Category Archives: Uncategorized

Distraction or Inspiration?

Posted on by
2

I was supposed to be doing a whole lot of writing tonight. You know that impending deadline I wrote about it my last post?

But I’m not writing. I got a couple of emails from The Monday Project telling me that new people had uploaded their responses to last month’s theme and so I looked at that. Then I opened Google Reader and started looking at The Art of Jordan and followed a whole lot of her links around the place (and got excited that she’s part of Once Upon, along with Ben Zen). And then I remembered that I have a whole month’s worth of downloads to catch up on with emusic, and now I’ll probably look at some yoga vodcasts. Am I good at distracting myself or what?

The short answer is yes. But then (having just come up with some great excuse for my housemate to use when she doesn’t read the recipe until after she’s started cooking and discovers that she’s started in the wrong order — practise in crisis management) I thought back to something I read earlier today — an interview on Fly the Falcon with Jordan Clark of The Art of Jordan fame, in fact — about needing inspiration. I’ve decided, and this is quite likely merely me justifying my lack of work tonight, that I should occasionally allow myself these distractions because they are inspiring.

The most inspiring thing of the night was the lovely Kate’s new website — her jewellery is lovely, her practices as striving to be as sustainable as possible, and most of all she’s doing something that she loves. Have a look!

I practically bounced downstairs to make my dinner, I was so excited by creative possibility. Those of you who know me in person know I’m not an overly bouncy person, but I tell you, I was bouncing!

Inspiration is invaluable, I think. It can be overwhelming too, of course, and it’s hard to find the balance between seeking inspiration and distracting oneself. But surely one night is okay, right?

PS. For the writers out there, The Reader has been another great source of inspiration for me lately — hopefully more on this later.

Monday Project: ‘Marrying left your maiden name disused’

Posted on by
2

“I would’ve had something more exciting for you if I’d known you’d be home,” she says. Click, click, as first one side of the plate’s rim hits the table and then the other, louder than she’d planned. He looks up at her. For the first time she sees their age difference in the small lines around his middle-aged eyes. He looks odd surrounded by his tiny children. He tries to catch her hand, but she moves to sit on the other side of the table.

Bella slides Sally’s peanut butter sandwich across the table on its plate. Their hands touch on the side of the plate and Anthony’s fingers find the crease at the centre of her palm. He frowns at her, a question, and she forces a smile in response.

“Is Charlotte still coming over Mummy?” Thomas says.

Her hands freeze, halfway to her mouth with her sandwich. “No darling.”

“But it’s Wednesday.”

Anthony looks up from feeding Sally. Bella puts her hand on Thomas’ head. Quick learner, already ready for school, his preschool teacher had said. “Yes, it is. But Charlotte can’t come today. She has to work.”

“Will you go to the library another day?” Bella’s eyes feel dry, she didn’t know how he knew — he must have overheard her and Charlotte. Thomas feels the extra weight in his mother’s hand and looks at his plate, sensing he has said the wrong thing. Bella feels sick for him, even as she wishes she could feed his words back into his mouth.

“The library?” Anthony says.

That enormous wooden table with the olive-green leather top, the librarian’s matching favourite cardigan; the spines of books paving a seemingly endless path for her walking fingertips.

He blinks at her slowly. She smiles.

“Must be nearly time for you to get back to work.” The scrape of her chair on the kitchen floor is loud. She lifts Sally from him lap. “Don’t go back hungry.” Anthony’s sandwich is still untouched.

They sit in silent, Thomas looking at his plate. Anthony watches Bella feed Sally the rest of her sandwich, his chewing slow, automatic.

—

Late again! Sigh. But this is my submission for this month’s Monday Project theme. This is obviously incomplete — it’s a very small part of a short story I’m working on at the moment. The story is far from finished (unfortunately, I have to hand it in for uni next Tuesday) so I’m only sharing a tiny piece. Any feedback would be more than welcome!

Radioactive Productivity and update

Posted on by
1

My To Do List for the week before last was far too long, let’s be honest. I made myself leave things off, but it was still too long. So I am feeling a little like I’ve done, well, nothing. But I suppose that’s good too. I don’t do nothing very often. I’m bad at resting.

Going radioactive was a bit of an anti-climax. I went into a medical clinic, talked to a doctor for a bit, he put some gloves on so he didn’t have to touch the radioactive vial, and he gave me the radioiodine pill and sent me on my merry way. Goodbye thyroid. Well, eventually.

It was so anti-climactic that I kept forgetting I had to stay away from people (and the dog!). But I think I managed to stay far enough away that I wouldn’t have affected anyone. Oh, and I didn’t get any superpowers — that I’ve been able to identify so far, anyway. Ripped off!

It did mean though, that I got quite a bit of time to myself. I did a lot of writing. Not all of it I’ll actually use, word for word, but it was all necessary. This last week I’ve written many more frustrating words, trying to find the story in the situation I was writing about. Tonight I think I finally found it

So now I’m typing it up and waiting (hoping) for some trick-or-treaters to knock on my front door.

—-

PS. This month’s theme for the Monday Project is due this coming Monday, 2 November.

Quiet Time

Posted on by
6

I have a week off this week. It will be a week of doing not much, of catching up on writing and reading. And probably doing my tax return, finally.

It will be a week of enforced isolation, mostly. I’m having a treatment for a thyroid disease that will make me, ummm, radioactive. Literally. Weird, huh?

It will mean I can’t be in close quarters with anyone for a few days. I’m at my parents’ house in Canberra, but I won’t be able to sit in the same room as them (or my brothers, or anyone) for any length of time. It’s all a little strange. But the end result, hopefully, will be a much more manageable condition.

The upshot of all this is that I’ve got some time on my hands. For what seems like the first time in forever, I’ve got a few days where I’m actually not able to leave the house, and where I will be well (just radioactive). I have a short list of things I’d like to get done. I’ve got two short stories on the go, that I want to finish; I’ve got a couple of books I’d like to read; and I’ve got that ol’ tax return.

Aside from a mild (but persistent, to be honest) fear of the seriousness of what I’m doing, I’ve been looking forward to having this time. More and more lately I seem to relish the time I get to spend by myself just pottering, thinking, or cooking. I like my alone time. It’s a nice way to be, I think.

Expectation

Posted on by
1

Last night on my way home from class, hyped up from talking about writing, ideas munching around my brain like little caterpillars, I realised that I’m only twenty-three. Well, for two more months anyway. I’m only twenty-three and it’s okay that I am still a bit of a novice writer, it’s okay that I haven’t read and re-read a lot of books that my class mates have. Like my Mum says, I don’t need to be quite so hard on myself.

See, I have these expectations of myself. I forget how old I am, and disregard how I’ve had relatively few years in which to get things done, and I wonder why I’m not more accomplished at certain things. People I meet think I’m older, because I almost think that of myself I guess, and treat me as such, and then I feel like a fraud because I haven’t read all the books they have so I don’t know what they’re talking about. Nor have I re-read my favourite books more than about once, so I have to sit silent as others talk about the different experiences they’ve had with different readings of the same stories.

Add to that the feeling of guilt that I have when I start reading, as if I should be working on, well, something, and you’ve got a very confused twenty-three-year-old hesitating to pick up a book. I’m not sure when this started.  The guilt is only a fairly recent thing. Silly really.

But in realising that I’m only twenty-three, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s stupid of me to think like that. I’ve got years and years ahead of me to read all sorts of things; I shouldn’t beat myself up about what I haven’t read. And I think I can give myself permission to enjoy a book! How liberating.

So I stayed up far too late last night reading ‘The Great Gatsby’ because it dawned on me last weekend that I’ve only ever read about it.  Wonderful to be reading before bed again, but I found it very difficult to get out of bed this morning…

Reading

Posted on by
Reply

I know my last post was about needing a break from reading and writing, and I stand by that, but the other day I was standing on the platform at the train station and really missed reading. It was as if I were somehow nostalgic about it, even though I really still read every day.

There was a guy standing next to me reading a book and something about the layout of the words on the page, the font, the colour of the paper, made me yearn for the experience of reading a book that looked like that. I didn’t want to read that particular book (I can’t even remember the title, it was obviously so important to me!), but it must have reminded me in some way of a book that I must have really enjoyed.

I love old books, like a lot of people. I love them for their smell, the slightly damp texture of their softened pages, the tiny text that sometimes bleeds a little, the beautiful fabric hard covers. But most of all I love them because they are someone else’s world. Someone else has lived through the experience of reading that book. Perhaps carrying it around with them, perhaps loving it, hating it, not even really remembering it. The characters and story world have formed a certain picture in their minds. The book might have moved them to tears or made them laugh.

But the man on the train platform was not reading an old book. The book was new, so it (probably) didn’t have that history. What it did have was a layout I’ve found common to new books coming out of small publishing houses. I’m not a typesetter, or a graphic designer, so I don’t know font names, but it’s a particular font, simple to look at but definitely computer-, rather than typewiter-generated. The page margins are wide. The spaces between lines are generous. Does anyone know the layout I mean?

I haven’t picked up a book yet this week. I’ve stuck to magazines. I think I’m trying to make myself really hungry for it. I’m sure this weekend at the National Young Writers’ Festival will help!

Testing

Posted on by
2

So, ummm, I’m an iPhone nerd. I love the thing. And I thought that if I downloaded the wordpress application I might be more likely to update regularly. We’ll see.

This is a test post, just to see if it works. I don’t even have any writing or reading to write about on here today, since I’ve done neither today. I’m writing every second day at the moment, and today’s an off day. I don’t have a legitimate reason for the lack of reading, just that I didn’t feel like it on the train this morning.

That’s something I feel is important; allowing yourself to have a break, and (this is the bit I struggle with) not feeling too guilty about it. Sometimes I just need some time off reading and writing to feel like I even exist in the world, if that makes sense.

Tomorrow, though, is a writing day. I’m looking forward to my cup of tea and page of words to change.

I’m going to try to be good

Posted on by
1

So I’ve been pretty useless with updating this blog. I always say I’m going to, and then I never get around to doing it.

But I’m going to say, again, that I’m going to try to be good and update it regularly. Occasionally I might be sneaky and do shared posts with the Monday Project. But mainly, I’ll try to update this space with tidbits about writing and reading. I might even post a few pieces of fiction here again.

In that vein, today I finished the first draft of a short story I’ve been working on for a little while now. It’s got a long way to go, but the first draft is always the hardest bit. I’m hoping to do a lot more work on it this week, and have something that I’m comfortable presenting in class next week. We’ll see!

Next weekend I’m headed up to Newcastle to go to the This Is Not Art festival, of which the National Young Writers’ Festival is part. I’m excited about, well, almost all of the events! I’m hoping to catch up with a few people, including Miss Literary Minded, and a number of friends of mine who live in Newcastle.

I’ll try to be good and post some about it!

The Monday Project: Missing You

Posted on by
5

She looked at the pile of boxes in the room. They reached higher than her head. The heavy step ladder helped her reach the top box, which she brought out of the room with her.

New memories were in her head now, they filled up nearly every corner of her brain, trickled down her spine and flowed into other parts of body. They dictated how she moved through the world, what she saw, what she smelled, whether she danced or frowned. But one little part of her refused to forget, refused to live in the present. It lived in this box, in the memories.

She did not open the box for a long time, just sat on the end of the bed with the box on her knees. When her legs started to fall asleep she moved the box to the floor at her feet and continued to watch it, to feel its heaviness with her eyes. She was frightened of this box and its contents, even as she simultaneously loved it.

Packing it had been difficult. It had taken her days, even months, in her head, but the physical packing was over in mere minutes. Years of her life, years she needed to forget, had been thrown carelessly into this box. She had thought that packing her memories away would help her move on. If she couldn’t remember she wouldn’t mourn what she was leaving behind. But she had missed the memories, missed who she was with them in her head, and this had kept her off-centre. Now, more than a year later, here she was. Box at her feet, about to dive back in.

“Wish me luck,” she whispered to someone unseen, and cut open the tape on the top of the box.

—

This is my submission to the Monday Project this month (the project theme is Missing You). It’s a little late — sorry!