans for the periods of drought).

* Just write anything - if it can't be creative, write a letter or an email to a friend, blog, jot something down in a journal and if you're really stuck - start on next week's shopping list or get an early crack at your Christmas cards. Commenting on Facebook and Twitter statuses doesn't count or else we'd all be start in the mire of social networking and truly never achieving anything.

Writing something also includes good and bad writing. When you've made the committment you can't get precious about the quality when you're in a drought. Bad writing is perhaps more important than good writing because it's harder but keeps the perpetual motion happening in a forwards direct. Sometimes we need to be imperfect to achieve our goals!

And if you're wondering how my committment to writing something every day is stacking up - it's cruising along nicely, but I'm not getting cocky, I'm pretty sure I'm not at the three page ultimate yet and we're only 6 days into the new year. With 12 short stories to edit, and these collection of blog posts I'm not short on writing. We'll see what happens in February. How about you?

Do you have a writing target for the day or the week? If so, what is it? Do you set out a schedule or are you foot loose and fancy free when it comes to picking what to write? What are your fall back strategies for the days when you feel like you can't write?

A Vision In Perpetual Motion: 2008 short story anthology

2009-01-05T14:04:00.004+10:00

My intention when exploring a little further each of my action plan points from yesterday was to do it chronologically - because after all that would make sense, but that's just not the way it's going to happen.

Today is the first day back of the working year for Annie and I with our partners (patrons-of-the-arts) back at their desk jobs. First cab off the rank was to decide which of the stories we'd written over the last year we'd put into our 2008 anthology.

Late last year our ebook Reclaim Sex After Birth: the survival guide was added to the list of books on the Buy Australian Books website which was created to support homegrown writers. As I was looking through the lists of authors and books an idea sprang to mind - what if Annie and I as emerging Australian writers were to compile a best of from 2008, package it up as a downloadable ebook and market it through the Buy Australian Books site. All it would cost us was our time and perhaps we might find a market for our short stories.

And that's exactly what Annie, Paul and I are in the process of. I'm grateful for the fact that in August I audited all the stories that I had - so I had an almost up to date list of stories to choose from. (Note: If you don't have a list of your work - I really recommend that you do it, sooner rather than later.) I also had the moment of wondering if I had 10 stories good enough to contribute to an anthology - guess what? I was pleasently surprised. Reading back on lots of them I had forgotten how good some of them were - but also how terrible some also were. After whittling it down, then expanding it out, and whittling it down again I came up with a dozen stories - one for each month of the year.

I'm proud to announce that my list of short stories for inclusion will be:

24
Pegasus
Haefestus
Hiesha
Intercontinental
Repatriation
The Giant Falls
A Valentines Tale
Andrew Said
Deck the Balls
Don't Tell, Alice

and a twelfth currently unnamed story from last years photo competition at Write Anything. Hopefully it will be a good range of work that I have done - though there isn't any sci-fi in there because of the nature of the pieces - they don't stand alone.

Next job is to get them edited up, proof read and laid out ... all the things that as a writer I have been avoiding like plague. I have been selective in what I have chosen. I've have kept a small stock of stories for submission to competitions and for other publishing projects that are in the wings - and I've also steered clear of anything that came in two parts, or was part of a larger body of writing (such as any of the Adam and Eve stories - thus no sci-fi!)

If you want to read any of these stories for free - your time is running out. In the next week or so they will all be taken down off the blog forever.

At this point in time guesstimated price for the anthology will be $15-$20 Australian dollars and will be compatible with Kindles, iPhones and other hand held reading devices. The anthology will be available through this blog (and my soon to be launched personal website) and will also be submitted for consideration to Buy Australian Books.

Why do this?

Why not?

Self publishing is cheap - I have the programs, the expertise and the material. It makes sense.
Traditional publishing opportunities are becoming rarer, especially for emerging writers - so if we don't create or seize the opportunites presented by new techonology, we're going to be left behind.
There's the possiblity of making a buck - and wouldn't it be lovely to say that I get paid to write.
Creating this puts it out to the Universe that I not only want to be read, but I want to be paid for what I write. And that I am serious about what I do.
It establishes a publishing history for my work and creates a publishing profile for some other endeavours waiting to be born.

Without this anthology these stories would simply be gathering virtual dust on my blog or on my hard drive, which doesn't do justice to these great stories, to the time and effort that I've put in, or for my professional development as a writer.

I'll be back with an update on this project and would love your feedback also.

Do you have a collection of short stories doing nothing big? What are you planning to do with them?

2009: A Vision in Perpetual Motion

2009-01-04T18:52:00.005+10:00

Earlier on in the week I posted my (fictional) list of Anti-Resolutions for 2009. You can also find a rather humorous one posted by Annie here.

As one door closes, another one opens - but inbetween there is a pause, a sort of slow moving action where you are neither open nor closed. That's the space for me between the new year and the old year as posed by the few weeks difference between the Western New Year and that in the East. And this is where I currently find myself - and why it's day four of the new year and I'm posting my draft vision for the new year.

In any type of business, preparation for the coming financial year, should include a pow wow about the future direction of their business/company and what they would like to implement/achieve/secure. This year I feel like I am venturing out of the cocoon like phase I spent most of 2008 years in and as consequence I want to plan and chart a course, rather than be lost in a sea of creativity - hoping for the best.

This year I’m calling my list resolutions an action plan (in keeping with my general theme for 2009 of ‘ACTION’) – but I guess I could equally call it my navigation guide to writing in 2009 or some other obnoxiously nautical title. Alternately I could christen it a vision statement (but not the sort of wanky ones that make no sense on the back of loads of business cards). I guess its a rose by any other name .. does it really matter what I 'call it'?

My ideas about the New Year are always a work in progress between late December and last January/early February when the Chinese New Year kicks in. Unlike last year though – I’m committing definitive objectives to The Universe (and making them public) on the back drop of the theme of action and kicking them in from January 1, rather than waiting for the Chinese New Year on January 26th. I intend to use the remaining 22 days until the Chinese New Year (the golden year of the ox – and I just so happen to be an ox so I’m just a tiny bit excited about this year) to reflect and contemplate on 2008, tidy up my writing space and I guess, use this time as a rehearsal and planning period for the rest of 2009 – like any good manager would!

Without further ado I unveil my action plan for 2009.

1. Write something every day – building up to three pages a day

2. Participate in [Fiction] Friday every week

3. Read two books a month (or a minimum of 600 pages)

4. Complete a manuscript

5. Enter a minimum of four competitions

6. Have a minimum of 2 fiction and 2 non fiction pieces published

7. Compile an electronic anthology of my best short stories from 2008.

8. Get my ‘Chinese Whispers’ novelette/anthology off the ground.

9. Begin writing my part of the Blood Sister project.

10. Commit to a schedule of professional development

11. Complete the series of articles for the Reclaim project on ‘Reclaiming Your Space’

12. Watch one movie a week

13. Participate in the National Novel Writing Month.

Over the next two weeks I’ll explore them further in individual posts.

What is your action/business plan or list of resolutions for writing in 2009?

Image: Remedios Varo's Despedida

Celia

2009-01-02T23:03:00.003+10:00

This weeks prompt:
Take a favorite character you have created. Pick a New Year’s Resolution that they truly intended to keep. Now, why did they break it within 24 hours?

“Celia!” Davis’s voice disappered in the backstage humdrum.

Black cases of various shapes and sizes lay in the stuffy corridor. He smiled at a musician he recognised standing in an open doorway puffing away on a cigarette. A group of three men blocked the hallway, talking and smoking off the pre-show jitters. A blonde with her hair in rollers, pushed past them showing off a pair of shapely contra nylon legs ending in a fabulous pair of silver high heel slippers. One of the musicians wolf whistled and she turned around to grin suggestively at them. As she spun around she slammed into Davis.

“Damn you Davis. You gonna do someone some damage.” She slapped him on the chest and then pulled the tie on her silk dressing gown tighter around her tiny waist. Davis almost caught a glimpse of her right breast through the open V of the red slip.
“You seen Cec?”
“Haven’t seen her since last night hun. You know Cec.”
“Yeah I know Cec.”
“Stop worrying hun. She’ll be here. She always is.” And she was off, in a wake of heady perfume, wolf whistles and sighs.

No one had seen Celia since they’d parted ways at the club the night before, Celia steadying herself on the arm of a dashing yanky solider as they’d walked out into the freezing air. But weren’t they all charming he grumbled when they came offering boxes of chocolates, stockings, lipstick and jazz records direct from the US. None of it booty he could possibly match on his manager’s wage. He rode the wave of Celia’s popularity to ingratiate himself with the fairer sex and carried a walking stick, lying about an honourable discharge from the air force.

Waving about her glass in the lead up to midnight, with champagne sloshing from side to side, and occasionally all over whoever was close by, Celia had giggled and hiccupped her way through her list of new years resolutions. The crowd of hanger ons laughing as she messed up her counting.

“I mean it Davis,” she’d said, leaning heavily into him and emphasing her point by speaking directly into his ear. “No more booze after tonight dah-ling.”

They’d been arguing about it her drinking in the dressing room before the New Years Eve show. Celia had been so tanked she could barely walk on stage. How she managed to belt out song after song was beyond him. On stage she was a consummate performer and seductress. Behind stage she was nothing better than a lush in a fancy fur coat.

He could hear Glenn Miller blaring from behind her dressing room door. The door was shabby looking despite the self styled gold star that Celia had stuck on it. She’d heard that’s what all the female movie stars in Hollywood did.

Davis didn’t even bother to knock.

- - -
“You stupid bitch!” The needle of the record player screeched across the record as Davis grabbed at it.

She tried to look up to see where the voice was coming from and who it was, but her head pounded. Naked, on all fours, she instead stared into a pool of her own vomit.

Her head swum as she tried to say something then her stomach convulsed once, and then twice, the foul smell of bile burning nose. A rough hand unbalanced her and she crumpled back against the wall, half sitting, half lying. Despite the rancid smell he squatted down and got right up in her face, anger erupting from every nook and cranny of his face.

“You promised me that you would give it up Cec – and here you are, all boozed up worse than last night. Christ!” He pulled out a white hankerchief and covered his nose with it, stepping in the pool of sick as he stood up and backed away. “It’s in your hair .. it’s -” He was gesticulating wildly making it difficult to keep the starched linen clamped over his nose

Stuffing the hanky back into his pocket he dragged her to her feet and hustled her the torn seat in front of the mirror illuminated by only half a dozen of the light bulbs that surrounded it. She looked out at him disorientated, as though she didn’t even recognise who the hell he was.

“You couldn’t go for just one day without a drink. Just one day. So much for your new years resolutions Celia – they’re not worth the air used to make them with. Because in the end – that’s all they are Cec, air. Fucking worthless air.”

He turned away from her and paced around the pool of yellow stink on the floor. She’d never been this bad. And he hadn’t been able to find Peggy. He had to find Peg. She’d be able to pull Cec together before the show – get her cleaned up, sobered up, made up and dressed to kill. there was a ball room full of yanky punters who'd all paid to see Cec sing. He’d put a rumour out down the hallway that Cec was under the weather from last night’s festivities and try to beg another half an hours grace.

“You’re going on tonight there whether you like it or not – whether you can or not.” His breath smelt of peppermints. “If you don’t perform, you don’t get paid and if you don’t get paid I don’t get paid. You’re not famous enough yet Celia that you wont get dumped like some talentless starlet for this sort of carrying on.”

She blinked once or twice, but said nothing - the usual vitriol absent from this confrontation. “I’m going to find Peg. At least get something on before Peg gets here. Try and have a little bit of self respect.” He spat on the floor and stalked off in the directin of the door.

He heard her cough and then croak.
"Is the trumpet player here tonight?”
He paused with the knob clasp tightly in his hand. He’d never heard her be so polite when she was tanked, nor give a rats arse about any of the musicians in the backing band. “You’ve got bigger things to worry about sweet heart than whether or not Charlie is here tonight.”

The door slammed close and she looked around.
Celia?

Feeling her internal equilibrium return she looked up at the show posters on the wall. It was like staring at her reflection. Celia had her face. She checked back in the mirror. She was a perfect match for Celia. Then came the startling realisation - she was Celia.

Anti-Resolutions

2009-01-01T17:05:00.005+10:00

Last year Dale from Write Anything shared his list of Anti-Resolutions to bring the New Year in. He has shared another list with us this year.

I had an attempt at it last year but they all just came off sounding sappy, naff or both so I never got around to compiling my list of Anti-Resolutions. This year I'm up for it.

1. I will not buy a Barmix for the expressed purpose of blending my vomit in the sink so it slides more easily down the plug hole.

2. I will not take up a highly paid position with Phillip Morris and in essence sell my soul to the devil. Nor will I sell it to his hench men at Monsanto, Tate & Lyle, Nestle or GalaxoSmithKline

3. I will not sell my son into slavery in a salt mine (though he'd better watch himself!)

4. I will not buy a box of wanky highbrow literature to fill my book shelves with and pretend I know something about all of them.

5. I will not buy a pair of exotic and ridiculously expensive high heels shoes to traverse the streets of Brisbane in.

6. I will not poo in the pool.

7. I will not secretly store and freeze my partners semen and sell it on the blackmarket to desperate lesbian couples and single women who can't get access to reproductive assistance in australia.

8. I will not drink scotch and pretend that I like it just so I can look cultured.

9. I will not keep my house spick and span so that I can be the model housewife.

10. I will not suggest to my partner that a relocation to the Democratic Republic of the Congo sounds like a fun and exciting prospect for our family.

What you put on your list of Anti-Resolutions?

Writeapalooza: The best for 2008

2008-12-31T17:27:00.006+10:00

Janie at Write Stuff wrote yesterday about sharing your favourite 10 articles/stories for the year. Paul followed suit and I've been mulling since yesterday about what could constitute mine. Part of me feels like I haven't possibly produced 10 great pieces of work this year (says the critic) but this isn't necessarily about 'great' work (sit down critic) but what I've enjoyed writing and working on.

So here are my list of ten.

Demon Lover
This was written on the knife edge of a deadline and is truly one of those miracle stories that is 'gifted' from the creative ether. Literally downloaded in less than 90 minutes (with almost no alterations) it was my exploration of what happens when you compromise your ethics and reset your boundaries - just how far do you go before you stop. I'm hoping in the new year that I will be able to push the boundaries of this story a little further with a short film adaptation.

Mercurial Madness
This short story was intended as my dig at the medical profession and while it has elements of that, it also explores the downfall of one woman who has all her bad karma come home to roost when she most needs help. This will hopefully be the flagship story of a new writing project in 2009.

Naphta's Mountain
Spawned from a Fiction Friday prompt, this was the first piece of fiction I wrote after reading 100 Years of Solitude and my first dabble into magical realism - a genre I would like to explore more of in the new year. This is the story of Naph and an old man who sits in his kitchen and the ethical dilemma faced when confronted with the opportunity to leave the city with some misappropriated relocation visas. Set in post apocalyptic Brisbane it was the beginning of my exploration of what Brisbane may look and how it may function after 'the end of the world'.

Voodoo Cowboy: Part One
Using the Cat Empire's song Voodoo Cowboy as inspiration this was my first conscious foray into writing speculative fiction. It may not necessarily work fanastically as a story as it stands. It contains dream elements (lettuce juice), unlike Demon Lover which was based entirely on a dream. I love the idea of my cowboy - a dude with no pigment in his skin, who is travelling on a horse, across the blazing world, descimated by global warming who is coming into his own as a shaman. I haven't managed yet to write about the guy he came across who tried to trade him Tag Heuer watch for a bottle of water. Perhaps my dig at commericalism/consumerism and where it will eventually lead us!

A Giant Falls
My modern adaptation of Jack and the Bean Stalk. It was written at the beginning of the demise of Eddie Groves (of ABC Learning Centres fame) and could possibly be further explored because it was impossible to fit everything I wanted into such a short piece. This was another contribution to Fiction Friday.

Repatriation
Hobbled together from 10 snippets of conversations harvested from a cafe visit, this story was both challenging and fun to write - and it turned out far better than I could have hoped. It follows the first assignment post facial reconstruction surgery, of operativeAudrey as she repatriates retired operative Kingsley. The twist comes as a reminder to us all - that you should be careful in every move you make and every decision that you bring to the fore, because you never know who it is that is watching your back. It was definitely influenced by having seen the remake of Get Smart (one of my all time favourite TV shows as a kid) at the movies.

Intercontinental
Was one of a number of short stories that dredged up bits from my past and processed them in fiction. It was also one of a raft of short stories that had me exploring the use of the first person point of view which was something that to date (this was the early part of the year) I hadn't been comfortable with as a writer. Combined it was part of my writing that pushed me into professional and person places of discomfort.

Untitled
This was the original name given to this piece - I think since it's been through various name changes and I think it's currently called '24'. I loved writing this because I knew the ending that I wanted and it was a trip for me to create the tension, the build up and then deliver the final horrific blow. Voila! The best element of this story though, was getting the feedback - to discover that I had created what I had set out to make.

Evie
Of all the stories that I've worked on this year - this has had the most amount of time and effort ploughed into it. The link is to the original story. Since posting this it's under gone a major metamorphosis. Evie (now named Graceville) is the most experimental of my stories and pushes the boundaries I believe, written in all three points of view to delinate each of the three characters. I intended to submit it to the One Brisbane Many Stories competition, but decided that I didn't have it in me to rewrite the final section by the deadline. Evie/Graceville taught me more about writing and perserverance than any other piece of writing this year and it will never be forgotten - even if it never makes it into the published sphere.

Hiesha
Takes a scenario straight out of my highschool years and fast forwards about fifteen or so years. The premise was to write about a character who had been wronged and never got over it. I also drew on a conversation I was privy to in my early 20's between a boyfriend at the time and one of his old school mates who was talking about seeking revenge on those at boarding school who teased and tortured him. I was surprised that so many years on from high school he would consider it worthy of air time - let along energy to plot and scheme. It also brings into question - just how safe are our identities are now that so much of our personal information is storied digitally.online. Just how easy would it be for one person to be wiped from existence?

Honourable mentions ....
Additionally I have to mention two other projects that have been off and on all year - 'Adam & Eve' and 'Captain Juan'. Half a dozen short stories born from my attempt to get my head around Adam and Eve in preparation for NaNo. But I realised that it was too big for NaNo and it's on the backburner for 2009. There is more research to be done, more exploration of my characters, an incomplete world to build - you get the idea. But having shared the concept with a couple of people they all assure me that it's a novel/story that must be told - so I am being held accountable for my ideas.

Captain Juan was my writers candy for the year. If I am completely honest - I loved writing Captain Juan more than I have ever loved writing anything in my entire life. At this point in time, I dont and can't imagine a professional life as a writer without Captain Juan and I thank Paul for bringing him to life in the first place and to Annie for bringing us all together to write Captain Juan as a collective. The absolute highlight of my year!

You will notice all the pieces referenced here are ficton pieces. While the bulk of my published work is non fiction (this year) I have to admit that I don't particularly enjoy writing it (especially the last piece I wrote 'The Path Lest Trod" for DTB) and I find that it saps my creative strength.

So cheers to 2008 - a year I still feel quite ambivalent about and bring on 2009 . I'll be back tomorrow with my list of '5' - books, CDs, movies and people who shaped my 2008.

PS: having compiled that list I feel a little better about my writing year as a whole!

Image found at Crux and Flux

A Year in Review

2008-12-30T17:04:00.007+10:00

It's that time again when we pause and look backwards to see how we've fared. As this blog is now given over to writing and associated musings I wont go back over things of a personal nature - though I'm finding it hard sometimes to decide where a certain blog post would go (which was the beauty of having one combined blog where everything could go).

Rather than choose to have a list of resolutions or goals in 2008, I decided to pick and theme and to live my life by that instead. The theme I chose was AUTHENTICITY. Almost twelve months on it seems to be both a foreign idea and a familiar concept. In terms of writing, authenticity meant being true to my calling as a writer. Firstly to call myself a writer and establish with friends, family and strangers alike that it is my vocation. It still feels weird when I am introduced by others as a writer or when people ask 'what do I do' and I reply 'I'm a writer - and a Mum.' Neither are more important than the other so I make a point of mentioning both. Without becoming a mother I would never have realised (or perhaps it would have just taken a hell of a lot longer) my dream of being a writer and without writing I probably wouldn't deal with the rigours of motherhood.

Secondly it meant turning up to the page. For most of the year I've written morning pages every day - though this habit sadly went by the way during November and I haven't yet managed to reclaim it, even though I miss it sorely. I wanted to committ something to the page each week for [Fiction] Friday but I felt keenly the drain of writing short stories, of coming up with new characters and scenarios. I tried numerous tricks, books, prompts but midway through the year my creativity seemed to dry up. My creativity is back and I am also spending time rewriting and working old stories ready for publication somewhere?

Which is a beautiful segue into - thirdly, authenticity meant getting published. Sitting around on my hard drive or reaching a limited audience through this blog isn't enough. I sold my first ever piece of work with relative ease in March with the publishing of my first short story 'Demon Lover' through the Getting Hitched website. I ended the year with a rejection of my short story 'Deck the Balls'! I embarked on a self publishing endeavour with Annie to create Reclaiming Sex After Birth: the survival guide. It is probably the most difficult, demanding and ultimately rewarding project that I have ever been part of. And the journey will continue into the new year.

Authenticity as a writer has almost meant this year recognising that I will never truly be happy just as a writer. There is an innate pull towards publishing for me. There was an offer this year to do editorial work for a fleghling magazine which after lots of consideration I turned down - not wanting to be consumed and working for someone else's dream.In giving up Down to Birth, space opened to conceive new publishing projects - two of which are simmering impatiently on the back burner waiting for their birth in 2009. Replacing my passion to support the homebirth community (which will in essence never totally die) has been a committment to support up and coming writers, which these two projects do. Undoubtedly you will hear more about them very soon.

It's also meant investing in myself as a writer. This year I bit the bullet and became a member of the Queensland Writers Centre and attended The World Building short course run by Sonny Whitelaw in preparation for the National Novel Writing Month. There were others courses I would have liked to have participated in - such as the short story critiquing course but holidays and others piece of life got in the way. I spent a wonderful three days in Byron Bay during the Writers Festival which is most definitely one of the high lights of my professional year.

Authenticity for me has finally meant letting go of preconceived ideas of what it means to be a writer - namedly that writing is a solo activity. I've had the honour of collaborating with Annie Evett on two projects and Paul Anderson on one - with Captain Juan being the highlight of my writing year. The crazy pirate story was my creative life blood during my drought mid year and I look forward to spending more time aboard the La Gongoozler in 2009 side by side with Annie, Paul and the motley cast of many.

Aside from the theme of authenticity I did have some concrete goals. Firstly I wanted to have two fiction and two non fiction pieces published - which was almost achieved within the first few months of the year. Writing my final editorial for Down to Birth in late January was not my final contribution this year - with two more articles published there and another article published in the GAIA newsletter. I didn't make up the second fiction publication as a magazine I submitted to didn't end up going to print. I have a couple of short stories in the wings that I will pursue publication for in the new year.

Secondly I wanted to learn to build a website. It's something that I've always wanted to learn and I got to learn by default through the Reclaim Project. I see writing and web design going hand in hand and it puts me in good stead for the projects that are waiting to see the light of day in the new year.

Lastly I wanted to participate in NaNo again this year and am thrilled with the outcome, almost 52,000 words and completed in 24 days. Most importantly though the fact that I want to continue to write the manuscript that I started. Blue Melissae will hopefully be my first completed manuscript in 2009.

All in all - it's been a bit of a biazarre and very definitely a '1' year where I've oscillated between feeling as though I've achieved nothing and done more than I could have ever anticipated. I'm not even sure if I feel as though I'm out of my cocoon that I went into at the beginning of the year, but do get the feeling that I am nibbling my way out ready to emerge into something bigger and better.

So what for 2009? More on that tomorrrow.

Image is the authenticity mandala from Beth Budesheim and can be found at Painted Journeys

Speeding to the finish line

2008-12-29T19:17:00.006+10:00

Surprisingly, this post isn't about the downward slide into the new year. This is about what seemed like the monumental task last night - to finish off Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver before this year ends.

At the beginning of the year, along with a committment to write, I put up the goal to read one book a month. At the time it seemed an impossible goal because I hadn't read more than a handful of books each year since Dylan was born. I realised though the writing and reading go hand in hand, and if I was serious about writing, then I needed to get realistic about reading.

In March the ante was upped from one book to two. With the exception of November, I've kept to it. In reality it means one short book and one long book - approximately 600 pages a month -which is where I don't feel so bad for completing one book in November (Snow Crash) - it was 400+ pages long and I took a fair bite out of Quicksilver as well. Deciding to take up the mantle of the 900+ tome during NaNo was short of madness, but well, whoever said that writers were sensible people.

There have been a few months where, like this month, it' a race to the finish line. The month that I read 100 Years of Solitude I closed the book a few minutes short of midnight on the final day of the month. I decided yesterday when we returned home from the Sunshine Coast and the Christmas festivities that I couldn't take Quicksilver into the New Year (bad omen, poor committment to my own standards, the fear that I will never finish it etc etc etc). With a few quiet days between Christmas and the New Year, I've laid myself on the bed and made it a priority to finish it. I also let my long suffering partner know that I 'have' to finish it before the end of the year.

What I've realised in this cram style session of reading, is I've missed the beauty and pace of most of the book because I've read it piecemeal over the past seven weeks. The plot's been diced up, I've forgotten who was who (with a cast of near hundreds that's easy to do), the build up to the action has been lost and the intrigue blunted.

Quicksilver has challenged me in ways I haven't been challenged in years. It's the thinking person's literature - a massive and impressive web of 17th century history, royal/noble genealogy, natural philosophsy (science), political intrigue and some of the best characters I've met in a very long time. One of the things I love most about Stephenson's epic book (which won the Arthur C Clarke prize in 2004 for Science Fiction) is that fact he uses many of the old spellings of words - such as connexion and phant'sy to name two. His turn of phrase is also brilliant. Hats off to Mr Stephenson also for reinventing the genre of 'science fiction' - because this is exactly what his work with the Baroque Cycle is fiction about science - with a generous side serving of piracy, royal debauchery, sex, twists, turns and recreation of some of the greatest names in history from that time.

With two more days to go I think I'll make it across the line, possibly mentally fatigued, probably left hanging on a plot ledge wanting to immediately go out and buy book two but already committed to a break with a Nick Earles' novel.

I'll be back before the 31st with a few lists - as it's been a year of lists and potentially a list of a few writing resolutions which will take full flight on the Chinese New Year (which I really should go and check the date of). Until then ... keep on reading :)

Deck the Balls: Part 2

2008-12-23T00:00:00.000+10:00

When I arrived for the wedding solo everyone assumed Brian, my London-based boyfriend, would accompany me. I said he was caught up with work. So they assumed he’d finally join me for Christmas this year … and I let them. Now all I can see is the empty place setting at the table beside me tomorrow and the sea of accusing looks. My mother, accompanied by Annaleise and the Aunties, will drag out the well rehearsed litany of recriminations - such hits as ‘you’re too fat/skinny, too clingy/aloof, too prudish/exhibitionist’ - no wonder I can’t hold onto a boyfriend.

This year there’ll be a bonus track, ‘Why can’t you just get married like your sister Annaleise.’ Depending on how many rum balls I’ve quaffed, I’ll either back away with the lie ‘I’m happy being single’ or attack with something like ‘because I’m responsible and use birth control.’ It doesn’t really matter though, witty, scathing or pathetic - I may as well be mute. They made their minds up about my love life years ago. God’s way of damning me here on Earth.

But there’s Gran. She’s always on my side, promising me that the right man will coming knocking on my door one day. Then Mum, Annaleise and the Aunties will all have to eat humble pie. I thought that guy was Brian.

I offered to clean out my savings to buy Brian a ticket to fly to Australia. Just one Christmas – was it really that much to ask? You can justify in any number of ways, sex with your ex, even after adding a new girlfriend to the equation, but Christmas … Brian drew the line at that.

Then two days ago a tiny parcel, badly wrapped in Christmas paper arrived in the post from Brian. I surmised that his conscience finally got him. I wanted to believe Brian capable of feeling guilty for the litany of love crimes he’d perpetrated in our three year relationship. That he wanted to make it up to me.

So I dream it is an engagement ring and he will fly in to propose to me on Christmas Eve. The accompanying note had said: Open at home midnight Christmas Eve – Brian
It’s definite - I’m deluding myself.

But why the hell I’d want to get engaged to Brian at this point or any other point in the future is beyond me in the rational moments. I blame it on Christmas. The pressure of family expectations and the repeated screenings of Love Actually have made me want to believe in Christmas miracles – even if in reality they would suck.

It’s half an hour shy of midnight. I take a huge swig of rum and coke then refrigerate the rum balls. The MacAveny clan will be piling into their Holden Commodore station wagons and sedans to make the pilgrimage to St Patricks.

The credits for Carols by Candlelight roll when I flick on the TV. I settle into a hand-me-down easy chair that smells of cat pee and mildew, congratulating myself on finally saying NO to my family and midnight mass! It’s fifteen minutes into Love Actually, fourteen minutes short of midnight when the knock comes. I hit the pause button, struck by the impossibility of the situation.

If I call out and it is a minion sent by my mother to collect me for Mass I won’t be able to pretend that I’m not home. But if I stay silent Brian won’t know that I’m home. And the front door doesn’t have one of those useful peep holes.

Finally, after a second round of thumping I go to the door. It’s not family - MacAveny’s don’t thump.
“Hello?” It’s a male voice and my heart skips a beat.
Brian - I forgive you for being a love rat!
“Hello?”
But the voice isn’t Brian’s. I open the door a fraction and peer out.
“Rebecca MacAveny?”
“Yes.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry, ummm, Christmas to you too.”

There’s an extended period of time, which might actually be shorter than I perceive it to be, where we just stare at each other. I ponder the possibility that Brian’s sent me a Santa Stripper for Christmas. He has the red hat on his head, a silly grin on his face. Brian wouldn’t! Then I correct myself – he would!

Then I see the huge backpack at Santa’s feet.

“You got Brian’s note didn’t you?” His Irish accent registers for the first time.
“Yea-ah?”

Irish Santa looks down at his watch and a stream of Gallic expletives I’ve never heard fly. I catch something about daylight savings, then he finally mutters, “immaculate timing Grogan!”

“You’re not Brian, and I’m guessing you’re not Santa … or a stripper?”
He pulls the hat off his head. “Sorry.”

I’m totally confused and wonder if I’ve inhaled too many rum vapours while cooking. “I think I’m … missing something here?”
“Of course … sorry. You haven’t opened up the parcel yet. I’m Hamish Grogan.” He reaches out a massive hand and crushes mine. “Brian sent me as your Christmas present.”
“Brian sent you, to me, for Christmas?”

Hamish nods like one of those stupid knickknack with their head impaled on a spring.
“Brian paid for you to travel to Australia to have Christmas with me.”
“He said it was actually more to do with your family. And he asked it as a favour – I was coming here anyway.”
“Of course you were.” And I weep tears of relief.

***
“Rum ball love?” Gran and I are prone on an ancient banana lounges watching a boyish bloke being chased by an over-enthusiastic group of small children, fuelled by more sugar than their small bodies can cope with.

“They’re good,” she says offering me the plate. I know and she should ease up on them, but I don’t know how to tell her. She’ll be intoxicated if she eats any more and then I’ll be accused by Mum, Annaleise and the Aunties for conspiring to get Gran drunk.

“It’s sort of like second prize in a chook raffle - when you’re a vegetarian,” and she laughs at her own joke and pops another ball in her mouth. “And if Hamish said that Brian said he owed you, I’d consider it a debt well paid.” She passes the plate to me.

“I like him.” Of course she does – Hamish is Irish. “But tell me - what shall we call him tomorrow?”

Tomorrow? I’m struggling with today!

Hamish is standing at the esky with his trademark grin and blows me a kiss. I see Annaleise miming a vomit.
“That looked genuine.”
“The vomit or the kiss?” and I take a rum ball, pause, admire my handiwork then Hamish’s butt thrust in the air as he bends down for another beer. “I think we’ll call him Hamish tomorrow.”
“Fine idea,” agrees Gran.

Deck the Balls: Part 1

2008-12-22T01:05:00.001+10:00

I’m not sure what’s more annoying?

Annaleise’s diatribe sounding as though she’s channelling our mother - like her, she’s not coming up for breath, or the rum balls. They’re tragic. The ones I’ve managed to fashion look more like mutant globules from outer space than Christmas delights. Annaleise drones on. I try to ignore her and extricate the sticky mess that now resembles a rampant form of leprosy.

Merry Effing Christmas!

This was why I had planned to stay in London this Christmas. I didn’t care if I celebrated alone. But Annaleise spoiled it, forcing me to use my emergency return ticket six weeks before Christmas, for her surprise wedding.

“Annaleise – your bum seems to have found its way onto the bench again.”

It’s the possibly the only thing I have in common with my mother, the objection to Annaleise randomly parking her behind on the kitchen bench. She slides off awkwardly with a pout that sits poorly on her adult lips.
“Man you’re anal!”

I attempt to scoop another teaspoon of the rum rich mixture and roll it into a ball, but the situation has deteriorated further. My hands are now tar and feathered with dough and desiccated coconut. If these things don’t look edible there will be no clandestine supply of rum for me tomorrow.

At Christmas there’s always someone counting my drinks and shooting disapprovingly looks in my direction. No one will think to tally rum balls. If there is no Brian tomorrow I’ll need hard liquor and lots of it. I won’t survive otherwise. It’s OK if the crutch is heavily spiked festive treats.

“You’re meant to wet your hands first.” The advice comes after watching me struggle with the mess for fifteen minutes.
“Are you here for any specific reason Annaleise?” I’ve forgotten if there was a pretext for her unexpected visit.
“I came to remind you about Midnight Mass.” I’m certain she came to snoop and see if Brian is actually here.

I glance over at the clock on the microwave. There’s ten minutes to think up a solid excuse for missing Midnight Mass, then evict Annaleise. An hour to feel guilty about not going; followed by approximately thirty minutes to become so absorbed in Love Actually that I don’t care that my family thinks I’ve disrespected them and deserve to burn in hell.

“I’m not going.”
“You’re expected to go.”
“I’m not a Catholic anymore.”
“What do you mean you’re not a Catholic anymore? You don’t just stop being a Catholic.”
“I’m lapsed then.”
“Lapsed – more like into weird shit!”
“You’re referring to being a pagan I take it?”
“Or you’re not going to mass because of Brian?”
“Thanks for the invite but I’ve already done my Yule worship.”

Two nights earlier I celebrated the summer solstice - alone. My badly constructed straw man burning in the tiny fire I’d illegally lit in the bush near my flat. I remember trying not to transmute the straw man into an effigy of Brian or to feel a certain delight at his fiery demise.

“I’m not talking about your weirdo gatherings. I’m talking about Christmas.”
I sigh with relief at the diversion and wonder how it’s possible we’re from the same gene pool.

I finally get my hands clean to a point where rinsing them won’t clog the sink beyond repair and re-engage with damp hands. My pagan leanings have always repelled me from Father Greg’s mind numbing sermons, but this year it’s more than that. I don’t want to answer questions best left for tomorrow. Plus there’s the mystery of Brian’s gift.

“Chris going this year?” It’s more a statement than a question. The entertainment value of my new brother-in-law, ex professional AFL player, sitting there trapped in the pious embrace of the MacAveny clan, singing off-key Christmas hymns is almost an enticement to go.
“He’s out with friends tonight.”
“So it’s true he’s not really a Catholic then?”
Annaleise snorts.
“Father Greg passed him.” I’d heard only because Dad had a quiet word with Father Greg. “Don’t go getting on your soap box. Just because he’s good with his hands and not his head!”
“Yes well that’s obvious.”

I stare across the pile of potent rum balls to Annaleise’s growing abdomen. I’ve seen enough pregnant bellies on close friends to know that what Annaleise is carrying is not a honeymoon baby, like everyone is pretending it is. She blushes for a moment and then snatches her faux Gucci handbag off the bench, brushing off the accidental dusting of cocoa powder. I pretend that I’m totally absorbed in my gastronomic sculpturing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. You and Brian.”

I’m convinced she’s put unnecessary emphasise on ‘and Brian’. She knows my terrible secret. She can’t wait to revel in the fall out tomorrow.

I don’t look up from my little alcoholic treasures.

“Just let yourself,” and the slamming door reduces my ‘out’ to a mutter.

I should panic but that won’t make Brian materialise. Wham's Last Christmas blares through my iPod, on repeat and I struggle not to cry into the last of the rum ball mixture, wishing it was me soaked in rum.

... to be continued tomorrow

A Christmas Tale - update

2008-12-18T15:21:00.003+10:00

And so it comes to pass that I get my first rejection letter - it seems, only because I chased it up (the cruel irony of that!) I didn't nail the romantic nail on the head(if I am to believe Paul's feedback) ... but I am hoping that it is a story that resonnants with anyone who has ever had anxieties over Christmas, not just of romantic and familial relationships, but all the other things that Christmas drags up for us. It's also a long awaited return to some humour, so I hope it brings some Christmas cheer to all that read it.

I will post the story over two days, automated for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for you all to enjoy.

A Christmas Tale

2008-12-08T23:35:00.004+10:00

It's been many months since I've felt the enthusiasm to attempt to write anything for Getting Hitched (where my short story Demon Lover is published).

As a paid gig, you think I'd spend each month trying to spawn some sort of literary master piece to woo the editor there with, but after the failed attempt in April to get my email through from Tasmania, I fell off the band wagon of trying and caring. Part of me too I guess feels that writing about relationships (although all my major works are about relationships) is somewhat a lesser art form. I'm a snob - I admit it, so time to get over myself.

The December topic over at Getting Hitched, not surprisingly, is Christmas.

Over the past few days I've been making (or help make) Christmas delights such as rum balls. So this afternoon I had a story begin to take shape in my head, that involved the MC creating rum balls and the sticky mess that congeals on your hands. Merging with this was three conversations that have been had in the space of 12 hours to do with religion and what the Christmas period means in terms of that (those I had the conversations with will probably notice their influences when the story gets published - because I'm being positive here - it will be published!) Plus the usual ups and downs of family life at Christmas time and the pressures that come from it - and the crap that comes out of it!

The voice came from old home town of Ballarat ... the whole idea of wanting to escape the confines of a big town with a small town mentality, of wanting something bigger, schmicker, better - of striking out to find what's yours and knowing it will never be accepted. Ahhhh ... I can hear the tune of my own demons being sung!

But the story needed to have a twist ... and the twist came in the present that was sent to my MC. I wont spoil it, though I will ask:

What is the strangest Christmas gift you have ever received?

Time for a change

2008-11-27T15:27:00.006+10:00

Today on the way back from a speaking engagement at Ipswich I saw on a billboard:

"as one door closes, another opens"

Today Pluto tip toes into Capricorn, where it will spend the next 12 or so years, and the door closes on my dance with Pluto over the past 12 years, including an intense period of having a Pluto transit of my sun. It truly is the beginning of a new era, after a false start earlier on this year.

For months, well if I was being totally honest, since I began blogging and writing seriously, I have resisted the idea of carving my blog up into subject specific blogs I. To me it was buying too much into the idea that you have to market yourself aspect of yourself in a certain way to get an audience. The Ezine site and supporting newsletters goes as far to suggest that you alter your name to put to different articles on different subject matters. Goddess forbid that one person actually know quite a lot about a number of subjects – to be a well rounded, educated and informed individual. Marketing – bah!

I’ve clung to the idea that, what you see is what you get with me and here. It reflects the fact that I am many different people and pursue a number of different roles in life – I am a mother, a writer and a lover of books, I am an observer of life, a tippler in the weird, the wonderful and the fascinating, I’m a feminist who’s spiritual beliefs are firmly rooted in Goddess lore and the wisdom of The Artist’s Way - oh and a sucker for a blog meme. I write articles on menstruation, birth, sex, health/illness, mothering and probably half a dozen other subjects that don’t readily jump to mind right now..

But today - I guess I’ve finally given in to having to segment up this original blog - to fracture myself into separate blogs? Or am I giving each facet of my personality a chance to catch the line and shine? To allow like minded people to find me, to resonate with me work? Perhaps that's what drew me to the painting - first one to jump out at me when I typed in "change painting" into Google Images. Maybe it's telling me its ok to expose individual parts of me?

Sigh! Only the Universe knows.

As a consequence I'll begin stripping the personal content from this website and shifting some of it over onto the next website. Perhaps the rest just needs to be archived out of view? Anything that has shifted, I will provide links to.

Well I shall give it a go. After all that’s all really one can do. And since, for me, this is the path less trod … it’s probably time to go exploring here a little.

Where to go from here:

You can now find my personal musings at Shine A Little Light, which will also include my photography.

This blog here will remain my writing blog, for fiction, non fiction and other articles related to writing.

I also have Blue Melissae which is my (winning) NaNo 08 project which will have more chapter posted up over time.

And the Reclaim Sex After Birth website and associated blog.

Painting: Unknown Artist - but found at this wonderful Urban Butterfly blog

Rickshaw

2008-11-15T12:31:00.001+10:00

_______ Shet stopped by the next NewsFeed post she came to and stood for a moment trying to get a glimpse of what was on. She didn’t want to push through to the front for a closer view, happy to hang back and see what she could. She timed it and after five minutes, without seeing her face, she set off again looking for a rickshaw. She hailed the first one to go past.

The canopy was a sophisticated solar panel that charged a battery that drove a tiny engine. On a good day some drivers didn’t need to pedal at all.

“I need you to take me to the SpacePort interchange,” said Shet climbing into the pack.
The driver looked at her strangely. He didn’t relish the idea of having to actually pedal most of the way there and back. At 2pm in the afternoon there wasn’t enough charge to get him there and back on the battery.

“Why don’t you just jump on the Solarail out there ma’am.”
“Because it’s a beautiful day and I have some money to burn. And the customer is always correct.”
“If that’s what you want ma’am, who am I to blow off a huge fare in the middle of the day.”
He began to peddle, pulling out into the deserted street heading westwards to connect with the former Western Freeway, to follow the Solarail out to the interchange.

Shet was glad that she had chosen rickshaw to get to the Interchange rather than the Solarail. The Solarail would have got her there in less than 15 minutes. At the current pace it would be at least half an hour before the rickshaw pulled into the Interchange, the driving gagging and struggling to catch his breathe.

The breeze caressed and tousled her hair. The gentle rocking motion of the rickshaw was soothing. Her mind calmed. She needed that. Her whole world had been turned upside down in the same time that it would have taken to have been wined and dined at the Polo Club … and then told that she could still not be given the job. She was used to methodically plotting her course through life. On the moon you didn’t leave things to chance. Leaving things to chance meant death. You checked your distances, you doubled checked your oxygen supply. You planned each job down to the second. You considered and brainstormed salutations to all problems. You thought about and countered potential hazards. Time wasn’t forgiving. If you screwed up, if it took longer than anticipated, if you broke down, got injured there was only so much time and so much oxygen. Then you died. And that made her feel safe, secure.

She’d never had a major incident under her command and she’d certainly never lost a man. She couldn’t say that she’d ever lost a woman … she’d never taken a woman up with her. She’d never given a woman a chance. There had been plenty to choose from, a steady stream of confident, talented and ambitious women coming through and she’d said no to everyone of them. Just what were they willing to sacrifice. Were they willing to make the sacrifices that she had made. She’d decided no, without even asking them. When it came down to it, she was cut from exactly the same fabric as Tennyson.

No job for a woman.

Yet she was confident that she could go into the Polo Club and convince him that she was capable – that she was the only one for the job. That as a woman she could do it. But was she even a woman any more? She never thought of herself in terms of being a woman. She thought of herself as Shet Harmon.

She sat there in the rickshaw, in her crumpled and sweat dampened Chanel suit and wondered who she actually was. Man or woman – or something in between that made even less sense to her. And why did everything have to be reduced down to biology. What ever happened to persona merit.

Now was not the time to get herself into a complicated philosophical debate that ultimately would provide no more answers than she had now, but would twist her mental processes up into knots, cloud her thinking. She needed to think clearly and she needed to think quickly.

She was about to gatecrash the Directorship of her sworn professional enemies. Wasn’t Langely just going to love that? If felt oh so wrong, but oh so right. It gave her a thrill unlike anything she had experience in a long time – since landing on the moon for the first time … since leading a deployment for the first time?

And not only that, she was going to demand that they choose her to go make first contact with aliens on another planet. She was going to insist on being part of a project that didn’t even exist.

Why? Why did she want this so badly, when 24 hours earlier she was chaffing to get back to the Moon, to get back to her team and the end of the project. Why was she ready to give up the accolades that were her due after two years of careful planning, of hard work, of going where no one had gone before to do a job that no one had ever done before.

And that was it. Establishing the Helium-3 mine and overseeing production was never going to make her happy. Her ambitions were currently sated but within a year she would be a manager, behind a desk, running and trouble shooting schedules, transports …

A slow lunar death. She was an adventurer. She pushed boundaries and went places that others were too timid to go.

The fact that it would piss off Tennyson – one of the most powerful, ambitious and well loved men of the Post Apocalyptic period, was just icing on the cake. She was glad that it was straight in her head. Chasing this project was about her, it wasn’t about Tennyson. Because at the end of the day, potentially marooned light years from home she had to drawn on her own individual strength and conviction, not spite for Tennyson.

How she had got herself on a course to undermine and trade blows with a man she had successfully ignored for the past decade was something she had all the time to ponder. To wonder exactly who it was he saw when he opened that door

Love & Rockets

2008-11-12T13:05:00.004+10:00

Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
July 2008

(This is my favourite photo of the year to date ... taken from my car window as I waited as a set of lights in the Valley. I was lucky enough to have black and white film in my camera at the time. Yes I an heathen who still shoots photographs on film)

10 of the best

2008-11-08T20:44:00.005+10:00

Today two things needed to be attacked - the housework and my NaNo work count. I came up with, what I hoped, would be a procrastination proof plan. My plan: 10 minutes of writing, followed by 10 minutes of cleaning. Then I would not use cleaning to procrastinate from writing and visa versa.

I do admit that I was a little curious - would I really be able to do it.

Answer? Yes. It worked a treat.

After the first hour I'd got done just short of 1000 words and I had vaccumed the floor, cleaned the toilet and organised some lunch to heat in the oven. By the end of four hours I had not just vacuumed but also dusted, got rid of a whole heap of clutter on the coffee table (read horizontal filing space!) and in the hidey hold between my desk and the bookcase, I cleared another pile off crap off the top of a tall bookcase and reorganised some ornaments on there. With the free coffee table space I put all our photos down there, and I'm working on creating a new shelf for the bookcase. I also mopped the loungroom, dining, kitchen, hallway, toilet and bathroom (did I mention we have polished wooden boards through our house!), cleared off the dining room table (more crap - I am sure that it breeds like rabbits!), changed the table cloth and got rid of the dried up cat vomit that I'd been stepping around on the way to my desk, pretending that it wasn't there.

And in amongst all of that my story Blue Melissae got VERY interesting. I had a concept that invovles two key characters. I wont disclose here else to spoil the story completely for those that are following it over at word press. At the end of my second writing spurt that concept was challenged with another by one of the characters involved. There was a moment where I thought "No way! You are not going to do that to the story!" That was not the way I conceptualised it and it had some pretty serious ramifications for the rest of the story.

But then I realised, after sitting thinking for a few minutes, that if I resisted my character's history, the direction that they wanted to take it, then I was going to come to blows with this particular characters and it's a character that I dont really want to be at loggerheads with.

So I let it go. I let this character choose the history that suits their story ... and in doing so, I've come up with the ultimate twist for the story. And you know what? It's win win. My character gets their way and so do I. It's also another of those dark moments where a character pushes your boundaries. This character is vile - really vile. And his motivations make my skin crawl - and your's too if you stick with the story until the end.

I am hoping that by tomorrow part one of the story will have been wrapped up and it will be time to jet on into out of space. And thus the next cycle of the story will begin.

I have a couple of ideas about Th-Urn's planet (which remains un-named - I shall let the the Th-Urnians name their own planet). I have a vague idea of how their city will look like, and that it is a dying planet .. but beyond that.

I remain glad that I did very little planning for this - because it makes NaNo the most amazing ride. I never know what my characters are going to do, which way the story will twist and turn. I am constantly shocked and awed by the behaviour of my characters. And while I've been challenged by Shet's lack of emotional landscape to day - I''m looking forward to her getting to the Th-Urn's planet, and for her memories to begin leaking back into her consciousness.

So at the end of Day 8 of NaNo ... I'm happy. I'm creeping towards being 2 days ahead of the NaNo projection ... and my family are happy because the house is clean. If you are struggling through NaNo ... I highly recommended 10 for 10. Take 10 minutes for writing and alternate it with 10 minutes of housework. It really does become win-win.

Note: the cat did not get the once over - like the pic. He was noticeably absent through most of the housework. Though with all the malting he's going at the moment, I should have taken to him with the vac. He might have been sucked up though - considering I finally got around to getting some new vac bags and it was like someone had put a turbo booster into my Miele!

Creative Carnival: Fugue

2008-11-07T23:58:00.005+10:00

The year is some time in the not to distant future. My main character, Shet Harmon - a lunar geologist and engineer, has been summonsed back from an important scientific project on the Moon to meet with the Mayor of New Brisbane about the confidential project that she's been nominated for. Arriving back on Earth the meeting is cancelled, leaving Shet rather pissed off.

In this scene she is returning from a day out driving her car (cars are banned and only an elite group of people have the money to possess and run one as a hobby!) and has been goaded into a rescheduled meeting with the Mayor by his advisor after being told the Mayor refuses to have her onboard because she's a woman. Shet gets on the Solarail and is 'chatted up' by the only other guy in the carriage.

WARNING - this entry contains strong language so if you're offended by such language, best you don't continue on reading!

He half stood as if to move to sit next to her. Shet grabbed her bag and dumped it on the seat beside her, shooting him a challenging look.

“You got a boyfriend?” Shet ignored him, toying with the idea of plugging in her music. “Hey little lady, I’m talking to you. You got a boyfriend.”

Shet played with the idea of telling him she had a girlfriend, but guessed it would just incite him further. “Actually I am a long way from home. I’m normally based on the moon.” At short notice it was the best diversion she had. She’d never been one to have those snapping comments that put people right back in their place.
“Yeah right little lady. Sure you work on the moon.”

He adjusted his crotch with little regard for decency and then spread his legs wide – resting his elbows on his thighs, planting his chin on his hands and staring at her.
“Didn’t your Mum tell you it was rude to stare?” Shet felt it start to build inside her and tried to fight it, to deep breathe it away.

He kept his eyes fixed on her, trying to zero in on her cleavage even though she had a tattered hoodie on. She kept breathing and avoided looking at him.
“I’m not talking about my Mumma little lady. You wanna talk about your Mumma?”
Inside something snapped.
“You know fuckwitt. I’d drop you in an instant if I wanted to. And you are really pissing me off.”
“Yeah right little lady. You look about as dangerous as a fly.”

She looked away, as panic raced through her eyes. She’d have to get off at the next stop and walk back to her apartment. If she hurried she’d make it back before curfew and without arousing the suspicions of the Night Watchmen. The blood began to pound in her ears. Her vision narrowed and she became more acutely aware of the fetid body odour of the pervert across from her and the rich smell of oil. Looking around the carriage she saw that it was just the two of them. There were closed circuit cameras recording every inch of the carriage, on a direct feed back to a control room in the BIP. The TransitCounter had logged the two of them getting on, the time, the location and their citizen number. It placed her on the train.

She groped with one hand for the strap of her bag as an automated voice announced the next station.

They were back in the city limits.

“You don’t have a boyfriend do you little lady. You’re wound up tight – need a good fuck that’s what your problem is?” Shet kept breathing, the blood was thundering in her ears now, her muscles tense with anticipation.

“It’s that damn chip in your brain. All you damn women and that chip.” Her pupils narrowed and there was a sour, dry taste in her mouth. She willed him to shut up. To just shut the fuck up - for his own sake.

The automated voice announced their arrival and the doors opened. Shet never understood why they always automatically opened but this once was relieved to see them slide open of their own free will. Grabbing her bag tight to her chest and launching herself from the seat in one fluid movement, she ran past the sexual prowler who mistimed his lurch, fingers brushing her arm as she flew past him and out on onto the platform. She prayed that he was sensible, that he stayed on the train, but she heard with shocking clarity the footfall of his heavy boots on the concrete behind her. The platforms were all unmanned and unlit beyond 10 metres. She looked up at the camera and saw as she ran past that the light on the camera was red. It was inactive.

The sound of blood forcing itself through her ears drowned out anything else, and she ran, out into the darkness, taking the stairs from the platform three at a time down onto the parkway. Her assailant was faster than she’d given him credit for. But she hadn’t actually sized him up. Racing out onto the parkway she jettisoned her bag, needing both her hands. Any sense of logic had gone, overwhelmed by the black haze.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she tried to put some distance between them. She saw a pole ahead, heard the crack of the advertising banner as the wind caught the material. She took the risk of slowing enough to gauge his distance behind her, and changed her course ever so slightly, her muscles obeying with power and agility. As the pole approached she jumped out to grab it, feeling her arms snap as they took up the momentum and she swung her legs around, bracing with her abdominals and pulled the pole close into her chest to maximise the power of the impact.

Her legs whipped around, horizontal to the ground and her feet crashed into his chest, propelling him backwards. Shet let go of the pole and they moved together through the air, Shet landing crouched over him. Before he could move, register what had just happened, she clenched her fist and jabbed it into his throat, hearing the satisfying crunch of her knuckles crushing his wind pipe. His eyes wide open in disbelief locked into hers and she held them as his body twitched, then went limp. She felt numb … empty ... automatic.

With calculated precision, Shet pulled down the sleeve of her shirt, the one she hadn’t used to soak up the sweat and checked for a pulse. Then she stood, tracked back to where she had thrown her bag, using her hands in the darkness to check the contents of her bag, and then on hands and knees making a quick visual check of the area to ensure nothing that could identify her had fallen out. She stood, surveyed the immediate area, and satisfied that she was still alone, she did some slow stretches to help her muscles cool and her breathing to return to normal. Everything was silent, the rush of blood gone. A night bird twittered nearby. She pulled the backpack over her shoulders and turned the station without a second glance backwards at the dark shape lying on the path behind.

Later, lounging on her king sized bed naked, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, Shet sipped chamomile tea as her computer booted up. With ease she hacked into the Solarail security stream, located the portion of vision she was looking for and deleted it, set up an alternate string of data to make it look like a camera malfunction, checked the vision from the station and any other cameras in the nearby area then cleaned up her own hacking trail.

_____ The NewsFeed screen flashed up the perpetual string of visual and sound bites that constituted news as Shet chewed on a piece of toast, a note pad covered in scribbled ideas pushed to one side. The meeting with the Mayor was in less than two hours.

She amped up the sound with a voice command when she saw a news item about a body found on a residential parkway on the city limits. There was a visual of a lump, covered in a white sheet with words streamed across the bottom - Violent death of a male linked to other parkway deaths? The Commissioner of The Night Watchmen’s voice was overlaid making a statement to deny that this attack was linked to the spate of violent deaths of women in the area followed by the Chief Executive Officer of Solarail commenting that the security system was not working at the time. A viewer commented via text transfer that maybe he was the perp of the other crimes and he’d obviously got what was coming to him. She certainly hoped so.

Shet couldn't remember New Brisbane being such a violent place the last time she was back from the Moon. She was glad that she knew some martial arts to keep herself safe, but she'd be glad to be back on the moon.

Reaching for the second piece of toast, Shet took huge bite out of one corner and stared at the screen. It was happening again. It was as though she was meant to remember something, know something ... a niggling sense in the back of her consciousness, the feeling of something on the tip of her tongue. When nothing came to her, she shrugged her shoulders, took another bite of her toast and glanced down at the points she’d made on the notepad in preparation for the meeting.

KEEP CALM … DO NOT LOSE YOUR TEMPER! .... even if you think the guy is a fuckwitt and you didn't vote for him.

[Fiction] Friday: Dreams

2008-11-07T22:58:00.005+10:00

Dreams actually constitute a really important part of my NaNo story, tentitively named "Blue Melissae", as this is how my MC has her memories restored to her after 12 years. This is the first exploration of that realm.

This installment (which is chapters and chapters ahead of what I am currently writing) finds my MC Shet Harmon on the Planet of the Th-Urn in conversation with her guide Ka-Ru, a young Th-Urnian 'male'. You can read more installments of Blue Melissae here.

“It’s not so much a dream,” she said, “because it’s just voices. I don't actually 'see' anything.And it doesn’t make any sense, if dreams are meant to make sense.”
"Dreams are often symbolic rather than logical."

Shet rolled onto her side and stared deeply into his dark eyes. His eyes willed her to reveal more, but years of silence caught her.
“Why do you not want to talk about them?” he asked, wanting to reach out and touch her, even though he was aware it was inappropriate. He wasn’t even sure what made him want to do that.
“There’s no one to talk to about it for one.” She rolled away, lying on her back and staring up at the stone ceiling, the tiny lights twinkling, in perpetual chemical stasis enabling them to burn indefinitely. The balance meant that one did not consume the other. “And well it would throw out my balance. It’s best for me to pretend that they just don’t occur.”

But it was getting harder to ignore them. When she said it was only voices that was only partly true. On earth they had only ever been voices and occasionally the dream with the Jacaranda tree, waking as though she was being choked, but here the dreams were morphing and taking a life on their own. The voices were merging with music, and there were flashes of images.

She remembered reading about poker machines. One armed bandits they were called before they became electronic, where the punter had to actually pull the arm to set the barrels spinning. Something about being here had sent off something in her, something pulling an arm in her subconscious and she knew sooner or later that all the symbols were going to line up for the jackpot. But something about the moment terrified her. Her subconscious was trying to line everything up for her, every night was another attempt. When it poured forth, like the cascade of coins from the pokie machine she guessed that she would be trying to flee rather that to thrust her hands beneath to catch and scoop it all up.

“This need of yours to – hold on. It is not healthy, no?”

Shet wasn’t sure how long she’d been quiet for, lost in her own thoughts. Ka-Ru was lying beside her, staring at her.
“I said that I don’t have anyone to talk to. It’s healthy for me to keep it to myself. There is a lot I don’t understand and at the moment it’s all really confusing. Being here - has upset the balance.”

“Tell me about the dream Shet.”

His words had a lyrical hypnotic ring, that lulled her long enough to feel comfortable in sharing something.
“The voice, it says that I’m not good enough. It says that Dad left because of me. That it’s my entire fault. And it’s like I’m in a cave, the words echoing but rather than getting softer they get louder, until I can hear nothing and it’s just a chaos of words screamed at me.”

Shet rolled back to see Ka-ru’s face impassive. The Th-Urnian’s lack of facial expression continued to make her feel uncomfortable.
“How is this strange?”
“I have no idea who my Dad was. I was in an accident when I was 17 and I have no memories prior to that.”
“This is something that upsets you.”
“Why should it upset me?”
“I get a sense of it.”
“I’m not upset.”
“You keep your emotions locked away as well.”

Shet got up off the floor. She wasn’t going to have this conversation and she certainly wasn’t going to have it with Ka-Ru. Her emotions, or lack of them were her own business.
“I have a report to write and a broadcast to be sent back to Earth. You’ll have to leave - now!”

Ka-Ru got a sense that he’d pushed too far. He pulled his legs to his chest and then rolled onto the balls of his feet, standing in one graceful movement.
“I apologise if I have upset you Shet,” he said, turning off the translator, bowing shallowly and leaving her room.

Shet didn’t understand why Ka-Ru always managed to zero in on the confusing and uncomfortable parts within her and make a b-line for them. In the morning she’d ask for another guide to be assigned to her.

______ Ka-Ru arrived back in the Empress’s chamber and prostrated himself at her furry feet.
“What of the dreams Ka-Ru?”
“She says they are just voices in her head and denies any emotional connection. They make little sense to her.” He sat back on his feet looking into her deeply furrowed face.
“She is lying. Was there a change in her energy waves? In pheremones. The Old Ones were certain.”
Ka-Ru shook his head.
“Try again.”
“She does not trust me Mother.”
“Make her trust you.”
“Your will Mother.”

Wordless Wednesday: Mumma Milkshake

2008-11-06T07:39:00.004+10:00

My Soul Sister and Goddess Daughter
Wynnum - August - 2008

Quote for the Day: Anais Nin

2008-11-05T22:48:00.004+10:00

And the day came when the risk [it took] to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Photograph: (c) Linda Willets 2004

Day 5 of NaNo

2008-11-05T22:32:00.007+10:00

It's getting a bit predictable these posts ... welcome to November!

It has been an interesting few days for me. More health challenges as my gums heal and my body struggles to deal with the change in diet. Last night I had a stomach upset which just felt like salt in the wounds (actually salt in the wounds is the two hourly mouth rinses with warm salt water and a syringe) I have been feeling more like myself, though I'm still battling to have the same energy levels as I've had in the past. It obviously doesn't help that I'm in the dark moon phase of my own cycles and therefore my body is slowing down and beginning to turn inwards from some introspection. It will be interesting to see what this medical adventure will do to my experience of bleeding this month.

While I've stuggled with my body, I've been struggling with my head also. The clarity and the ease of writing have been anything but. It's been frustrating and disheartening, and it hasn't ben the best way to launch into NaNo for 2008. However I'm relieved that the flow is beginning and the labour of words (finding the right bloody word) is returning. Phew! I'm feeling that this is a 'will do' project - though I have to admit to having not quite fallen in love with my story yet.

I currently have just short of 10,000 for NaNo. I'm keeping up with the pace, despite all that's been going on. Yesterday was a slow day - it wasn't just the day with a race that stops the nation (The Melbourne Cup for those international visitors) but the day that stopped the writing. Thankfully I knew that I was already a head of the game so I didn't worry too much, nor beat myself up for not having made the word target.

This morning I was awake at 6:00am which was cruel considering I'd been up to midnight with stomach pains. I had a shower, got dressed, procrastinated for a good half hour chatting to Paul via MSN and then got stuck into it. Dale, the Tuesday columnist at Write Anything gave some really good advice yesterday ...

Do not count words while you write (I don’t use exclamation points often, but…)! I can’t stress this enough. Writing is difficult enough on its own without letting your unconscious get bogged down with the extra baggage of NaNo. Just write. When you hit a block or run out of time and have to stop, then count. If you’re short of your daily goal, you can pick it up again later.

That's exactly what I did and somehow the words just flowed out. I was hoping to have wrapped up the setting for the story in the first 10,000 words but it seems it will drag a little bit further. There are at least two more scenes that need to be played out first between Shet and Kyle first, then Shet and the two other consortium directors. But it will set it up with the same scenario as I always envisaged ... Shet going off into out space with a thing against Kyle - only in this version (as opposed to the test short stories I did leading up to NaNo) she has no idea who he really is.

I've reposted the Prologue of Blue Melissae here now that I've sorted out the proper order. And I will continue to post 1000 word-ish entries as I go for the rest of the month. So if you have the time or the inclination, please stop by for a read and post a comment.

Photograph: Istockphoto

Day 2 of NaNo

2008-11-02T21:52:00.003+10:00

I felt a little better today than I did yesterday. The swelling has gone on the left hand side of my face and as of this evening, the right hand side is on its way down. I rested lots today and as a consquence missed out on a BBQ next door, but that meant the house was quiet and I could get some sleep!

I didn't get a chance to mention yesterday the awesome cream of chicken soup that Dave made for me - which was finished off tonight. I didn't realise how much I would miss meat and how grateful I would be that someone else would cook for me. Sadly I missed out on Moroccan lamb and a hot chickpea salad for dinner. Rather than torture myself, I took Dylan off to bed and read Monsters Inc instead.

I've cancelled the Women's Wisdom Circle for tomorrow because for once in my life I'm being sensible. If tomorrow goes like the last couple of days - I don't start to feel like I am capable of any other than sleep until about 3pm in the afternoon. While I'm slowly feeling my energy and my resilence building, I don't want to destroy it by pushing myself. What I find most amusing about all of this - is that the site of the tooth extraction is honestly the least of my worries - they are both healing well and offering up little pain.

As long as I manage to keep pace with my NaNo word total (currently standing at 4066 words) and keep healing .. that's all I'm really worried about.

November is here

2008-11-01T19:12:00.000+10:00

Well it has arrived. Just like the sun comes up in the morning, and the moon rises in the evening, after October comes November.

The last few days have been challenging from me - since having my wisdom teeth removed. I struggled both on Thursday and Friday to be able to sleep and then last night, against probably my better judgement, I went out to a Halloween Party. Granted we left early (9:30pm). Today it has been like hitting a wall. I did finally catch up on some sleep, but have felt and been physically shakey all day. Thankfully Dave is cooking me some cream of chicken soup for dinner tonight. The body can only go so far on custard, jelly, yoghurt and scrambled eggs. While I may not know my limits, my body definitely does.

My face has swollen more than it has done since I had it done - I've got a fantastically assymetrical face from one side being more swollen than the other. My jaw is hurting from being clasped while writing and well being a little stressed out from the surgery.

In amongst all that wisdom teeth merde - yes NaNo has started. I decided I'd travel along with main character Shet on her journey from Earth to outerspace, and from no memories to the reclaimation of her memories. The project has been tentatively named "Blue Melissae" but we'll see what happens with it. After month of struggling to try and understand and create an alternate version of Brisbane - sat down this afternoon and there it was. I've been reading Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" and I think that's helped me to see a way in which to conceptualise a world, just a little removed from our own.

I've already killed off one character - Dr Pietersen of Paul's "Salvage the good times" podcasts (I did get permission to use Dr Pietersen- however I never intended to kill him off - that was a complete accident and totally unexpected - don't know what Paul will think about that!)

I wont be publishing all of my NaNo project here. However, if you are interested, you can find the whole blow by blow (including the ??? in places where I'm not quite sure what to say!) at Blue Melissae. I'd love to have you all along for the ride - especially this time around with me playing in a totally foreign genre.

Happy November, Happy NaNo .. and may the good times roll!

Cartoon from Toothpaste for Dinner

From the mouth of babes:transformers vs Mr D

2008-10-31T09:00:00.000+10:00

Mr D often comes out with classic comments and observations, but since I’ve developed in the past, a sense of apathy towards blogging (which I can say, thankfully, has changed) I miss sharing them with anyone. Truth be known, my memory is so bad, that I’ve often forgotten the exact string of words by dinner time. And you’ll agree with me, unless you remember the whole thing, it becomes like a joke with a forgotten punch line … conserve the oxygen!

Tuesday is DVD day for us. We go down in the afternoon and collect up our supply of DVDs for the week (they’re $2 on Tuesdays). Dylan cottoned on at an early age about movie and program classifications (another one of the light bulb moments where he made sense of it all) meaning we’ve avoided the worst of the nagging and explanations about why things are not appropriate to watch, and potential meltdowns that come from all that stuff.

If he wants something that is rated PG (Parental Guidance Recommended) he’ll come to me and we’ll negotiate it. The cartoons of The Ninja Turtles and Transformers are both rated PG, and as a consequence we’ve been able to stop him from watching them – holding him off with the ‘when your older’ or “I don’t want to watch this with you” (which is not a lie!) We have another trouble moderating his obsession with guns without introducing more of it.

So Tuesday, I was cruising for my weekly movie, when I heard his voice coming from the front counter.

“Excuse me,” this little-big voice says. “Why have you put G on Transformers. It’s got guns and violence in it and my Mum and I can’t watch it?” He knows what ‘G’ means and he knows that it’s never on Transformers.

I had to go and interpret for the video store manager, who looked a little perplexed and taken aback but the tongue lashing my four year old had just served him.

First I had to explain to Mr D, that the man behind the counter didn’t choose what ratings went on the DVDs – the manager explained that it’s the Board of Classification that did that. But that didn’t solve Mr D’s dilemma about Transformers being rated G. The best the manager could come up with was that it was ‘just a cartoon’ … like that was going to wash with Mr D. He frogmarched me off to show me the offending DVD, which was a spin off from the original Transformers, which obviously has less violence and I struggled to try and explain it all to the manager who watched on rather amused – or was it bemused?

What I loved about this episode was that a) Mr D discovered the anomaly, b) decided to do something about it and c) did something about it all by himself. He didn’t talk to me about it – he took it up with the person who he saw was responsible for the indiscretion.

Sans Deux

2008-10-30T18:56:00.003+10:00

As I write this I am recovering from surgery - that was about eight hours ago. My tongue, bottom lip and chin are still numb, but thankfully there is no pain at the site of the extractions (sounds so awfully clinical doesn't it?)

I've decided to go with limited pain relief. Because I am allergic to codeine, I'm taking of all bloody things - Naprogesic, which for those who aren't in the know, is marketed specifically for period pain and associated malaise. So I've given myself the goal of four tablets in the next 24 hours and that's it. The surgeon informed me that limited use of pain medication in the beginning actually meant that you used less in the long term, than holding off until the pain was unbearable!

I'm taking regular doses of arnica for the swelling and the bruising, and have been told that the swelling will peak in about two days time. The surgeon (the ever so lovely Dr Walker - and who EVER heard me say a nice thing about a doctor AND a surgeon!) also told me that there are people who get almost no swelling - I'm angling to be in that subsection of the population. As additional support - regular doses of collodial silica to aid with the healing (and perhaps save my hair and skin from the worst effects of the general anaesthetic) and also olive leaf extact to ward off the potential for any infections.

Dr Walker was incredibly supportive of my non use of pain medication antibiotics - giving me all the information that I needed to make informed decisions about their use and what signs to watch for that would indicate infection. I'm hoping to be looking bloody wonderful next Friday when I go back to him and give him the run down on all the natural remedies I've been using.

And no ... I'm not including a lovely photo of myself post op. You can use your own imaginations. I will however say that Annie should watch out should she ever need to be picked up from an operation ... the first thing she did was make me laugh, which is a weird and almost wrong facial function when you are totally numb. At least it made me feel better.

There's also movement (only in my head at the moment) towards one particular project, but I will hold off until the 1st to unveil it ... and I'm definitely, almost, positively sure that I will blog each day's work. I'm feeling as though I need the support of comments and feedback from folk to help me over the line this year in a totally foreign genre.