• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Books

Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: Mentors

What if?

28 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing, Writing101

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Art, Artist Date, Bad days, Career, Conflict, Family, Feminism, Feminist, Inspiration, Loneliness, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, Nurturing yourself, Relationships, Self Esteem, Success, Writing, Writing101

Today is a free writing day. Write at least four-hundred words, and once you start typing, don’t stop. No self-editing, no trash-talking, and no second guessing: just go. Bonus points if you tackle an idea you’ve been playing with but think is too silly to post about.

 

I identify as a feminist. Usually I’m completely happy with this, but sometimes, I find myself wanting things that are decidedly unfeministy. Like a boyfriend and a baby and a house in the suburbs. I’ll turn 30 later this year. It keeps feeling like this should be a big deal, like I should have sorted my shit out by now, but it is pretty clear to me that I really, really haven’t got anything sorted out.

I’ve just left a perfectly good, if soul-crushing, permanent part time job for nothing. I haven’t really got another job to go into. I plan to study full-time next semester, but without Centrelink/welfare payments I’ll have to get a job of some sort to survive. I have been in a romantic relationship for a total of four weeks out of the last (nearly) three years. I’m generally not doing well in the ‘being a grown-up department’.

The difficulty for me with these conflicting desires is that I know, intellectually, that I’m capable of being happy without a husband, baby, house and white picket fence. I also know, intellectually, that having these things does not guarantee happiness, and that many people would look at my free, arty farty lifestyle with envy, but I still want them. I guess there’s that part of me, having grown up with all of those expectations of normality, that wants to fit in.

I always saw myself as a parent, a mother, and the idea that it might not be a reality for me is kind of hard to fathom. I’m not so invested in the idea for a baby that I would have one alone, I don’t mean any disrespect to single mothers/parents, but it seems like a lot of hard work, and I’m not up for that.

On the other hand women who don’t have kids are supposed to be focussed on their careers. In a lot of ways I am focussed on my career, my aims to be a writer, but that’s not usually what people mean by career. I don’t want to climb the corporate ladder. I don’t want to work really hard so I have lots of cash and no time. I often feel like a massive failure on lots of different societal measures of success, although I seem to be pretty good at academic pursuits which is supposed to be desirable, but usually only on the way to career or babies.

So how do I make peace with myself, with my path, if I won’t achieve ‘success’? Even if I don’t want to. How do I tell the part of my brain that wants money, husbands, babies and houses to be quiet so the other part, the part my heart knows is right for me, can guide me? And what if my chosen path is never ‘successful’? I might get a few things published here and there, but I might never be a full time writer. Maybe I’ll be working in admin a few days a week and churning out writing that no one will pay for and hardly anyone will read when I’m 75. I really want to be ok with this. I will always have ambition, and that’s great, but I want to be able to be happy without those things.

What if I’m a bad feminist because I want those things? What if I can’t achieve the things I want? What if the things I want aren’t socially acceptable? What if I’m a failure as a human being? What if I want things that won’t make me happy?What if… What if…

But what if I just stop worrying and start living? How about I try that and see how I go from there.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

The view from here

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing, Writing101

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Art, Artist Date, Blogging, Challenge, Inspiration, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, Nurturing yourself, Poetry, Self Esteem, southern hemisphere, warm summer breezes, Writing, Writing101

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.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Stream of consciousness

03 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing101

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adventure, Art, Artist Date, Blogging, Challenge, Emerging Writers' Festival, EWF, Inspiration, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, Nurturing yourself, Poetry, Self Esteem, Writing, Writing101

The last few days have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. I’ve been on two dates which didn’t go anywhere, I’ve resigned from my job, I’ve started the Writing101 challenge, I’ve been to an Emerging Writers’ Festival event about writing the mind and body and that totally blew my mind and now I feel kind of limp and vaguely annoyed.

I don’t know quite how to describe what’s going on inside me at the moment. I feel like all of the work I’ve been doing on myself through this blog, through my life changes, through working with my psychologist, all of it is just spinning my wheels. I suppose I should give myself credit for stuff, it’s not likely to feel as though I’ve changed, from inside my own head, but I have made some pretty big steps towards a totally different life.

Occasionally I wonder what I’m doing, and by occasionally I mean all the time. Oh, and I just remembered I sent a piece on the Isla Vista killings to a big Australian newspaper group, who were very courteous but still rejected me, and to the university newspaper where I study who said they’ve already done something on the subject and the treatment was very similar (I didn’t think it was but who am I to say) and they suggested I take it to the campus magazine for one to the other campuses in Melbourne.

I feel like I’m in this transitional phase all the time, like I’ve made enough progress, I’ve changed enough that my old life seems wholly unsatisfactory, but haven’t been able to make enough in roads in my new life, writing, blogging, photography and the rest, to actually be able to live off that. But maybe it’s less to do with where I’m at and more to do with the industry. It’s highly competitive and supremely difficult to get any sort of regular paid work. As frustrating as that is, there’s not a lot I can do about that.

So now, well in a month, I’ll be floating without the secure tether of a permanent job in the ‘real world’. The concept is frightening. I hope that I’ve made the right decision. I mean I’m sure I have, the work I was doing and the organisation I was working for was creating a space in my brain were I was very unhappy. I felt like all the nurturing I was trying to do of my creativity and of other aspects of myself was being undermined by the fact that I had a job where I was underutilised, underdeveloped, undervalued and generally unhappy. And I won’t starve, I live in a country with some relatively good welfare payments (at the moment anyway) and it’s not that hard to get casual work (right? right?).

Trying to take a deep breath and just calm the fuck down after screwing myself up, after trying to build up the courage to leap from the safety of a job that was stable, but awful, to no job at all, is going to be hard. I’ve booked myself a trip to India in July and hopefully that will enable me to gain some perspective on things. Perspective on life, on Australia, on work, on art, on writing, on everything. I remember coming back from my last trip to the United States feeling renewed and hopeful.

The sad thing is that that feeling is so fleeting. I mean I should be grateful that feelings are as changeable as they are because it means I’ll never stay in a really dark place forever, but it makes it hard when that feeling of renewal is so temporary. Chasing that feeling starts to become like work.

I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they’re unhappy because they’re bored. Or thinking they’re unhappy because it’s fashionable. They want to be someone they’re not; artists wish they were accountants with stable incomes and marketable skills, accountants wish they were artists, with the freedom to work for themselves and do whatever they felt like doing on any given day. There’s a lot of ‘grass is greenerism’ in our/my world.

I hope that I don’t spend my time feeling like that. I hope that what I’m doing with my life, this path I’m following, or attempting to follow, is something that brings me genuine enjoyment. I suppose it must be because I’ve been doing it for two and a half years without getting paid and I still do things like signing up to this daily blogging challenge.

I’m excited about the stuff that’s going to come out of this challenge. I’m almost finished uni for the semester (one essay to go, which I haven’t started but I have more than a week so it’s cool, maybe). It’s almost time to leave my ‘grown-up’ employers after two years. I have all of these plans for the future. All of these goals I want to achieve. I hope I can make a life out of the things I do here in this blog, even if I don’t make a living from them. I’ve even been applying for jobs that I would really love to do, writing and journalism type jobs, which I’m not really qualified for but which I certainly won’t get if I don’t even apply. I’ve applied to speak on panels at festivals, I’ve been performing my writing in front of audiences (which I’ve loved so much), I’ve been networking furiously and trying to make new contacts in the art world who will, if nothing else, nourish my mind and soul and allow me to exist in this world more authentically and with much more joy.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Happy 2014!

01 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2014, Adventure, Challenge, Goals, Happy New Year, Inspiration, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, New Year, Nurturing yourself, Talking shit to strangers, Writing

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.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

The time I discovered poetry videos on the internet

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Artist Date, Bad days, Inspiration, Mentors, Nurturing yourself, Poetry, poetry groups, poetry slam, Writing

I spend more time than I would like trying to forget that I’m unsatisfied with where I am right now.

Some of that is when I’m at home, alone, trying to find inspiration or meaning or rest.

Some of it is when I should be working but I can’t bring myself to do it because it feels like dying.

And then I find things, videos of poets with souls filled with pain and anger, that speak to me.

And I sit in my office, as my colleagues go about their business behind me, with one earbud in one ear listening to people like me.

And I write blog posts which look more like poetry.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

OMG Fangirling

20 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by toearlyretirement in Art, My Journey, Photo Essay

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adventure, Artist Date, Arts Centre Melbourne, Canon 1100D, Fangirl, Geoffrey Rush, Inspiration, Meeting Idols, Melbourne, Mentors, Photo Essay, Photography, Victoria

So this is basically a massive brag on my part, I wanted to share with the internet that I met Geoffrey Rush today at the Arts Centre in Melbourne. They have been hosting an exhibition there called The Extraordinary Faces of Geoffrey Rush for a while and he kindly agreed to do a signing engagement. The following is my boast in photo form.

Maddy, Me and G Rush (please note the hand on my shoulder, I was trying very hard not to get overly excited by this and fangirl everywhere!)

Maddy, Me and G Rush (please note the hand on my shoulder, I was trying very hard not to get overly excited by this and fangirl everywhere!)

The proof: my copy of the signed exhibition program with signature

The proof: my copy of the signed exhibition program with signature

Maddy looks meaningfully into middle distance

Maddy looks meaningfully into middle distance

A whale made from bubble wrap and suspended at Federation Square.

A whale made from bubble wrap and suspended at Federation Square.

This is Melbourne - we have cool trams and ornate theatres

This is Melbourne – we have cool trams and ornate theatres

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Writing Games

20 Saturday Apr 2013

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adventure, Artist Date, Challenge, Inspiration, Melbourne, Mentors, Writing, Writing Group

Today I spent a couple of hours this afternoon with a group of people doing writing games. This was organised by through a Writers’ Meetup group and consisted of eight people, none of whom I’d met before as it was my first outing with this group.

After a brief period of chatting and socialising the leader of the group, Mat, called the afternoon to order. We engaged in three timed writing tasks, Mat gave us a stimulus for each section. I thought it was an excellent exercise although I must admit it was a bit strange to sit in a cafe in silence while everyone around the table scribbled in a notebook or tapped on a keyboard.

Given the two hour time limit each task was fairly short, I thought I would share with you the stuff I came up with for each task.

 

Task 1 Stimulus: must be set either in the past or in the future, use the following objects as inspiration, a tooth with a gold filling, dogs barking, a zebra in the city, a hunter. 35 minutes.

Task 1 Response: The ground is cold beneath me, the wind is chilly. The smell of my horse and the embers of the dying fire are potent in my nostrils. The dawn is about to break, I can hear the birds stirring in the branches above me.

In the distance a dog barks at some unseen menace, my horse shifts her feet nervously. She knows what we are set to do, she and I have been companions for a long time. Rubbing the ache in my left hip I get up and pack away my sleeping roll. The day is going to be long and challenging, as it always is, I should be on my way.

–

A dog barks as I try to sneak past it into the hen house, my belly complains loudly as I slip into the coop. I can feel the hunter close by but I have to stop to eat. He’s been chasing me for what feels like a lifetime, but it can’t be more than two seasons. I can hardly remember who I was before the hunter came.

The chickens are warm on my prying fingers, delicately extracting their prized produce. I wish, more than anything, that I could take back the thing I did, to turn back the clock and save my family, stop the hunter from being put on my trail but I can’t. I believed the lies of the man who came to my door that cold night, the man with the golden tooth.

–

In the dead of the night I wake with a sharp pang of pain in my jaw. The tooth that was taken by the wizard in exchange for my power, that damned deceitful golden mark. There is not a man alive who does not know me by that mark. I am the one who stopped the song, who ruined everything. I set things in motion that angered the King, destroyed the life of that poor trusting girl and sent that bulldog of a hunter on a path of misery.

I never thought that taking the songs of our people and asking an honest country girl to sing them could lead to this – the fracturing fabric of our world, the reordering of everything we hold dear. This was the wizard’s plan all along.

 

Task 2 Stimulus: This was a paragraph that Mat read out about a man washing blood from his hands and seeing a cut on his chin in the mirror. 20 minutes.

Task 2 Response: He stared into the glassy depths of the mirror prodding at the gash with his sopping fingers. Frigid droplet of water landed o his bare chest, his face twisting into a spasm of pain as he investigated the wound.

His lover lay on the bed, unconscious and bound, his bloodied body spread eagled on the stained sheets.

“We have to be more careful with our friends, my darling” he said to his reflection.

“One day they might get out of their ropes if we don’t concentrate on the knots. We wouldn’t want that would we?” His right hand reached out to stroke the cheek in the mirror tenderly.

Having washed the filth on his body, the results of his dark, debauched game, he returned to examine the slumped body in his bed.

“Well then, now we can see the corruption that hides inside you Peter.” The man stirred at the sounds of his name, but the beating, bloodloss and barbiturates kept him under.

“We wonder if he’s learned his lesson, that dirty filthy whore. Should we finish the job, my darling, or shall we wrap him up and send him back?”

The two voices inside him fought over what to do next. The demon on his left shoulder wanted to finish the boy off, but the angel on his right wanted to let him go.

“We’ll keep an eye on him, darling, make sure he doesn’t go back to skulking on the corner if we let him live. The Lord gave us this mission to save the fallen, not just to slaughter the sheep who stray.”

It seemed that the angel had won this round but at Peter now knew, or would if he ever woke up, the balance was delicate. A hair trigger waiting for someone to say the wrong thing and set it off.

 

Task 3 Stimulus: Tarzan flying through the trees after poachers. 7 mintues.

Task 3 Response: Gene: Cut, cut, cut! Honestly it’s like you fuckwits want me to have a heart attack! Tarzan needs to be ferocious, they’re trying to kill Cheetah, your motivation is that you want to save your friend.

Tom: Ok, ok Gene, calm yourself. I’m still trying to get Tarzan into my head. He’s such a foreign character, I mean he’s so wild, so different from me.

Gene: We all know that you got this part because of your rippling abs not because of your talent Tom, but just try not to be so shit, ok? Right. Action!

Gene: No, no, no! Where are the rifles? Fuck Penny! You’ve given the poachers uzes? We’re not in Vietnam!

Penny: Sorry Gene, I’ll… I’ll fix it, just… uh let me have a minute to get to the props truck

Gene: Time is money. This is your fault so it’s coming out of your pay. Right, poachers whatever your names are, we’re going to just do some more shots of running while Penny sorts out this uter cock-up.

 

It’s all very rough, but it’s a great thing to do every so often. Next time I go I’ll take my laptop, it was kind of hell to handwrite the whole thing. I will have to go to a few of the more sociable events where I can get to know the group a bit better, I didn’t have much time to chat with people.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Writing Exercise

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adventure, Artist Date, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, Nurturing yourself, Penguin Publishing, Victoria, Writing, Writing exercise

As part of the Penguin workshop we were given a scenario and 7 minutes to write something about it. I thought I would share it with you, it just goes to show that even when you think you have nothing to write, you can find something.

Stimulus: We are at a very fancy party, a woman is arranging flowers in a vase, someone appears at the door, the room falls silent. What happens next?

I watch her standing there in the corner, arranging her fucking white roses for the fiftieth time. I know she’s seen me, how can she not? I’m at the door, dripping onto her expensive carpet, soaked through and freezing at her fucking party.

“You weren’t invited.” she says over her shoulder, without looking up. She doesn’t need to speak loudly the room is deathly silent.

“I…” I start, interrupted by a violent shiver “I had to see you.” I don’t move, I know there is a fine line to tread to get her to listen.

“Why?” she asks. A simple question but it means she’s willing to listen.

“I know it’s my baby Gemma.” I say, “I know you wanted to get rid of it, because it doesn’t fit into your plan, and because you think you want to be with Henry now, but dammit, I know you can’t kill it.”

Now she turns to me, her eyes full of fire, and stalks across the room until she’s inches from me. She looks up into my face, hers twisted into a sinister smile.

“It’s already gone John. There is no baby anymore.” she looks away and laughs bitterly.

“You have nothing to be here for, get out of my house.” she still speaks quietly but I know there is no question in her mind that I will go.

“Gemma!” I protest.

“Just go.” she sighs, turning back to the party.

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Penguin School of Popular Writing

20 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adventure, Artist Date, Inspiration, Melbourne, Mentors, Motivation, Penguin Publishing, Writing

Yesterday I spent the day at the Penguin Publishing headquarters in central Melbourne. I had enrolled to attend their inaugural ‘School of Popular Writing’, a full day workshop designed to give aspiring authors a better idea of what they need to do to get their manuscript published as well as an opportunity to meet people from the industry and two hugely inspiring and successful authors.

There were four speakers across the day. The first was Ali Watts, an Assistant Publisher at Penguin. She talked about what she looks for in a manuscript and in a submission/pitch letter, the sorts of things she expected from the author when a manuscript was acquired, the edits that were usually needed and lots more. She was a fantastic speaker, she was passionate about her job, about finding the next talented author.

The second speaker, Anne Gracie, is an accomplished historical romance writer. She’s won awards and gained wide recognition both in Australia, her home, and in the US where the genre is huge. She talked about herself, her process, and about how conflict is central to a riveting story. Anne was humble and grounded but somehow still larger than life. She did give out hand-outs which she said were a hangover from her days in teaching.

The third speaker was Fiona McIntosh, an author who had conquered both fantasy and historical sagas, also Australian she divides her time between Adelaide and Tasmania. Fiona talked about her process, about creating tension, and about the myth of writers’ block. Her energy and enthusiasm were contagious and her fly-by-the-seat-of-yours-pants style made her process sound easy, although I’m sure it isn’t (nor is it as chaotic as she seemed to imply)!

The last speaker of the day, Carol George, is a publisher with Destiny, a subsidiary of Penguin specialising in romance ebooks. She talked about all the hard work required from authors after they get the coveted book deal to publicise their work. She spoke about interviews and promoting yourself and her excitement about the industry was clear. In Carol’s opinion, while ebooks have challenged the bookstores and the publishing industry, they also open up a huge range of exciting possibilities, they give authors global markets, and most importantly they get people reading! She said it was a very exciting time to be a writer, a sentiment with which I’m sure all of the attendants at yesterday’s workshop would agree.

I was incredibly inspired and reassured by the passion and positivity of these four women. I left the sessions feeling like I had a piece of work which was worth working on and putting forward, that I had done a lot of the right things, and I learned a lot more things that would make getting my work out there easier. I was also given copies of Anne and Fiona’s new books along with some other Penguin goodies, so I will have to have a read of them.

I feel like I’ve been reinvigourated to continue writing. All of the speakers emphasised that it takes a lot of hard work to get there, but we’re all writers and we all deserve to call ourselves that. I know I have a long way to go still but I feel like I’m well on the way and that if I just keep pushing through I’ll get there one day.

I took lots of notes throughout the day, if anyone is interested in seeing them please let me know, I am happy to share the love!

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Survived!

28 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adventure, Canon 1100D, Challenge, Inspiration, Mentors, Motivation, NaNoWriMo, Nurturing yourself, Photography, Writing

This month I have been quiet because I undertook to do NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. The goal was to write a 50,000 (or more) word novel entirely in the month of November. On Monday I submitted my novel to the NaNobots and they confirmed that I had 50,131 words.

I WON! My first year of doing NaNoWriMo and I won! I must say I’m pretty proud of myself, especially given that I wasn’t even a writer in any real sense a year ago. It seems like it was so long ago that I left my full time corporate slavery and decided to be more purposeful in my life.

I’ve had some ups and downs along the way, and I thank you all for being there for my through those. I think that achieving my goal of winning NaNoWriMo in my first year really does go to show how far I’ve come. I feel like I can truly call myself a writer now, or at least a novelist.

When I got up this morning I thought that I was going to edit the novel immediately, to try to get it into some sort of shape while it was fresh in my mind. I even printed it out so that I could make manual edits on a real manuscript. But then I went to a NaNoWriMo drinks session with other Melbourne writers and I was chatting with a woman who advised letting it settle for a while before trying to tackle the monstrous edit. It was her third year so I felt like I could trust her judgement. There is also a part of my that doesn’t want to look at what I’ve done yet. A part of my that is still recovering from the ordeal. I think deep inside my brain is processing, bubbling away under the surface, a whole bunch of stuff from that story and I won’t be able to do a proper edit until that processing has finished. I think I’ll just file it under pending and wait until I’m really enthusiastic about going through it.

In other update news have purchased two new lenses for my DSLR camera; a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle lens and a Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens. I hope that since I’ve finished purging my novel that I will be able to do some more photo essays and what not in the coming weeks.

Also, here is a picture of my friends Jonathan and Gabrielle as zombies at a gallery opening I went to last week. The picture in the background was done by Jonathan and is for sale, so if you want it let me know, and this was taken with the new wide angle lens.

 

Yep, life is pretty sweet at the moment.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...
← Older posts

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • NaPoWriMo 2021
  • Behold
  • Sweat Shake Palpitate
  • Déjà vu all over again
  • A Storm is Coming
  • I’m really trying not to expect anything right now…
  • The year that was 2020…
  • New Release Announcement
  • Let’s talk about why that isn’t a compliment…
  • NaNo-Success

Categories

Archives

Contact me

Melbourne, Australia
fleurblum@hotmail.com

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    <span>%d</span> bloggers like this: