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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.

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.

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.

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.

Welcome to 2017

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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Firstly, can I just say that 2017 seems like an absurd number for a year. I finished school in 2002 and that felt quite strange but now I’m even older and it’s 2017. It’s not a real number, it’s not a real year. I feel very old.

But back to what I was really going to talk about. My new years post. I brought in the new year watching the fireworks over the city and got home after 5am from a lovely house party with a spa and lots of lovely people. As a result I’ve spent today alternately sleeping and binge-watching Sherlock. It’s been a good way to start 2017.

So what goals am I setting myself for this year? Well, to start with I’m getting rid of the vague goals from last year. ‘Eat Better’ and ‘Exercise More’ are so ill-defined that they really don’t allow me to succeed at them; so they’re out.

One of the new writing groups I’ve been attending recently is the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, and the members are quite active in entering competitions and submitting pieces. I think it would help me to pitch got publication if I had won some competitions, so I’m going to add that to my specific goals for the year.

For my writing projects here is my list:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo 2017
  2. Enter 5 writing competitions
  3. Finish the first draft of ‘My Mother’s Secret’
  4. Redraft ‘You Brought this on Yourself’ for submission (this is a hangover from 2016)
  5. Redraft the Choose Your Own Adventure and publish it online.

That’s probably enough for the year, if I’m honest. I think I will need to rewrite the first two NaNoWriMo manuscripts I wrote for publication, they don’t quite sit in the genre of romance well enough to be commercial and they’re not literary fiction either. That’s probably too much to do this year, so they can go on the list for 2018 along with another fringe show. I did a fringe festival show last year, and it was a fantastic experience, but it took up a lot of my creative mind. I think I’d like to do it again, but perhaps every second year is more sustainable.

For my performance goals this year I’m going to focus on Hello Volume. We’ve had a couple of gigs this year and I’d love to be able to get one gig a month in 2017. We’ll need to do some work on networking as well as merchandising and social media presence and all of that jazz. But there’s four of us so that’s doable.

I need to take a bit better care of myself this year. By the time we got to the end of 2016 I was pretty stressed, exhausted and unhappy. I’d let friendships drop off and was anxious about a lot of things. Things that will help to make my 2017 awesome include cooking good food at home, keeping up with regular exercise, reading, and spending time with friends.

I wish you all a brilliant year in 2017. May it bring you adventures and love and happiness and just the right amount of challenge.

What’s Happened: This Year in Review

18 Sunday Dec 2016

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Since I finished NaNoWriMo on 30 November this year I’ve done very little writing. I think my writing-brain has gone into hibernation, or possibly it’s just getting to the end of a pretty intense year.

I was looking at the goals I set for myself for 2016, here, and thinking about whether I’d achieved the things I set out to achieve. The goals I set for myself this year were split up into three groups: writing goals, concrete goals, and vague aspirations.

Looking at my writing goals, I’ve only really done one of the four: win NaNoWriMo. I have partially edited two of my previous manuscripts, but neither of them are in any kind of polished state, ready for submission. I’m striking the last one off, pitching a script for a sitcom thing. I don’t want to spend a whole bunch of energy learning a new set of rules and techniques to pitch for television. It seems to me that surely that would be an even more competitive market than fiction. I may choose to do some serious rewrites on the manuscript to sell it to a publishing house, but that seems less daunting.

I do have one of thing I can add which was not on the list, but which was an amazing achievement none the less: writing, producing and performing in my own Melbourne Fringe Festival show Fleur and Alexandra Save the World. This took up almost all of my creative bandwidth for six months, March-September. It was a massive project, and while my show partner had done it before, it still took an enormous about of work and energy to make it happen. In the end we didn’t quite make our money back, but we had over a hundred people come to see our show, and we were listed in The Age entertainment guide. I count it as a success, and who knows, maybe I’ll do another show in the future.

The next category was concrete goals. I’ve only done one of these as well; perform with the band. Hello Volume has been practicing almost every week for all of this year, and we’ve done a couple of live performances. I had hoped to get a few more lined up by this stage of the year, but we have plenty of time for that. Yesterday we went up to a recording studio in Central Victoria to put down some tracks possibly for an EP. It was a surprisingly painless (although exhausting) process. The sound engineer was knowledgeable and created a great relaxed, low-pressure atmosphere. We won’t know for sure how it went until he sends us the mixed and mastered tracks, but listening to the rough cuts I’m super pumped to hear them.

As my second concrete goal I had set myself the goal of planning another big trip. I haven’t done that, for a variety of reasons. A large part of it is because I have so much going on here at home that I sort of haven’t wanted to leave.

The last category is the vague aspirational goals section. The problem with this section is that they are, by nature, sliding and slippery. One, eat well, is so subjective that there is no real way to measure whether I’ve done it. I mean I have eaten a lot of good things, I’ve cooked healthy things for myself and been conscious about what I eat, but only some of the time. Other times, especially when I’m running around like a mad person doing all of the stuff I try to jam into a normal week, I occasionally have chips for dinner. When we were performing the Fringe show I was so nervous before hand I couldn’t eat properly and then afterwards I was so hungry I just scoffed huge handfuls of chocolate and muesli bars.

The same is true of exercising. If I looked at the number of times I actually went to the gym this year, as compared with last year, I’m sure I would have performed significantly worse. There was a period where I was sick for a month, and then there was the Fringe show, and then there was NaNoWriMo, when I prioritised getting my words done over going to the gym. I have tried to maintain a commitment to moving my body and being active, so I reckon I can count that one as a win.

The goal of ‘get a job’ can be ticked off, however I don’t know if I’m entirely happy with it. The job I have is working in an area of business where I haven’t had much experience. Granted, it’s mostly just a case of applying common sense, and having a consistent approach, but I still feel quite unstable in the role. Not to mention the contract I’m on is still a casual one, and I’ve had a new manager start about six weeks ago. Work is an area of my life I’ve found stressful this year. The creative projects I’ve worked on have been stressful in a sort of positive way, but my day-jobs this year have been full of uncertainty and difficult personalities. It’s not my favourite.

In terms of my social life, I’ve had some amazing ups and some lows too. I’ve started a relationship with someone I’m incredibly impressed by, who cares for me in a beautiful way I haven’t experienced before (and am therefore just a little bit freaked out by). It’s glorious and terrifying, and I hope that person knows how much they mean to me.

On the other hand, I had two very dear friends move away, and one more who is going at the start of next year. I’ve struggled in my adult life to create caring, reciprocal relationships (both romantic and platonic). I’ve ended up in situations where I play a counselling or parenting role, and these relationships are very one-sided. I’ve been consciously trying to seek out and nurture fulfilling, reciprocal and supportive friendships for a couple of years, and I’ve found it incredibly difficult. I guess it just means I have to keep trying.

I feel like I’m a person who is able to adapt to a lot of new situations. I like to take on new challenges and learn new things. In looking back at this year I feel like I’ve done a lot of really amazing things, I’ve done them pretty bloody well, and if I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and tired right now then maybe I should just go with that feeling and give myself permission to take a break. I have a tendency to set unrealistically high expectations and then be so stubborn that I try to achieve them anyway. Mostly it means I get a great deal of work done, but sometimes it means I beat myself up because I can’t do everything.

I’m thinking of what goals I want for next to set for next year. I think I’ll aim for stability in at least one aspect of life. I’ve had a lot of balls in the air this year and I think it would be easier in 2017 if at least one moving part was not moving quite so much. Maybe my day-job will actually be what I want it to be: a financial support for my other endeavours, and not such a drainer of my mental resources.

Once I figure out what I want to put on the list, I’ll do a post on my 2017 goals in early January.

Wrapping up 2015

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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For the last couple of years, I’ve written a little review of my year in reference to the goals I set at the start of the year. I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions, because they have such a bad reputation for not sticking. Instead I like to set a bunch of goals. Some are stretch goals, which means I’ll have to work pretty darn hard to achieve them, some are hangover goals, which didn’t get done but which are still on the to-do list, and some are more like lifestyle aims.

Here is my list of goals for 2015, taken from my post last year:

  1. Win NaNoWriMo
  2. Finish and submit We Can’t Have Nice Things (the novel I started for 2014’s NaNoWriMo)
  3. Redraft the Adventures in Mediocrity script
  4. Visit the Netherlands
  5. Finish my Bachelor of Letters
  6. Perform with the band I’m in
  7. Find/perform at new spoken word events
  8. Find a ‘good’/’real’ job
  9. Talk to strangers
  10. Exercise
  11. Read
  12. Explore
  13. Expand
  14. Eat well

Let’s go through them!

1. Win NaNoWriMo

Yep. Totally did it. Wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure novel with 50k or so words. Editing this will be on the list for 2016.

2. Finish and submit We Can’t Have Nice Things (2014’s NaNoWriMo manuscript)

Well, I finished the initial draft. It took me longer than I’d hoped to get done. I slogged away through January forcing myself to write it, and then ignored it totally until about June when I’d finished studying. The manuscript ended up being about 65k words.

I sent it to a couple of people for an initial read, and I had some really interesting structural feedback. I haven’t yet been able to redraft the manuscript, fill out some parts, and shuffle the focus a  bit. It seems super daunting but it’s on my list of things to get started on in January 2016.

So I guess this one was half done.

3. Redraft Adventures in Mediocrity script.

This one’s a bit tricky to say yes or no to. I’ve redrafted it a couple of times, I’ve broken it up into six half-hour long episodes, sit-com style, and then I’ve redrafted those. But it’s not really finished. It’s been through a few iterations, and I think it has a bit more work still to be done to it.

4. Visit the Netherlands

Totally did this one! I visited my dear, beautiful friends Simon and Katharine who have moved to the Netherlands. It’s gorgeous there and I had an amazing time hanging out with them and eating good food and playing board games and riding bicycles around canals.

I also spent two weeks at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival filling my brain with arty goodness, see also this post and this post. Now I have to think about where I’m going to next! Possibly Asia somewhere.

5. Finish my Bachelor of Letters

Yes. Completely finished it, and I even graduated like a mother-flipping grown up! Go me! It feels a bit weird not to be learning in a structured environment. I might look into online courses/communities and other ways of keeping the flow of good stuff coming into my brain for 2016.

6. Perform with the band I’m in.

This one is a big old no. But there’s a reason: the band broke up. I am, however, in a new band, which is looking really good for performing early this year, end of January or early February we hope. We have a set of about half an hour, which is a bit rough around the edges but what better way to polish it up than performing for people, right? So I’m actually counting this one as partially completed.

7. Find/perform at new spoken word events

This one is also a no, but I feel like it’s a purposeful one. I was invited to perform some of my work at an event in mid-September. It was listed as being an edgy event where boundaries would be pushed. I was a little wary of what that meant, I mean, there’s edgy and there’s edgy right? So I sent off some suggested pieces to the organiser and she came back and said they weren’t really in the tone of the night. I was going for dark/gritty, almost horror type edgy, she apparently wanted titillating with a hint of 50 Shades of Grey type edgy, so I actually declined to perform. I’m not really sure spoken word is my jam. I think I’ll take it off the list for 2016.

8. Find a ‘good’/’real’ job

This one is a bit more vague, but I think this is still a bit of a work in progress. I’ve got a reasonably steady income doing temp work and life modelling, and I’m pretty happy doing that for the moment.

I’m still looking for what I really want to be doing. I know HR is not a sustainable long-term career choice for me, but it’s what I’m qualified in, what I’m good at, and what I keep getting offered. So I’ll stick at it until something more suitable for the long-term shows up.

Now we get into the more esoteric, even less-well-defined goals.

9. Talk to strangers
10. Exercise
11. Read
12. Explore
13. Expand
14. Eat well

For these goals, overall, I feel like I’ve done pretty well. I’ve met new people, I’ve kept up a reasonably regular exercise regime, I’ve read a bunch of books, I’ve also discovered the freedom to not finish ones I don’t like. I’ve explored two new European cities as well as discovering more about Melbourne’s live music and theatre/performance scene.

I’ve expanded my mind, I’ve had singing lessons and have a piano keyboard now. I’ve made changes to the composition of my social world, I’ve brought in some new people, let go of some old people, and strengthened connections with some people on the peripheries.

The last one, however, Eat Well, I still have room to improve on. I’m not in the habit of cooking properly for myself, partly I blame the lack of solid routine, and partly I blame not feeling like I’m worth it. I am totally worth the effort required to make up a batch of food and keep it for left overs. I am totally worth going to the markets to buy good quality meat and veg. I am totally worth spending that extra $20 to buy good food. I’m learning all the time and I know I’ll be better over the next year.

In summary, I’ve done some of the things I wanted to do, and I haven’t done some of the things I wanted to do. I’ve done things that weren’t on the list. It’s been a year of ups and downs, and hopefully I’m working towards something that’s a bit more stable, without being less exciting. Tomorrow I’m going to be doing a New Year’s goals post for 2016, so keep an eye out for that!

2014 – A Year in Review

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

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Last year I wrote a post outlining my goals for the year. These were the things that I had on my list:

  1. Submit my second novel to publishers
  2. Finish adapting the second novel into a screenplay and send it to some local film companies
  3. Plan my next big trip (this one is just going to stay on the list every year)
  4. Write something for young adults
  5. Submit something for Lot’s Wife (this is the student publication for the university I attend)
  6. Perform my work at spoken word events (I’ve already signed up for something in February, and I look forward to more)
  7. Finish the mural for my house
  8. Win NaNoWriMo 2014
  9. Talk to strangers
  10. Exercise (I’m pretty good with this generally but it doesn’t hurt to put it on the list right?)
  11. Read (all the things, I joined a book club to help with this, but so far it’s just added more books to the ‘to read’ pile)
  12. and most importantly just keep writing; anything, all the time!

For the most part, I did pretty well at achieving the goals I set for myself.

One was fairly straight forward, I sent off my manuscript to any and every publisher that I thought would be even vaguely interested and I had no response. That’s about what I was expecting, it’s a super competitive market and I think I would probably need to be pretty lucky to get picked up, but it was a bit disappointing none the less.

On to number two. I rewrote Adventures in Mediocrity as a film script, which turned out to be much harder than it sounded (requiring quite a different skill set if I’m honest), and I ended up with something that was way too long and boring. I haven’t made time to go in and slash it up in the way it needs to be. I’m counting that one as done, but it’s still a work in progress. I also didn’t send it out to anyone, because as I say it’s still super long and boring and will need some very serious attention in order for it to be worth sending to anyone.

Three, plan a trip, was meant to be just that, plan something. But in mid May (or sometime near there), I decided I needed a holiday sooner rather than later and I very quickly organised a three week trip to India. The trip was a real eye opener in so many ways. I’m very glad I did it, I learned a lot about myself and about life but it was often extremely challenging. Tick for that one!

Number four was a carry over from 2013, and again I didn’t do it. I wonder if maybe young adult is something that doesn’t come naturally to me, and it might be better to put this one on a bucket list for something I want to do at some point rather than trying to force it to come out in a particular year. I think young adult could be really fun to write, but I also have loads of other project ideas so I’ll get to it one day.

Five was submit for the university magazine. This one is a bit dissatisfying because I did submit two items, one was a satirical quiz, in the vein of the Cosmo/Dolly quizzes that many women will remember having done in high-school, and the other was a response to the Ilsa Vista killings in May. Both of these items were rejected and I wonder whether as a mature aged student I don’t have quite the right perspective for what the editors want. I dunno, maybe they just suck at diversity.

Number six was amazing. I would like to thank Little Raven Publishing for providing the avenue for my to perform my work to a beautiful and receptive audience. I performed at Velvet Tongue events a couple of times, and at the launch of Little Raven 3, an erotic anthology in which one of my stories was published (woot!).

Speaking of published, I also had two of my works, one story and one poem, published in my writing group anthology, and another story in a different local anthology. It’s been fantastic to be able to work with my writing group, a group of people who are both critical and encouraging, and to have that bear fruit. My writing group also had a workshop day in October, one session of which was a panel on poetry that I was invited to moderate. I really appreciated the faith in my ability, and the opportunity to try a new skills, and the positive feedback that I received for the session. I would certainly be keen to do something like that again. That one wasn’t on the list, but it was certainly an achievement worthy of being recorded.

Seven was finish the mural for my house. This one was an utter failure and the main reason for that is that the relationship between myself and the housemates in that particular place disintegrated completely and I moved out. I’m not going to count that against myself, because sometimes things don’t work out, and that’s ok.

The next one was to win NaNoWriMo again, which I did, so yay! But as was discussed in my last post, I haven’t finished the story, so that’s a bit annoying. I will finish it though – that’s going on the list of 2015 goals.

The last four are slightly less measurable, but I’ll attempt to review them. Talk to strangers has been going really well for me, it has resulted in meeting Seth, who invited me to join his band/jamming buds, and also meeting Alex, who is now also part of the band/jamming buds. It’s resulted in meeting the boys from Destrends, who I’m totally obsessed with and love a lot, and it’s meant that I’ve had some awesome, sometimes challenging, conversations with people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise.

Exercise has been consistent in my life generally over the year, I’m still working out at the gym two or three times per week, and I occasionally venture into other types of exercise too. My housemate and I are hoping to get into a routine using some free weights and some boxing pads, so that will be a good addition to my regimen.

The ‘To Read’ pile hasn’t really changed; I’ve read a bunch of books this year, but I’ve also added a bunch to the pile, so the pile is just as big, if not bigger than it was at the start of the year. The book club went well for the first half of the year, but when I went to full time study, with three literature subjects, I didn’t have the time to read another book a month. I finish my degree mid next year, so perhaps I’ll venture back to the book club in the latter half of the year.

Finally, keep writing. I have written a lot this year – I’ve written poetry, and short stories, most of third novel, and erotica and horror and lots of things in between. I’ve blogged, I experimented with reviews, and challenges, and I would like to blog a bit more regularly in 2015. My skills in editing will probably need some work in future, it’s really not my strong point and I feel like it might help with getting a publisher’s attention if I were more willing to kill my darlings, as they say.

2014 has been a really busy year for me. I’ve done a lot I didn’t think I would do, I’ve done a lot of things I wanted to do, and I haven’t done a few things I thought I wanted to do. I’m happier, healthier and more settled now that I was a year ago. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my life, but that’s ok for now. Maybe at the end of 2015 I’ll be able to report that I know what I want to be when I grow up. But if I don’t then that’s ok too.

I’m going to be following this post up with a new list of goals for 2015, so be on the look out for that, but for now, I want to wish you the very best for the New Year. I hope you’re able to set yourself some goals and achieve them. I wish you happiness and growth, to be surrounded by people who love you, and the courage to love yourself.

Happy 2014!

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Welcome to 2014!  Like many of you, I spent last night out and about welcoming in the New Year. I decided at the last minute to join a group of people on the roof of a bar in Windsor, Melbourne, called Mother’s Milk. The group was one that I’m part of through Meetup, so I’d never actually met any of them before. I walked into the bar and up to the roof and introduced myself to a group of people who were lovely, but not the group I was looking for! Ah the friendliness of the moderately drunk! Over the course of the rest of the evening the group I was actually supposed to meet arrived and I spent the rest of the night talking shit with strangers. I had a really good time (this morning I have a sore throat from shouting over the music, but that’s just the nanna in me coming out).

Talking to strangers is something that I learned while travelling overseas on my own, but it’s a skill I don’t often use when I’m at home in Melbourne. One of the gents that I was chatting to last night made the excellent point that if you can do it when you’re overseas, there’s no reason you can’t do it when you’re at home, so I might make that part of my philosophy for the new year.

As I did last year, I’ve decided to publish my list of goals for 2014 in the hopes that writing them down will make me more likely to achieve them. I’m not going to call them resolutions because it doesn’t feel quite right, so I’m going to stick with goals.

  1. Submit my second novel to publishers (I’m aiming for sometime in February for this)
  2. Finish adapting the second novel into a screenplay and send it to some local film companies (I’ve started it, I’m aiming for end of January for a first draft to send out)
  3. Plan my next big trip (this one is just going to stay on the list every year)
  4. Write something for young adults (this is a carry over from last year, because I didn’t do it, but I’m not letting myself of that easily!)
  5. Submit something for Lot’s Wife (this is the student publication for the university I attend)
  6. Perform my work at spoken word events (I’ve already signed up for something in February, and I look forward to more)
  7. Finish the mural for my house
  8. Win NaNoWriMo 2014
  9. Talk to strangers
  10. Exercise (I’m pretty good with this generally but it doesn’t hurt to put it on the list right?)
  11. Read (all the things, I joined a book club to help with this, but so far it’s just added more books to the ‘to read’ pile)
  12. and most importantly just keep writing; anything, all the time!

Over the last year I feel like I’ve started to come out of the darkness and make some real progress into the light. I’m starting to understand what I’m trying to do and make progress on it instead of just flailing around. I am grateful for all of the wonderful people in my life who have encouraged me, believed in me, and kept me grounded. There is hard work ahead but I am confident it’s all up from here!

The second great message I got from my conversations last night is a confirmation that the Universe doesn’t understand negatives; so you have to focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. Whatever you spend your time thinking about is what you’ll bring into your life, so think about what you want and it will come.

May 2014 dawn for you on a positive note. May you all get what you need. May you always have enough. May you have love in your life and friends and family around you. Thank you for all the amazing things I did and achieved over 2013, and I look forward to working towards a whole bunch more amazing, exciting, challenging, fulfilling things in 2014.