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Fleur Blüm

~ writer, performer, musician

Fleur Blüm

Tag Archives: Netflix

Auckland Writers’ Festival

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Auckland, Auckland Writers Festival, Bushfires, Competition, Inspiration, Kill Your Darlings, Netflix, New Zealand, Perth, Romance Writers of Australia, Travel, Western Australia, Writing, Writing Conference

awf I’m a subscriber of an online literary magazine, Kill You Darlings. They’ve been around since 2009 and I admit I don’t read as many articles as I probably should.

What I do pay attention to are the excellent competitions. One I recently entered was to win tickets to the Auckland Writers Festival 12-17 May 2020.

I recently found out I’d won! Two tickets to the festival, three nights accommodation, and a voucher for airfares! It is a surreal experience to win something that cool.

I immediately went to the webiste only to discover the program won’t be released until March! First world problem, I know, but I wanted to go through and choose my sessions and swoon over the gorgeous people I’ll meet or hear or see.

The added bonus is that one of my very best friends lives in New Zealand and I will joining me at the festival.

It’s looking like my travel for the year will be largely to attend writing conferences. I’m also planning to attend the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference, this year to be held in Fremantle. I’ve never been to Western Australia before, so I hope to spend a week or two taking in the different sights and landscapes of our beautiful west coast.

I had a nice, if short, break away from the day job, and have been somewhat less productive than I had hoped to be with my writing, but with this announcement I have something to work towards and be inspired by.

The period of Christmas and New Years has been hard and weird for many Australians. Although I haven’t been seriously affected by the bushfires ravaging our country I’ve all been dealing with the terrible air quality and constant blanket of smoke along with many other city dwellers. I have no mechanism to deal with the enormity of the lost of life, both human and animal and insect and plant, and the scope of the recovery phase that will be coming. I find myself overwhelmed by the whole thing and just watch comedy shows on Netflix and hide my head in the sand.

I hope you’re all doing what you need to do to take care of yourselves out there. I’ll keep you updated with my adventure across the Tasman.

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The Fallacy of Idleness

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by toearlyretirement in My Journey, Writing

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Burn out, Dances With Cucumbers, Inspiration, Magazine, Motivation, Music, Netflix, Rest, Writing, Writing Gig

I’m starting to think that I have a skewed idea of what ‘not doing much’ means. Since the start of the year I’ve been feeling the frustrating and conflicted combination of being both bored and overly busy. It’s a very strange feeling and it also means I’ve felt like I’m not really doing much, or progressing with projects.

This feeling has not been helped at all by the fact that I have recently subscribed to Netflix, so I feel like I’ve been watching a lot more tv than in the past. To be honest it’s probably just replaced stupid YouTube rabbit holes.

Anyway, as a colleague at work commented to me earlier today, I do actually have my fingers in a lot of pies. I’ve got practicing and rehearsing with my band, writing (and re-writing) various projects, Dances with Cucumbers, life modelling, exercise, socialising, and working in recruitment. I manage to fill up my time pretty effectively. So maybe what I’m actually feeling is some sort of misplaced guilt. As though every moment of the day should be utilised for some sort of productive end. There’s no rule that says you must book yourself back to back with stuff or you fail at being an adult. In fact I’m pretty sure there are arguments against it.

I’ve been looking into opportunities to submit to online magazines, either as once off submissions or as a staff writer. One which seems interesting requires one blog post per week, and one long article per month, which seems totally doable on the surface. But I worry that some weeks I’d struggle to have the time, and other weeks I’d have plenty of time. I guess everything in life is like that; a balancing act of compromise and negotiation. I’m going to go for it, and try to make it work. It’s not a paid gig, but it would definitely look good on my writing resume.

I wonder how other people manage to get the right balance between being productive and having enough rest that you don’t burn out. I need to tell my brain to settle down and just accept there will be weeks when not much happens, and other weeks when you’re jam packed. That’s life. I’m pretty sure it won’t change.

Well, I just wanted to write that all out and tell myself aloud that I am not being a slacker. It’s also a bit of an update. I haven’t started editing the Choose Your Own Adventure novel from NaNoWriMo 2015, but I have started some major rewrites for the novel from NaNoWriMo 2014, which are coming along nicely. This weekend is hideously flat out for me, so hopefully I get through it without exploding/imploding. I’ll catch you all on the flip side!

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Melbourne, Australia
fleurblum@hotmail.com

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