Facebook and Reading Deprivation

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!

Good Fiction Makes Bad Reality

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.

Time for a change

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

10 of the best

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!

Sans Deux

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.

The Fantastical/Fanatical Dawkins

Paul’s latest blog post F-I-C-T-I-O-N is a reflection on Richard Dawkin’s latest attack. He writes: “If Dawkins wishes to examine whether bringing up children to believe in a religious explanation for the world affects their ability to think rationally about science is one thing, but the Telegraph reports that he wants to look at the effects of "bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards". Underlying that is the belief that when parents read fiction to their children, they are expecting them to believe these tales as unquestionable truth.”

Mr D is four years old and as an avid fan of Doctor Who he is fascinated by time travel, by sonic screwdrivers, aliens, monsters and The Tardis. At the end of the day though, he knows that it’s make believe. How so – well, we told him. That hasn’t stopped him enjoying watching Dr Who, nor has it quelled his passion for running around playing with anything that has a blinking light zapping, pretending he’s got his very own sonic screw driver. And it’s spawned a healthy curiosity for science, particularly in the manner in which the world functions.

Would Dawkins approve of the fantastical Dr Who?

I have no idea – I don’t profess to know the man’s mind nor want to. Past experience has left me wanting to throw something heavy and blunt in his direction (and I’m not even vaguely religious!)

What gets up my nose most about Dawkins, and this is a similar argument I have had with my partner (who did his Masters Degree in Environmental Geochemistry) in the past, is that science is just another belief systems. Granted it is an ever evolving and questioned set of beliefs, and yes they are beliefs based in shifting sands of empirical evidence, but to me they are just beliefs, at best good theories in motion.

If you take medicine for instance, read text from any reputable anthropologist and they will posit that medicine, which likes to raise itself up on a rather high pedestal, is just a set of beliefs – some will go as far as saying that surgeons are culturally created, as much as they are educated and trained. I’ll go as far as saying that medical science has set itself up as the new religion and doctors as the new Gods (it’s pretty obvious my general loathing of the medical profession). How else could people have blind, unquestioning belief in the science of medicine? (And blind, unquestioning acceptance of science to me is just as great a sin as the same with religion!)

You only have to look at the centuries old battle between doctors/obstetricians and midwives. What brings the two to clash – their belief systems. They both want as many mothers and babies to live as possible – but the values and beliefs they overlay, mean they often feel differently about how to reach that outcome – all based on their belief system. Obstetricians are trained to do – midwives are trained to watch, to ‘be’. In maternity care there are so many procedures and interventions routinely used in hospitals despite research that cautions against their routine use - interventions that bring little benefit or no benefit and at the worst end of the scale, down right dangerous. Yet best practise is jettisoned because the way things are done have become habits, and beliefs have sprung up to support and perpetuate those habits. And there is more than one obstetrician who specialises in IVF and Caesarean sections who has referred to themselves as “God” because now they can not just cut the babies free, but they can make and implant embryos.

As an evolutionary scientist – Dawkins should be deeply disturbed and questioning the manner in which a growing proportion of the next generation are bypassing the experience of a natural birth and what this will mean for us as a species in the short, medium and long term.

Rather than be concerned if fairy tales are destroying or hampering the next generations ability to be rational and logical – how about we spend time nurturing and equipping them with the ability to think creatively and critically, empower them to have confidence and belief in decision making. That’s the most important aspect of rational thought for me.

Last year a friend of mine, who is a psychologist, came to stay with us. From a very early age I’ve fostered in Mr D aptitude for decision making. It starts simply – offering two t-shirts and allowing him to choose which one he would like to wear, getting him to set the table and making choices about who sits where. She looked sternly at me and told me point blank “Don’t give him choices. Just tell him what to do!” Why?

I’m not sure how much decision making opportunities we got as kids, but I don’t want Mr D to grow up like me - with no confidence in decision making. I don’t want him so caught up in the emotive aspects of the consequences of a decision that he’s unable to make good judgements based on the available evidence, a certain degree of detachment and a rational weighing up of the consequences – paralysed into inaction, or recklessly just deciding, regardless.

Obviously at four, Mr D isn’t faced with lots of earth shattering, life altering decisions, in the greater scheme of things, but I realised after a conversation we had yesterday that he has a definite ability to think rationally and logically about the things that do change in his life – especially the ones beyond his control. He will be having a second year at kindy next year and as his parents, we’ve been very cautious about the way we’ve gone about discussing this with him. On Friday we found out that he’s been accepted back for a second year and while we were ecstatic, the excitement and relief of the news was lost on Mr D. So we left it.

Yesterday he said to me: “I’m not old enough to go to school yet, you need to be five to go to school and I’m only four. I’m going to kindy next year and there’ll be new friends there.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. This came solely from his processing of the latest change in his life - with zero input from either his Dad or I, his Poppy who stayed over the weekend or his teacher. It’s come from observation and processing, to come to a logical conclusion. I hope he never loses this.

Rather than be worried about reading fantastical stories. I’m certain that there are many more things that Dawkins should be concerned with – such as including science education at all levels of schooling, as well as the fostering and encouraging creative and independent thought.

NaNoWriMo Dilemma

Last year I invested time and energy into convincing myself that I couldn’t possibly do NaNo. I’m sure that I can look back on my morning pages and give you direct quotes and the rather persuasive arguments that I ran with. But sense prevailed. With it being a last minute decision to participate and without a concrete story, I sat six days out from NaNo contemplating a character. That’s all I had – one character and something of a trajectory for that character. I guess at least I had that … there are other writers in more creatively challenged positions, poised on the brink of NaNo.

This year, I’ve had all year to invest time, energy, effort and vision into my NaNo preparation and participation. I began developing my story back in January (if you’re a regular, loyal reader you’ll remember back to the Adam and Eve short stories) … but I kept coming up against walls in extending the stories into a NaNo project. Walls that remained stubbornly in place, I’ll add, even after I’d done a World Building course and been given vital encouragement from Sonny Whitelaw that not only could I write Sci-Fi, and I write it well. My writing group encouraged me, told me that it was a worthy story, that they wanted to read more. What more would a writer need?

For me it wasn’t enough … the momentum slowed and then finally stalled, to be replaced by Shet’s story (aka my little blue men story) which appeared about six weeks ago. And I was off and running again. You’d think I was sorted. But no!

Since chatting at the Brisbane Kick Off Party on the weekend, my Adam and Eve story has come back stronger and clearer than ever. I don’t need to build a world for this project … the story itself will build the world, how could I possibly know what the world will be if I haven’t had a chance to creatively explore, follow the story and the impact of this technological change on society. That was what was creating the block – rather than creating a block by forcing a character to do something they didn’t want to do, I was trying to force the setting. So I’m unblocked, excited, but perplexed.

Which story do I go for?

And then there is the consideration that regardless of what project I take on for the NaNo rollercoaster ride, half way through it will be the wrong project. What a bloody awful place to be in as a writer. The damn grey ox strikes again!

I could …

… flip a coin, roll a dice, pick a story from the hat - leave it to chance

… run a poll for all my non existent readers (I could just see it – a draw between Annie and Paul’s as they vote for different stories)

… or even worse, just surrender, sit down on the first day of NaNo and write. Let the story decide for itself what it will be. I’ve done this with characters before … after weeks of careful and profound daydreaming/contemplation, alternating between two differing versions of the character, just allowed the character to walk on the page and expose themselves (in the nicest possible way of course!)

I’d be game to try – after all I love the potential of both stories – but I’m not sure that I can trust my judgement or what might walk onto the page Saturday, given I’m having my wisdom teeth removed on Thursday (yes that’s tomorrow!) and I have no idea if I’ll need pain relief and what that might do to my creative processes.

I’ve got some scheduled posts for the next couple of days, to tide me through the worst of the post op haze … so I will keep to my ‘post a day’ promise, even if I won’t technically be writing them one a day. And I guess I’ll be back on Saturday to let you know what I decided … or what the story decided … and if there will be a blog dedicated to it!

Terms of Endearment

“I read your book
And I find it strange
The I know that girl and I know her world
A little too well
By giving my hand
That I would be written down, sliced around
Passed around among strangers hands….

…You carry a pen and a paper
And no time and no words you waste
You’re a voyeur
The worst kind of thief
To take down what happened to us
To write down everything then went on
Between you and me”

"The Book"
Sheryl Crow

The Fiction Friday prompt for this week is to recall a not-so-endearing trait from a current or past love and to then make it an endearing quality in your character.

To say that I’m challenged by this is an understatement.

The last boyfriend I had was full of weird and wonderful quirks – that began as charming idiosyncrasies but became over time less endearing and in retrospect down right annoying and some offensive. So I’m not short on ideas for the trait … but turning them into something appealing – you’ve got to be kidding. As a writer I can take endearing qualities and make them less appealing – perhaps that’s some sick part of human nature that we can easily twist the positive into something negative – but take the unpalatable and try make it something appetising and well, I’m stuck (even if I am generally an optimist, glass half full kind of girl)

So as I sit in my cosy corner of my favourite café in New Farm, trying to keep up my commitment to write three pages a day – here are a list of not-so-endearing traits from my short lived love affair with 'The Princess.'

I feel a little bit like a tattle tale for writing all of this down – thus the lyrics at the start, but if I want to solidify any of this in my head, I think I need to retell some of this skew-wiff romance, which I find humour in a twisted way now. And reminded that Mercury is retrograde again next Wednesday, I might go and dig out the story that I wrote about going to meet The Princess for the first time and serialise it through one week of the Mercury Rx phase. I still remember the delight of writing about offending the guide in the train seat beside me by eating a tuna sandwich at midnight!

“The Princess” was so named by my girl friends – because they believed he didn’t need to find a princess to ride off into the sunset with, he was enough of one himself. This softened the blow a little and made me look at him in a whole new light. The Princess brought into my life the following into my life:

A man who regularly and openly used lip balm and hand cream.
On the first morning we met, in the time it took to have breakfast together, he’d already applied lip balm at least three times and rubbed hand cream in once! He carried them around in his briefcase for just such an occasion. At that stage I am sure that I didn't own either - much less use them openly and often in public.

On the topic of personal hygiene/beauty products..
He had more hair care (even though he was going bald) and skin care products than I could ever imagine wanting, let alone needing. I know for sure that he spent more money that I did on named brand moisturisers etc.

And taking personal hygiene to a whole new level for me ..
He had a tongue scraper. Not even knowing what one was, I asked why he carried around teaspoon in his toiletries bag … only to discover that it was for scraping the creepy crawly stuff of your tongue – yuk!

Jeff Buckley
The Princess was obsessed with playing the late Jeff Buckley which was nice in the beginning, but since Buckley only released one album while he was alive, and another posthumously it didn’t give a wide variety of music. It was always playing. Even on at odd times when I would drop by his place – it would be on the stereo or he would have a live concert DVD playing. Thankfully I didn’t live next door to him (though about six months later I did move into the townhouses directly across the road from his. For both our sakes he’d moved on to a different location by then.)

Co-orindating outfits
Yes you did read correctly. The Princess would dress to coordinate with my outfit when we went out … which meant I would need to be dressed first and then he would fuss over a shirt that matched. Had we stayed together longer I would have gone out of my way to stop dressing in black and started finding clothes that were orange or bright green! Or we would have ended up looking like those middle aged tour group couples who wear matching coloured shirts and shorts. Urgh.

Apollo 13
Like Buckley – there is only so many times you can watch Hanks and his crew stuck out in space saving the day in the 11th hour. Granted The Princess was a pilot and maybe had secret dreams of wishing he was an astronaut (after all the first astronauts were pilots!) but even I don’t flog my favourite movie (Dirty Dancing) like a dead horse, nor inflict it on those who really would prefer to watch a new release.

Tight $$
I was a poor waitress when we first met – then an even poorer uni student. But making this man part with him money was like squeezing blood from a stone. As a pilot in Papua New Guinea (where he lived for a good slab of the week all expenses paid) and on what I thought was a really good wage, you’d think a little cash splashing would have been in order – but no.

I remember him sending me off to the airport carrying two huge suitcases, and an assortment of other small bags because he didn’t want to pay the fare on the private line out to the airport (I think it cost about $10 to get out there). I was without change for a trolley and had to drag 50kg of luggage from the bus stop (the train had been cancelled due to a storm) up into the terminal which was set a way back from the road. I was in such a bad way when I stumbled into the wonderfully air conditioned lounge at the Virgin terminal at Mascot, that a lovely bloke from behind the counter came to my assistance and carried one of the heavy suitcases in for me. I should have known after he did this TWICE to me that it was never going to work between us.

On this same train of thought – I remember him coming over to ‘visit’ me with a couple of Cascade Lights one night after we broke up. I think we must have drunk one each. When he left the next morning he took the left over beers with him! Goddess forbid he actually leave anything for me.

Soulmate
While we were closeted away in his parents A-Frame holiday house (which really was charming!) at Copacabana on the Central Coast of NSW he told me how I was his soul mate. It’s the sort of thing that sets all the right bells and whistles off when things are going great in those early days of falling in love. I realised all too soon that it was a toss away line, and have never liked the use of that word ever again. He destroyed that whole concept for me.

Just one more time
When we broke up I told him that was it – and I didn’t want to see him again. I was devastated by his admission that it wasn’t working – and the whole spiel about how it wasn’t me it was him (isn’t that always they way!) I was so caught up in the fantasy world we’d created that I didn’t even see that it wasn’t working – though I did want to be with someone who didn’t spend the majority of the week overseas. So devastated by what seemed to have come out of the blue, I told him I was walking out his bedroom door and he was never going to see me again. Was that what he wanted? Yes! So be it. I went and drowned my sorrows with my best friend and a few too many rounds of blue marguiritas -as you do.

That lasted a few weeks I guess – when the first of the phone calls came through. What was I up to? Was I busy tonight? Could he come over? After months of these out of the blue phone calls and invites, I finally put my foot down – no more lunches, dinners, movies, getting together when it was convenient for him – when he was lonely. Thankfully Dave came into my life not long after this and the yo-yo relationship ended.

So you my readers – what quality would you like woven into an alluring light:

Lip balm and hand cream
Personal hygiene and beauty products galore
Tongue
scrapers (please don’t to this to me!)
Jeff Buckley
Coordinated
clothing
Apollo 13
Being tight with money
Soulmateship
Just one more time

I leave it in your capable (cough …sorry that was a coughing fit – really!) hands. And I will try and do justice to your choice.

Disconnecting to reconnect

The irony of posting blog articles while I am in an internet ‘black out’ is not lost on me. But that’s not going to stop me.I’m finding the time away from the internet productive, rewarding and interesting. It’s not until you step away that you discover just what a time thief the internet can be if you let it … especially if you are like me, where you slot internet time between other things (like internet while the dinner is cooking).

For me the scariest thing about this black out is that I’m not missing it and certainly not feeling left out of the loop. Rather than having a detrimental effect ie. Not being plugged in, it’s having a rejuvenating effect and I’m connected in other areas of life that have been neglected.

There are blogs that I’m missing reading, but I’ve come to realise that the majority of my online time is spent just aimlessly doing crap. The sort of time that is neither informative or creative and certainly not productive.

I did spend a little time on the internet Saturday morning to enable me to read everyone’s [Fiction] Friday entries and I came away feeling drained, with a sense of violation. Had I violated my own boundaries and that was why I was feeling so odd or was it something else? Part of me felt as though an energy sap, in the shape of a power cord snaking out of the screen had come an implanted itself in my stomach, draining me – weird but true. As an aside, coincidence – perhaps .. Saturday has been the only day since the black out began where I haven’t committed to and completed three pages of writing in a day.

With the resurgence in my creativity (I think I’ve been gifted with a new set of characters or scenarios every morning) I’m wondering if I can stretch the black out beyond Thursday to the end of the month … or at least limit the time to absolutely essentials, considering that there are two collaborative creative writing I’m part of that requires me to log in and check out what is happening.

So what have I been doing rather than hanging out online? Here’s a short list of what I’ve been up to:

* Writing
* Baking muffins with Dylan (banana and lemon, then maple and apple)
* Reading – my own books and the omnipotent PB Bear
* Being beaten at Uno (yes that’s by my 4 year old son who can’t hide his cards and I still can’t beat him with insider knowledge!)
* Going for an afternoon walk with Dylan
* Weeding, mowing the lawn and transplanting flowers from pots into the
garden.
* Cleaning (sorely neglected bathroom and toilet – and the rest of the house is on the list for the rest of September)
* Washing
* Worrying less
* Trusting more
* Rode on a 13 storey high Ferris wheel at South Bank (I’m terrified of heights so this was a big achievement)
* Got out of the house for weekend brunch before 2pm
* Playing with the characters in my head

The clarity of mind I currently have is something that I’m not going to forget in a hurry. This time away will make me far savvier about how I utilise the internet and whether I use it, or allow it to use me.

Happy Writing Anniversary To Me

Officially yes I am in an internet blackout for the next week ... but I will still be posting blog articles as they come to me, along with [Fiction] Friday, Musical Musings and a new installment of Captain Juan.

I wont be replying, commenting or answering emails until Thursday next week though. Thanks for supporting me in his much needed space of nurturing and reconnecting. Jodi xxxx

It’s a year today since I decided that I would “Just Write.” This was the culmination of three and a bit years (since becoming a Mum) of trying to decide what came next. I had tossed around the idea of returning to uni, as I was half way through a psychology degree when I fell pregnant with Dylan and we moved to Brisbane. At the time I went through a lengthy and stressful process to ensure that I kept my almost perfect Grade Point Average to gain me entrance into one of the prestigious unis in Brisbane.

I found that after the baptism of birth and early mothering, that my attitudes and my beliefs had shifted, that returning to study psychology wasn’t doable from either a practical position (I wasn’t going to put Dylan into care so I could study) or an intellectual position. I had moved on as a woman. I spent time considering different courses that I could study, but none of them rung true. Throughout this time I edited a magazine, did the layout and watched its distribution grow.

When I was having a big clean up at the start of the year I came across some exercise books from 2005. Inspired by an article I had read called ‘The Mother and The Muse’ I was trying to get back in touch with the part of me that loved to write. These were the books to capture my thoughts and story ideas ... not suprisingly other than a few pages that include my goals for the year - they are empty. While I was writing an editorial each quarter (which grew and became more controversial the more confidence I had in my writing ability) and aiming to have an article published ‘somewhere’ I wasn’t committed on any level to writing fiction.

In 2006 I came across the One Book, One Brisbane short story competition, a few days before the competition closed. I sat up late a few nights in a row pumping out a story that seemed to go no where. I never submitted it, but it was a taster … I could write fiction again, as well as my non fiction stuff. But I didn't.

2007 saw me join the ranks of those with a MySpace page. I did it while I was having a bit of an identity crisis. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to create there - who my online personnae would be. It was also my introduction to the blog phenomenon and the excitement of having others read your work. When I decided to just be myself on MySpace (what a shocking revelation that was) I slowly began to take baby steps into blogging. After a while, I began to set aside Friday nights to enjoy the process of writing. I was particularly productive during the Mercury Retrograde phases, spurred on by the Woolie’s soundtrack to my life that always seemed to be playing as I went in to buy groceries.

In August we took a week’s trip to the mountains. I took my journal and spent long hours, while Dylan and Dave were hiking trying to sort through how I felt about life. I came to the conclusion my life was out of balance and I tried to work out a way to get a balance between mind, body and spirit. Not long after we returned, on the Virgo solar eclipse, a year ago today, the conclusion to my dilemma came like a lovely afternoon breeze …. I could just write. How simple.

From what I remember it was a slower process between making the decision and beginning The Artists’ Way but it seems from reading back of journals from the time it happened far quicker than I remember. The 13th will be the anniversary of me beginning The Artist Way for the first time. And it was a fast and furious unfurling and discarding of all the things around me that did not support and nurture my creativity. Not only did I sign up with some new friends to do The Artists Way, I also discovered Write Stuff (now Write Anything) and began venturing into the realm of fiction, and away from the autobiographical essays I’d been writing.

Then came the moment of reckoning – did I have it in me to do NaNo? The two friends in my creative cluster were going to do it – why shouldn’t I. They each had five kids, one with a small baby. I only had one child. But when I looked at what I did each day, I wasn’t sure where I would find time to write 1667 words each day. It proved to be a pivotal moment. I decided that I would do NaNo and as a consequence I would cut back on all my volunteer work. I would start saying no to others, and start saying yes to me. A routine began to grow around me.

I got through NaNo, and learnt a lot about myself as a writer and where I wanted to go in life. A week later I had a huge break through – I was addicted to busy-ness. I realised that it was time to stop doing volunteer work and focus on my passion as a writer. After four years it felt as though I was cleaving off a limb … but I did it.

It hasn’t been all peaches and cream. I’ve written some good stuff, written some bad stuff, got myself caught up in great projects and difficult projects. Most recently I’ve been suffering a crisis … a crisis that went without a name until today. I’d been having a crisis of connection. It wasn’t doubt or a lack of confidence … I’d pulled the plug on my connection to the creative stream that had been nurturing me since those early days last year of The Artist Way last year.

I’m not sure when it happened, or how it happened, but it did. And it explains a lot. It explains my frustration with writing and the futility that I’ve found in trying to find new characters, new scenarios, new ways of looking for things. Rather than just open up and be a conduit for whatever was out there, I was searching through trying to find something. I’d closed down.

Now I’m trying to open back up again. Reading Julia Cameron’s biography has reminded me of some fundamental things that I either didn’t get in the first place, or that I had forgotten.

Trust in the Universe … if I take care of the quantity the Universe will take care of the quality. Basically it’s asking the ego to take a seat. So now, I’m committing to writing three pages a day (in preparation not only for NaNo but for the rest of my life as a writer) … and whatever comes out comes out. Today I discovered not just two brand new characters, a whole brand new sci-fi world .. complete with social systems, geography, beliefs .. just coming in from out there.

ASK and you shall receive ... It’s something that I’ve always had trouble with. I will never ask for help when I’m struggling. In my morning pages I’ve bitched, moaned, complain, wailed … and then beat myself up because I can’t find a solution to my problem, that seemed unsolvable. What I never considered was surrender … and to offer my problem up to the Universe and ask for help. To ask for guidance, wisdom … help! I have now, this morning and already I’m starting to see things a little more clearly.

Disconnect from distractions and toxic situations. For me it means taking time away from the internet and from life in general, to spend more time with my family, revisit some old friendships that have slipped through my fingers this year, get my old routines back on board. In disconnecting there is a natural affinity then to connect with the things that love, nuture and nourish you. Today I found that once my three pages of writing were done, and without the internet, I realised did a load of washing, put away the dishes, considered dinner. In the last few months these have all been areas of my domestic life that just wait for crisis point to be reached before anything is done about them. I also feel I’ve shrugged off the heavy shroud I’ve been wearing – weighed down by my connections to worry and anger.

Watch for synchronicity. The Universe has asked me, or told me to do some pretty bizarre things in the last year – one day I’ll share my business card story. The Universe had stopped speaking to me, or I had stopped listening. When I started to loosen up yesterday, a thought came to me about a problem I’ve had with getting a script up and running for my Demon Lover story. The worst thing about the whole thing – it was so bloody obvious the answer … and I imagined the fun and adventure that could be gained by having another person write this with me. Now I’m waiting to see the moments of synchronicity open up all around me. I feel as though I am connected and riding the river of creativity.

Get out and walk. Walking has always been a meditation for me. I’ve been having trouble getting out of bed and have been beating myself up for my slackness. How can I get my life back on track if I can’t even get out of bed? Answer: find a creative solution.Instead of trying for a 5am or 6am walk, I decided earlier on this week that Dylan and I could take a walk in late afternoon. Granted it’s not quiet, but it is leisurely and it’s something special for just the two of us – sticks, dogs, flowers, clouds etc. It’s a way of slowing the world down and getting back in contact with not just the natural world around with me, but with Dylan as well.

It’s good to reflect but it feels good to be reinventing myself over, reconnecting, reviving and renewing my resolve as a woman, as a mother, a partner and as a writer. Spring most definitely is in the air!

Where 100 Years of Solitude Leads

Paul concluded his Sunday column for Write Anything this week with:

"We don’t have an excuse to not look at good writing across all genres, just because it is unfamiliar to us or unappealing as a reader. Sometimes our best writing comes when we move out of our comfort zone. Perhaps we should move beyond our reading comfort zone once in a while too."

Part of the decision to write seriously this year, was to read seriously also. I began the year with the goal of reading one book a month. Wild Swans had been beckoning me from the book shelf, where it had been adopted from an old friend of ours so I chose to begin the year with that. I didn't get it finished before the end of January and realised it was a really bad omen not to get through my first book for the year in the alotted time. What January taught me (other than some amazing things about China and mostly awful things about Mao's version of communism) was that to read a book a month, I had to make time to read a book a month. This meant cutting back on the time I was spending at the computer at night (being not much of a TV freak)

In April I upped the anty to two books a month. This would give me a chance to read something I really wanted to read (and something I was likely to really enjoy) and something from my list of 'literature' - mainly books that I would never get around to reading given the option. The books I've read since taking on the two a month challenge have been East of Eden, 100 Years of Solitude and The Great Gatsby. Again last month, I almost didn't finish 100 Years of Solitude and I was up until midnight on the 31 August trying to get it done - reminded me of burning the midnight oil to get an assignment done!

100 Years of Solitude by Gabrielle Garcia Marquez (Nobel Prize winner for Literature in1992) isn't I would normally read, but was a book that Dave had read and spoken about, along with Love in the Time of Cholera (also now on my list to read!) I'd read Chronicle of a Death Foretold when I was pregnant and knew that I didn't hate Marquz's writing style - but I got such a delight when I finally got into the rhythm and style of his writing ... when I was able to suspend my rational mind and enjoy the banquet of magical delights (the moment when I realised that the gypsy's were really flying carpets past the window). I'm very glad that I did push out of my comfort zone to read this. You can see the legacy of having read it in my latest [Fiction] Friday.

After discussing with Dave how much I enjoyed 100 Years (and sadly he read it that long ago he doesn't remember much of it), he suggested that I give Midnight's Children by Rushdie a go ... so I have the second half of September slated for that. I'm certainly intriged to know more about magical realism and how other writers weave it through their narrative.

There were discussions about genre at the Byron Bay Writers Festival ... and how some writers just write without any real regard for WHAT genre they in. After all getting the words on the page are more important than getting the 'right' words on the page. I never gave much thought to what genre I wrote it ... though I was always drawn to some darker elements of humanity, particularly to terrorism (and this was before 9/11) and the twists of the mind. Since picking up writing again after a long absence I feel that rather than being drawn to one genre over another, I'm drawn to themes, and the exploration of the human experience through those themes. Perhaps that's what allows a good writer to write in any genre or across genres?

Writing outside of your genre is another example of dangerous writing, and as I have discovered with a number of my fellow writers this year pushing boundaries and finding those places of discomfort are when we produce some of our greatest work. For that reason I believe we should regularly choose to write something outside of our comfort genre. I would never have believed this time last year that I would be writing:

• adventure stories (I CAN'T do adventure) ... though I love it (#1 guilty secret of mine!)
  
• a pirate story (I WOULD NEVER write that - I only write literature with a feminist bent)
  
• write science fiction (I most certainly DON't write that)
  

It's a good thing I've become a little more open minded this year. As a writer, as soon as you say you 'can't', 'don't', 'won't, 'shouldn't' (you get the gist) accept it as an invitation to give it a go. You never know where the path less travelled may take you.

As professional development - what stories/books would you read to push you out of your comfort zone?

Meme Mia

While I’m on the meme roll (and with Hannah Montana playing in the background) here are my answers to the one Paul tagged me for. It was so much more fun to play tag in the school yard than on the internet and involved burning far more calories! Do you think that I out punned Paul?

The meme comes originally from Steph over at Watch Your Steph and asks us to reveal six unspectacular quirks about yourself.

But first, the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you (done)
2. Mention the rules (which I'm abiding by now).
3. Tell six unspectacular quirks of yours (see below).
4. Tag six bloggers by linking (gosh that’s pushing it since Paul tagged everyone I know!)
5. Leave a comment for each blogger (will do when I'm done – if I can find any other friends out in the blogsphere).

And now my quirks – I’ll try and make them as quirky as possible.

I am obsessed with the way that the towels are folded and placed in the linen press (they must be folded in half, long ways, in half short end togegther, then in three and the fold facing outwards). I blame this on my time working as a cleaner in large resorts and hotels. Some brainwashing never wears off!



I am convinced that I always have bad hair (and that I’ve been afflicted with this ALL my life). I’m sure I have some poorly aspected Leo in my chart. Short, long, medium length - it makes no difference ... though short hair (a good short hair cut) seems to ameliorate the worst of it. I was one of those teenagers who would look at all the popular girls and just wish that I had hair like them. Maybe I'm just a closet Leo lusting after great hair! Or maybe I bother about some really insignificant stuff!




Despite what my friends may think, I am hideously shy and really don’t like meeting people for the first time. A glass of wine always smoothes this along. My mother was so worried about my shyness as a kid (I would hide under my bed whenever someone knocked at our door and of loud noises) she took me to dance class - to help bring me out of her shell. I wonder if she ever rues the day she made the decision and carted me off to Renee-Anne Martinees dance class in my badly fitting leotard and blue and white striped runners.



When I eat, I wont mix food together, so at dinner time I will eat around my plate. I don’t start with anything in particular – and it tends to be in a clockwise direct. Dave loves to flabbergast me with curries and things like that. Then I have to pick each individual component of the curry out as best I can. I’ve only ever met one other person who has this crazy gastronomic idiosyncracy.




I’m a boot girl. I can’t understand women’s obsession with impractical shoes. My most impractical pair of shoes is still flat soled and were bought to go to a red carpet movie premier last year in Sydney. Having said that, I do have a pair of knee length Spanish leather boots that have ridiculous heels on them (or I'm just out of practice given that I never wear them any more)




As a hangover from childhood, I still rub the corner of my pillow between my fingers when I’m having a particularly hard time going to sleep (I’m also prone to rubbing the hem of shorts or other bits of clothing that are soft and feel good in the daylight hours!) I also sleep wrapped around a pillow, much to Dave’s disgust. The pillow was there long before he was, and it’s a habit I just can’t break.


I'll be back later with some links once I've gone out and befriended some new people in cyberspace and also given my son a bath!

Photo of kids running found at Captainstlucifer's blog. Number photos from Free Fotos

Creative Experience

As a writer every moment, each chance meeting, all conversations, life in general becomes creative potential … possibilities just waiting to be realised on paper and shared with others. Then there are ideas that spring from nowhere, gifts from the Universe? These stories, scenarios and characters that materialise out of the ether can push our authenticity to the limits …and sometimes we need to go out and recreate an experience that we’ve written about to get the realism that may be missing from our writing.

Comedian and author Nury Vittachi spoke at the Byron Bay Writers Festival about a book that he wrote about a middle aged Asian man being hand cuffed to a young Caucasian women in the creation of one of his Feng Shui Detective novels (I’m so intrigued by the concept that I can’t wait to get my hands on one of his books). When he presented the manuscript to his publishing house, his editor read it and then told him to go out and hand cuff himself to a young woman for 24 hours (just like the characters in his story). His editor said there was something missing – that it would be found in the recreation of the experience. Nury wasn’t sure how his wife was going to feel about it. His editor suggested that he get his wife to find the woman for him. And his wife did. Nury spent 24 hours hand cuffed to a 20 something, blonde Jazz singer (it later transpired after this day together that she was gay – his wife wasn’t stupid!) Then Nury went back to his novel and redrafted it, to the adulation of his publishing house and editor.

A writer wants his or her words to be believed, for there to be an authenticity and sincerity about their work. Readers don’t want to be lied to, or treated like they are imbeciles. Even far fetched adventures such as Captain Juan’s or my favourite Dirk Pitt’s, from Clive Cussler’s novels, have to resonate with an element of truth (though Cussler did push the boundaries leaving Pitt and Giordino in the Sahara for six days without water and allowed them to come across the remains of a historic plane crash that they used to windsurf their way out of the sands – but I could still enjoy it!) I’m not sure what it is that the reader picks up on that makes them balk; perhaps there is a two dimensionalism about the whole concept or the writing runs contrary to the parameters of the genre or pushes beyond acceptable limits. Maybe it misses a sparkle, a connection - we have no empathy or love for the characters - I’m not really sure.

In acting there is a style called ‘method acting’ … and I believe that writing follows lots the method acting philosophies (but then again I write from a ‘doing’ foundation). When writing the scene from Captain Juan where Ruby murders her uncle I was struck with – well how does she do it? How do I make it authentic? I’ve never murdered someone (strange but true!) I’m not a deft hand with knives, a blade or anything like that. I know no martial arts and the physical exertion of an evening walk leaves me shattered. Luckily I was at Annie’s house while I was writing and deliberating.

I looked up to her and asked how the hell Ruby was going to kill her Uncle. Compounding my dilemma of not actually knowing the mechanics of how a trained person effectively stabs another, Ruby is left handed. Annie has done martial arts for years. She grabbed a knife from the rack in the kitchen and showed me how Ruby could literally pull and cut her Uncles throat open in one swinging arc movement. I was impressed. It also gave me a clear visual for my writing.

A clear visual is often what I need when I’m creating descriptive narrative or ambience in the story. Earlier on in the week I wrote Andrew Said, set in a cemetery. I struggled with parts of the descriptive narrative and the ambience, because I’ve never been in an actual working cemetery (I was going to say ‘live’ but that just seemed wrong!) I went to a historic cemetery once before Dylan was born as part of a camping trip out west to Mount Mulligan in Far North Queensland. So I realise to be at peace with the authenticity of this story, I need to go and have a wander through a cemetery. There is cemetery about five minutes from our house that I can go for a wander through and set my story in. I might even take my camera. Charlotte Wood mentioned on the same panel as Nury that she often takes photos of places she is setting her story in and creates montages of the pictures on her wall.

And there’s also the doing, the being. This is where I’m really being pushed most at the moment. In creating and doing a little poking around for my Adam and Eve concept, I found out that Brisbane is actually interlaced beneath the city with convict built tunnels. I had some photos sent to me. Now I’m thinking that to really get a sense of the feeling in them, the terror of being stuck in them without light … I’m going to see if I can find someone who will agree to take me down into them. It’s frightening – actually it’s terrifying for me who is both afraid of the dark, of being underground, in closed spaces and always tried hard to abide by the law – it’s actually illegal to go down into them, but that doesn’t seem to stop a small group of people!

Lived experience can be there without the writer even realising it. I’m currently reading Max Barry’s “Company: a novel”. The first half of the book fell a bit cold on me – I was a little disappointed. I heard Max speak twice at the writers festival, and had a short personal conversation with him and was intrigued and entertained by him. He had read a short passage from Company while on panel and he’d come across as a cross between Ben Elton and Nick Earles. As I was reading through the first 70 odd pages, I was wondering when something was ‘going to happen.’ I wasn’t connecting, I wasn’t getting the humour. I began to wonder if I was dumb because I seemed to be missing the point.

Annie came to visit Monday and as I was firing up the espresso machine she picked up the book, and began to flick through. I could hear her chuckling. “This is so true,” she commented when I brought the coffees over and launched into telling me all about luncheon etiquette and how you never take more than two sandwiches, regardless of how much food it leftover at the end. She was identifying with the missing donut that drives the character of Roger. Annie spent a good chunk of her working life working in large companies and the landscape, the characters and the philosophy is common ground. I’m enjoying it now, I have about 80 pages left to go and I’m intrigued to see how the drama plays out. I’m resigned to the fact that most of the humour is lost on me.

Writing is always an adventure. An infinite array of possibilities, creative exploration and a chance to live beyond the square – both on paper and in real life .. and the smudgy blurring that occurs when the two meet. And would we want it any other way?

Does realism matter- is it necessary … to you …to the reader? It is important to make your realism accessible to others, or do you risk loosing realism in the pursuit of making it accessible and enjoyable to the majority?

A little privacy - PLEASE!

Since coming back from Byron Bay I’ve been stalked. It’s not the first time and it probably wont be the last time. I’ve been followed to the toilet (and not just by my four year old), had uninvited guests in the shower, the car often carries passengers that were not intended to be with us on the trip, there are others in the backyard when I'm hanging out the washing and I’m certain that there are at least two people who trail behind me in the supermarket isle every time I go (well I’m at least positive that they are there behind me in the check out queue). And not content with the daylight hours, they’re prowling through the recesses of my nocturnal mind, weaving their way in and through my dreams, leaving me to lie awake and think about them and their lives.

Like Mel Gibson in What Women Want I hear all sorts of things. In the past week I’ve been privy to conversations on a ten year liaison with a Queen – of the royal kind, spiritual crises, guilt over killing someone and plots to kill others, there’s been a case of Government conspiracy, stolen technology and complicated love (well is there any other type?) And that’s just in the last week.

A year ago I would have thought someone insane had they talked about characters speaking to them … voices in their head. I would have wondered if they were paranoid, mentally unstable or prone to flights of fancy. Now I wouldn’t blink and eye – in fact I was enthusiastically nodding my head in several session at the Byron Bay Writers Festival when other writers spoke about their characters speaking to them. Phew – their not mad and I’m not crazy.

All this talk of characters first started during NaNo last year. Square1 spoke often about her characters harassing her, and yes at first I thought she must have been just a little mad – well you do have to be a little crazy to undertake NaNo in the first place. Then I realised that yes … my characters seemed to follow me around all the time. At that time they were particularly drawn to showering with me.

Not only that, but my characters did things, influenced the plot and direction of the story more times than I cared to admit. Then there were characters that emerged from the shadows and take centre stage. I was writing a feminist political novel – so where the hell did these two men come from. One a drug addicted, middle aged journalist on the downward spiral and the other an emotionally confused, damaged football player who propped his entire life up with cocaine and the hope that he'd 'get her back'.

And they took me places that I had never intended to go and forced my central character Abby into situations, conversations and predicaments that I would never have willingly chosen her to traverse. They brought out dimensions in her that I could never have brought out and also crystallised who other characters were – especially Abby’s long suffering husband. Then there was the character of Alex (he was called Jamie then – he objected at the start of the year to that name and thus provided me with a name more befitting him –or so he thinks!) I spent the whole of NaNo waiting to write the scene in which he walks into Abby’s life – I’d spent the entire month of November fantasising about it, but never knowing just who that character was going to be when he set foot on the page. It was a surprise who turned up on the page – but he was perfect.

Then there was the incident of my characters Abby and Alex bugging (or should that read begging) me to let them 'get it on' with each other - something that I kept resisting - after all it was January and I had shelved Finding Aphrodite. But they were insistent. Who could imagine that two imaginery characters could be so persistent about sex. Finally I caved in - and they got their wish in one of the 3am Epiphany exercises that I did. While it was mostly out of context from the story, and their names were never mentioned - they've been happy ever since. No more petulent outbursts nor cries of sexual frustration!

As a writer your moral boundaries are often pushed by characters. Sue Wolfe was one of the panellists at a session on where your ideas come from at the Byron Bay Writers Festival. She spoke of how she got writing block in completing her third novel and the reasons behind the block occurring. She said that her male central character suffered from such a severe stutter that he was basically mute, and became a peeping tom in his pursuit of the woman that he loved. She said she tried for a week to steer this character away from his practise, that she found morally objectionable. In the end she discovered that she couldn’t write any more – her and her character were dead locked and the writing process ground to a halt ... for many months.

This sparked Sue's interest in neuroscience and both the scientific and biological bases for creativity. One of the things that she discovered, and now teaches, is what she terms ‘dangerous writing’. As writers we have to surrender and let our characters take us to wherever it is that they must go, even if we object. There really is no room for ego in writing, not unless you want to be constantly at odds with your characters. Sue Wolfe said that its in this dangerous writing, that we open ourselves up to all kinds of possibilities, when the creativity flows the easiest and we’re best positioned to connect with all the ideas, especially the broader ones that concern our writing.

It was another of those enthusiastic head bobbing moments for me. I have been lucky enough these past few months to have had Paul championing me to go to my ‘uncomfort places’ when I write … and this is really an example of Sue Wolfe’s ‘dangerous writing.’ Some of the things I have written about really have pushed my buttons; I’ve explored people, situations, emotions and repercussions that I probably could have happily left well alone - baby stealing and an unfaithful husband two of them. But I’ve gone there, I’ve played in the shadows, I’ve surrendered and I’ve had some of my best stories to date.

I guess what we as writers need to educate our audiences, and loved ones (if we have two distinct groups!) is that just because we may write fiction that is gruesome, that is painful, is morally objectionable (and the list goes on) that it’s not a reflection of us as people. I believe that the writer is the vehicle of the characters, rather than the reverse ... And that we from time to time might say insane things and speak of our characters as if they are real life, living breathing human specimens - well they actually are for us.

So now I’m getting used to being stalked - even though I want to shout out, “A moments privacy – please!” as Captain Juan and his first mate Pete wander into the toilet after me to discuss some pressing matter aboard the La Gongozzler. There really is little that I can do with them, other than be grateful (begrudgingly) for them having paid me a visit and gifted me with more jewels of storyline and dialogue from the wide open sea. They’re probably as blissfully unaware as my four year old is about the need for some privacy – after all they seem to be only focused on their stuff. If only my people could talk to their people about organising a better spot to meet up - the check out queue perhaps or the washing line?

Cartoon from Royalty Free Cartoons which have a great selection of privacy cartoons available!

I'm back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abundance meets authenticity

"Once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit

This year I decided rather than set myself goals or resolutions, I'd choose a theme in which to live my life. The theme I chose was authenticity. This morning's essay in Simple Abundance was about being real, about being authentic. Sarah Ban Breathnach reflects on the lessons and themes explored in The Velveteen Rabbit. I don't initimately remember the story. They read it to us in our home room period when I was in my first year at high school. Our homeroom teacher, Mrs Smith, was one of the PE staff and was the least warm and fuzzy person I'd come across at the school. She was often late to home room and more often, completely absent, leaving the older girls in our homeroom group to take the roll for her. So anything that may have been grokked from the story, was completely lost on me as a teenager.

Having said that ... hopefully tomorrow Dylan and I will be able to go to the library and borrow out The Velveteen Rabbit. I can reaccquaint myself with the story and share another classic children's book with my son.

On the subject of authenticity, Breathnach outlines a very simple and common sense way in which to work towards a life of authenticity (if only I had found this at the beginning of the year!)

• learn to acknowledge, accept and appreciate what it is that makes you different from others


• learn to trust the wisdom of your heart and make creative choices based on what you know is right for you


• endow even the smallest moment of each day with love

I have definitely decided over the past six months that the first two are essential to a life of authenticity. To me it's meant:

• working with and not against the rhythms of my body


• living up to the expectations I have in life, and not those of others ... to put myself first and do what I need to do for me. This has included not feeding energy into the melodramas of others


• treating myself as important and precious, and making time to nurture myself and enjoy small luxuries


• knowing that I need to have a balance between mind and body


• working daily with my creativity


• understanding my beliefs and the constructs around them, and how they inform my world view, my self view, my thoughts, emotions and reactions

• understanding that imperfection is the only kind of perfection to aspire to
  

I had never stopped to think about endowing every small moment with love. I guess that's what being totally present in each moment is about - loving it, regardless of what it is.

Recently Dylan has been coming up to me and asking me if I 'still love him' - especially after we've had a blow up or an episode of challenging behaviour. I keep telling him that I love him always - I love him when he's happy, when he's sad and even when he's angry. A mother's love is unconditional and this is what makes the bond real and authentic. So it makes perfect sense to apply this same law of unconditional and constant love to every moment in life.

Breathnach comments that, "When you do these things, you become real to those who know and love you, but Real to everyone. You become authentic. " And real to everyone - includes bcoming real to yourself. What a fantastic journey to be on!

A Tree Dies in Oriel Park

When we lived in Clayfield I was pregnant. In the final months of my pregnacy I would daily walk down Alexandra Street as far as Oriel Park and then back to our little apartment. When Dylan Oriel Park became our 'local'. It's a beautiful big open green park with a fantastic fenced in playground. We had Dylan's 100 days celebration and his naming day/1st birthday there. Lots of very happy memories have this park at their centre.

Yesterday we were running early for the airport to pick Dave up, so we stopped in at Oriel Park for a play. I was dismayed to discover one of the trees dying. Actually it's not dying ... it's all but dead and awaiting removal

It made me wonder what had happened to it? There have been cases in recent years of most notably on the Sunshine Coast, of residents poisoning trees to gain access to waterviews. Some trees that have been poisoned are hundreds of years old. The water views increase the value of a home - but at what cost?

I'm hoping someone did not poison this tree - that it is just its time, the cycle of life. It left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth as we were leaving, to know that next time we go there the tree will probably be gone, dulled the bouyed up mood that I'd had all day about having Dave home for the first time in two weeks.

What memorable landmarks (natural or manmade) have you lost through natural processes or progress?

Reclaiming Sex After Birth

I was on the phone to one of my closest friends in late 2006. We were talking about sex, and what birthing and becoming mothers had meant to that dimension of our lives. It had been on my mind a lot, and I was starting to seek out the voices and experiences of other women. At the time I was the editor of Down to Birth and Karen ‘dared’ me to do a whole edition around the issue of sex after birth. Never one to back down from an intellectual dare I said ‘yes’.

In first six months of 2007 I spoke to lots of women, but the one most passionate about writing about this issue was my close friend Annie Evett. Not only did she write her own personal experiences but sought out friends and work colleagues in person or via email to collect their experiences. She created spaces in which women felt comfortable and safe to share their experiences with others, opening the dialogue and breaking down the silence taboo around the topic.

In February 2008 the ‘Sex After Birth’ edition was birthed and immediately struck a chord with all who read it. I still get emails now with comments about this issue even though I am not longer editor of Down to Birth.

The issue provided a forum for women to speak honestly and openly about their experiences of sex after having children. They wrote about how good sex could be, and how difficult and painful it could be. They spoke about how sex worked to polarise their relationship, or to strengthen and deepen it. They spoke about the challenges of marrying the sexual and nurturing aspects of themselves. The issues they faced were complicated by emotional and psychological changes in themselves in addition to changes in relationship dynamics with themselves and their partners

Kerri Witt, who is the technical and business whiz behind our eBook project, felt strongly enough about this subject to approach Annie Evett and I after a business brunch to suggest we create an eBook with the articles we had already written. Kerri is yet to have children, but the amount of disinformation and horror stories on the internet disturbed and shocked her – to the point of commenting, ‘I don’t think I want to have kids now.’

When Annie was researching her original article for Down to Birth – she was appalled to discover how the subject was either glossed over or completely omitted from all the popular and best selling parenting and relationship books, even Dr Ruth’s “Guide to Sex”. Creating 'Reclaiming Sex After Birth' is our humble effort to redress that void.

In creating this eBook we are not seeking to fix, lecture or take the moral high ground. This isnot a ‘how to’ eBook. We want to dispell and defuse the deeply embedded belief that women should ‘Just get over themselves and get back on the job’ when it comes to sex - it is far more complex than that. We want women to stop carrying the guilt that it is ‘their fault’ that a couple’s sex life is not like it once was. This is unfair. It is our desire to show that many assumptions around initiating and maintaining a sex life after birth (such as the six week marker) are either erroneous, simplistic or both.

Our intention is to create a resource which is easily and readily accessible, that gathers in one place, a collection of personal experiences and wisdom as a beginning point to reclaim sex
after birth. The women who share their stories here are experts, in the truest sense of the word – wise through experience. We hope that you go on to open dialogue with friends and family
members about sex in this vulnerable period in couples’ lives, after reading this eBook. We also hope all women and men who read this, will understand that where they are currently on their journey, wherever that may be, they are not alone. And that they need not remain stuck there.
That each journey although it is unique,carries elements similar to every other journey. It is our sincerest wish that this strikes a chord with everyone who reads it - just as that original edition
of Down to Birth did.

'Reclaiming Sex After Birth' is due for birthing July 1st and will be available exclusively here.