Tag Archives: Writing

End of year schedule madness

14 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by in Art, My Journey, Writing

≈ Comments Off on End of year schedule madness

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

We’ve entered the realm of Christmas parties and end-of-year celebrations. I had my work party last Wednesday – good chicken, disappointing dessert, my poetry group end-of-year do today and my writing group Christmas party tomorrow!

As we’ve done in the past, the poetry group visited the Ian Potter Centre at the National Gallery of Victoria to view the works in the hope of inspiring something poetic.

I spent some time sitting in front of these three works by Petrina Hicks: Fertile (2010), Into the abyss (2011), and Melo malo (2019).

Then I stood looking at this work, Force (1950-54), by Roger Kemp.

Finally I sat with this impressive sculpture, Hippolyta and the Amazons defeating Theseus (1933), by Jean Broome-Norton.

I wrote the bones of three ekphastic poems today. It’s more poetry than I’ve written in a long time, since I’ve been mainly working on prose. I hope to post some of the poems here on this blog once I get them polished up.

All the artists at the Ian Potter Centre are Australian, and all the works I viewed were in the free collection part of the gallery.

I can highly recommend hanging out in galleries with notebooks and writing whatever comes to mind. Take yourself on a date, or go with friends. You never know what might come of it.

Winning and Procrastination

29 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in Art, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

NaNo-2019-Winner-Twitter-Header

Yesterday, November 28, 2019 I won NaNoWriMo for the eighth time. I’m proud of myself, but having done it before it doesn’t feel like such a big deal anymore. I’m ready to take a bit of a break from my story, but I have two more days of November to try to get some words down.

I won’t give away too much, but the story is a paranormal thriller with a romance subplot. Once it’s done it should be a stand-alone novel; about 80k words I expect.

I frequently feel I put off starting work on creative projects; on the days I don’t have to go in to my day job, I don’t start my NaNoWriMo words until well into the afternoon. I’m very good at distracting myself by watching Netflix, or shows on the various other streaming platforms (there are so many now!). I try to procrastinate productively, by doing other jobs on my list, but it doesn’t remove the feeling I’m wasting time. Perhaps one day, when I’m a grown up, I won’t do it anymore.

Now NaNoWriMo is done can get back to planning to release a new book early next year, and I have already started writing a show for the Melbourne Fringe Festival next year.

I can’t wind down just yet, I still have an exhibition opening for the Life Models’ Society Inaugural Art Competition on December 17 before I can start slacking off. I hope to see some of you there.

ABC

21 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

A poem can start with anything
But seldom leads to any
Cause worth exploring
Don’t think about it
Everything is worth writing about
For yourself, or for someone else
Get the idea down, fix it later
However, you must remember
I can’t be the one to fix it
Joust wordily with your thoughts
Kill procrastination and fear
Let your mind speak directly
Move your fingers in the dance
Not concerned with the product
Only being in the moment
Pause and look out the window
Quiet night, sunset, thin scattered clouds
Right now is all there is
Some philosophies have
Theories about what comes afterwards
Utopias or torture chambers filled with
Violence and punishment but
Who was ever inspired by that?
Xenogamy of ideas, steal from everyone
You can do this! Just write
Zeal and persistence are all that’s needed.

Lead up to NaNoWriMo

25 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by in Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Hello dear readers!

This is just a short update post. I haven’t posted for a while, I’m going to blame this largely on going on an overseas trip (I’ll probably write more about that later). I have just come back home to Melbourne and I now realise I have a week to come up with a concept for NaNoWriMo 2019.

IMG_4079

This is me in Morocco.

I started doing NaNoWriMo in 2012 and have managed to complete it each year since then. Even last year while travelling in Japan, I got my words done. I have a certain stubbornness which makes short marathon type challenges particularly appealing.

This year I’m planning to do another choose your own adventure story. I have no characters yet, no plot and no endings, so this should be fun (for certain definitions of fun).

I haven’t really written much lately. I read over the work I did for last year’s NaNo, but I wasn’t particularly inspired to write more for that story. I suspect it will need a concerted effort, and not while travelling.

Let’s hope the passion for writing is reignited with this new CYOA project. And if is doesn’t, I can always start something else.

 

Romance Writers of Australia Conference

17 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend the annual Romance Writers of Australia conference. It was held in Melbourne, my home town, this year so I thought I really should go.

The conference consisted of three days of writing and business workshops and seminars.

The first day was a full day workshop on plotting with Natasha Lester. I learned a lot and will need to go back through my work in progress with my new story structure knowledge.

The second and third day were a selection of short sessions, there were quite a few competing sessions I would have liked to see. I went to a panel of people in uniform; fire fighter, paramedic, police officer and nurse/midwife, a session on historical herbal remedies, a session on narrative through description, and many more.

By the end of the third day I was exhausted and I wasn’t really taking much in, but I was raring to get back to my manuscript and start implementing my new knowledge.

imag2177.jpg

This is the collection of book swag I got from the conference.

I also took along some of my own books to sell at the indie book stall run by Ebony McKenna.

I made one sale which was pretty good when the audience was entirely other writers.

I also had two sessions with book agents to pitch my work. Both have asked for me to submit to them by the end of the month which is promising. I won’t get my hopes up too far, I have a plan to publish another book early next year regardless of how the pitches go.

Anyone else doing professional development that’s both challenging and exciting?

Winter nesting

02 Friday Aug 2019

Posted by in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

A couple of months ago, I bought an apartment in Melbourne. It’s near a park, and a river, and nice cafes. It has two bedrooms, and only me to live in it. For a while tried to tell myself I wouldn’t spread out into the second bedroom, in case I wanted a housemate or air b’n’b it.

Earlier this week I finally bought a sofa bed from Ikea for the spare room. It seems unlikely I’ll get a housemate; I’m enjoying having my own space. I’ve been using the spare room for yoga and have recently set up the piano keyboard that I’ve had for a while but didn’t play much.

A friend of mine is coming to stay with me for a long weekend, the same weekend I’m going to the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference. It’s being held in Melbourne this year, and I didn’t make it last year so I’m very keen to go along to network and learn. It’s not ideal to have my friend staying and be unavailable for three full days, but hopefully we’ll have time to catch up in between times.

I’ve ordered some more copies of my books, Sophie’s Path and Discovering the Franklins, to sell at the conference. It’s like I’m a real author!

imag2151.jpg

My little orange tree and some little friends

I’ve also been doing a bit of work in my little outdoor area. It’s quite big for an apartment terrace, but doesn’t get much sun, so vegetables are out. I bought a dwarf orange tree, pictured above, and a couple of native pepper berry trees but they’ll take a while to grow. I’m planning to rip out the weird spiky bushes in the raised bed and replace them with other more interesting stuff but that will also take time. I’m in no hurry as I plan on being here for a while.

Once the conference is done I’m sure I’ll have more to tell you all. I hope you’re all warm and cosy, if you’re reading from the southern hemisphere, or keeping cool if you’re in the north.

So I’m project managing an art competition!

15 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by in Art, My Journey

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

I’m sure you’re all aware that one of my jobs is modelling for art classes and drawing groups. I’m also heavily involved in the running of an organisation called the Life Models’ Society – a collective of models who advocate for better pay and condition for life models.

The LMS has been around for thirty years, as of 2019. We, the LMS Committee, decided as part of the anniversary year we would run an art competition. The idea is to generate more work for our models; the full competition rules are here.

It’s open to anyone in Melbourne, but you have to have made the work this year and feature an LMS model as the subject.

This is a fantastic opportunity to promote art and life modelling in Melbourne. We will be hosting the accompanying exhibition at Gasworks Arts Park in Albert Park in December. It’s probably the biggest event I’ve ever organised – much bigger in scale, budget, etc. than the book launch I hosted earlier in the year.

I’m really relishing the challenge of managing the working group,  and approaching sponsors, judges, artists and models to participate. It’s taking up a fair bit of my non-work time.

I’ve been working on a novel manuscript as well, and I’m now over 52k words into a book I didn’t write as part of NaNoWriMo. After all the input I’ve had from my writing groups over the years, I think this story is one of the most polished and interesting I’ve written and I haven’t even finished the first draft!

I look forward to seeing how the competition all works out, and for the skills I’m developing in the events management arena. I’ll keep you all informed on how this progresses.

Auckland Airport

16 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Art, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Untitled design

I sit, headphones on, but no music playing
I can listen to things around me without attracting attention
The woman next to me on a phone call, the two men across
the way watching some code of football. Rugby I’d guess
based on the city I’m in. Slow revelation of meaning through
poetry has never been my strong suit. I don’t do well at
layering. I tend to put my subtexts into the main text.

If you were teaching my work, it would be easy for the
students. Although perhaps, as Judith Wright said,
I didn’t write that in there. Of course, the postmodernists
don’t care about the author so I suppose what I do
doesn’t really matter

The lighting is dulled, outside it’s dark, but like a casino
they don’t want too much reality seeping into an airport
People with different body clocks, different destinations
different languages, all want to sit, alone, protected from
other passengers by their books/laptops/phones/ear buds

There is half an hour until I head home
away from one family and back to another
I have created a life and a home – a settled little
nest. Friends have flown to create new nests with
new lives and young lives in tow. No one to greet me
at the airport this time, just long-term parking and
the promise of sleep in my very own bed.

NaPoWriMo 2019 WIP

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in My Journey, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

So far I have written eighteen poem as part of NaPoWriMo this year. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re all good, but they’re not all bad either. I will probably go back to them later in the year and review them, There’s sure to be a couple that are worth working on.

I had be usual monthly meeting of the poetry group I’m a part of on Wednesday night. I didn’t take any of my new poems, I took one that I started working on in my mind while at a book launch in February.

I promise I was listening and not being distracted by my own inner genius; sorry Chris.

I am not a poet

I am a teller of stories
long and complicated ones
or shorter ones
no less complicated
each person I create
or recreate
from fragments as deep
and complex as I am

I am not literary
I prefer pulp
to dense poetic prose
but I’m a snob
adverb tags
unchecked repetition
trite tropes and
prostrate plots
enrage me

I am not an editor
in my own work
I skim over
obvious errors
I skirt plot holes
with ease
reading others’ work
I find plenty
to fault

I write in a world
between
high and low brow
a place where I
aspire to greatness
but can’t explain
what that means

I will always admire
styles different to
my own
more sophisticated
more practised
more authentic
more colloquial
there will always
be something
to aim for.

And now for some poetry

30 Saturday Mar 2019

Posted by in My Journey, Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

It turns out I work best when I’m working on a deadline, and a month-long challenge is like a deadline every day.

In April I usually participate in National Poetry Writing Month. Modelled on the popular National Novel Writing Month, which I do in November, NaPoWriMo provides prompts and encouragement to help you come up with a poem every day for the month.

I’ve done this challenge a couple of times in the past. Some of the poems are dreadful and I never look at them again, some have excellent potential and are worth working on at a later date.

I have been a bit quiet here on the blog lately; I moved house last week, and into a place I bought! It feels very grown up to have a mortgage. I have a two-bedroom apartment near a park in a very nice Melbourne suburb. It feels very decadent to have a whole bedroom to spare. I may get a housemate down the track, but there’s no hurry.

I hope you’ll join me in the April poetry challenge, it is motivating to know that other people are also participating.