Category Archives: My Journey

Welcome to 2023!

01 Sunday Jan 2023

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The last days of 2022 have been really rough – Mum wasn’t well at Christmas and wasn’t able to participate in the family event, plus my back pain issue has been really fared up for some reason. I’m ready to welcome in a new year with hopefully a few less challenges.

As usual, I’m setting some goals for the next year.

  • Publish Singular Purpose
  • Finish manuscript for horror short story collection and/or another novel
  • NaPoWriMo 2022 (April)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Craft projects, including crochet, painting, etc.
  • Read 5 books
  • Music performance
  • Travel/holiday

This list is shorter and more vague than some of my other lists. I’m trying to keep things a bit looser to cater to the various obstacles that might come up in the year that require my time and attention.

The horror short story collection is in progress, I have one quite short and one that might be about 20k already drafted. I also have a manuscript for a rom com that I wrote a while ago and have been rewriting that might be ready to publish for 2024.

NaPoWriMo has been a good exercise to keep my poetry practice going. To be honest I don’t do much poetry outside of April so I think that will be good. Plus it’s a smaller commitment than NaNoWriMo (which could take 2 hrs per day); it only takes about 30min per day.

In terms of craft and painting, these are mostly just for myself. I’ve been crocheting a little to keep my hands busy when watchin TV to stop myself scrolling through FaceBook endlessly. It does rely a bit on having some energy and not being in too much pain, so this might be up and down depending on how other things are going in my life.

I’ve added reading to the list, I noticed this year that I haven’t been doing much reading. I read three or four as part of my judging for the Romance Writers of Australia book of the year awards, but otherwise onle one or two. I have a huge ‘to read’ pile, including a few that were gifts that I haven’t gotten, it might be nice to get through some of them.

Music performance I’m keeping vague, I’m not sure the fate of Wasted Monday at the moment, and if it falls over I may or may not have time to another band or group. I also plan to continue with my piano lessons and the teacher likes to have twice yearly concerts with her students, so I’ll have that to fall back on.

I added a travel/holiday item. The last time I really went anywhere on a holiday was 2019, when I visited Morocco. It was pre-pandemic, and pre-car accident, so it will be different travelling now, but I hope it will be enjoyable (and doable) in 2023. I visited Brisbane briefly for a wedding in 2022 but it was just for the weekend; a fairly low-key dipping my toe back into the travel waters.

I will continue to experiment with cooking and pottering in my small garden. It’s looking a bit overgrown after a big burst this summer; my berries are producing a lot so that’s fun, though the fruit trees have yet to produce anything, maybe next year.

May you all have a beautiful 2023 in whatever form that takes for you. I look forward to seeing some of you in person and I hope you’ll enjoy keeping up with my work here and in publication.

If I only could: or leaving things behind

03 Thursday Nov 2022

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Tuesday was the first day of November and for the first time since 2012 I’m not going to undertake NaNoWriMo. I started doing this marathon drafting challenge when I didn’t yet know how to write novels.

A little over a year after I started this blog, the same time that I left a job I resented in favour of going back to uni. I did my first 50,000 words in a month, and since then I’ve done NaNoWriMo ten times, each time I reached my target. Cumulatively I’ve got 500,000 words from these sprints.

This year, I finished editing a manuscript in the last couple of days of October, and I thought about NaNo. I could have worked on a manuscript I started earlier in the year which is a little under 50k words, for Nano, or I could have started a new project. But instead I decided to start working on fun, possibly a novella or short novel. It’s a story a friend and I came up with for a film, one day we might make it, but novels are my bread and butter, so it seemed easiest to get my thoughts and ideas into a shape by writing it as narrative fiction.

The habits and skills I’ve developed over my years doing NaNo will never leave me. I am so glad I have learned to write first (and fast) and edit later–I find it so much easier to shape something when it’s all there, with an ending, than going over what you did last session, fiddling with it, then switching to write something new. I can sprint now, in half an hour I can get up to 1000 words, something I would never have been able to do before.

It feels strange to leave behind something that has been such a prominent feature in my calendar. I put it in my goals for 2022, but now November is here, I don’t have the energy or the determination to make it work. Last year’s version I aimed for 30k instead of the traditional 50k, and it was still tough. It feels right to let this go.

I’ll probably keep NaPoWriMo, the poem a day challenge in April, as I don’t write much poetry outside of that month. I enjoy the prompts, even when I ignore them, and it’s a good boost to my poetic productivity. For fiction, I don’t need it. I am producing at least one novel a year, which is my aim, and it looks like I’ll be able to continue that for the foreseeable future. There might be a time later where staying inside writing every day seems like a good idea, but it’s not going to happen this year. Post-covid restlessness maybe?

I think it shows growth that I’m not cramming all my output into one month, and instead am able to get 100k or more over spread through the year. Or it might just be that, after ten times, my competitive urge has faded. I also can’t rule out that I got old and tired.

Whatever the reason, I have a fun horror story brewing, perhaps I’ll make a collection, and a half-finished romantic comedy novel to keep my readers entertained after Singular Purpose. What good is being a writer if I’m not entertaining myself first? Comment below if you have any creepy pasta stories rattling around that might make a good addition to my horror collection.

Stay safe, and if you’re in Melbourne try to stay warm and dry until the weather sorts itself out and we get to have a summer of some kind.

Cover Reveal – Singular Purpose

21 Friday Oct 2022

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I’m very excited to reveal the cover for my new novel, Singular Purpose! It’s due for release in February 2023, you can pre-order it here.

Front cover of a book titled Singular purpose, the cover has a woman with two ravens, and is magenta Text reads releasing feb 2023

Freya and Jacob thought their powers were gone for good after they saved the world, they were happy with that. Then one chilly spring morning Odin’s ravens reappear outside their Melbourne apartment.

A power-hungry wannabe-God is luring women to his compound in the country. Freya and Jacob’s magical abilities have been restored but will it be enough to stop this new threat?

Or will one man with a god complex trigger the end of the world?

This novel is a sequel to my 2021 novel, Singular Focus, available now in ebook and paperback.

Maintenance

15 Friday Jul 2022

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I’ve been trying to come up with a blog post for about three weeks and so far, nothing good has come to mind, so I thought I would talk about maintenance.

Maintenance is the not at all sexy stuff we do to keep things running – it’s brushing your teeth, or eating healthy or exercising (for the body), cleaning the toilet or mopping the floors, it’s practicing scales and exercises (for music), it’s showing up to write even if you don’t feel like it.

There is an argument to be made that motivation follows action, and not the other way around. One must start doing something to feel like doing it. In a way it helps, because you don’t have to wait until you feel like something to get started, but it also means I have to start before I even feel like it, which can be hard sometimes, especially if things are tough for any reason.

This week I’ve worked on my manuscript a couple of times, I’ve done piano practice most days, I’ve done yoga or a walk or the gym and in most cases I didn’t feel like it. I’m not sure if it’s winter inertia, or I’m having a particularly low energy week, but life feels hard. Getting up for work when it’s under 10˚ C is probably not helping.

Is being an adult progressively adding more maintenance tasks to your list to feel vaguely normal? In my memory I didn’t worry so much about stuff when I was younger, but maybe I’m misremembering. I feel much less fun and spontaneous – my back pain, and ankle injury and the whole pandemic thing didn’t help with that either. Maybe I’ll get back to feeling spontaneous. Maybe I’ll want to create more, rather than relying on starting an activity and hoping I’ll get into it once I’ve begun.

I had coffee with a former work colleague earlier today, though more correctly my former boss, and we had a lovely chat about life, the universe and everything (with a long detour to cults started because I recently read the Book of Revelation and wow, was that a trip, I digress). As I went back to my car to head to my exercise physiology appointment, I found I had a parking ticket. I was in a zone where I had to pay for a ticket, but I had misread the sign and assumed it was two-hour free parking, not two-hour paid parking. I was annoyed because it’s another in a long line of expenses (let’s not even get into the cost of vegetables or petrol at the moment) I have and it would have been avoidable if I’d been more careful about reading the sign. The annoyance spread through the rest of the day, something I feel might not have happened when I was younger.

I guess I’m worried I’m becoming boring and curmudgeonly and I’m not even that old! On the other hand, the world has objectively been through a very bad last couple of years, so perhaps I should give myself a bit more time to get over the trauma (and ongoing stress) of the COVID-years.

I’ve had this blog for over a decade, and I have been posting semi-regularly to it so I think I can say I’m maintaining it. Here’s to trying to find more joy in maintenance.

Why would you do that?

04 Friday Feb 2022

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TL;DR don’t touch people you don’t know.

This is a story of something that happened to me today. A cautionary tale. It has left me quite shaken and I want to share the experience with the world for two reasons: if you are the recipient of this kind of behaviour, know that you are not obliged to be okay with it. More importantly, if you do this sort of thing, please take some time to rethink your choices.

I am currently single, as a result I am on several dating apps, with mixed success. I had been chatting to a fellow, Joe (not his real name), for a few weeks on and off. He suggested we meet for lunch, and I suggested a cute pub/cafe in Brunswick Street.

I arrived first and sat at a table outside in the shade. I sent him a message on the app to say that I had a table and would see him shortly.

Hands come across my vision – someone behind me is covering my eyes and I’m startled. A face comes into my view from behind my left shoulder, the face of Joe.

I’m literally speechless. I don’t know Joe from a bar of soap and he decided to surprise me from behind before we’d even said hello. Even now, typing this, my cortisol and adrenaline are spiking.

Once I recover my ability to speak, I say that wasn’t okay. That sneaking up on someone is really threatening. That I need a moment to process. He says he’s sorry, and feels like a bit of an idiot. What I want to say is ‘good, so you should’, but I keep that to myself.

For a brief moment, I considered laughing it off but I felt nauseous and shakey. My eyes were darting around looking for threats. I’m sure all the colour drained from my face. I had to be true to my experience and I was incredibly unsettled. I did not want to be anywhere near this person, and any romantic notions were gone. I say I’m going to have to reschedule and leave. As I walk away my legs are jelly. My heart is pounding and I am both frightened and furious.

I do not, for a moment, believe Joe had bad intentions. I’m sure he thought this would be a funny meet cute, and that, like a romantic comedy, I would giggle and think it was great. But I didn’t.

What I learned from this interaction is that Joe thinks his need to ‘make an entrance’ or ‘seem spontaneous’ trumps my right to feel safe, and my right to bodily autonomy. That he has no concept of personal space or why it might be important.

And then there’s the fact he put his hands on my face IN A PANDEMIC. We are all social distancing, and avoiding hugs so get you can certainly your germy hands off me!

It took me fifteen minutes, pacing around Fitzroy, on the phone to a friend to calm down enough to have eat (since I fled the place I was supposed to have lunch). My hands still shook around the chopsticks.

I don’t think this person will take the time to consider how his actions affected me. He has sent a message since which reads as though he’s chalking it up to ‘not a good match’, which is definitely true, but not the whole story. I’m fucking furious that Joe has upset me in this way, and that he doesn’t appear to have any idea that he is at fault. I hope he reads this and is ashamed enough to change his behaviour in future. Not cool Joe. So not cool.

Welcome to 2022!

01 Saturday Jan 2022

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Here we are again, the first day of a new year, 2022. I am hesitant to say I’m feeling optimistic, since the plague is still with us, and travel seems like it’s not really on the cards yet, but perhaps we will be able to do more stuff this year.

I don’t usually make new years’ resolutions, anecdotal evidence suggests that resolutions last about three weeks, if that, so having goals seems to be better in terms of being consistent. I’ve set goals for the coming year for a few years running now, it seems to work better.

My goals for 2022 are similar to my previous annual goals, but let’s call it consistency rather than unoriginality:

  • Publish two manuscripts (titles and covers coming soon)
  • Finish manuscript for Singular Focus 2 (working title)
  • NaPoWriMo 2022 (April)
  • NaNoWriMo 2022 (November)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Painting projects, including a proposal for a mural in my apartment building hallway
  • Wasted Monday performances*
  • Piano open mic performance*

The last two, as with last year, are dependent on things being open for performances, but fingers crossed we should be able to get a couple of performances in somewhere.

I would like to spend a bit less time watching TV, more time reading and doing my various projects. Habits are the best predictors of future behaviour, so if I can get into the habit of doing a bit more than rewatching crime procedurals, that’d be good.

I’ll keep working on my garden, it’s looking pretty good these days. I have some berry bushes that produce pretty well and I’ve planted a couple of tomatoes that I hopefully won’t kill before they fruit too.

There was talk we wouldn’t get a proper summer here because of La Niña but the last couple of days have been hot and sunny, so perhaps those predictions were wrong. Outdoor gatherings of a few people seem to be the way to go these days, perhaps coffee outside at a cafe or two. So I will wish you all a very Happy New Year; may 2022 be kind to you and be full of joy and just enough challenge to keep things interesting, but not enough to make you miserable.

Another year over…

31 Friday Dec 2021

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Each year I do a little wrap up post about the last twelve months and how they’ve gone for me. 2020 was, as I’m sure it was for many of you, a shit show. 2021 started out hopeful, I went back to working in the office sometimes, I saw a couple of Melbourne Comedy Festival shows and a few band nights and gigs around town.

I even managed to get through the year without testing positive for COVID which is nice; I’m not sure I’ll be able to say the same for next year. Our case numbers are in the thousands per day, but with over 90% of the population vaccinated, it seems hopeful that we’ll be able to stay open even with new variants.

I set my expectations pretty low, after 2020 I wanted to feel confident I would tick some of them off, even if there was another long lockdown. Turns out I was right to be sceptical that our freedom would last; from May until October, we were all stuck inside again and we’re only allowed out now because of high vaccination rates.

My goals for 2021 are as follows:

  • Publish Singular Focus
  • Finish manuscript from NaNoWriMo 2020
  • NaPoWriMo 2021 (April)
  • NaNoWriMo 2021 (November)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Paint more murals
  • Put on a third Melbourne Fringe Festival show (October)*
  • Wasted Monday performances*

I achieved all my goals, except for the Fringe Show. If I’m honest, I’m not sure I would have done a show this year even without lockdown. There is a lot of joy in putting on a Fringe show, but an enormous amount of work. I’m focussing my energy on my writing, music, and doing some painting as well. I have three murals in my apartment now and have moved on to smaller boards that can be kept or given away to friends.

I took up piano lessons late in 2020, online only at the time since we were still in lockdown then. After a little over a year, I’m enjoying playing and tinkering on the piano. I might even build a repertoire so I can do some open mic nights with the keyboard – although the keyboard’s pretty massive so transporting it will be a pain. My piano teacher has organised two small concerts in 2021 with her adult students, and I have really enjoyed having an audience again, as well as being able to play two or three gigs with Wasted Monday when we were allowed.

Five people pose, each giving a peace sign with both hands and smiling broadly.
Piano concert crew: Jaya, Andrew, me, Mizuki (teacher) and Ben, November 2021.

My work that can be done at home has been pretty consistent, I have drafted about 80k of a new novel, and I have two novels that will be ready for publication in 2021 (stay turned for title and cover reveals).

Though I did a 30k goal for NaNoWriMo, I’m counting it. It’s been a tough year and my writing practice is pretty solid, so I don’t need to rely on November to make up the lion’s share of my first draft output.

My ankle, which was smashed when I was struck by a car in January 2020, is largely recovered, though there is some long-term damage and it’s never going to be back to the way it was. The biggest issue I have nowadays is chronic back pain, likely a secondary injury from the ankle problem. I find it hard to work when I’m in pain, a sentiment I’m sure many of you share.

I’m pleased to say my relationships–with friends, family and work colleagues–have remained solid for the duration, I am so grateful to have so many fantastic people around me. Even when we couldn’t see anyone in real life, I knew you were all there, at the end of the phone or over text.

My grandmother passed in September, she was 94, so had a good run. The funeral was weird, because we were in lockdown and had only two people in the chapel, and a few more watching online. Most other things have ticked along, in some cases limped along during lockdown, but have largely survived. I feel hopeful that 2022 will be enjoyable, possibly going out of the house more often, perhaps I’ll even be able to have a holiday outside of Victoria.

I wish you all health, happiness, relaxation and fulfilment, for the next year and beyond. The next post will include my new year goals.

Whamageddon and other adventures

19 Sunday Dec 2021

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Some of you will be familiar with the game ‘Whamageddon‘. The challenge is to get through from 1 December until midnight 24 December without hearing Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’. There is no prize, I honestly think it’s impossible to do but it’s kind of fun to tell people when you hear it and you’re out.

I went out on 6 December when an artist played ‘Last Christmas’ at a life drawing session where I was modelling. Since our lockdown has been lifted I’ve had a couple of modelling jobs, it’s lovely to get back out there and see the works generated in collaboration with the artists. Melbourne’s case numbers are still sitting up around the thousand per day mark, but we’re almost entirely back to pre-COVID numbers at restaurants and bars and other venues.

I have been running around the last few weeks attending various end of year gatherings and Christmas parties, all the social groups I’ve been missing during the long winter months are desperate to catch up before Christmas, which is lovely, but after so long in my apartment not seeing anyone it’s taken some adjusting.

I have two weeks off over the weird Christmas/New Year’s period, in which I hope to do some day trips and potter around meeting people for coffee or a meal out. Time feels like it’s been moving in a very odd way – both slowly and way too fast. How is it less than a week until Christmas?

I have two books I’m planning to release together early-ish in the new year, they don’t have covers yet and I haven’t completely settled on the titles yet so I can’t tell you anything about them. I’m going through final edits on them at the moment.

I hope you are all able to take some time to spend with loved ones (either virtually or in person) this festive season, and if you can, take a break from the world. Go slowly, read books in bed with a cup of tea, or binge that thing on that streaming service you’ve been meaning to get to. I’ll be back to post my end of year wrap up and my new year goals in the next few weeks.

NaNoWriMo 2021

31 Sunday Oct 2021

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Regular readers of the blog will know that I have been participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) every year since 2012. This year will be my tenth year participating. The stats on the NaNoWriMo website say I’ve written 466,945 words as part of my NaNo projects, which seems amazing and doesn’t include the words I’ve written outside of the November challenge months.

When I first started doing NaNo I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no writing practice, had a lot to learn about plotting and drafting and editing. Since then, I’ve done a lot of learning, both through courses, and reading, and my own writing practice. I will continue to learn throughout my writing career, one never stops gathering knowledge and if you do then surely the spark has gone.

The idea of doing 50k words in November seems overwhelming. In past years, NaNo has taken between one and two hours every day to win, and I don’t know if I can commit to that. After being in lockdown for so long I crave being out and taking on a challenge which will necessitate being inside seems like going backwards. Not to mention I’ve taken up a few other hobbies like piano and other things that I want to be able to make time for. So this year I am setting a goal of 30k words. A thousand a day. If I’m on a roll, I might get through in 45-60mins. It will still be a challenge for my time management, and I will probably have to make some sacrifices, but it also means if I skip a day I can make it up the next day without struggling too much. My brain can’t produce much more than 2000 words a day at the best of times, so my margin for bad or busy days in previous years has been pretty slim. Part of me feels as though this doesn’t count as doing a NaNoWriMo project, but I am going to count it none the less.

I’ve been working on a sequel to a previous book that I’ve published, but I won’t give away anything yet. I received two manuscripts back from my editor this last week and I will be looking to publish them together in 2022. I can’t tell you their names yet, since I’m still struggling with titles for both of them. I don’t want to do covers until they have names either.

I hope you’re all doing well, if you’re in Melbourne maybe you’re venturing out slowly (or quickly) into the world out of lockdown. I’ll keep you all updated on my progress, and as soon as I have titles for my two new manuscripts, I’ll announce them too.

Here we are again

25 Sunday Jul 2021

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It’s probably not news that COVID-19 is still a thing. In Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia are all in lockdown. We’re not allowed out except for the five basic needs; food, medical care, caregiving, essential work, and getting a vaccine.

In a little over two weeks I’m supposed to be going to the Gold Coast for a writers conference, but it’s unclear whether Queensland will even let my into the state – and that’s assuming our lockdown is lifted in time in order to leave Victoria. It’s not clear at this stage whether the conference will be able to go ahead, even if it’s moved online as it was last year.

It’s disappointing to be back here again, it’s disappointing to still be unvaccinated – though hopefully I’ll be on the way to that by the end of next week.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to work from home. I’ve been toiling away at various indoor projects, including piano practice, and a mural in my apartment. It’s based on a tarot card design by Matt Hughes for The High Priestess, a card that particularly resonates with me.

A black, white and purple stylised mural of a woman holding a book. she is surrounded by art nouveau border designs.
The High Priestess

My latest writing project is editing a novel I’m planning to release in 2022. Part of a two-book series about a mother and daughter, as yet both are unnamed, but perhaps my editor will have some ideas in October when she has a look over it.

I was really looking forward to the conference, and to the break in sunny (or at least sunnier than here) Queensland. Perhaps I’ll be able to go somewhere in Victoria instead, or later in the year if all else fails. Until then it’s stay inside, wear my mask, do my bit, and hope the situation improves soon.