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Das ist verboten

25 Monday May 2020

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It’s been nearly four months since I was hit by a car. Some of you may be surprised to know that I’m still hobbling around on crutches, although I am rid of the moon boot as of last week. I need one further surgery to get all the metal taken out, it was supposed to be last week but then I had a bit of a sore throat and the hospital told me I couldn’t go in until after I’d had a test for COVID-19.

The test was unpleasant but tolerable, much in the same way as a pap smear test is unpleasant but tolerable. I don’t have it, thankfully, just some other unrelated sore throat issue. The whole saga reminded me of how weird the world has become. Things which would have been totally normal this time last year just don’t happen anymore, and things that would never have happened last year are common place – like having nothing scheduled every night this week. Lots of people are out of jobs, though thankfully in Australia we haven’t had huge numbers of deaths.

The whole world reminds me of a sketch I saw once, I’m pretty sure it was Bill Bailey but of course I can’t find the clip anymore. He described an East-German sitcom he’d made up entitled ‘Das ist verboten’ (translated it can mean variously: it’s illegal, it’s forbidden or it’s not allowed).

person holding covid sign

Everything I used to do feels like it’s illegal, forbidden, not allowed. Going to see a band, modelling for an art class, catching up with more than five people. I went to the supermarket on Saturday to get supplies for my isobaking and isocooking and there were so many people there. It was stressful. I didn’t feel as though I could get far enough away from people and I was wearing a big jacket because it was cold outside, but it was not cold inside so I was overheating which made everything worse.

Time is moving both extremely slowly and dizzyingly fast. I was released from hospital exactly a month before lock down started, but I wasn’t very mobile then. Now I’m more mobile, I have more energy, I’m even back up to my regular hours at the day job, but there is no where to go. Since being in partial isolation I’ve forgotten how to socialise. People exhaust me. Life exhausts me. I guess that’s kind of par for the course – everyone is exhausted or stir crazy or both.

I announced a while ago that I would publish my third novel on 1 June 2020, that’s only a week away. I blame the weird action of time for this. I’ll be hosting a virtual book launch on Facebook next Monday evening (Melbourne time) and I’d love you all to come. I haven’t entirely worked out what I’m going to do but it should be fun none the less.

If you don’t fancy the book launch or you live in a time zone where it will be awkward, you can always purchase your copy of My Mother’s Secret on Amazon and all good online book retailers. There might be a recording of the launch too.

One day we might look back at this time and think of all the things we learned, all the bread we baked, and all the government deficits we accumulated and smile, but it will be a long time from now. Until then, just try to be excellent to each other I guess.

National Poetry Writing Month

30 Monday Mar 2020

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Now we’re all staying home and not leaving the house for reals, I would like to invite you all to join me doing National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).

I’ve done it a couple of times before and while some days are harder than others to produce a poem per day, I’ve come out the month with a number of good first drafts. Maureen Thorson, the founder and host, supplies prompts and inspiration for your daily poem.

I’ve been coming up with creative ways to fill my time now I can’t go out for coffee and I’m still not really allowed to walk (I was upgraded to 25% weight-bearing last week which was amazing, we we still have a way to go). I have set myself up with all the materials to paint a mural and I’ve spent a fair amount of time doing semi-intricate nail art projects.

My cover reveal should be ready soon for my upcoming novel, My Mother’s Secret, to be released on 1 June. I’ve done some of the background work and I’m excited to get my third book-baby out there.

Take care of yourselves during this difficult time, keep your mind and body active if you can, keep in touch with friends online, access support when you need it. I’m doing okay financially – my main job can be done from home and TAC is still paying me – but I know a lot of people are struggling with that as well as health and lock-in stress.

Be kind, stay inside, we’ll get through it.

How do I say this…

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

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I’ve been trying to figure out how to write about this for a while. How much to say, what I want the world to know – my friends and family have already heard about it. 

hospital ducks.png

On January 27 of this year I was hit by a car while riding my bike. The driver failed to stop at at give way sign at a T-intersection. I will probably be fine in time, but at the moment I feel shitty and I’ve only been out of hospital for a day.

As far as physical injuries go, I have a broken leg. It could have been a lot worse but I’ve had two sets of surgery on it. I was admitted to a rehab hospital to help with recovery, but I really wanted to get home so I could start getting back to a semblance of normality.

I’m off work for the next while, the doctors gave me three months, but I hope it won’t take that long. I’ve been able to keep in touch with work mainly to make sure they can find stuff that I was working on. I’ll have to sort out a proper return to work plan with the doctors and physios etc. depending on how things progress. 

I haven’t been able to do much writing since the incident. It feels like I should be making the most of my time, but it’s hard to write when you’re in pain and just want to sleep. It’s tough because I’m bored and restless but also tired, resentful and sore. 

So, my life is kind of on hold for a while. I can’t walk on the left leg for another four weeks, and who knows how long after that it will take to get back to full strength. I’ll just have to take things slowly for the next few months.

Welcome to the Roaring 20s

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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Let’s start with the age old question of how did it get to 2020? I must not have been looking. Far out!

In the first entry of each new year I like to post a list of my goals for the coming year. You can read the review I wrote of the last year and its goals here.

I achieved a lot in 2019, and I have probably not taken enough time to appropriately pause and appreciate it, however I plan to keep up the hard work in 2020.

My 2020 Goals!

  • Finish revising and submit My Mother’s Secret to publishers
  • Finish manuscript from NaNoWriMo 2019
  • NaPoWriMo 2020 (April)
  • NaNoWriMo 2020 (November)
  • Redraft Janine’s story (working title)
  • Put on a third Melbourne Fringe Festival show (October)
  • Keep up the blog
  • Wasted Monday performances
  • Paint mural (in my house)

I’m sure there are other things on the list I want to do, I’m planning to do a bit of travelling, possibly to Perth, WA, for the RWA conference in August, but I haven’t completely committed to that.

I will continue to decidate quite a lot of time to running the Life Models’ Society, and we have a number of projects we want to get done in 2020, but they don’t go on my list.

If I don’t get any pick-ups from publishers, you can be sure I’ll self-publish My Mother’s Secret some time later next year. I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop on that.

I hope you all have a great new year; a good start to a new decade. How weird it feels to be entering the twenties!

Reflections on 2019

24 Tuesday Dec 2019

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Firstly, this is my 301st blog post! Wow! I completely missed the fact I’d hit three hundred when I published the last one. My first post here was 7 November 2011. It seems like a lifetime ago, although eight years is a pretty long time too.

I’ve done a lot of stuff in that time, completed NaNoWriMo eight times, self-published two books, co-written, co-produced and co-starred in two Melbourne Fringe Festival shows, left and started several jobs, become a life model and become heavily involved in running the Life Models’ Society.

My life is very different to what it was in 2011 when I started. We’re also approaching the end of another decade which has its own weird feelings associated with it.

As is my tradition, I take some time at the end of each year to reflect on the goals I set myself at the start of the year. I like to look at the things I’ve achieved the things I haven’t as a record of the evolution of my life over time.

Last year I published the following goals for 2019:

  • Publish ‘Discovery of the Franklins’
  • NaNoWriMo 2019
  • Finish manuscript from NaNoWriMo 2018
  • NaPoWriMo 2019
  • Sitcom
  • Top Secret Project
  • Wasted Monday performances
  • Blogging
  • Life Models’ Society Exhibition
  • Life Models’ Society 30th anniversary

Maybe/if I have time:

  • Self-publish one of my other manuscripts
  • Finish/rework shorts story/novella

I have achieved several of these goals, I published my second novel, I completed NaNoWriMoand NaPoWriMo, I project managed a successful art competition and exhibition for the LMS and helped to organise a lot of events for the LMS thirtieth anniversary year. And I’ve kept up this blog.

A couple of these goals weren’t achieved. I went back to my NaNoWriMo manuscript from 2018 but haven’t completed it. I don’t know whether it has what’s necessary to be an interesting book. I may come back to it later but for the moment it’s on the back burner.

For my collaboration stuff, the sitcom and top secret projects were worked on at the start of the year, but have fallen away in the later part of the year. Wasted Monday has gained and lost a drummer this year and with it some motivation. Lu and I are still keen so hopefully next year will be a good one for us.

A couple of things I’ve done this year were not on the list: I finished a first draft of a manuscript that was not a NaNoWriMo project, I also submitted a manuscript to my editor with the aim of self-publishing my third novel next year. The editor has encouraged me to submit to publishers (once I’ve made the required changes) so that’s an exciting opportunity too. And I travelled to Morroco and Spain in October.

This is, of course, not counting any of the stuff I’ve done for my day job. The day job has been a pretty intense year, in a number of ways. We’ve had a couple of restructures, and a lot of changes in the teams. I look forward to a more settled year next year, but who knows, maybe there is more change to come.

Do you have an annual goal setting ritual? Do you believe in New Years’ resolutions? Next year is shaping up to be a pretty busy year for me, I’ll give you the full run down of goals in the New Years’ post. I hope you all have a safe, fun and restful holiday period and I’ll see you back here next year.

Solitude or Loneliness?

10 Wednesday Jul 2019

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It’s been a while since I posted here. I’ve been so busy doing this and that I guess I forgot.

The last few weeks I’ve been thinking it might be nice to have a dog for company. I’ve been living alone, for the first time in my life, since I bought an apartment in late March. Sometimes the solitude is glorious; I don’t need to worry about bothering anyone when I get home late(ish), or worry about being woken up early by someone going to work. I can make as much mess as I want (I don’t because I’m a bit OCD, but that’s not the point). I can wander around in any state of dress without worrying about shocking my housemates. But other times, when I’m sitting on the couch watching some dross on my computer, or after having scrolled endlessly through social media feeds, or more often while doing both of these at once, I feel lonely.

I can’t just get up and talk to someone. I have to put effort into arranging catch-ups, or leaving the house to make new friends. It feels like hard work, and it feels like I’m always the one making approaches to see people.

I’ve noticed a couple of articles recently on what might be called a ‘loneliness epidemic’. I’ve been feeling loneliness on and off for quite a long time, probably since I was a child. I guess part of me struggles to really connect with people, and I worry a lot that people have forgotten about me; I think that’s genetic, my Nan seems to be the same. But part of me thinks that the illusion of connection that we have through social media actually makes us less connected.

I’m trying a few different things to counteract the feelings of being isolated that come up occasionally. I’ve found a good little cafe locally where I can sit and read a book, or do a bit of writing, the people working there seem friendly but I don’t know if they recognise me yet.

I thought I might adopt a greyhound, there are so many who come out of the racing industry and need to be re-homed. I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to foster a female brindle for a week as a trial, and unfortunately I didn’t even make it through the week. She was not like any pet I’ve ever met; not surprising as she doesn’t really know how to ‘pet’, but she was defiant, and hard to handle, and I didn’t feel like we bonded. In the end I asked if there was another foster carer who could take her off my hands. It was disappointing for a number of reasons, not least because it wasn’t really the dog’s fault we didn’t get on. I was also surprised by how traumatic I found it looking after a creature who was so dependent on me with whom I didn’t share a bond of affection.

I was reminded how hard it must be for people suffering post-partum depression; imagine giving birth to something that you didn’t feel connected to. It made me feel terrible to look at this dog and really resent having to fulfil her needs; toileting, feeding, exercising, and entertaining her.

I find it quite hard to admit when I can’t do something, particularly something that was supposed to be really fun like getting a dog. I’m not looking to try it again any time soon, I’m not sure that I’d be able to do it even with a dog I really loved as a person living alone. Perhaps I’ll get a fish, a colleague recommended a budgie, but I’m not keen on birds.

A lot of my time spent alone is blissful solitude, but I need to make sure I’m having contact with other people. Cultivating relationships will be important for the next year or so to ensure that I have enough good, strong relationships to keep me feeling connected. And I know I should spend less time on social media – because it really doesn’t help, but one thing at a time.

Goals for 2019

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

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Last Friday I went to a workshop that I found through Meetup.com. I frequently attend Meetup events that have highly variable outcomes – some have been really great and positive, like one group for artists which was really positive and motivating for several months. Other times, like a board game night I went to recently can be full of people who make it not fun. But to get back to the point, this workshop was to create a vision board. These are essentially a big seven year plan with pictures. I’d heard of vision boards before, I thought they were mainly nonsense, but it sounded like it might be fun.

When I got there, a room full of women did a meditation and then cut and pasted pictures out from magazines, some of which where twenty years old, onto big coloured cardboard sheets. I’m going to re-do it – either as a list or with pictures from the internet which more closely match what I’m looking for. The magazine pictures were a bit too commercial and a bit too old school for me.

fireworks

Traditionally one of the first things I do in the new year is make up my goals for the next twelve months. Many of my goals remain the same from last year; I’ll do NaNoWriMo again, and NaPoWriMo, as they both generate a good amount of first draft material.

I’m not going to do a fringe show this year, but Alex and I are planning to work on another top-secret project instead. We’re also looking at writing a sitcom and will do a show in 2020.

I have a couple of maybe goals in there too. I have a manuscript that I started last year but abandoned because I couldn’t get the pacing right; I’ll go back to that project to see if it’s salvageable as a short story or novella. I’m also thinking about publishing one of my other back-catalogue manuscripts in the last quarter of the year, but that will depend on how much time and energy I have by then.

My 2019 Goals!

  • Publish ‘Discovery of the Franklins’
  • NaNoWriMo 2019
  • Finish manuscript from NANoWriMo 2018
  • NaPoWriMo 2019
  • Sitcom
  • Top Secret Project
  • Wasted Monday performances
  • Blogging
  • Life Models’ Society Exhibition
  • Life Models’ Society 30th anniversary

Maybe/if I have time:

  • Self-publish one of my other manuscripts
  • Finish/rework shorts story/novella

I’m glad I did the vision boarding workshop. Long term goal setting exercises are important to undertake every so often; it makes me feel less like I’m making things up as I go along. I’ll re-evaluate against the long term and annual goals as I go to make sure my priorities and values haven’t changed along the way (this happens at work all the time!).

I hope you’ve all had a productive, happy, and positive 2018. I wish you all of that for 2019. I’m starting to make my own luck and I’m really loving it.

Hello 2018!

01 Monday Jan 2018

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I’m writing this a few days early because I’m going to a music festival over New Years. If you’ve read my Reflections on 2017 you’ll know that I’ve had a pretty productive year.

There were some ups and downs, especially this last week around Christmas. It’s always a weird time when people go away, have family commitments and there’s sort of nothing to do. It sounds relaxing but I find it hard.

My family lunch was good, my grandmother was mostly inoffensive. I was given a hammock and stand which I’m taking to the festival – it’s books in the hammock in the morning and music in the afternoon.

What are my goals for this year then, I hear you asking. Well, here they are:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2018
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Redraft ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and publish it online (from 2017)
  4. ‘Fleur & Alexandra are Out of This World’ Melbourne Fringe Festival Show
  5. Edit ‘The Discovery of the Franklin’
  6. Submit ‘My Mothers Secret’ and ‘We Can’t Have Nice Things’ to publishers
  7. Perform with the new band regularly
  8. Two blogs per month

The big one in terms of time commitment is the Fringe Show. The show I did last year was a six-months-long intense project. We’ve already started work on the new show; we have a plot and we’re ready to start drafting the script. We’re already way ahead of where we were last time.

I’m also considering entering a self-published box set with a contemporary romance story of ~25k words. I think I could use the project I did for NaNoWriMo in 2017 for this, so that will be another job to put on the list if I commit to it.

I’m thinking of taking some evening acting classes. I’m a pretty confident performer and there is always room for learning and improvement.

On top of these goals I will do my best to make time for exercise, good eating, friends , live music and all that other normal stuff.

My blog activity over the last year has been a bit slack. I’m going to aim for two posts per month, but I also want to have good content. If I don’t have anything good to post, I won’t put anything up, but with all the projects I’m working on, I’m sure I’ll have material.

As always, 2017 had it’s highs and lows. It’s time to close that door, learn what I can and move into the next phase. I hope next year I’ll be in a more stable place and that stability enables me to create more consistently.

All the best for the new year. Bring it on 2018!!

 

Shouting into the void

26 Sunday Jul 2015

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On Wednesday night, for the first time, I realised that I’m not shouting into a void. I’ve been doing this blog since November 2011. That’s almost four years now, and while I’ve been a bit sporadic at times, I feel like I’ve kept the flow of material coming that whole time.

I’m obsessed with watching my stats, going into the back end and seeing how many visitors and page views I’ve had every day. Days where I’ve had no visitors make me feel a little bit sad inside, and days where I have more than ten page views make me feel important. But the problem with that is even though I know there are people out there reading my work, I have no way to tracking who they are and whether, or how, my work affects them. In that way I’ve felt a little bit like I’ve been shouting into the void; writing my experiences and feelings down and sharing them but getting minimal feedback on it. Until Wednesday night.

On Wednesday night I caught up with a guy I know through Facebook. We met at a party a few years ago, and I hung out with him and his wife a few times. But then we sort of drifted and haven’t seen each other for ages. We move in some of the same circles, there’s some crossover on the social Venn diagram, and we’ve bumped into each other a couple of times, but you know how it is, just sort of floated through time. We caught up this week because he had some vinyl records that he was getting rid of and I said I’d definitely take them off his hands, some Adam and the Ants and Violent Femmes. So we actually arranged to meet, on purpose, in a pub, and had a chat.

This is all a bit of a long preamble to the point I’m trying to make, which is this guy told me that he had read some of my blog posts and that, while not instrumental, the posts about trying to find my happiness were influential in some changes that he made in his life and career. I admit I was a little bit floored by the idea. That someone, somewhere out there, had heard what I was saying and it had resonated with them. I discussed the experience with another creative soul I know recently, and she said that I was never shouting into a void, I was “shouting into the ear of a man who needed to know where the light was to steer himself towards it”. It’s such a beautiful way to phrase it, one I wouldn’t have thought of myself.

Writing is known to be a fairly solitary occupation. We sit alone in our rooms and scribble away hoping against hope that one day someone will read what we’ve said, and feel something. Out here in the blogosphere there are a lot of us clamouring for space, and for validation. I don’t want to discount all of my beautiful friends who have read my blog and written me nice comments. I know that totally counts as validation, and I don’t want to disregard it, but somehow this guy’s experience of taking what I’ve said and using it to make changes in his life towards happiness, struck me profoundly, right in the feels.

Now, when I feel like I’m shouting into the void again, or when I wonder what the point is of all this, I’ll remember this guy’s story. I’ll remember that just because I can’t see the effect I’m having on people, doesn’t mean I’m not having one. I’ll hang on to this moment and just keep writing, because I have to do it for me, because I want to and because I need to write, and hope that it helps someone else out there, whether I hear about it or not.

The view from here

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

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As it creeps into winter here in the southern hemisphere I find myself fantasising about warm summer breezes.

 

There is a little girl sitting on the bank of a fast flowing river. On her back are the marks of weeks worth of different tan lines across her shoulders and arms. She’s wearing a singlet top with spaghetti straps, even though people at school think she shouldn’t. It’s so hot, and her mum said it was ok anyway, and she could wear whatever she wanted. The girl’s top is teal, teal is her favourite colour. She’s sitting with her bottom on the red dusty ground, dangling her skinny legs in the water as it drifts by.

She doesn’t turn her head to look at the parade of colours which march across the sky above her as the sun finally sets. It’s quite late, the evenings last forever in the summer down here. She’s had her dinner, sausages on the barbeque and the pasta salad that her mother loves, but she doesn’t really like. She eats it because her mum made it and that’s good, even if the little girl thinks it tastes like nothing and is slimy.

If she looked up, she would see that the undersides of the clouds are orange with bits of purple, and the sky behind them is a dull grey sort of blue. The girl swings her legs back and forth and watches the eddies and whorls she makes in the water with her feet. She can still smell the sausages on her skin because she hasn’t washed her hands since dinner, and she can also smell the tomato sauce that she spilled on her stripey shorts. She tried to suck off the sauce but it still left a little stain, not quite round, more like a couple of circles stuck together but overlapping, blobby.

The girl’s hair is up, but she’s been running around all day so there are stray strands of hair sticking out all over the place. Some of them fall onto her bare shoulders and neck and they tickle her in the warm evening breeze. Then the wind suddenly picks itself up, like lots of little breezes decided to come past her spot at once, and she hears the leaves above her rustle restlessly, and the limbs of the river red gums groan and squeak.

Somewhere, it seems very far away, someone is calling her name. It might be mum, the little girl thinks, so she reluctantly pulls her wrinkly feet out of the lovely cool water, stands up, wiping her dusty hands on her dustier shorts, and trots off back towards the camp site.