Write on Track

Moving blogs

2008-10-03T17:58:00.004+10:00

I have a new home.

That's right.

My new blog home is here

So why the move?

I had already set up a wordpress blog because it allows me to add static pages, which means I can excerpt my writing and my writing blurbs. (Hold the Anchovies and Beyond Happily Ever After already excerpted)

Once my critique partner, Kiki, advised me that I could import all my old blog posts, it didn't take much more convincing.

Besides, it's much prettier than the standard blogger themes we have available, and I didn't want to mess around looking for new templates and have photobucket logos all over my blog, because the bandwith had been exceeded.

So if you're visiting here, come to my new blog and say hello!

Having my butt kicked

2008-09-22T11:27:00.005+10:00

I really like the warmer weather of spring, but I hate the hayfever. And this year, my allergies seem to be more ferocious than usual. I went to Melbourne with a cold, I came back with a cold and then spring made its debut. Robbie brought a blanket back from Sydney, put it on our bed without a second thought, and that set off a whole different set of allergic reactions. There have been times in the last two weeks where I've felt as if I couldn't breath. And being at work and talking on the phone all day has exacerbated the situation, until I can barely talk without choking up. I tell work I'm allergic to the place but they just laugh at me.
So this afternoon, I'm going back to the doctor. Maybe she can confirm my theory.

While I've been plagued by coughing, sneezing and a stuffed up nose, my head has remained mostly clear, which has been very helpful to keep me on track with the editing to get my partial complete, and my STALI entry finished.

My cp, Kiki, has been living up to her name and KICKING my butt (in a very nice and encouraging way). It's good to be held accountable. Otherwise, I could get lost on the internet, surfing the waves, but never actually making it back to shore.

So after working on Making the Cut for the majority of the weekend, I sent it back to Kiki for another critique.

The workshop by Margie Lawson at the RWA conference was also very very useful. Without a doubt, it is the best editing workshop, I have ever participated in, and I look forward to completing some of her online courses.

I realise I haven't done a collage of Making the Cut. Time to find some suitable pictures.

I'm reading New Moon again. This time a lot slower. The first time, I was so distressed that Edward had left that I rushed through it until he came back. It's better slower. But then again, a lot of things are!

Beyond Happily Ever After appears in Wet Ink magazine OUT NOW!

2008-09-06T19:27:00.006+10:00

Okay, so I'm just a teensy weensy bit excited.

A couple of months ago my short story, Beyond Happily Ever After, was accepted for publication by Wet Ink magazine, and now its on the shelves. This is my first sale!

If you have come to my blog looking for a summary of Cinderella, this is not the place to be. However, if you want to know what happened to Cinderella after she married her Prince 'Charming' and you are an adult, then read on:

Here is an excerpt:

Beyond Happily Ever After

And they all lived happily ever after.

That’s what Prince Edward had promised on their wedding night, but Cinderella found that the reality of life in the palace was far removed from any fairytale.

Twelve months after the dream wedding, Cindy showed no signs of producing the expected heir to the throne. Each evening a dozen chefs would concoct a feast containing all manner of aphrodisiacs, but Cindy often felt nauseous and bloated by the rich food. After dessert, the Prince would grunt and grind away, shouting commands to his sperm as if leading his troops into battle. Cindy opened her legs, laid back and thought of the kingdom she now served. Occasionally she wondered if her husband’s sperm had gone AWOL.

Each month as her stomach retained water and she menstruated, the newspaper hounds and gossip magazines published pictures of her ‘baby bump’, and expectation flew around the countryside like clucky hens. Cindy cried as she confessed to her husband that she was still without child.

To read more, go to the Wet Ink website and purchase the magazine...

I had so much fun with Cinderella and her friends, that I expanded the short story into a novel...so stay tuned.

Spellbound on Southbank

2008-09-05T18:04:00.004+10:00

And now the Romance Writers Conference.... Spellbound on Southbank.

I had an amazing time at the conference. Although I didn't splurge on a room at the Langham Hotel, I was just across the road at the Travelodge so there was no travel time, and I had the delights of Melbourne on my doorstep.

On the Friday, I attended Margie Lawson's workshop, which included the EDITs system (my manuscript is now full of colour, highlighting different aspects) and powering up the emotions. I left the workshop feeling as if I'd learned so much new, amazing stuff that would inform my editing and my future writing.

Friday night was the 'One Enchanted Century' cocktail party, and inspired by Twilight, I went as a vamp with bat wings. (I love my wings, I think every girl should have a pair)

Of course, I wasn't the only vampire in the room: Nikki also looked very cool.

And the devil made and appearance, right next to Nicki the angel:

Kiki was wired for sound and took out a prize for her unique costume.

There was many gorgeous fairies at the party: it was as if 'wings' were the must-have accessory of the night.

But Drinkerbell (Tinkerbells booze hag sister) also made an appearance with a carefully crafted tiara with champagne bottles and cigarettes:

A homage to Lizzie Gardiner's Gold Amex dress, was the Harlequin cover skirt:

And the Harlequin ladies themselves:

One of the highlights of the conference for me was meeting Kiki, my fabulous critique partner, in person.

The weekend was filled with workshops and fabulous conversation. It was lovely being able to put faces to names of the online friends I've made through the 50ks in 30 days challenge, and from the Romaus group. I came back from Melbourne with a request for a partial, and my head swimming with new writing craft information, and my veins coursing with writing mojo!

Bring on the Hot August nights - next year's Gold Coast conference.

Wicked the Musical

2008-08-28T15:08:00.004+10:00

Seeing Wicked was a huge priority of my Melbourne trip so Jen and I went to the show the first night that I was in Melbourne.

Generally, I am not a musical fan (well except Rocky Horror and Little Shop of Horrors). I usually find the story is only stringed together, an excuse to carry together a bunch of songs.

Wicked is different. Firstly, it's based on the book by Gregory Maguire so it has a substantial story, exploring themes of nature vs nurture, good vs. bad, popular vs freak.

Melbourne, priding itself on being a cultural city, has thoroughly embraced the musical. When we had walked down the wrong end of Collins St, and stopped to ask a policeman where the Regent Theatre was, he could have told us to follow the yellow brick road. (I'm surprised there wasn't one!). But he told us to head back in the direction we'd come, and look for the green lights. It seems that Melbourne has turned Emerald. I didn't manage to get a photo of the Wicked tram but I did spot it (along with the Kylie tram).

We left the theatre absolutely thrilled with the production - it was so spectacular especially the flying monkeys which, to my disappointment, are not featured in the program. Both Lucy Durack and Amanda Harrison (playing Galinda and Elphaba) had fabulous voices and carried the emotional heart of the show, and the storyline of Dorothy's intrusion into Oz worked its way into the story well. I loved the twist at the end, though I suspect that the twist is not part of the original novel. (It's going to the top of my to be read pile).

I took my chances in the Wicked lottery on the Saturday night. Line up 2 & 1/2 hours before the show for your name to go in the little green barrel. As I reached the top of the queue to enter, another woman by herself was writing her name on the slip so we agreed to both tick that we wanted 2 tix so if either of our names were drawn we would get in. Over 100 people turned up to take their chances and as each name was drawn, there were cheers of excitement from the lucky few. Finally, the guy said he only had one single ticket left, and he would keep drawing until someone wanted it. Guess what? The lady I'd made the pact with was drawn out - guess I just wasn't lucky enough!

Looking for vampires

2008-08-27T11:35:00.007+10:00

As you know, I've been fairy obsessed with the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer over the last few weeks. I've now read the whole series and have read the first book Twilight twice. And I'm sure it's not going to end there.

Before I left for Melbourne, I packed my bat wings,

and I figured if I was going to find Edward Cullen anywhere, it would be Melbourne - often overcast and raining, full of dark brooding figures in black.

And all that Gothic architecture.

If he needed a holiday anywhere away from Forks but offering the same type of weather patterns, then Melbourne would be perfect. Not much chance of sparkling in the sunshine there.

It seems I wasn't the only one looking:

When I spotted these signs on the drive to the hotel on the first day, I knew I must be onto something. With such first class facilities available, Edward wouldn't even need to hunt. He'd just make a withdrawal. So on my last day to Melbourne, I went back there. But alas, it looks like Edward was still in Forks. Might have something to do with the fact that the sun was actually shining that morning.

Byron Bay Writers Festival Day 2

2008-08-19T01:01:00.001+10:00

Day 2 and we were relieved to wake up to blue sky and sunshine.

I began the day by dropping into the Kids Tent and watched Danny Katz and Mitch Vane in action. Danny read from their new book 'The Little Lunch Games' while Mitch illustrated the story on butcher paper. Kids in the audience were then invited to draw their own characters.

Next I noticed the line-up for a fix, as the caffeine addicts stood patiently waiting to get their morning hit. (I'm a reformed caffeine addict although my poison was Coca-Cola)

I attended a session called First Writes: the Path to Publication. In this session Annette Hughes said 'the hardest thing about memoir is there's no end, you're not dead yet' which is how I felt when I was writing the pizza delivery girl tales - trying to work out where it should end! (these publicaion sessions always get me in because I'm still on that first path).

Afterwards I talked to Lollie Barr, who wrote the young adult novel The Mag Hags. and whose by-line I see every week in the paper.

And I couldn't resist asking Aussie Idol Damien Leith for a photo opportunity as I'm a sucker for an Irish accent.

Morris Gleitzman always draws a crowd and the queue in the background of this photo are his young fans eager for an autograph. Perhaps you don't have to be an Aussie Idol after all?

Next session I attended was 'Talking the Talk: Getting the dialogue right' with Max Barry, Virginia Duigan, Michael Gow and Judy Nunn. Max said 'You are writing a story that is taking place in the mind of the readers' summing up that we need to give our readers space to bring their own experiences to the story.

I bought Max's book Company following the session and told him I was nominated him for Foxy Author of the Week on my friend Natalie's blog. So - of course, had to get a photo with Foxy Max!

Next, I dropped by the kids tents again to see the talented and very young William Kostakis exercising excellent crowd control on the youngsters.

It seems that William has been writing about the same character (Courtney) since 6th grade. That's a long long obsession. You can read the results in his young adult novel Loathing Lola.

The next session was We'll Always Have Paris: celebrity versus literary publishing with the heads of Penguin Australia, Pan MacMillan along with the editor of Wet Ink magazine. I introduced myself to Phillip Edmunds as my story Beyond Happily Ever After will be published in Wet Ink next month.

Back at the cabin after a long and full day, we debated a mystery. How did our cabin key end up on our doormat? Well, it seems that the bush turkey was the culprit.

Saturday night dinner options were difficult and after much searching we ended up with two tables at opposite ends of the balcony at Hogs Breath Cafe. After a group near one vacated, we managed to make it one large table and ended up having an interesting conversation about men. But mostly we were exhausted...ready to retire and prepare for another exciting day at the Byron Bay Writers Festival.

2008-08-17T21:29:00.002+10:00

I've been tagged!

Copy the list below.

Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book.
Italicize the ones that you’ve watched.

Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. (You may of course play along anyway.)

1. Jurassic Park
2. War of the Worlds
3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4. I, Robot
5. Contact
6. Congo
7. Cocoon
8. The Stepford Wives9
9. The Time Machine
10. Starship Troopers
11. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
12. K-PAX
13. 2010
14. The Running Man
15. Sphere
16. The Mothman Prophecies
17. Dreamcatcher
18. Blade Runner(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
19. Dune
20. The Island of Dr. Moreau
21. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
22. The Iron Giant(The Iron Man)
23. Battlefield Earth
24. The Incredible Shrinking Woman
25. Fire in the Sky
26. Altered States
27. Timeline
28. The Postman
29. Freejack(Immortality, Inc.)
30. Solaris
31. Memoirs of an Invisible Man
32. The Thing(Who Goes There?)
33. The Thirteenth Floor
34. Lifeforce(Space Vampires)
35. Deadly Friend
36. The Puppet Masters
37. 1984
38. A Scanner Darkly
39. Creator
40. Monkey Shines
41. Solo(Weapon)
42. The Handmaid’s Tale
43. Communion
44. Carnosaur
45. From Beyond
46. Nightflyers
47. Watchers
48. Body Snatchers

Well obviously I'm not a huge science fiction fan... (were all of these books?)

so I'm tagging the following people -

Simmone Howell
Stephanie Kuehnert
Rhian Cahill
Kiki
and foxy Max Barry

3 more sleeps until Melbourne

2008-08-17T21:09:00.004+10:00

Only 3 more sleeps until Melbourne and as I actually start the first leg of the trip tomorrow morning, I've spent the day packing.

So what will I need to go to the Romance Writers Conference?

Firstly, it's Melbourne so I need my scarf and some hats. (Remember the hat thing is part of my new image)

I'm attending Margie Lawson's 'Empowering Character Emotions' workshop on the Friday and we've been instructed to bring highlighters, red pen and 3 - 5 chapters of our work in progress. I imagine the pages are going to end up very colourful! I've also got my flash drive (don't leave home without it) and some rescue remedy to take before my pitch to an editor plus the notebook. No point taking my laptop (at least not to the conference) because the battery dies very quickly now.

And then there's the One Enchanted Century cocktail party on Friday night. I've put together a vampire costume - bat wings, black lace top, black velvet pants, and I needed something to set it off. This necklace was made by a work colleague, Jill, and I purchased it yesterday at a jewellery party that she held. Perfect!

And of course the bat wings:

Once a girl has bat wings, what else could she possibly need?

Byron Bay Writers Festival pt 1

2008-08-16T22:15:00.003+10:00

We set off on our annual pilgrimage to Byron Bay Writers Festival on Thursday at noon. I didn't envy Roby's task of driving through the relentless rain, but we stayed optimistic that the weather would be on our side and the sky would clear.

It was not to be...

We burrowed in the cabin for the rest of the afternoon, and as soon as we stepped out of the car in the main drag of Byron, the rain poured down once more. So we stepped into the nearest eatery Fresh and were pleased with our dining experience.

Jen and I tackled the collage poetry on our first evening back in the cabin, and we all tried to chase the rain away with the power of our minds.

Not powerful enough...

The next morning after we'd showered and breakfasted and filled ourselves with caffeine, Lyn turned up on the doorstep as we were about to leave the cabin and walk over to the Festival site and told us that the Festival had been cancelled. We reacted with despair and gloom. How dare the gods be so unkind!

Roby and Caz drove over to the site to assess the damage and check out the water-logging, while Jen and I stayed in the cabin to wallow in collage.

When the troops returned, we debated what we were going to do to fill in the day. We rejected the possibility of getting cabin fever while surrouned by pouring rain, and opted for a quick lunch, followed by op-shopping and a trip to the cinema to see Mama Mia.

In town, we almost walked past Vinnies before we realised that it was Vinnies. As Jen had infected me with the collage bug again, I was itching to get my hands on more magazines and more glossy raw words to recycle and transform. The magazine shelf held the usual suspects - the Who Weeklys, the New Weeklys: all the glossy gossip garbage. New Scientist attracts my eye but there is no decent size text, and I finally settle on a couple of New Women magazines and a 'Real Living' magazine.

I scanned the bookshelf - I cannot resist checking out second hand books. The typical tired and wretched paberbacks toppled over each other but nestled amongst them was a copy of Gregory Maguire's 'Mirror Mirror' (the retelling of Snow White). Score! I grabbed it - it's meant to be mine.

The second op shop is too tiny to have a book section but I buy a purple scarf to keep my neck warm for the rest of the weekend.

It seems that many of the misplaced festival attendees have decided to spend the rainy afternoon at Mama Mia -- the foyer is filled with patrons waiting for the cinema to open. This is my second time seeing the musical after seeing it on Cheap Tuesday in Coffs Harbour with a group of work colleagues. The second time is different - perhaps they're more reverential in Byron Bay. The Coffs audience was in hysterics every time James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) opened his mouth to sing but Byron Bay accepts his singing without a titter.

We decide to eat at the Curry House that evening, and are given the room upstairs, all to ourselves except the couple who are stuck in the room next door (it seems more like a store room than an eating area). Thrilled by the tiny enclave to ourselves we dance and talk and chat and feast.

And hope that the rain will go away....

Missing in Action

2008-08-10T11:43:00.003+10:00

I admit I've been missing in action and still haven't done my updates about the Byron Bay Writers Festival. So you might wonder what has been keeping me from blogging?

Firstly, there's that little thing called work which takes up a huge chunk of my life.

Secondly, after reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer just prior to my trip to Byron Bay, I have been totally absored in the Twilight universe and have fallen hopelessly in love with Edward Cullen. I've now read all four books but I think the third book, Eclipse would have to be my favourite. I had Twilight on loan from my library but now I have purchased all of the books (and read them all), I will probably dip in soon for a second round, while I wait for the movie. I love the emotional intensity of the story, although book 4 grossed me out a bit in some parts, and I do have to question: is sex really better once you're a vampire? Guess I'll never find out.

Thirdly, I've booked a pitch at the Romance Writers of Australia conference in 2 weeks time, so I've been preparing for that. Initially I was going to pitch Diary of the Future but I've changed my mind and decided to pitch Making the Cut (I need a better title) - my story about the film festival in Bilby Creek. Subsequently, I've been spending a lot of time with my head and heart in Bilby Creek, reacquainting myself with my heroine Chloe Watkins, my gorgeous hero Luke Radcliffe, and the bitchy and sexy little antagonist Kirsty McInnes. I'm adding more scenes in Luke's POV to balance it out a bit, and I will probably have to add some more scenes in Elizabeth's POV. (Elizabeth is the Queen Bee of the town, head of every committee, who has hired Choloe for the position of film festival director).

Then there's the anthology we're compiling for the Nambucca Valley Writers Group. I've been collaging title pages for each section, and I also need to collage a title page for the anthology (not the cover - just a title page). I've completed the page for the Poetry Section and I really like it so I will be using a similar struture for the rest. (maybe you'll get a sneak peek later)

Plus I've been uploading all of Jennifer Gordon's new designs to the Cafepress shop. Have only got as far as image uploads so far (with more to come) but I will announce once we have a swag on new designs on products.

So, it's busy, busy, busy - but I love being in the space of when I'm busy in a creative way. There is no other feeling like it.

Alchemy

2008-07-30T20:29:00.004+10:00

Before I tell you about my trip to Byron Bay Writers Festival last weekend, I want to talk about alchemy. How one element can be transformed into another, which is what we as writers are doing all the time.

I realised this weekend while at Bryon that in the last twelve months or maybe less, I have experienced a personal alchemy. And it's not just the new hairdo.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Actually the photo has been taken at night with a flash, so it doesn't show the highlights in my hair. I'll have to have a photo taken in daylight.

Back to the alchemy: it's more than my appearance. It's an inner transformation - I now know in my heart, my soul, and my mind that I'm a writer.

I've always been a shy person, not wanting to blow my own trumpet, even shying away from talking to people, especially writers who have achieved what I want to achieve. This year, I just went for it: I talked to authors, I networked, I had a great time.

But I don't know why it was different from a year ago. It wasn't just the hair, although it may have given me an extra boost of confidence. Maybe it's the fact that I've written six complete manuscripts. Maybe it's because my short story Beyond Happily Ever After will be published in Wet Ink magazine in September. Maybe it's because I'm so out of the writers' closet to friends and family, that I've admitted it to the rest of the world. I don't know what caused the transformation, but it feels great and I've come back from Byron Bay filled with writing mojo.

As writers, we all transform words. We take a vocabulary, a lexicon and churn it around in our mind and then spin a tale, devise a plot, develop a character and create a story. And yet all we have to work with is twenty-six letters in an infinite number of combinations. Writing is an alchemy all by itself.

Collage poetry is also an alchemy. I take the basic ingredients of cut-out words

and then transform them into something like this:

I promise that I will be back with more pictures and tales of Byron Bay Writers Festival, but in the meantime, tell me -- when did you 'transform' into a writer?

Holidays

2008-07-19T16:19:00.004+10:00

I'm on holidays this week and everything seems to be more real and exciting.

This time next week, I'll be halfway through the Byron Bay Writers Festival. I've given up deciding which sessions to attend. Suffice to say, I think I'll have to be packing myself lunch each morning, as I probably won't have time to line up and buy lunch, or walk back to the cabin and make it. I know by the end of next weekend, my head will be swarming with ideas and concepts, and then I'll be straight back to work on the Tuesday. C'est la vie!

Anyway, there'll be lots of photos and stuff from the festival posted when I get back. And I plan to do a bit of collage poetry while I'm there.

The Romance Writers of Australia conference is going to be another chock a block weekend in a month's time. I'm booked into a day long workshop with Margie Lawson on the Friday, followed by four other workshops over the weekend. Plus I'll have two free days in Melbourne to check out the sights, maybe head down to St Kilda, do some window shopping, and go see Wicked the musical. Also on the Sunday night after the conference, I intend to head down to ACMI for the 15 minutes of fame Simmone Howell reading as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival announced yesterday. More rubbing shoulders with the literati. Maybe one day I can be the one signing the books!

Then I'll be flying back to Newcastle and popping down to Sydney for a couple of days to meet my new nephew and catch up with other friends and family members.

For now, I need to edit some chapters to send to my (very patient) critique partners and cut out some words to take to Byron to have a bit of a collage poetry fest while we're there. I also need to start planning my Chickollage website. Not much point having the domain name if I'm not going to do anything with it.

I finished reading the first novel in the Dexter series the other night. It was a bit of a disappointment after seeing the TV show, as the TV show seemed to have a much more interesting character arc for all of the characters. I was about two chapters away from the end and was thinking, it can't be ending that quickly, not based on what I'd seen on TV. Shrug! I don't think I'll read the second in the series. Although I have read number 3 - yeah, I did ask my library why they had number 3 stocked but none of the others. Weird!

Lucky they are not so weird with Stephanie Meyer's series - I've just started reading Twilight and loving it so far. Of course, it leaped to the top of my TBR pile when I received the email from the library to say my reservation was waiting for me. I can't remember whether I've reserved all of the trilogy, but I might just go out and buy them anyway, I'm only a third of the way in and I'm already sure it's a keeper. And I'm sure the library wouldn't appreciate it if I kept their copy!

Work Life Balance

2008-07-13T10:44:00.004+10:00

I'm on the countdown to my holidays - just four days of work before I'm on holidays so I guess I'll be pretty restless this week. But first of all I have to give a training presentation at work on Tuesday, as part of my application to be in the training team.

Now this is already interfering with my work/life balance because it's so busy at work, there's no time for any preparation during work hours, so today will be spent preparing for the presentation.

Here is one of the images I plan to use in the presentation. I also plan to make the participants play a card game matching the person with the type of aged care they require, the type of fees they will have to pay and other variable factors of aged care.

But meanwhile the other stuff is on the back burner, much as I hate it. I need to do something massive today to stay on Writer Island - 15 pages of editing, and the house is mocking me. I have to do housework. But I'm still in my pajamas. Procrastination really wants to take hold but surely I let her have her way yesterday.

So I need to get with the program: get off the net and start working on the stuff I have to do.

Then after Tuesday I can relax, and concentrate on the writing again.

July is editing month

2008-07-06T11:05:00.005+10:00

Our 50ks in 30 days challenge ended on Monday, and it feels strange no longer to be writing under pressure. A staggering 1,749,046 were written during the challenge and I'm proud to be on of the motivators of the challenge (along with my partners in whip-cracking and mirth, Sandie Hudson and Rhian Cahill). It is great to see others achieve and push their writing boundaries.

I have emailed our gorgeous winners certificates out (so now everyone who made 50ks is officially certified) and ordered the badges so we can wear them at the RWAus conference in Melbourne in August, and display our tenancity, our creativity and our insanity.

My head is now all over the place as July is editing month for me. I'm working with two different critique partners so I'm switching between working on Diary of the Future and I'm with the Band. My first 3 chapters of I'm with the Band have insertions and deletions scribbled all over them, and I'm about to add these to the computer, to keep myself on Writer Island for another week. And in between thinking about the characters of each of these stories, the guys from Hold the Anchovies keep making guest appearances in my head insisting that I finish that story. Because although I'm at 80k, I haven't reached the end yet. As the story starts with a pizza-fortune telling, I would also like to end it that way to bring it full circle and to show Lisa's emotional growth, but I'm not quite sure that Lisa has grown as much as she needs to as yet. And in hope, I have updated the status bar in the right hand colum with a projected word count of 85,000 but they may expand according to the character's moods.

Except for the cold weather and getting home in the dark after work, I really like July. It's the month I cash in my enforced savings plan by getting my tax refund and then make the annual pilgrimage to the Byron Bay Writers Festival with my writing buddies. Just a couple more weeks of the day job and editing and writing...and then I'll be lapping up the festival atmosphere. Can't wait....

50ks challenge comes to an end

2008-06-30T23:41:00.004+10:00

I started June with a commitment to write 50ks in 30 days.

I hit 50ks on the 23rd June, so I took a couple days at a slower rate, and then pushed through to see exactly how much I could write in 30 days.

My grand total as of 10 minutes ago is 65,040 words. Woohoo! The story is not yet finished, although I'm sure there are going to be lots of words that will be left on the cutting room floor.

It's been exhilirating, exhausting and revealing. Literary revenge has been very satisfying and the writing has been cathartic. Seriously who needs to pay for therapy when you can write? There were times that I dredged my memory banks, and there were other times when I gave my imagination free reign.

But most of all, I was bouyed and motivated by the wonderful support of my fellow 50k challengers. What a great bunch of writers!

And no matter what word count we each achieved, we are all winners!

Tomorrow is a new day, a new financial year (three cheers for the tax return) and a new month!

Tomorrow is the beginning of an editing challenge, a commitment to finish Diary of the Future and submit it, and the annual pilgrimage to Byron Bay Writers Festival.

But first tonight, I need sleep.

My Brilliant Pizza Career

2008-06-15T18:41:00.003+10:00

My current work in progress is Hold the Anchovies, which is based on My Brilliant Pizza Career.
I won't mention which company I worked for as I don't want to suggest that their stores are a hotbed of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll but that's where I got my education.

And it's interesting reliving it. At least on the page

So far I've written 33,799 words in 15 days - add that to the 25,067 I wrote for Nano 2004 and I have a total of 58,866 words altogether. Not bad - not bad at all. I've pulled a few non-identifying photos from my photo album from that era.

Below is a 'pizza' made by my mother for the owner of the store. Look closely, the whole thing is made of icing. It was a farewell delivery.

I could not have done the job without my faitfhul companion Helga, my 1966 VW Beetle. She was famous amongst my pizza customers, and had a certain infamy amongst my fellow staff for breaking down. I loved Helga- she was my independence and my freedom and I was sad to say goodbye to her when she finally packed it in. (this pic and song is from my 1986 diary)

Thought I would include a photo of me from that circa. This is taken at a post work party, actually the farewell party that the cake pizza was made for.

More pictures of Helga - this time with my sister and cousins posing as car models. I don't think they got the car ad job.

I worked for the pizza place for a couple of years, but my brilliant pizza career ended not so brilliantly. My second delivery to the same customers late at night -- but I never made it back to the store. A drunk idiot coming through the red light made sure of that.

Helga was off the road at the time. Almost as if she knew something. I was driving mum's car - the yellow one. Lucky I'm a survivor.

Writing workshop

2008-06-08T22:04:00.007+10:00

My writing in the 50ks in 30 days challenge has continued steadily during the work week and I passed 20,000 words last night.

20K in a week. I'm pretty happy with that.

Although I'm drawing a lot of the story from my own life, things keep making their way into the story that didn't actually happen. The characters appear to be developing wills of their own, deviating slightly from the actual events, but I just shrug my shoulders and keep typing. While the story and action is flowing, I'm going to go with the flow.

For the entire manuscript, I now have 45,511 words and estimate I will be finished at around 75k.

No new writing today as yet for Hold the Anchovies (but the night is not yet over). I spent the day at a memoir writing workshop with the lovely Alice Pung.

And at the workshop I wrote the following about my birth:

I was anxious to see the world. I was supposed to be an Aquarian but I had decided that twenty-two minutes into Sagittarius I would make my appearance. Freedom-loving, independent and above all spontaneous: no quack was going to tell my mother my birthdate.

Mum was already in hospital with a kidney infection. Lucky! Because I didn't give her much warning. It was probably the infection that stirred me into action.

In the middle of visiting time, my grandmother clutched my mother's hand. 'You're having your baby.' She turned to my father. 'Tell the doctor.'

The doctor dismissed her claim. What would my grandmother know after giving birth five times herself? But they quickly realised that she was right.

Half an hour later I was born. Mum said I looked like a skinned rabbit. Three months premmie.

Years later I told her I was trying to teach her a lesson about being early. She never learned that one.

Afterwards, my father caught the train back to my Nana's house and ran down the street announcing my birth to all the neighbours. 'It's a girl!'

Alice commented that my voice is meta-fiction --- fiction that is self-aware. I guess it's like the Seinfeld episode where they start pitching the idea to NBN and turn their lives into a sitcom. Self-referential.

Anyway, it was a great workshop. Good company as usual and we did a number of various writing exercises but now I'm brain drained and wonder if I will get any more words out for my couple who keep rebelling against their author.

But it's cool if I don't. Tomorrow is a public holiday!

And you gotta love that.

It's my story....and I'll write it if I want to....

2008-06-02T22:42:00.003+10:00

Well, I'm off to a flying start on the 50ks in 30 days writing challenge.

Sunday (got to love it when a writing challenge starts on a weekend), I hit a personal best of 7,409 words and today, despite the fact that I had to work, I still managed a respectable 2,828 words. So my total 50k wordage is 10,237 - only 2 days in and I'm already 20% into the goal.

I've set the total wordage goal for Hold the Anchovies as 75,000 and now have a total of 35,304 so I'm almost at the half way point of the story.

Once I decided that I was mostly writing about a period of my life, I pulled out my diaries, and wrote up a timeline. I think this is why the writing is flowing so well. I know how the story goes, the plot points, and how the story ends. I have snippets of conversation and dialogue written in my diaries, which provide a pivotal point for scenes. I have no opportunity to deviate from the timeline or the cause and effect of the events as they happened. I might throw in a couple of interesting and fictional customers just for the fun of it, but by facing up to the fact that this is my story, and yes, indeed I'm writing a sexual memoir, then I have given myself permission to just write. And as a result, the words are flowing.

On the last attempt of the story, I freaked out. It got too close to the bone and I thought it was the wrong thing to be writing...that I should be trying to fictionalise the actual events. But all names have been changed to protect the guilty. But stories come from everywhere, and I know they come from real life...this time, it's just happening to be coming from my life. My last five drafts have all been fiction, with a few incidents and adaptations from real life.

This time it is real...it is truth...well, my version of the truth. Perhaps the other characters in this period of my life would have a different version of the truth.

But then again...they're not writng the story.

I'm so excited

2008-05-30T22:36:00.004+10:00

I'm excited. Despite the fact that the year seems to be flashing by...it means that I'm one day closer to going to Byron Bay Writers Festival (programme announced today), one day closer to the Romance Writers Conference and a week in Melbourne and gulp....one day closer to starting 50ks in 30 days (our June writing Marathon challenge) Gulp, actually, that's only a day away and I haven't achieved everything I wanted to in May.

I'm excited about Byron because not only do I get to spend fabulous quality creative time with my writer friends, I get to catch up with my pal Jen, who I have not seen since she moved to Melbourne in January last year. Collage poetry will be happening!

I'm excited about the RWA Conference for obvious reasons and it is years since I've spent time in Melbourne...14 years to be exact. I'm still hoping that I'll be able to scrape up the funds to see Wicked the musical while I'm down there.

And now 50ks in 30 days starting Sunday. Today I was re-reading the first 25,000 words of Hold the Anchovies and I realised why I stopped writing it. It's not that there wasn't a story...quite the opposite. There's a story there alright, although it doesn't have a happy ending. It's my story. And I think in that first 25ks I got a bit too close to the bone, freaked out and stopped writing. (And isn't it at the point that you freak out that you're supposed to keep on writing) Yes, parts have been fictionalised... but so much of it is the absolute truth, so during June I need to find a way to access that story again and to stay with it. To stay with my truth, and not shy away from exposing my soul, my heart or my vulnerability.

I'm also excited about having fire again, and the cat is very happy curled up in front of the fire. It will make a big difference to being able to churn those words out. It was starting to get very cold here at night, and I was going to bed early (shock, horror) just to stay warm. But now the room is a pleasant temperature, the fire is burning and I hope that my creative fire will continue to burn throughout June.

Inspired by success.

2008-05-18T16:16:00.005+10:00

Years ago, it seemed like it was only a crazy dream. Me? A published author? Sure I'd strung a play or two together and seen them performed, but aside from the very trashy novel that I wrote when I was 15, I hadn't written a complete novel. That was the first step.

And five complete first drafts of different novel-length stories, I call myself a yet-to-be-published writer. (I can't count the group anthologies). But there's a bit more involved in becoming published, and there's that big hurdle called submission. I've submitted to contests and magazines but have yet to put myself completely out there by submitting to a real live publisher. It's almost time.

For many years now, I have been hanging out in writing communities - online and in real life. And watching other people's success has inspired me and provided me with the perserverance to keep at this strange world of publishing.

First: Marley Gibson. I met Marley online in around 2000 or 2001 when we were both hanging out at Red Dress Ink and writing chick lit. Marley has since found success with Young Adult writing and her first two novels were released two weeks ago, writing as Kate Harmon. I'm looking forward to reading it, and will be putting in my order to Amazon now.

Secondly, my real life friend Roby, who will have three fantasy novels coming out in 2009 with Pan MacMillan. I was there when she got not quite 'the call' but 'the-we're-very-interested-call' and could share directly in the excitement with her. Roby has been generous enough to share her journey with me and the rest of our writers group, including anecdotes from lunches, the pitfalls of editing etc and the full manuscript. Very exciting!

This is Roby, after finding out that Pan MacMillan wanted to speak to her.

Lastly, I became friends with Rachel Charlton/Rhian Cahill when we both did Nanowrimo last year. The novel she wrote during Nano has been requested after a publisher did a surf-by of her blog and read an excerpt of a different novel. How cool is that! So Rach/Rhian has encouraged me to get my work out there:

So I'm out of the writing closet (not that I've exactly been in it). I have a new blog which will focus on writing and excerpts from my work and you can visit it here.

Eventually I will have excerpts all five novel-length stories on the site, plus the occasional collage poem, and featured products from my Cafepress store.

It has been so inspirational sharing in the success of my writing buddies. It shows me that it's not just a far-fetched fantasy that only happens to the lucky ones. It happens to real people. It happens to the people with dedication, perserverance and talent! And I plan to be one of those people.

Available in the Writers' Zone in my Cafepress store.

Back to the editing!

Hunk of butt

2008-05-04T19:12:00.004+10:00

My online blogger and writer pals have gone guy crazy. They've been posting hunky guys to their blogs and in Sandie's case, creating a blog devoted to hunks.

Not to be outdone, I have posted one hunk of butt below. The photo is from my archives but the man shall remain nameless. And I do have quite a few photos from other angles, but they may well identify the man in question.

The photo was taken in a previous life when I worked with this hot guy in a career very different from the one I have now. Suffice to say, I had a big crush on the owner of this butt. Can you blame me?

Unfortunately, the crush is as far as it went despite flirtations and a kiss on the lips. Maybe something else happened in a parallel universe perhaps?

Anyway, he inspired quite a lot of prose from me, almost poetry, and at least one character in a novel. Nothing like some real life inspiration to draw upon.

Another first draft complete

2008-04-22T21:56:00.004+10:00

Woohoo! Another first draft finished and Cinderella gets her 'sort of' happy ever after, at least the best happy ever after that she can hope for in the complex love and family circumstances she is now in.

After ditching the false beginning which was all about Sleeping Beauty who suffered from narcolepsy (and never made another appearance in the story), I have replaced it with the original short story that started it all. And this is my final first draft word count:

68,572 / 68,572
(100.0%)

Today, I've been editing 'I'm with the Band' and looking through magazines for words for a collage gift that I'm making for a friend. I will post a picture of the gift once it is finished and presented.

My last short story has been doing the rounds of the office and I've been getting some very interesting and encouraging feedback. It's very appropriate for my co-workers to read it as it is set in a call centre, and we work in a call centre. But I've got to hang out for another four weeks to find out the competition results. The results are in, but will not be announced until the writers' group AGM. Best not to think about it.

So with the completion of Beyond Happily Ever After, that makes five first drafts in various stages of development. Time for some editing!

The Almighty Critic has forgiven me & the Ipod oracle

2008-04-20T14:30:00.005+10:00

It seems that the Almighty Critic has forgiven me. Or maybe he/she had a second read of my writing and decided it wasn't so bad after all.I found the missing 844 words. The words were hiding in a notepad file entitled 'rescued document' with loads of question marks and the missing words. I came across it accidently last night when I was creating my google base feed for the Chickollage store. So now I have to compare those the two versions of the scene.

I've been churning out the words with regular word sprints. I'm hanging in there on writing 100 words a day and often surprise myself as to my productivity, especially on work days.

Beyond Happily Ever After is now up to 64,821 words. I've extended the word count goal as the story expands, but I truly think I will cross the finish line of Beyond Happily Ever After in around 2.5k words. I've already written the final part of the story. I just need to write the 2 scenes that get me to that point.

Once I've finished Beyond Happily Ever After, I will start preparing the first three chapters of both that and I'm with the Band for a competition coming up in June. Which mean synopsis writing. Not one of my most favoured aspects of writing.

I want to dedicate May to polishing one manuscript for submission (which means - gulp - more synopsis writing but reducing a 5 page double spaced synopsis to a single page single paced synopsis. More gulping).

And then in June, a bunch of RWA writing buddies and I are doing our down under version of Nano. We've dubbed it 50ks in 30 days and we're taking advantage of our winter and the need to hibernate to work on our novels. I have no idea what I will be writing, although I may resurrect Hold the Anchovies, my novel about working as a pizza delivery girl.

So, it's full on and there's lots of work to do!

I thought it was time for another MP3 oracle. This time it will be an oracle by the divine Ipod because I've moved up in the world. I love my Ipod. I love that this it makes a random selection from all the songs on my computer - and I cannot promise I will know all the songs (or artists) it plays today.

Set the Ipod on shuffle, and then hit play to answer the first question. Hit next to answer each subsequent question.

So here goes:

1.How are you feeling today?
I guess that's why they call it the blues - Elton John(um, no I'm feeling good today. Tomorrow when I get to work may be a different story.)

2.Will you get far in life?
Wild Star - Transvision Vamp (you don't cruise,you just ride on by)

3. How do your friends see you?
Before too long - Paul Kelly (he who is nothing will suddenly come into view)

4.Will you get married?

Alimony Blues - Chris Wilson (so I guess that's a no)

5. What is your best friend’s theme song?

Fall to pieces - bluehouse

6. What is the story of your life?
The Angel and the Madman - Moving Pictures (Hmm but who is the angel and who is the madman?)

Moving Pictures have certainly provided the soundtrack to my life.

7. What was high school like?
Don't tell me the time - the Motels (This is probably right, I have never liked living my life to a schedule but it is part of adult life)

8. How can you get ahead in life?

In this little town - Dave Stewart & the Spiritual Cowboys (well, yes, I am living in a little town and I have never been more productive)

9.What is the best thing about your friends?
The Trouble with Andre - Shakespear's Sister (hang on, I don't even have a friend named Andre, maybe that's a good thing.)

10. What is in store for this weekend?
Would I lie to you? - Eurythmics (guess I'm not telling)

11. To describe your grandparents?
Mexican Moon - Concrete Blonde (huh?????)

-"thinking of you underneath the mexican moonlight"

12. How is your life going?
"working through the rooms in my head I came across your image"

I Don't Care - Shakespear's Sister.

"whenever I fall, I land on my feet"

13. What song will they play at your funeral?
Never Can Say Goodbye - Gloria Gaynor (cool!)

Does this mean that I will come back to life?

14. How does the world see you?
Another Stupid Love Song - Amiel

15. Will you have a happy life?
When you Smile - Concrete Blonde (ok, so I need to smile more)

16. What do your friends really think of you?
The Power - Vanessa Amarosi

17. Do people secretly lust after you?
I Think I'm Paranoid - Garbage

18. How can I make myself happy?
Blue Black - Heather Nova (really not sure how to interpret this one)

19. What should you do with your life?
Wreckage - Chris Wilson

'We're wreckage but I love you just the same."

20. Will you ever have children?
Island - Heather Nova

21. What song would you strip to?
Hymn - Chris Wilson (definitely not! - this is an instrumental with a heartbeat)

22. If a man in a van offered you candy, what would you do?
I've got to fight - ???????

23. What does your mum think of you?
Heaven and Earth - Tania Bowra.

Ah, the dichotomy!

24. What is your deep dark secret?
Reckless - Australian Crawl

25. What is your mortal enemy’s theme song?
Mustang Sally - the commitments

26. What’s your personality like?

People Like Me - Chris Wilson

"people like me - we'd rather live on nothing than slowly die to live"

27. Which song will be played at your wedding?

Don't Change a Thing -INXS

And the words just vanish!

2008-04-14T21:48:00.003+10:00

I lost 844 words tonight. Actually more - I'd written 121 words during the day and when I tried to save the new 844 words to my flashdrive, it gave me grief and wiped the whole file instead. There is a copy of the file on my hard drive but only up to last night's writing.

Aargh!!!!

Cinderella's cursing me too! When I left her at the end of the 844 words, she was holding her new gorgeous baby in her arms and now - she has to go through the labour again. Well, not really - the scene I lost wasn't about her labour, it was about her husband's anxiety because he's just been busted! With his pants down. You get the drift. Prince Charming! Not quiet.

So it's back to recreating the scene. Perhaps the almighty critic of the universe had decided that it just wasn't right. The judgemental flash drive obviously didn't think much of it. But it would've been nice if they'd let me decide!

Back to work!

Finished 'I'm with the Band!'

2008-04-10T20:47:00.007+10:00

Whoo hoo! The first draft of 'I'm with the Band' is complete! I finished writing it on Monday (the day before I was due back at work) with a mammoth writing effort of 4,314 words for the day.

This is the final word count:

110,173 / 110,173
(100.0%)

So my estimate that I'd be finished at 103,000 words was not quite right - the story kept expanding.

And this photo above indicates how I felt at the end of the writing marathon. Although the cyber dancing girls did come out to celebrate and did high kicks, and splits, and somersaults. Thanks Sandie and Rachel.

I'm still amazed that these two photos and the acoustic Moving Pictures tour in 2005 inspired a whole novel. The imagination is a wonderful thing!

The feeling I wanted to capture for the story was about a woman feeling 17 again, being transported back to her teenage years by the reunion of her favourite band. I even managed to slip in a cameo for the author when the band plays a gig in Coffs Harbour.

So this manuscript will be set aside for awhile as I complete my 100 word a day challenge with Beyond Happily Ever After.

53,592 / 60,000
(89.3%)

When I've finished Beyond Happily Ever After, I will have completed three first drafts in less than 3 years. So somehow, somewhere, sometime I need to fit in the rewriting, editing, reworking that is required to polish these drafts to submission standard.

And submit, submit, submit.

My Writing Journey

2008-04-02T08:59:00.004+11:00

Rachel left a challenge on her blog to talk about our 'call to writing'. The following piece I composed a year ago as a homework exercise for my writers' group.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. I dreamed about it. I envisioned it. I talked about it. And occasionally I wrote.

I was consumed by the relentless pace of the city. I was out almost every night of the week, at the theatre, the cinema or opening nights at work. I was gathering writing material, experiencing life, and dumping the events and memories into a filing cabinet into my mind, unsorted and unexamined. Rarely writing anything down.

My journal entries were sporadic and did not live up to my intentions. Looking back, I regret not keeping a log of the theatre productions I attended. The files in my filing cabinet have become damaged and incomplete and sometimes I can’t find the key to unlock the memories.
I made many excuses not to write. I was too busy. There were not enough hours in the day. My hand could not keep up with my thoughts. But they were all just excuses. I could choose to write anyway.

Ten years ago I made the decision to learn to be a writer. I moved to Adelaide and enrolled in a Professional Writing Course. I knew that I could no longer be distracted by the constant stimulation of Sydney.

It was a start. I learned about style and structure, editing, character, outlining, writing short stories and novels. But the course was the highligh of my week and my daily life was falling apart as I took on the mind-numbing ask of preparing loan documents for scanning at the Westpac Mortgage Centre. I applied for jobs in the theatre and arts industry and was constantly disheartened by the parochial and condescending attitude of the reigning arts administrators.
So it was time to sell up and move back to a friendlier town before I tied myself to the Glenelg tram line.

My father had moved to Kempsey and said we should join him. We looked at the map before bundling our possessions and drugged-out cat into the car, and decided we would end up either in Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour.

And then I was offered a job in Nambucca so I moved. The job fell through. I wondered what the hell I was doing in this town with no job and no prospects. Until I joined the Nambucca Valley Writers Group.

A few months later I started work in Coffs Harbour but by the time I moved north, I had bonded with the writers of the Nambucca Valley. By tackling new writing exercises, I learned that I didn’t need a writing course to learn how to write. I just needed to do it.

Here I am, three complete first drafts, one nearly complete first draft, and one started novel later. Since joining the group, I’ve written more than 340,000 words and created more than thirty collage poems. I’ve learned that ideas will always come if you just take the time to write. I’ve learned that writing every day keeps the muse happy and your writing world just below the surface ready to access with a stroke of a pen or the tapping of the keyboard. I’ve learned that there is no better high than a creative high – when the words are perfect and the characters are alive and you are inhabiting a world of your own creation.

Postscript: since writing this piece I have joined RWA and attended the conference in 2008. While I don't strictly write romance, all my stories have a girl and a guy and usually a happy ending. But the theme of all my novel-length pieces so far is 'finding yourself through some form of creativity'. Which is exactly how I'm living my life.

Cumulative word count is more than 400,000 words (see sidebar for breakdown) and the well of creativity is never dry.

In the last 12 months, Nambucca Valley Writers Group has expanded exponentially. Last Saturday, we added another 4 members to our group. We now have members in Coffs Harbour, Taree, South West Rocks, Melbourne and even one member who spends six months of each year in Vanuatu. Yes, we have become international. And this year, we celebrate our 20 year anniversary.

Gardening and writing

2008-03-31T16:55:00.007+11:00

Every time I pick up a tomato and cut it open now, I despair that I failed horticulture miserably. You don't know what you are getting anymore. The tomato might look fine on the outside (although that seems to be pretty rare) but on the inside....ugh, another wasted vegetable in the bin.

I went to an agricultural school. I learned how to milk cows. My father grew vegetables. Why did I pay so little attention? Was it because I always was escaping to fantasy worlds?I was transported by the written word to places that I could only dream of, places that only lived in my imagination.

I am a gardener. Just a different sort.

I plant the seeds deep in my subconscious. Sometimes the seeds have floated in on the wind, and I'm not even aware that they have landed in my garden bed and implanted themselves into the soil until the first sprout of an idea. I fertilise the idea with characters, settings - turn it around in my subconscious until it starts emerging from my imagination as a scene or a story. Other times, I am conscious of the seed appearing, and I may even brainstorm it, picking the right conditions for the seed to flourish and become a story.

So I have chosen to be a gardener of stories and I enjoy it. Enjoy the whole imaginative process from the time that the seed is planted to when it emerges as a beautiful flower or tree. Yes, it's hard work. But I can see something as a result - a product of the labour. I may not be able to eat it, but I can savour the writing, enjoy it, share it with others.

Growing tomatos, on the other hand, looks like hard work. And once the tomato is eaten, it's gone.

So the current patch of ground is Beyond Happily Ever After and the story is growing:

52,491 / 60,000
(87.5%)

Soon I hope it will blossom.

What's in a name?

2008-03-22T14:09:00.005+11:00

Yesterday was the first day that I didn't write at least 100 words. I wrote 91 words and these were words added while I transcribed my longhand onto the computer. But as 'I'm with the Band' is nearly finished (at over 100k), I need to work out where the missing pieces are. So I started a spreadsheet to record the details of each scene. Still working on the writing just in a different way.

This morning I woke up with the characters of Kirsty and Luke in my head from the film festival novel, Making the Cut. So already I've written two scenes with them, the first of which will insert somehow into the existing first chapter so that antagonist and hero are introduced early on. The only thing that concerns me is that the majority of the story is told from the point of view of the heroine, except for the scenes with Elizabeth, Bilby Creek's matriarch, and these new scenes are from Luke's point of view. Which means that I will probably have to rewrite some later scenes from Luke's POV. (I need to CUT words not ADD words). Anyway, my renewed and sudden passion for this story means that the first three chapters should be rewritten very soon and submitted.

So far, it's been a really good Easter weekend. It's just me and the cat. And Thursday night I watched a Clark Gable movie Comrade X, which I hadn't seen before. It was a movie made in 1940 so he's in prime and he's hot! I followed that up Friday morning with Homecoming. In this one he was a little older (made in 1948) but still it was nice to watch two of his movies that I hadn't seen before. Of course, I saw Gone with the Wind when I was 13 and have liked him ever since. It doesn't matter to me that he is always Clark Gable no matter what role he plays.

I've also reached the point where I need to change the names in 'I'm with the Band'. I cannot possibly have a couple named Kat and Matt, and another couple Maddie and Freddie. It wasn't purposeful, it just happened that way. Plus the band name needs to change as well. So I've been playing around on some generators on the web: Rate my Band, Band Name Maker plus others. At the moment, Eloquent Beast is sounding good to me for the name of the band. Names may change to Nelson (for Freddie, because he's a bit pretentious and probably renamed himself), and Jake instead of Matt. And perhaps the singer will change to Ben. I find naming male characters very difficult. Common names are too common and I will come up with a name and then think of someone I know with that name and dismiss it. Uncommon names or unusual names often seem too pretentious or 'soap-opera-style' and often position the character in the wrong age group. Mind you, I have no problems using these names for minor characters: I have one sleazy guy in I'm with the Band called 'Hunter' and he is definitely on the hunt. Still, progress is being made and that's all that matters.

I've been busy writing....

2008-03-15T21:28:00.005+11:00

Well, I finished Book in a Week with 7639 words - not quite the 10k target I wanted but at 76% I'm very happy with that and I think I only have three scenes to write of 'I'm with the Band' and the first draft is finished. The total word count is now over 99k and the zokutu word meter is still not updating!

Happily, I have written the final scene, so I know exactly where everything's heading and there should be no deviations or wild tangents.

Considering I gave up caffeine the same week as the BIAW, I think I did very well, and I'm sure that my health will be better for it. I've gone past the stage of caffeine headaches but this week, I had a major sore throat and ended up having a day off work, and then a day on alternative duties (i.e. non-speaking) when I returned. Today I had a pesky migraine but I'm starting to feel better now, especially as the next two weeks are four day weeks, thanks to Easter, and then I have a week off to write and edit to my heart's content.

I joined the 100 words a day challenge which started on 1 March and I have written every day since (which sometimes doesn't even happen during Nanowrimo). It's a habit that I do want to instill every day so while some times it has meant taking my notebook to bed and scribbling out the minimum before turning off the lights, my minimum word count any day so far has been 132 words. Haven't written anything so far today and I'm not counting blog posts.

I'm really enjoying watching Dexter at the moment. It is such an intriguing show and Michael C Hall does such a fantastic job in making the audience complicit with his actions. I've reserved the novel from my library - it will make an interesting read. Meanwhile the entire first series will replay on Austar on Easter Monday. Can't think of a better way of spending it. Dexter and Easter Eggs!

I also got a new mobile phone and an ipod last week. While the mobile phone is purely functionary and I really cannot be bothered playing around with all the extras, I love my Ipod. why did I buy some other brand before? Don't know but maybe it had something to do with the expense a couple of years ago. I love that i can just plug it into my computer and it will select 240 songs at random, so I never really know what I'm going to get. And then browsing itunes and discovering albums from bands I love that I didn't know existed. Certainly puts the collection of CDs offered in the shopping centres up here to shame. But it could get expensive. So there will be no new songs at the moment. Maybe they can be a reward for when I finish the first draft!

Easter cards available at my cafepress shop.

A long weekend

2008-02-29T10:47:00.006+11:00

Today is Leap Day, a bonus day for the year and the best thing is I don't have to be at work! Yes, it's a three day weekend for me and another weekend of solitude so I hope to achieve a lot.

One of the good things about today and the rest of the weekend is the ability to control my auditory environment. I haven't been kidding lately when I've told people I want to go to a convent so I can take a vow of silence. The day job has times when fifty voices or so just build up on top of each other and I feel like my head is going to explode with all the noise. The voices rise and fall, but when everything is talking at once, it can be absolutely pandemonium. At the moment, all I can hear is the clock ticking, the rush of the wind, the birds singing, the house creaking and the occasional car driving by. It is so peaceful. I can invite extra noise in when I want to - music, television, telephone - but for now I am revelling in the relative sounds of silence. And also enjoying not having to speak.

I've updated the blog for Nambucca Valley Writers Group, added a couple of slides shows, a section for our accolades (we're a talented bunch), and the previous winners of our writing competition.

I finished my short story and entered it in the Writers Group contest. The trophy spent the first year in my home, displayed proudly after I won the inaugural contest in 2006 with a collage poem. But then last year I had to give it back. I wonder if it will make its way home to me this time. (I know - the competition is tough!)

I'm still toying with the story about the mobile phones so I may end up with a collection of futuristic stories, nightmare scenarios of the future when we are taken over by technology.

I'm considering signing up for the RWA BIAW (Book in a Week) which commences on Monday, just to get my butt kicked a bit and finally finish the first draft of 'I'm with the Band'. I'm hoping that another 10,000 words will see the first draft complete. (Current word count is 89,597)

I am definitely signing up for 100 words for 100 days through my teenlit list. I really want to instill the writing every day habit. It's almost there but I do miss the occasional day. And I guess the days where I spend time processing ideas in my head but don't commit anything to paper don't count. But they should! Because sometimes it means that the story or scene will come out of my head and onto paper almost fully formed.

Shirt and other writer products available at my Chickollage store.

I've been neglecting my collage poetry and as I want to put together an anthology, I need to spend more time than that.

As they say, so many words, too little time! Now to make time stretch....

Tagged

2008-02-23T19:27:00.005+11:00

I've been tagged by a writer friend so I guess I've got to do the following meme: (I'll get you back some time Sandie!)

The 'rules' are as follows :-

1/ you link back to the person who tagged you.

2/ post these rules on your blog.

3/ share six unimportant things about yourself.

4/ tag six random people at the end of your entry.

5/ let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Six unimportant thing about me. (why unimportant? and by who's definition?)

1. I cut my neighbour's hair when I was six, ending any hope of being a hairdresser for a career. Got into a bit of trouble for that one.

2. I was born three months premmie.

3. I have a teddy bear named Bondage Bear, he learned this deviancy when I was at uni.

4. My best friend and I have been friends since 2nd grade, which was a long long time ago.

5. I wanted to be an actress until I auditioned for a few drama courses and flunked.

6. My first car was a volkswagon named Helga.

And the six random people are:

Karina

Sami

Five Second Dance Party

Stephanie Kuehnert

Jetting Through Life

J M Snyder

Have fun!

A weekend of solitude

2008-02-17T12:00:00.005+11:00

I could be watching Tropfest tonight. I won tickets to the 'Sony Patch of Grass' after entering their short story competition. But as Tropfest screens on a Sunday evening, and I have to be back at work at 8am tomorrow morning, I'm still in Coffs Harbour and Tropfest is still at the domain.

But the tickets won't be going to waste. Robbie happened to be going to Sydney this weekend so he will be there with his little sister.

Instead, I have scored myself a weekend of solitude. This is absolutely delightful as I've been feeling lately that there is way much noise in my life, and people talking is the major percentage of noise. So I am enjoying the sounds of nature, the sounds of music and some talking when I switch on a movie. But the talking is contextual and its not a cacophony of noise as fifty people try to talk at once. Welcome to my dayjob!

Yesterday, I read a friend's manuscript which included a lot of short stories and now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about finishing my short story because she's so good. But I will. I shall. The deadline is next Saturday.

I also watched Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown again. I haven't seen the film in years, but I still love it. Strong women, ensuing chaos. I still think it's one of Almodovar's best.

Flirting with short story ideas and heavy metal

2008-02-10T18:07:00.000+11:00

Following on from last week's post where writing a short story is like having a fling, while a novel is like a marriage, it seems that I can't even decide who I want to have a fling with. The idea that had been flitting around my head like a manic moth bashing it's wings against the light globe is still there, but I'd also opened my computer file labelled 'ideas' and found 1. a love triangle between a man, a woman and a cat and 2) a file labelled 'Notes for a screenplay' about working in a call centre.

So I have been flirting with all three ideas during the week, committing at least to a date with the cat triangle and writing some more, and then a date with the call centre story- The film idea would have been very expensive as live action and I alway thought it would work as an animation - but as I don't draw.....it's been on the backburner. But of course elements that could be very expensive in a film, don't cost anything in a short story because it's just narrative, description, action and dialogue. No actors demanding huge salaries needed. And no special effects. It's all in the words.

So, yes I was being fickle, unable to decide which idea I wanted to commit to, and playing around a bit with at least two of them, as I got to know them better! A convesation there, a look here, trying to start a fling in the wrong place....I still wasn't sure what to do. False starts, deleting, backspacing. In my imagination, I even believed that maybe just maybe I could write all three short stories in three weeks. It's still possible ...there are now two weeks left to go before the competition deadline.

Rollerball, Devil's Kitchen, 9 Feb 2008

I had a false start on the call centre story. I wrote quite a bit of it, but it seemed to start too late in the story and didn't show enough of the evolution of the call centre worker from human to machine. It has been inspired by my many customer's who ask me if I'm a real person.

My Left Boot, Devil's Kitchen, 9 Feb 2008

Then Saturday night, Robbie and I went to a music event. He was filming and I was taking some photos. Well, it was heavy metal and I'm not a fan of that type of music. Yes, I saw Black Sabbath when I was 13 but that did not light a pathway for my future music taste.

Monkey Butt Wrench, Devil's Kitchen, 9 Feb 2008

The night was interesting but long and so very very loud. Five different heavy metal bands performed (as pictured). I took many photos using both my film SLR camera and my digital and got some interesting shots, but really could not get into the music. I think the sound quality had a lot to do with this: I can't really see the point of having a vocalist if the instruments are going to be revved up to the max, to drown out any possiblity of hearing the vocals.

I'm not going to attempt any kind of review, because I'm not the band's audient. I don't listen to this kind of music as a rule. And I never really got the head-banging stuff.

Boozehag, Devil's Kitchen, 9 Feb 2008

Between bands, I recommenced writing the call centre story. The next band would come on and I'd get up and take some photos and return to my chair to find it missing. (Guys from the first band -Monkey Butt Wrench - kept nicking it when I vacated it). And then I'd keep writing during the next break. I wrote the whole first draft of the story. There's some more to add as I need to ensure I cover everything in Maislow's Hierarchy of Needs, but I'm pretty happy with it.

The Black Stars, Devil's Kitchen, 9 Feb 2008

And I've discovered that I can write anytime I wish. Mind you, if it had've been at a blues gig, then I quite possibly would not have had the same outcome. Or I would've been writing something completely different.

A fling or a marriage: the writer's choice

2008-02-03T11:02:00.000+11:00

At lunchtime on Friday, a woman walked past me, arguing on her mobile phone. I started thinking about how we're all supposed to be in instant contact with each other now, at the end of a text message, if not at the end of a conversation. I watch my call centre colleagues walk out the door and immediately turn on their mobile phone and I wonder why. My mobile phone stays in my bag usually switched off. I spend enough time on the phone at work, I don't want to spend my lunch time on the phone. I I don't want to be so easily reached. Doesn't anyone appreciate solitude anymore?

My brain started buzzing and the idea for a short story started to flit around my head. I could feel those endorphins being released as the idea became stronger, and I'm allowing it to keep flitting around like a moth trapped in a jar, until it's ready to appear as a short story. I'm thinking it will be sci-fi, which will be a completely new experience for me. I haven't written a sci fi story since I was 12.

I have less than 3 weeks to write this story. Nambucca Valley Writers Group's annual writing competition is on again and the deadline is screaming towards me.

I don't write short stories very often. I wrote Beyond Happily Ever After twelve months ago which won 2nd prize in the Mid North Coast Writers short story comp, but have not written any shorts since then. There's a big difference between writing short stories and novels. The writing is much more precise, there is no time for ramble and there is not much character development. A short story is almost a moment in time. A slice of life. It doesn't explore a character over a period of time.

But I think writing a short story is like having a fling. You can flirt with different possibilities, you can try things that you would never commit to in a longer piece because - 'we're only going to be together for 3000 words' and you can fall in love and live in those lustful, first stages of love.

There is no commitment because you're in and out of there in 3000 words. Writing is fast, editing is fast. A couple of weeks (or less) and you can move onto the next idea.

Writing a novel is like getting married. It's a big commitment. You not only have to be in lust with your characters, you have to have a deeper love for them, a love that will sustain you through the ups and downs of the author-character relationship while they laugh with you, talk with you and often betray you. You've got to be in it for the long haul and prepared to live with these people for a long time.

I never used to be into commitment. More than a decade ago, I would have described myself as a serial monogamist. In love with being in love. Chasing the thrill of the first passion. But that changed when I met my partner.

So it is interesting that in my writing I choose the commitment. I choose situations that are going to hang around for a long time and characters that I want to spend a lot of time with. And when I reach the end of a novel, I find it hard to let go. Because they've become like friends. And why not? I've spent so much time with them.

So my question to you is:

As a reader or a writer, what is your preference?
Novels or short stories?

Writing Workshop

2008-01-28T19:33:00.000+11:00

This weekend I did a writing workshop with my writers' group. The workshop was led by Peter Matheson, a dramaturg and was about storytelling. There was a lot of emphasis on character building and planning, which is in total opposition to the way I usually work. I admit it - I'm a pantser - I fly through a first draft by the seat of pants, rarely planning any further ahead than the next scene or the next couple of scenes. I choose a situation or a concept i.e. Diary of the Future I started with the idea of being able to write the future in a diary and have it come true. With I'm with the Band, I started with wanting to capture the feeling of being 17 again through the reunion of a favourite band. Making the Cut started with an idea of a film festival in a small country town, the characters came after the situation. The character for me only comes after the writing starts.

I have tried plotting and planning it all out in the past. Kissing Toads was more or less planned out with a chapter outline but new chapters kept popping up and stuff I hadn't planned on kept happening throwing the immediate trajectory in a new direction. And that one took the longest for me to write - 4 long years. And why? Because I'd lost interest. For the most part, I knew what was going to happen. As a writer I want to be surprised by my characters as if I'm reading it.

So yesterday when I took a photo of a woman that I'd never seen before and tried to build a background based on her as a character, I was falling back on cliches. Because the character was not organic for me. Perhaps if she'd been in the middle of an action or a situation, my imagination may have been triggered more but I just had this face smiling at me with her too pink lipstick and overdone make-up.

Today I took Kat from I'm with the Band to the workshop. We did an interesting exercise as we interviewed each other's characters. Nothing really new came up for me during the interview, but the perception of Kat I gave to others was interesting - much more passive than I intended. And the word groupie kept coming up. Middle-aged groupie. It's pretty sad really. She doesn't intend to be a groupie. She considers herself to be a huge fan, not a groupie. And when Alex invites her to sing with the band for a song or two, then she's 'with the band' not a groupie. It's her friend Maddie who's the groupie - in fact, she's such a groupie that if there was a show created called Australian Groupie (instead of Idol) she'd probably take out the title.

Certainly much to think about now. I'm still a fan of the shitty first draft (as Anne Lamont calls it) or the 'vomit' or binge writing as Peter referred to it over the last few days.

During the 'Twelve Days of I'm with the Band' I not only added to the manuscript but I also examined some of the previous writing and rewrote certain scenes, making them stronger. I'm over the 88k mark now and I need to stop the dialogue - the characters spend too much time talking, for some reason (probably a symptom of being a muso) they don't like sleeping much, but if it keeps up I'm just going to start jumping from scene to scene and only writing the absolutely pertinent stuff. I don't need to eavesdrop on everything they say and do. Do I?

Writing, recording and dodging kangaroos

2008-01-20T11:47:00.000+11:00

86,461 / 90,000
(96.06%)

Word count is now at 86, 461 words and I've got this old fart 70's rocker Billy Badd who has turned up at a gig with his two blonde bimbo daughters (referred to by Kat as the Bimbettes) and is desperately trying to pull focus. I think he wants the story to be about him. But tough luck Billy Badd - we're moving on and leaving you behind, and I'm hoping that he doesn't show up at another gig.

Bought a DVD recorder yesterday. Haven't been able to record stuff for quite a while but now it means that I can record all the late night TV stuff such as the Countdown episodes which are screening on rage at the moment. Watching it now - Neil from The Young Ones hosted the first one I recorded. I loved the character of Neil from that show. The rest of the characters seemed to need each other to bounce off for real comedy to work (I found Rik Mayall's stand-up routine as the character Rik really dull, but when he was just himself doing stand-up, he was great) but Neil was one of those characters that seemed to be able to create comedy just by himself. I've got his Heavy Concept album but it's extremely scratched so I'm not sure how much I could salvage off it even if I had a record player.

In the second episode, as well as Tim and Debbie (remember them from Australia you're standing in it - when will they release that on DVD?) , they played Moving Pictures performing 'Where they Belong'. At last, something other than 'What about Me?' and it focused on Alex Smith singing. So now I'm happy. I really want to get hold of the televised concert Moving Pictures did in the early 80's at the Hordern Pavillion. I did have it taped way back then, but of course many moves later and even before the moving, I think it was taped over. If anyone can help me out with the footage, let me know.

I'm independent again - I picked my car up after the accelerator cable was fixed, after 4 weeks of car sharing. Then on the way home, one of the tail-light covers fell off, smashed and bounced off into the bush. A few minutes later, I drove around a corner and a kangaroo was standing there. I hit the brakes and the kangaroo took off so I was lucky because my car and the roo could do a lot of damage to each other. So yesterday morning, we went out on a mission to get a new tail-light housing - at the second wreckers we found the part, and that problem is now solved. Then we bought the DVD recorder and I bought the Vicar of Dibley last 2 episodes - it is so funny.

It took about an hour to set up the recorder because Robbie wasn't listening to my instructions and its quite confusing when you want to plug in both Austar and a set top box. Finally, after much arguing and wrenching the TV out of the entertainment unit and untangling chords, it was all set up and I was able to test it out. So recording is great, but for some reason it doesn't like my Vicar of Dibley DVD and won't play it. It's not the disc - it plays on the old DVD player - but maybe the recorder doesn't like English comedy. It has played every other disc I've put in, so I've got no idea what's going on. Robbie thinks it won't play dual layer DVD's but I think it only won't record on dual layer. Anyway, I can always watch the Vicar on the laptop if I need to.

Well, its back to 'I'm with the Band'

Addictions

2008-01-15T21:11:00.000+11:00

Okay, I admit it. I have a few addictions. Everyone has to have some vices don't they?

I have a mild addiction to Moving Pictures and collecting their memorabilia. So I have a search set up from Ebay to alert me of any items. The above picture came from a Japanese magazine, and I was lucky enough to do a deal with a guy from America who wanted the other pics that were on offer. Anyway, I ended up with some very nice photos of the Alex Smith and the band and a magazine article in Japanese - shame I threw my Japanese language course after a year but a new job meant a scheduling conflict and I could no longer attend the classes. Thinking back on it now, it would've meant changing my work hours one day a week by an hour - you think my boss could have accommodated that.

This week I also picked up a very nice Chris Wilson poster. I need to get these posters laminated at some point. They are no use to anyone wrapped up in poster tubes. They should be displayed.

And now I'm bidding on a few writing books. Can't seem to get enough of them and there is very little variety of writing books available in Coffs.

Must stop. Must stop. Must stop.

Yeah right.

At least, I am operating in reverse. I'm selling a few old mags (mainly movie mags) which are too good to cut up for collage. Those sales may pay for my recent purchases.

I have a major internet addiction. Myspace, Facebook, Blog Explosion, and it sucks up a lot of time. But on the other hand, I have met a lot of wonderful people on the internet, I've learned a lot about writing and I receive encouragement for my writing. So it's not an addiction that I'm about to give up. Just reign it in a bit!

I often spend time on Blog Explosion in the Battle of the Blogs and surfing other members' blogs. On the weekend the site was down and giving strange error messages. Now the site is backup, there are 12 active battles, and 24 more BE members with battle challenges waiting to be accepted. Which makes me wonder why they don't battle each other? I have never seen so many battles waiting to happen before. Guess we're all addicted to the challenge.

Speaking of battles, my cat and Lucy Pig are currently in a battle of their own on MySpace to see who can get the most friends. At the moment Lucy Pig is beating Dorkus with a 2:1 ratio so Dork is not impressed. You can befriend either the cat or the pig at the above links.

So as for writing, that can be both a battle and addiction. I've forgotten what I'm up to in the Twelve Days of my novel in progress I'm with the Band. As my last post was on Sunday for Day 18, I guess today must be Day 21 because I was posting one day behind. The word count is now over 84,000 words, the pictures for the collage are nestling between two pieces of cardboard so that Dorkus will not mess it up, but I'm still looking for some pictures. I also think I've slowed down in the writing because I don't want to let go. But at least it's still moving forward.

Now I need an early night. My insomnia is acting up again. Guess I have an addiction to being awake and the weekend (when I can be addicted to sleeping and sleeping in!) seems like years away.

Day 18 of 12 days of 'I'm with the Band'

2008-01-13T15:13:00.000+11:00

82,985 / 90,000
(92.05%)

The word count and percentage are going up but the bar remains the same - I don't know enough html to change it.

Although I'm getting closer to my estimated total word count, I'm not sure that I'm getting closer to the end of the book. Hopefully, I'm not finding new scenes to add. Matt and Alex had been planning a glamour makeover and photoshoot for Kat, but now she's gone to the hairdresser herself and had her long hair cut and coloured, so I guess all she'll need now is a makeup artist. I've been flicking through Cleo's and Cosmos looking for an image of Kat's new hair and everyone has long hair again. When did this happen? When did short hair become unfashionable? Kylie still has short hair.

So on Day 18, I reclaimed my writing room. After decluttering it back in September, my laptop then died and we hauled out the old computer to connect back to the net. It had a monster monitor which took up all of my writing desk and I seriously debated buying a new flat screen for it to give me more room to work. A few weeks later the laptop was fixed, I went wireless and I stopped venturing into my writing room, and started using the laptop in the loungeroom in front of the TV (which was very unproductive). I'm pleased that we didn't buy a flat screen for the old computer, it completely carked it a couple of weeks ago, and now I have my writing room back. The computer has been banished (we'll retrieve the info from the backup hard-drive off it and the monitor which still works will be donated to a local which refurbishes computers) and I have space again.

Yesterday, we were debating the spare room which is filled with stuff including a big desk, entertainment unit, TV, a full bookcase and is the dumping ground for the clean washing. We want to turn this into a guestroom/entertainment room so need a sofabed for it. But the desk was taking up a huge amount of space. The desk is now in my writing room and has enough surface area for my scanner/printer, laptop, collage files (the coloured drawers) and a collage workspace.

Note: I'm still in the stage of this collage of 'where does this picture go?' so not a single image is fixed to the cardboard.

I'm happy and Dorkus is happy that I'm spending time out here again with him.

Dorkus now has his own myspace page and his goal is to round up more friends than Lucy Pig. Can you be his friend?

Day 13-17 of 'I'm with the Band"

2008-01-11T22:01:00.000+11:00

I've got to do something about this addiction. But when there's all these beautiful glossy magazines sitting in the charity shop, well - I can't walk out empty-handed, can I? More photos for collage, more text for collage poetry. And the magazines are being recycled and the money's going to a good cause. Another 12 magazines added to my collection today. That was all I could carry back to work today but there was a lot more left in the store. Somebody must've cleaned out their shelves. So I may need to take another walk down there on Monday at lunchtime.

Day 13 - 17 of I'm with the Band have been obstructed with a little thing called work. So much happening in the workplace, I've been quite exhausted each night (yet still suffering from insomnia) and have only added a few words. Plus I've been sucked into the world that is facebook (very addictive) and have been hunting for friends for a pig - see post below.

But words have been added since my last blog, and scenes have been finished - still moving forward. Kat has got herself a new image - hair cut and colour, new clothes. It may be time for me to do the same thing!

Total word count is now 81,745 and I plan to write much more over the weekend.

This Little Piggy needs some friends!

2008-01-08T18:13:00.000+11:00

We interrupt the regular broadcast of 'I'm with the Band' to bring you a special announcement.

Lucy the miniature pig is on a quest to become famous.

Babe, eat your heart out! Lucy is real, a miniature pig and a real little peformer. Have you ever seen a pig vogue?

Lucy now has her own myspace page to aid her quest. Will you be her friend?

Lucy's Myspace

Day 12 of 'I'm with the Band'

2008-01-06T22:50:00.000+11:00

Total word count is 80,252 - so I've passed another milestone on the current manuscript.

And its an emotional milestone for my heroine Kat. She's just walked out on her husband, he's asked how he can contact her and she's suggested he tries her mobile, which lies in pieces on the floor after he's smashed it.

So the 12 days focus has been quite successful, but the story is not yet finished so for now I'm going to pretend I can't count and continue with Day 13 and so on....whatever it takes to get the first draft finished.

Unfortunately, it's back to work tomorrow but that's okay because it removes my internet temptation.

Day 11 of 'I'm with the Band'

2008-01-06T14:56:00.000+11:00

Its amazing - at the beginning of the weekend, you wake up believing that an infinite stretch of time lies before you...until you have to go back to work.

Then you wake up again Sunday morning (if you're lucky!) - usually more likely Sunday afternoon, and that infinite feeling has gone and the pressure of the time remaining is upon you. The weekend is all over.

Who decided that five days at work and two days off was a good idea?

Unfortunately I do need a day to do nothing, even at the expense of the one of the days of my 12 day focus.

The rain is gone, the river has subsided and we are surrounded by heat and humidity.

I have 50 best 80's Aussie bands playing on Music Max reminding me why I'm writing 'I'm with the Band.' Nie to see Noiseworks, The Mentals, The Choirboys, INXS etc.

Hunted for more collage pictures on Day 11 - this combination will definitely make it into the collage - I laughed when I found the couch picture in an old HQ magazine - couldn't find a credit for the photographer. I haven't tracked down my photo of the Big Prawn and I don't have a decent picture of the Big Banana (amazing - considering where I live) and they are both important scenes and mark a contrast between Kat's past and her present.

So Day 11: procrastination, day dreaming, no new words, just new thoughts, and some new pictures.

Hopefully, I'll be able to return this evening to report that Day 12 has been more successfu.

Day 10 of I'm with the Band.

2008-01-05T11:19:00.000+11:00

Catch up post - Day 10 of 12 Days of ' I'm with the Band' was Friday!

Soon Kat will be away from hubby and back with the band. I can't wait!

78,779 / 90,000
(87.53%)

It seems like it will never stop raining. After work yesterday, we stopped at the supermarket and stocked up for the weekend. It's a half hour drive into town for us, only 15 minutes to the supermarket but with this constant rain, there's a good chance that we will be cut off over the weekend. There's very little chance of our house flooding because it's a lot higher than the river but there are swimming pools in the driveway and the yard.

Here are photos from last August:

Somewhere beneath that water is a park. Can't even see the flood measurement sign in this photo.

And the alternative route to town:

The river has flooded again this morning, and while the other road to town is not yet cut, there is a lot of water on the road, and its still raining. So, it's likely that this afternoon we will be stranded.

It's cool! I have chocolate, I have Coca-cola, I have food and now I have no excuse but to write, write, write.

I may venture out later and take some photos.

Day 9 of I'm with the Band

2008-01-05T11:09:00.000+11:00

This is a catch-up post: Day 9 of my 12 day focus of current work in progress was on Thursday.

Total word count 77,386.

Still moving forwards (which feels much better than moving backwards) and still moving thought the conflict between Kat and the return of her husband. Kat didn't want him to come back. I didn't want him to come back. But some characters have a mind of their own. It's actually better for the story that he returns from his vanishing act because somewhere in the rest of the story, Kat will have to make a decision about whether she wants her future to be like the present or the past.

Anyway, I got sucked into watching Dexter - fabulous episode- and flicked through magazines looking for more pictures for a collage of this story.

Day 8 of I'm with the Band

2008-01-03T00:01:00.000+11:00

77,174 words and its time to call it a night even though I've just commenced a new scene. Something to be going on with tomorrow.

I've been avoiding this section for a while now because it's the part where Kat's husband comes back into her life. I hadn't planned for that to happen - but she was dropped back home after the north leg of the band's tour to discover the lawn overgrown, dirty dishes in the sink, laundry piling up and her hubby drinking and watching football, six weeks after his disappearing act. He's taken her out to dinner at the pub now (because that's his idea of a good night out) and she is SO NOT impressed. Kat's not happy that he's decided to make another appearance just when she's finding herself, and I'm not too happy either because I have to write out their conflict.

Anyway, it's after midnight. I've sketched out the next few scenes earlier today (yesterday?) so I will be able to pick it up easily on Day 9.

It's interesting that the scenes can work so well in your head while you are daydreaming about them, but as soon as you sit down to commit them to the page, that beautiful phrasing, that perfect wording has vanished. And you just have to keep writing until you find it again

And then you finish a scene, and later as you're cooking dinner, the perfect line for that conversation will sail through your mind, and you have to capture it, and hold it until you can get back to the draft to write it down.

In the end, it's all about the rewriting. The replaying of the scenes over and over in your mind until they solidify like an actor's performance and take on a life of their own.

Now I'm just rambling. I hope sleep comes quickly and my characters don't keep me awake all night!

Day 7 of 'I'm with the Band'

2008-01-01T20:21:00.000+11:00

I did the stereotypical writer thing today. A great start to the new year. I slept in late, woke up and thought about my characters and a pivotal scene. Decided I needed to rewrite it. So got up, got out the laptop and wrote in my pjs. Ah! The writer's life.

1986 new words today (so far). And yet I only have a total of 76,430 words because much of it was rewriting the pivotal scene. A scene of temptation and betrayal. I feel pretty good about the new scene because I think it captures how torn Kat is in the scene, much more than in the original writing. And I have echoed the dichotomy again in a later scene, but this time it shows that there is no dichotomy and that her mind and body are now in harmony. Still, I will probably ask some people for some feedback on these scenes, to see if I have indeed made the right choice in the rewriting.

After the original scene Kat was pretty laidback about it and forgiven Alex quickly for his misbehaviour! But after the rewriting she was extremely angry with him and also pissed off with her own behaviour. So that meant more rewriting in further scenes.

I'd been talking about how I wished I'd taken more photos of Moving Pictures when I was younger. But I didn't always take a camera with me and I didn't have an SLR back in those days, so I think I was stretching whatever camera I had to the limit anyway.

Here's an example of what happens when you use the wrong speed of film:

Freaky, hey?

Day 6 of 'I'm with the Band'

2007-12-31T23:30:00.000+11:00

It's the last day of 2007 and I'm halfway through Twelve Days of 'I'm with the Band', my current work in progress.

We were going to go out tonight but the street party was cancelled due to bad weather. Instead we had sausages not cooked on the barbie. When we got to the supermarket this afternoon, the store was packed with holidaymakers who had cleared out the meat section - no chicken kebabs, no steak. I'll know better next year. It's been raining on and off all night but it's clear in Sydney so we'll have a nice firework show in approximately half an hour on TV.

I escaped from work early today - it was very quiet so I was able to use some flex.

My word count now stands at 76,132 words. (Zokotou doesn't want to play, so there's no word meter this evening). Another missing scene complete. I feel like my head is now completely in the story and I'm Write on Track again.

I have the day free tomorrow as it is New Year's Day and hope to start putting together a collage about this story as well as adding a few more scenes.

The only new year resolution I want to make is to WRITE EVERY DAY.

Every thing else I want to achieve will be set by goals, and I'll probably only set those a month at a time.

So my first goal for 2008, is to finish the first draft of 'I'm with the Band' within the remaining 6 days.

I'm really liking this 12 day technique. It's less than half the time of Nanowrimo and the focus can be on anything from writing, rewriting, editing, collaging - anything that will add to the current work in progress. So I don't feel guilty when I've spent the evening thinking about my characters, watching concerts or listening to music, reading newspaper articles or listening to interviews. It all adds up to thw whole. I'm pleased that I've taken this on and especially at this time of the year.

Well, it's nearly time for fireworks!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

May 2008 be wonderful!

Day 5 of 'I'm with the Band'

2007-12-31T17:28:00.000+11:00

74,228 / 90,000
(82.4%)

Day 5 - yesterday.

Watched disc 1 of the Countdown Spectacular (no 1) to watch some old rockers try to regain their glory days. Interesting to note the ones that still had the voice and the moves, and the ones that will never recapture it again.

At last some new words added, and we're moving ahead. A missing scene starts to take shape. Enough of a start for me to continue on Day 6. But a migraine has stopped me from continuing and demanded an early night. All that Countdown?

Well, so much for the early night - that was the theory. In bed at 9pm, wide awake again (migraine gone) at 11.30pm. Knowing intellectually that I have to sleep, but my body and mind fighting me all the way. Not game enough to get out of bed and continue the scene because that will make me all awake and I have to work the next day. So thinking thoughts of sleep in between thoughts of the scene in progress.

Finally sleep visited again at about 1.30 am.

Day 4 of 'I'm with the Band'

2007-12-30T16:14:00.000+11:00

Inching slowly forward with new writing, total word count now 73, 534 words.

73,534 / 90,000
(81.7%)

238 pages semi-edited with big chunks highlighted where I need to go back and rewrite.

If this toothache keeps up, then my main character will develop once soon.

Anyway, getting my head back into this manuscript means also getting my head back into the music that has inspired me.

This story has to be edited/written with the soundtrack of the 80's playing in my ear.

On the morning of Day 4, I also finished reading Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie. Whoo- hee. Talk about sexual tension! When I finished it I went back and read the first chapter and the last chapter again to see how connects the two. Highlyrecommended - this is going on my keeper shelf.

Well that's the summary of Day 4, now I shall finish of the second half of day 5.

Day 3: I'm with the Band.

2007-12-29T14:17:00.000+11:00

Day 3. That would be yesterday.

It started out well with me noticing that I was more present to the conversation happening in my head betweeen characters, than the conversation happening in real life.

But went downhill from there.

Shopping. Picked up a couple of bargains.

But was interrupted by food poisoning. Luckily the effects of that didnt last long and my digestive system dealt with it quickly.

But that was replaced by toothache last night and I can see that a trip to the dentist will be part of my New Year's Eve schedule.

Oh well, as Scarlett would say, 'Tomorrow is another day.'

Day 2: I'm with the Band

2007-12-27T22:57:00.000+11:00

73,414 / 90,000
(81.6%)

Today I've completed a shallow edit of around 60 pages.
Words removed. Words added. A net gain of 17 words!

It was a work day today so I haven't attempted new writing but have been concentrating on editing and getting my head fully back into the story.

And for research I've been listening to an interview with Alex Smith on ABC radio:
http://www.abc.net.au/nsw/stories/s1435206.htm

I'm not working tomorrow so on Day 3 there will be new words. And I'll try and work out what happened in the scene that I have one handwritten page of, finishing mid-sentence.

Day 1: I'm with the Band

2007-12-26T22:04:00.000+11:00

The whole purpose of Nanowrimo is to move ahead with the words, switch off the inner critic and just plough along towards that 50,000 word goal.

Now that I'm trying to complete 'I'm with the Band', I'm not only trying to add words but I'm trying to refine and delete the unnecessary stuff. So in Nano terms today, I would be going backwards by losing words, but for Day 1 of my 12 days, I feel as if I have made some real progress.

My new word count is: 73,397

- the zokutu extended word counter could not cope with that, assuming that I had made a mistake and gave me this comment:

NB: You input a total word count below what you've previously written, so we've used that value as the amount you've written since you restarted writing.

Zokutu happily wants to give me a word count of 148,020 words. Ha!

so I won't try to confuse the meter by putting in the previous word count:

73,397 / 90,000
(81.6%)

I've moved 3080 words out of this manuscript and into a new file called 'Backstory' because it is backstory. Some of it can go back in at some point but not as the huge chunks of info that are in this file. And I've written (or rearranged) 1491 new words.

The important stuff is still there. The mystery deposit into the bank account, the intro to the band, Kat's Things to Do before I die list (and a bit of thought process for each item on the list), catching up with her former best friend Maddie.

Instead of the first gig of the band happening on page 26, it now takes place on page 20 so we get into the action a lot quicker. I'm still concerned that I don't start with a significant event but Stu is still being cowardly and just leaving a note when he walks out on the marriage.

The original story started with this:

'It was never meant to end like this. All the divorces I'd heard of...all the relationship breakdowns...all had been brought to an abrupt conclusion by the final straw, an argument, a disagreement that had been running like an undercurrent throughout the relationship, occasionally bobbing up, creating a commotion, before submerging again.

But this was different. There were no arguments. No major event. It just fizzled out and he was gone. A note left. That told me nothing. No forwarding address. No contact details. After twelve years together.'

Now it starts with:

'If only I’d married Alex, everything would have been different. But he was just a poster on my wall. The voice booming from my record player. My idol. My rock god.

Instead I’d married Stu. Good old dependable Stu. Boring Stuart Simpson. Predictable Stu.'

Now I'm happily calling it a day, with a net loss of words but a clearer direction for the beginning of the story. I'm working tomorrow and I've been sneezing most of the afternoon so I better get a decent night's sleep. But I can't help wondering if there are any writers out there who never have to change the beginning of their story.

Twelve Days of 'I'm with the Band'

2007-12-26T14:36:00.000+11:00

I've been inspired by Jenny Crusie and her technique of focusing for twelve days on a work in progress. Anything that will keep the procrastination demon locked in his cage, and has a finite goal at the end of it.

So I announce that the next 12 days I will be focusing on completing the first draft of I'm with the Band. It will be like a mini tour! As this 12 days includes 7 days that I don't need to be at my day job, it is an ideal tiime to focus on it. It will take me up to the 7th January, and I imagine will be a great way to kick off 2008!

I've read the story so far, completed an outline of what's written and what's missing, and in my hunt for this information through a variety of notebooks, I've discovered one hand-written page of this story that stops mid-sentence. It doesn't even seem to start at the beginning of a scene, and as the next page goes into a scene from Diary of the Future, there must be pages missing from this scene. So it look like I will be rewriting these scenes. But it's very frustrating knowing that there was handwritten stuff out there somewhere which didn't make it into any computer version of the story. I must get more organised and dedicate an indiviual notebook to each work in progress.

The current word count is 74,843 words. The word count is going to fluctuate as I will be cutting words as well as adding words but I envision that the entire first draft will be around 90,000 words.

So here goes: Day 1 of I'm with the Band

74,843 / 90,000
(83.0%)

2007-12-25T16:34:00.000+11:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I'm in a post Christmas lunch stupor at the moment. The presents are opened, the food has been eaten and now we're just relaxing.

It's been a mild Christmad day with a touch of rain, so we had the full trimmings of roast chicken and veggies for lunch, plus some slices of ham and turkey, and we'll have meat leftovers tonight with salad. And best news is that I don't have to go back to work until Thursday.

Dorkus the cat (above) bought me a very appropriate present (of course, he had a little help from me).

It's a book called You Know You're a Writer When... by Adair Lara.

Here are some examples:

'After your book is rejected, you fire off a 4,000 word email to your friends vowing to never write another word.'

'Something bad happens to your friend and you're glad she's not a writer, so you can use it.'

and

'You go to bed at night and it's not your own problems that keep you awake, but those of your characters. How will Clarissa get her letters back before the wife of her married lover publishes them in the newspaper?'

Very appropriate book and I will enjoy reading the rest of it.

Dorkus was also very impressed with present. A toy mouse that squeaks when he touches it. He's already thrown it around the room several times.

I received a 'keeper' copy of The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan (someone paid attention to my wish list), the second series of Dead Like Me on DVD, a book on digital photography, a nice framed photo of my very cute nephew, and a cute little blue bag with bamboo handles.

All in all, a nice relaxing Christmas!

Hope your Christmas is as nice.

Returning to I'm with the Band

2007-12-23T20:39:00.000+11:00

I haven't got the hang of re-drafting yet. I start panicking, ending up with too many versions of the one scene and never quite working out which one to use or which one I've been editing. I have to focus and get better at this or I will never reach my goal of being published.

So I read the hard copy of I'm with the Band, but it's very possible that there are more scenes than what is in those pages. I need to do a skim through the most recent version and write an outline of what I already have. So I started going through my writing folders and found a document titled 'I'm with the Band Story Notes.' Wow! I'm more organised than I thought. This has a line or paragraph on each of the missing scenes plus the new opening (well two paragraphs of it, but it's a start!). So I shall now skim the latest version and insert the missing scenes into the outline. Then I shall keep writing. I need to give Kat and Matt (have to change the name because they rhyme) a suitable outcome.

One thing I like about this particular work in progress is that it gives me the excuse to listen to Moving Pictures really loud. Seeing the acoustic tour and meeting Alex Smith again in 2005 gave me the inspiration for the novel as I wanted to capture the feeling of being 17 again. And that's the feeling that my heroine Kat also wants to capture.

So here again for your amusement is the photo of me and Alex when I was 17, at Birkenhead Point

and then me and Alex again in 2005 at Coffs Harbour.

Same pose. No reference to the first photo. 21 years apart.

3 more sleeps

2007-12-22T23:18:00.000+11:00

It's that time of the year again. The time when Dorkus dons a Santa hat, much to his disgust and we count down the number of sleeps to Christmas.

3 to go until we can unwrap the pile of presents under the tree. Amazingly, Dorkus hasn't tried to unwrap the presents already, and hasn't even tried to climb the tree this year. Perhaps he's over Christmas!

I've spent way too long on the computer today - too much time on Facebook (very addictive) and too much time on Stumbleupon. Many of the sites I 'stumbled upon' today made me laugh out loud. And not just 'LOL' which I rarely believe anyway!

I've been reading The Joy of Writing Sex which I bought a couple of weeks ago on ebay, plus Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, plus my incomplete manuscript 'I'm with the band' and I also have a friend's manuscript to read, so its time to get off the computer and do some reading.

Housework is bad for your health!

2007-12-19T22:17:00.000+11:00

Housework is now banned as far as I'm concerned after I ruptured a tendon in my middle finger making the bed. It seems funny that I can do so much damage with such a simple task but it's not a joke. My finger is in a splint and I'm typing with three fingers of my left hand. The doctor is talking specialists and micro-surgery and I'm a bit freaked out! I was just making the bed.

The upside of this is that I've spent a lot of time waiting in the doctor's surgery, waiting for x-rays so I've been reading my unfinished manuscript, I'm with the Band. It has a lot of potential - the beginning needs rewriting as it took me a while to find the story, but I really like the story, so it's time that I gave Kat a fitting ending. It's suprising what a bit of time and distance can do when you reread your writing.

The weekend was great - well up until the point on Sunday night when I stupidly decided to remake the bed - and I caught up with aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, brother and sister. Lots of family! But this weekend will be catch-up on relaxation and preparation for Christmas. Blink and we'll already be in 2008!

Replenishing the well of creativity

2007-12-09T19:08:00.000+11:00

I'm in Nanowrimo recovery mode now. I haven't written for a week although I'm likely to return to it within the next day or so.

So to replenish my well of creativity, I have been reading. First up, The Mag Hags, a young adult novel by Lollie Barr.

This transported me back to my days of school, feeling on the outer of the in crowd, but never actually wanting to be one of them, and finding my way through adolescence. I used to do a lot of writing then, but when I reached uni I stopped creative and journal writing and became an essay factory instead.

Over the last few days, I have read Alice in La La Land by Sophie Lee.

I wasn't expecting much of this novel as Sophie is foremost known as an actor, and this is her debut novel. I picked it up more out of curiosity than anything else as I had met Sophie a long time ago in a former life as a box office manager and she was supposed to be at the last Byron Bay Writers Festival but pulled out when one of her children fell ill. . But Sophie can write, and she hooked me into Alice's life and attempts at an acting career in Los Angeles. She expressed a lot about acting and the continuous cycle of rejection and its effect on self esteem which I recognised when I tried to move from amateur acting into auditions for several drama schools at the end of my high school life. I'm so glad that I came to my senses and did not pursue that particular dream.

Also watching movies and television. Firstly, Death at a Funeral at the cinema. A very rare and funny treat, but what else can I expect from Frank Oz? I watched the first episode of Dexter - I think I will be enjoying this one, caught a repeat of the pilot episode of Six Feet Under - that was such a good show! And today I watched 4 episodes of American Gothic - not sure how I missed that one on TV.

In between, I've almost completed my christmas shopping ready for a trip to Newcastle for an extended family Christmas party next weekend. I haven't made it to one of these for many years because I live hundreds of miles away, so it should be fun to catch up with all the various aunts, uncles, niece, nephews, cousins etc.

So the creative well is filling again, and I'm making a list of writing tasks I need to fill in the next twelve months or so.

1. Finish Beyond Happily Ever After first draft (poor Cinderella is still on her honeymoon, and it certainly doesn't feel like one)

2. Finish editing/rewriting Diary of the Future and submit!

3. Finish first draft of I'm with the Band.

4. Finish editing/rewriting Making the Cut. And this will mean making the cut myself of around 8,000 words.

5. Keep creating new collage poems for anthology next year.

6. Short story for writers group competition.

7. Create chickollage website - I have the domain but I haven't created the site yet.

8. Add more products to Chickollage Cafepress shop.

9. Add more products to zazzle shop - this one has only just started.

10. Establish critique partnership (must send in RWA application form)

As usual the plate is full, but I wouldn't want it any other way.

I've won!

2007-12-01T00:11:00.000+11:00

Oops she did it again. But this year, it was actually a marathon, or an endless series of sprints to make it to the finish line. Buoyed on by a cheering squad of RWA Nano participants, and word wars with Di in Canberra, I have made it over the finish line with a word count of 50,068 and 13 minutes to spare. Whoa! That was close. And to make it across the line, I wrote an incredible 6416 words today.

That's what I get for having days with no word count. I know I had a late start on Nanowrimo this year because I was working on another project, but zero word count days are naughty once I started . And when they happened I lost momentum.

The story is yet to be finished. This is where I have stopped for Nano....

So that was it? That’s what they called sex? Cinderella looked at the back of her snoring husband and wondered what all the fuss was about.

I'm not sure how much longer it will take to finish the story and I won't be finishing it tomorrow! My hands and arms and shoulders and eyes and brain all need a rest. Sleep! Sounds like heaven. And then after that it will be part-ay time! It's the end of year work bash, and I don't have to drive to it, so it's time to have fun. November just finished with impeccable timing.

Nanowrimo progress

2007-11-25T23:49:00.000+11:00

Today was my best writing day. When I finished my word wars, I had a total of 4999 words. I couldn't leave it at that, could I? So I planned to go back and add an adjective somewhere. Instead I added a sentence, finishing with a total of 5008 words for the day. I'm sure that must be a personal record.

Yesterday was almost as good - 4735 words. What a great weekend!

So, I'm at 32, 107 words now. Still a lot of writing to do over the next five days but I can do it. The words are flowing. I will soon have that Nanowrimo winners certificate on my wall.

Welcome to my forties....

2007-11-23T14:55:00.000+11:00

Design available at The Writers Zone in the Chickollage Shop

It's the first day of my forties....

and I slept in. Because it's the only day I could sleep in all week. Yep, I have the day off today and then it's back to work tomorrow and Sunday. Will be very glad when this election is over. I've been pleased to have the extra work but it will be good to return to some kind of normal.

Life begins today. And I got myself one of those free solar return charts (gives you a year forecast) from astrology.com and things are looking pretty good in the stars for the next twelve months. Especially in the department of creativity.

I feel as if I'm coming into my own creatively and there's never enough time to create everything I want. The 365 day collage poetry challenge died after two months, although I have since made some 3D collage projects

and Nanowrimo is proving to be very challenging this time around due to my extended working hours. If only I had more hours in the night (not in the day, because I don't want to spend any more time at the day job). I've surpassed 21,000 words and hopefully today I will at least hit the halfway mark. It means a lot of writing in the next week, but there are people out there waiting for the sequel, wanting to know what became of Cinderella beyond the 'beyond happily ever after' so I must not disappoint my four fans. I've always responded well to extrinsic motivation.

Meanwhile a few more designs have been added to the Chickollage shop (including the one at the start of the post) and I'm also trying out zazzle as they have alternative products to cafepress including keyrings.

Tonight will be a birthday dinner, more writing and some sleep before I have to face work again...

An imperfect prince

2007-11-20T21:24:00.000+11:00

I think I've finally found my groove... the writing thang. I haven't hit the 20k mark yet so I am still towards the back of the race but if I put my head down and type type type, I might just make it to the finish line.

A tiny sample:

And thankfully a young naïve and beautiful maiden had turned up to the ball
wearing her glass slippers and enchanting everyone including Prince Edward.She had been just perfect, naïve enough to not recognise Prince Edward’s tendencies, young enough to be impressed by the riches, and malleable enough to be conditioned to the role of princess.

Cinderella had been just perfect. The perfect wife for an imperfect
prince. And now she would right it all by giving birth to the heir of the
throne. And right at this moment, the Queen did not give a damn as to how
Cinderella had achieved this miraculous feat. For the child would be the
saviour of the monarchy.

As usual work is trying to get in the way - leading up to Saturday's election, there's just so much of it! I haven't had to deal with extra hours during previous Nanowrimo's and some years I have had time off in November. Not this year. It just means that I have to do more word sprints and word wars and steal small chunks of time for writing to get that certificate to hang on my wall, and another first draft to edit. But I'm having fun, really I am! Who wouldn't want to spend their nights hanging out with the dysfunctional fairytale monarchy?

My mum

2007-11-12T23:04:00.000+11:00

I can't believe it has been ten years.

Ten years since Mum passed away.

She was only 48 years old. Too young. I still think of her every day.

I'm competing in Nanowrimo and writing the continuing story of Cinderella and the tangled web between her husband Prince Edward, his cousin Prince Henry and his wife Snow White. I know Mum would really enjoy this story. And I'm very sure that Disney isn't going to be taking out an option on it. But I'm having fun.

Here's to the things my mother gave me: a wicked sense of humour, the ability to see the quirky side of life, and a positive attitude.

The story of the two old ladies at their funerals in a previous post was a nod to mum. She made sure she left a mark with her funeral, starting with the Reverend having a car accident on the way to the funeral delaying the service. One of mum's friends was an on-call ambulance officer and attended the accident and the Reverend conducted the service with his arm in a temporary splint. Ending with the appearance of the Fabio look-a-like, who we joked was mum's secret boyfriend. He was probably at the wrong funeral. At the wake, my friends and I drank Bailey's in mum's honour. Even at her funeral, my mother knew how to have fun.

Love you mum!

It's only a blank page...

2007-11-10T00:41:00.000+11:00

I know! I know! I should be writing. But I have battled in a word war tonight, as well as creating some new writerly products at Chickollage. I've ordered the framed tile above as I think it will serve as motivation in my study.

I did the quill in photoshop but it is very tricky trying to draw with a mouse especially when you're artistically challenged as I am. Thinking about buying a graphic tablet so I can draw the old-fashioned way.

I've also added the new Nanowrimo gadgets to the blog, so everyone can see my progress or lack thereof. See those big red squares under 'My Month' - they're actually days I wrote but did not meet the word count. Days I didn't write are shaded pink. Huh?

It's been a big week. Work, work, work. Then the monthly two hour commute to see my father, followed by a 10 year celebration for work this evening. And a word war. Updating the chickollage shop and now as I have drifted into Saturday, I think its a good idea to get some
sleep.

As Scarlett would say, Tomorrow is another day.

Hang on, it's already tomorrow!

Something trivial....

2007-11-07T22:48:00.000+11:00

Okay, I'm back and diving into Nanowrimo. I'm sitting at a tiny 1067 words at the moment but that will change. At least my insomnia has gone. I was just doing too much, thinking too much, and my poor brain couldn't switch off as a result.

Last Saturday, I spent the evening trying to locate all the trivia hidden in my brian. (Freudian slip there - I meant brain, but it came out brian - um, I have an ex named Brian). My writers group had a Trivia Night, and it was fun. I was a spare because I couldn't come up with a table of mates on my own, I joined a table that needed an extra. I came in handy for the Pop Culture section and the Australiana section but failed dismally when it came to Science and Nature. The tension built throughout the night, the teams growing more and more competitive as the scores grew larger. Loads of fun. And I even learned a thing or two on the night. Damsels and Devils below walked away with the big prize money.

.So back to Nanowrimo. I'm all set. I have a new notebook for scribbling down paragraphs in teabreaks at work. I have upgraded my Talking Alarm Clock with Peety the Parrot and the genie, and the speech engine, so it really does talk to me now. I've got my book of fairy tales for inspiration. I've got my on-line Word War challenger to do battle. I've even got a Nano t-shirt.

Still have no plot, just vague ideas. But I figure I'll just keep writing. Eventually something will happen.

I keep forgetting to mention this. I'm in the writing contest at Karin Tabke's blog. Each week we post one sentence only of a story and then some are eliminated. My entry is from Diary of the Future and I'm up to Round 4. Come and cheer everyone on!

November?

2007-11-02T23:02:00.000+11:00

What do you mean it's November already?

And Nanowrimo has started?

No! Not possible!

Hey! Wait for me!

T-shirt available at the Chickollage shop.

Jumble sales, writing inspiration and Almodovar

2007-10-28T11:58:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was my writer's group meeting and it turned into a jumble sale.

We all cleaned out our wardrobes and brought in the clothes that we didn't wear anymore. Each piece was a gold coin donation towards our Christmas party. We raised over $50 and the remaining clothes went to charity.

We still managed a writing exercise. Using a couple of funeral notices for inspiration, we each wrote a dialogue between the two women at any point in their lives (or afterlives). It was fun and as usual my cynicism shone through. Here's my piece:

'Thank God, that's over!' said Dottie.

'What do you mean, dear? I'm rather sad to leave my grandkids behind.' Alice replied as she admired the wildflowers perched on Dottie's coffin.

'70 years!' she said. 'Can you believe it? 70 years? Washing John's socks and underwear, running about after him, making sure tea was on the table. When they said till death do you part, I never imagined it would be that long.'

'Look at him - he looks lost. What's he going to do without you, Dottie?'

'Wash his own socks for a start.' Dottie grumbled, thinking of all the years she'd spent in the laundry.

'You got a lovely turn-up. Wonder how many will turn up to my funeral this afternoon?'

'I'm sure there'll be a crowd, Alice. You can't hang around this earth for 92 years and not gather a few friends.'

'They might just come to make sure I'm dead. Work out how much money I've left them.' Alice laughed. 'They'll be disappointed when they discover there's not much but some old furniture and some photo albums. Geez, I had a good time after Gerald passed on. He has such a tight reign on the purse strings. It was nice to think about myself for change.'

The two women bow their heads respectfully as they walk past the coffin.

'Bit weird being at the funeral.'

'You don't say!'

'Who's the handsome young man with the long blonde hair?' Alice nudges Dottie. 'Is that one of your grandkids?'

'No, never seen him before in my life. But he is nice looking.' Dottie beamed. 'That'll keep them talking about me.'

Some of our newer members commented on how much the older members can write in a ten minute exercise. But it's all practice. It's years of being able to slip in and out of that creative momentum at will, and it is due to writing almost every day.

After the meeting, I went to the supermarket and was surprised when I rounded a corner to see Lisa, another member who hadn't made it to the meeting, holding out a DVD for me: Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I love this movie. It's so funny, and has a very young and spunky Antonio Banderas. I haven't seen it for years but I'm looking forward to watching it again. Thanks Lisa!

I watched Volver a few weeks ago, and was pleased to see that Almodovar had returned to comedy. His dramas were just a bit too serious for me. I like his dark humour and silliness!

It also got me thinking. I don't watch a lot of foreign movies anymore. Not sure why. Maybe because I live in conservative regional Australia and we're just not exposed to them. But I have world movies on pay TV but that's no excuse. Maybe I've just frustrated with the quality of sub-titles. Maybe I just want to keep reading and movie watching as two distinct activities. Years ago, when I lived in Annandale, I used to spend Sunday afternoons at the double feature at the Stanmore Cinema. 2 movies for $6. You couldn't beat it. There would be a lot of foreign doubles. And they were great! Maybe I should surf over to World Movies more often.

4 days to the start of Nanowrimo....

Thank God its Sunday!

2007-10-21T11:31:00.000+10:00

Thank God It's Sunday!

I couldn't say it on Friday, because I knew I still had the day at work on Saturday to get through. But now it's Sunday so I can say Thank God!

I usually work around between 35 - 45 hours a week depending on which week it is, and if there's a rostered day off in there. This week I've worked over 60 hours! Yawn! And it's been go, go, go (at least mentally) all week. Exciting, challenging and draining.

So today, I'll be doing work of another kind - reading! The spare lounge is moving from the spare room onto the back verandah so that will be where I spend most of my day.

I've also been making a collage of Diary of the Future and found the perfect picture to include in a magazine on Friday, so that's got to go on the collage today. It depicts one of the scenes set at the cinema perfectly. I hopefully will have the collage complete by the time November rolls around and will post it on the blog.

In the meantime, LittleGreyDragon on the Nanowrimo forums has designed me this gorgeous banner to depict my Nanowrimo project. Very pretty and inspiring. Can't wait to tackle those fairytales. Roll on November. October is just a holding pattern!

The Nightly Ritual

2007-10-16T21:07:00.000+10:00

Spring is here and the weather is certainly starting to warm up. The magnolia tree is once again filled with leaves, and the white snowdrops of wisteria have also given way to greenery. But with the warmer weather comes the parasites which necessitates the ritual on the left.

I'm yet to find a weapon that beats these pesky little fellas although I'm sure Dorkus would like me to keep looking. We've swapped from Frontline to Revolution this month to see if it makes a difference but we still need to do a nightly comb through to remove the resilient ones.

At the same time, work has also heated up. And in fact, I never imagined we would be as busy as we are. Hard work, long days moving quickly into nights. Before I know it, it will be my birthday and then Christmas. Life is certainly not dull at the moment.

Laptop is back

2007-10-13T09:37:00.000+10:00

The universe heard my plea for my laptop. They had phoned me at work that afternoon to say it was ready to be picked up but I'd already left for the day. I couldn't pick it up till Thursday but now I'm back on the laptop. There was nothing wrong with the computer brain. The screen was replaced instead. So I'm happy to say I did not have to reload any programs and I can get to work on my new t-shirt designs before Nanowrimo is upon me.

But when I started using it, it did some very odd things. I was hitting the letter keys on the right hand side of the keyboard and numbers were appearing. I could see it was a 'function' key thing but I couldn't work out how to turn it off. So not-so-tech-savvy me discovered the laptop num lock function that she didn't knew existed before and after about half an hour finally worked out how to turn it off. I guess those two keys had never been hit in combination before!

Now I'm looking forward to getting the router so that I don't have to be chained to the modem/phone outlet to be on the net.

I suspect that today is the only day I'll have at home this weekend (I'm expecting that I'll be called in to work tomorrow) so I need to make the most of it and get a lot done. Which includes my father's BAS statement, the newsletter for the writers group, the new designs and watch at least one DVD from Quickflix (Safety in Numbers, Ten Canoes, or The Kingdom - Lars Von Trier). No surfing for me today. It's back to work.

Novelled out

2007-10-09T20:41:00.000+10:00

There have been strange noises coming out of the study lately (or the cave as I like to refer to it.) Sirens, screeching tyres - Holy Batman - you'd think there was a whole city in there. And then the swearing! My partner has discovered computer games! At least it will keep him out of my hair while my mind is occupied with Nanowrimo.

I want my laptop back! Still no news and it's been more than two weeks. They had to send it away for repairs. I'm sick of this huge monster sitting on my desk. It does not make me inspired to write or edit. And although I've had a heap of ideas for 'writing' t-shirts to add to my Chickollage store, I need software that is not on this computer to create the designs. We're also looking at going wireless for our internet connection (not roaming wireless but within the house wireless). That way once I have my laptop back, I can make use of my 'idle' time watching TV by updating my Cafepress store.

I've been thinking about fairytales again and fracturing some more for this year's Nanowrimo. I had such fun writing Beyond Happily Ever After and discovering what happened to Cinderella and Snow White after they found their princes, I would like to explore some other modern fairy tales with a chick lit twist. Well, that's this week's idea! I've pulled out a book that my parents gave me in 1975 called World's Best Fairy Tales and will be reading that for inspiration. (This must be the only book I still have from my childhood). But it's only Oct 9. Much can change between now and the start of Nanowrimo. And if I do write 50,000 words of themed short stories, maybe I'm really doing NaShoStoWriMo.

All I know is that I'm novelled out. I can't keep writing reams of first draft, without committing to the second and third draft, and however many more it takes to polish it up for submission. Yes, I can say I've completed a novel. At least until 1st or 2nd draft stage. But not to the point where I'm ready to send my babies out on the street to find a home. And that's what I have to do. I've managed the gestation and the giving birth part. I just haven't quite brought them up right yet.

So it's a very conscious decision not to add to the work in progress pile but also not to let the opportunity of the Nano community pass me by. Bring on the short stories.

Nanowrimo again

2007-10-03T21:47:00.000+10:00

It's that time of the year again. Time for sign-ups to the Nanowrimo challenge. Write 50,000 words in the month of November.

What? Are you out of your mind? I can hear you thinking it now. Especially if you haven't heard of Nanowrimo before.

But I'm throwing down the gauntlet! If you've always thought you could be a writer, here's your chance to see what amazing things lie in your subconscious. Plot and plan before November 1st hits, or just wait till the beginning of the month, trust your muse and dive right in.

It's exhilirating, stressful and fantastic. Some of what you write is absolute drivel but some of it is truly wonderful, and comes from a place you barely knew existed.

Year 1, I wrote 25,000 words. Year 2 - 38,000. Year 3 - more than 50,000. Year 4 - made it to the finish line with a complete first draft.

Let your muse free. She's bored. She needs Nanowrimo!

Need some more encouragement? Read No Plot, No Problem by Nanowrimo founder Chris Baty.

Okay, so I'm still looking for a plot. And it would be lovely if I could scan old notebooks and hard drives, and come up with something as offbeat as Jenny Crusie's discovery. I'll dip in but I can't promise anything. Although last year's manuscript Diary of the Future was based on an idea I had around 7 years ago. And I'll hang out in the Plot Doctoring forum on the Nanowrimo website. I may just find the catalyst to my whole unwritten novel in the Adopt a Plot, Adopt an Opening Line or The Dares thread.

So are you in it? Or not? Leave me a comment!

My long weekend

2007-10-01T21:09:00.000+10:00

Something shifted today and instead of spending the public holiday glued to the keyboard, I went out to the Buskers Festival at Woolgoolga and soaked up the sun. Now I am not a sun baby, I've always preferred to get a moon tan rather than a sun tan, but a couple of hours of vitamin D should have done me good. Well, I had a great time watching the acts even if my legs had gone to sleep and it was great to be amongst an enthusiastic crowd watching grown men humiliate themselves in public.

I paid for my time in the sun this afternoon with the beginning of a migraine, but once I'd taken a couple of tablets and eaten a decent meal with vegies, I was alright again.

I didn't quite achieve all the writing goals I wanted to. I allowed myself some time off this weekend which was enjoyable. The time off included the Festival, and watching 8 episodes of the second series of Dead Like Me. I love that show and I cannot understand why it wasn't shown on free to air TV in Australia. Actually, I do understand - the TV stations are run by morons who think reality TV is the answer to everything and show quality drama such as The Sopranos and Six Feet Under at midnight. So now, I'll print out a coy of my work in progress and take it to work to edit during breaks.

When I went to Byron Bay Writers Festival, I saw Richard Flanagan speaking about Research for Fiction Writers. He was very funny, so I borrowed his latest book The Unknown Terrorist from the library.

Wow! This is an amazing but scary story when a pole dancer is implicated by a chain of events and the whole nation believes she is a terrorist. In today's climate of fear-mongering and security alerts, the premise of the novel was all too realistic. Richard Flanagan twists the plot with some incredible metaphors that capture contemporary Sydney.

Although this copy will be returned to the library tomorrow, I will be purchasing a 'keeper' copy soon. The book is that powerful.

Dead technology

2007-09-30T10:39:00.000+10:00

Well after decluttering my office, and the laptop, I'm afraid to say that neither appears like the photos anymore.

Three days after the decluttering when I thought the laptop was humming along nicely, it proved me wrong by dying completely. All I would get at startup was a grey screen. So the laptop is back at the shop (hopefully whatever's wrong will be covered by the extended warranty) and I've hooked the old monster computer up to the internet, and seriously thinking of buying an LCD screen for it, because the monster takes up the whole desk.

Dorkus the cat is not impressed. He can't take up his usual position on the desk (as above) and has retreated to the desk behind me.

In moving the monster computer back out here, I've got printers on the floor and stuff all around. Hopefully, it will look better again by this afternoon.

I'm sure that Mercury is not retrograde at the moment, but I've been hearing of a lot of computers going kaput. A technical mutiny perhaps?

I can't believe its the last day of September already. I'm hurtling towards my 40th birthday and another Nanowrimo is just around the corner. Seriously, where has this year gone? It'll be 2008 before we know it.

I plan to do Nanowrimo again - I like the impetus and the momentum that being part of the Nanowrimo community gives me and my writing. I have a very vague idea about a young woman and an obsession with classified ads. That's all I have so far. In the meantime, I received my feedback from the Chick Lit competition and have been absorbing all that Jenny Crusie had to say at the RWA Conference, so I'm rewriting and reshuffling and polishing Diary of the Future for submission. Also using that story to participate in Candy Haven's Revision Hell workshop. So October will be over in a flash for me as well, because I'll be busy with work and rewriting.

What a week!

2007-09-16T14:34:00.000+10:00

So I got through quite a bit of the decluttering/spring cleaning the office last Sunday and I've posted some before and after pictures. 11 boxes is down to 8 boxes and yesterday I also bought a paper shredder to get rid of century old bank statements and personal docs that I don't need.

Before: collage stuff, magazines, boxes and who knows what else.

After: magazines I can access, my collage box full of cutouts, scrapbooking bits and pieces in the drawer organiser. Much better.

Before: Ugh! What can I say.

After: I do have a floor, and Dorkus likes having somewhere clear to sit.

Everything was going to plan. I'd written a 'to-do' list and a lot of things were crossed off. Remaining was rewrite my synopsis (didn't happen) and watch some DVD's from Quickflix.

I started Monday with everything planned out. Take my car which was playing up to my father for repairs and do his accounts.

The universe had other ideas. My car completely carked it half an hour into the 2 hour journey. The radiator shat itself, luckily in a place where I could pull over safely. My partner was about five minutes behind me because he'd stopped for petrol, so I waved him down when I spotted him. After waiting half and hour and filling the radiator again and watching it all drain out, we realised the car was going nowhere. Suprisingly I didn't stress out and get upset. It was one of those things that happen when you drive an old car and at least I wasn't stranded.

That afternoon the universe rewarded me for my calmness, and my unconscious decision not to go against the flow. I bought a new car after Dad phoned his car dealer friends. This car was running a bit rough, so he said have a look at it, you can have it for $500. We brought it back to my father's workshop, Dad fiddled about in the engine, doing up bolts here and there, adjusting this and that, cleaning spark plugs, put it up on the hoist and checked the front end. And now she's going like a dream. And there are several firsts with this car for me: it's my first station wagon, and it's my first automatic. And I'm very happy. The breakdown was meant to be for without it we never would have found this new car!

So this weekend I've been decluttering my computer and it took a lot more than 15 minutes. When it started going at snail's pace I suspected that the load of my Chickollage graphics and Jen's photo collages, plus my snap happy digital pics were weighing the hard drive down. I only had 2 GB left on it, and the computer was extremely unhappy. So I got an external hard drive and started shifting stuff on it. After moving all my photos, and Chickollage stuff, I'd still only reclaimed 2 more GB. So then I moved into my partner's side of the computer and discovered a folder which had 16 GB all by itself. All his video stuff which had hidden itself into this innocuous looking folder - the My Videos folder was empty. So I moved that as well. Then went to a defrag. The computer told me it didn't need it. It was happy again and humming along, and now I am too.

Decluttering

2007-09-08T11:53:00.000+10:00

Visitng Aargh Ink the other night, I found out that Jennifer Crusie is decluttering her office, flylady style. It's a relief to see pictures of other people's clutter because then I don't feel so bad about everything that is accumulting in my writing room. At least I can see my floor, if not my surfaces. And the bookcase is generally neat. My problem is the boxes around the perimeter full of paper with stuff on them, and who knows what else. Finding someone to store these in an organised manner is my dilemma. If they do even need storing.

So to tackle this clutter 15 minutes at a time, I'm going to start with this desk. This is more a storage desk, than a working desk but it would be nice to see the surface. My big plan was to use this desk as a collage workspace. Trouble is my cat Dorkus has taken a liking to it, and whenever it is clear (or not) he sits upon it, blessing it with his cat hair.

He likes sunning himself on top of the blue storage drawers, right in front of the window.

15 minutes later and I'm not done yet. And I have to wonder how much hair one furry little fella can have. When I moved the blue thing, there was cat hair everywhere so the vacuum cleaner came out.

Now half an hour later, the desk is clean althought there is still some stuff that I have to find a home for. Just not on this desk!

I've also cleaned the oven, vacuumed the dining room/kitchen floor in preparation for the mop, vacuumed the hallway and lounge room. Definitely took longer than 15 minutes but just found out the landlord's are paying a visit tomorrow to check what needs fixing so not too soon at all.

However, I think I'm now going to hop down to the chemist...my hayfever is playing up as a result and that I can live without.

A pre-sleep post

2007-09-03T21:33:00.000+10:00

Well, I was going to blog tonight but then I got distracted by Californication -remove the first two syllables and you get the essence of the show - chopping up magazines, and now it's time for sleep.

I could be counting my blessings but at the moment I'm adding a parking fine to a car that won't start (looks like it needs a new battery) to forgetting to pick up my keycard before the month ended and then not being able to use Eftpos. Whoops! Interesting week.

I finished reading Blind Submission yesterday. Really enjoyed it and I didn't guess the mystery author although I suspected at least one person that the protag didn't even suspect.

I've been a naughty girl and bought The Sims 2. It's highly addictive and I have to ration my time or I will never ever get anything done and will just spend my spare time in a virtual universe, simulating life. No Sims during the week and I've had my fill of tv for the week. Goodnight for now.

Human again

2007-08-30T19:49:00.000+10:00

It is so good to be feeling human again. The flu hung around for about ten days but it only took a meeting with my writers group to start feeling energised again and then two days later I was back at work.

Mind you, it was hard to get back into that mindshift of getting up in the morning and going to work, instead of sleeping half the day. That's the trouble with being an owl instead of a lark. Mornings are torture.

So now I've rejoined the human race, I have lots to do. Besides catching up with sleep while I was sick, I also watched a few movies: Music and Lyrics (never say no to a Hugh Grant movie), Stranger than Fiction (especially interesting from a writer's point of view). I haven't brought myself to watch Volver yet - the fact that I'd have to read the movie and that it's over 3 hours along is a bit offputting at this point. Maybe Sunday. Plus I read Undead and Unpopular, Oh my Goth, Seven Steps on the Writers Journey, Pen on Fire, and I'm now halfway through Blind Submission.

Last year when I created Chickollage as a term for my chick lit collage poetry, I also started the Chickollage blog, talked a bit about it here and there, opened the Cafepress shop, and then about a month later looked up chickollage.com to find that someone had bought the domain about a week after I started the blog. I guess they were waiting for me to make millions and then sell the domain back to me for squillions. Well, I haven't made millions and their registration has expired so I'm now the proud owner of the domain, trying to work out what I'm going to put on it. Yet another thing on the to do list, but I'm imagining it will soon feature my favourite collage poems, a daily poem (yes, got to get back into the daily habit), and links to the big wide collage poetry world.

And yes there is writing to do. I'm anxiously waiting for feedback from the Chick Lit writers competition for Diary of the Future, to see if I'm on the right track or not. And I need to rewrite the synopsis. I'm going to break it down to the three act structure then use the turning points to construct the skeleton of the synopsis as Jenny Cruisie suggested at the Romance Writers Conference. Then I want to rewrite the beginning two more times (with different starting points) and events to see which one works best. I need to get this one polished up and out the door by the end of October so I can dive into another round of Nanowrimo in Novmber.

It's all happening...

It's raining, it's pouring

2007-08-21T17:23:00.000+10:00

It's a bit wet here at the moment.

So wet, we can't even drive out and get a loaf of bread.

This is the road to the local shop. There is a bridge under all that water.

And this is the road to the local supermarket. You can see a couple of broken down cars on the other side of the water. I guess they drove through it.

There are only two roads out and they are both underwater so I guess we just have to hibernate for a while. I'm glad our house is on higher ground although the backyard is very soggy.

Not our backyard!

Back from Sydney

2007-08-18T16:04:00.000+10:00

I'm back from Sydney with a souvenir that I didn't want - the flu! But other than that piece of baggage the trip was great.

7 days seems like a lot of time in a city when you start planning a trip but then I took out 3 days over the weekend for the Romance Writers Conference, another day to travel across the city for a meeting with Aurora TV, a day to recover from the conference, a day to travel out to the burbs to meet the new nephews and a day to have another meeting, a visit to the doctor for my partner and the Chris Wilson gig at The Vanguard, and suddenly its time to come home again. Sorry for anyone that I did not manage to catch up with. Being busy on the weekend meant that I really couldn't catch up with friends who were working. Next time.

The conference was fantastic and it was lovely to meet so many enthusiastic writers. The Jennifer Cruisie workshop was awe inspiring and left me with a lot of food for thought. Other workshops were just as informative - in fact I wrote pages and pages in my notebook.

I forgot to take my recharger and rechargeable batteries so I ran out of battery power just before the masquerade so I didn't take any photos that night. It was extremely colourful, full of sequins and feathers and I had a hard time recognising faces the next day. In fact, I didn't end up taking many photos at the conference at all - just lots of notes.

It was really odd hanging around Annandale, our old stomping ground. It has changed so much since we lived there. Our old abode, which was above and beyond the butcher shop is now a restaurant and two units. There is now a gourmet pizza bar, the North Annandale hotel is totally spruced up (and how much is it to hang around pubs now without the haze of smoke!)

While it was nice to be away and hang out with writers and meet new members of the family, its also good to return home. Dorkus the cat certainly thinks so. He didn't treat the cattery as a detention centre this time, going on a hunger strike. This time he ate as he was supposed to. But he's happy to be home and following me around everywhere. That is when I'm vertical. Because this flu is not allowing many opportunities for that.

One sleep to Sydney

2007-08-07T22:00:00.000+10:00

One more sleep and then we're off to Sydney. Very exciting although I'm sure Dorkus is already cursing me and feeling very sorry for himself because he's already delivered to the cattery. Last time he was there, he reckoned he was in a detention camp and went on a hunger strike -- he's there longer this time so he better eat something! Mind you, it wouldn't hurt him to lose some of that extra fat.

Sydney is shaping up to be really good. Not only do I have 3 days with writers in writing workshops at the Romance Writers of Australia conference, I will get to see my new nephew Damon, my relatively new nephew William and my niece Abby.

Plus I've just had the pleasure of visiting Chris Wilson's website to check out his tour dates and he will be performing in Newtown on the 15th August. And I haven't seen him perform for approx 8 years. Plus it's a relaunch of that beautiful album Live at the Continental. This time - Live at the Vanguard. A very fitting night out for our anniversary. Certainly more appealing than driving back home for 7 hours in the car. That can wait until Thursday.

Major updates in the Chickollage shop - lots of new photo collage designs by Jennifer Gordon, with some Photoshop doctoring by myself. Check out the Cards for all Occasions section.

Will be back during the week with news and updates of the Sydney trip.

Byron Bay Writers Festival - I'm back

2007-08-04T22:09:00.000+10:00

I took my mask out for a practice run on Thursday. It was the Coffs Cup and although I didn't go to the races, we were encouraged to dress up as if we were going to the races that morning at work. I had decided to wear my mask and put on some velveteen pants and a purple top. I was hunting around in my wardrobe for a jacket, when I swear a dress started to speak to me, insisting that I should wear it to work. It's a gorgeous long maroon/purple dress with a lace overlay and I haven't worn it for many years. I think the last time I wore it was to a winter wedding. So I took it out and put it on.

Dorkus discovers my mask has feathers.

Must've known something. I won a bottle of wine and a small box of choccies for being the Most Extravagantly Dressed. And the dress felt good. I may even wear it again to the Romance Writers' Conference Masquerade instead of the dress for which I'd orginally colour coordinated the mask.

Some of the Byron Bay pilgrimage.

I had a great weekend at the Byron Bay Writers Festival. Even eleven women with only two bathrooms didn't seem to matter. Actually, I didn't spend any down time in the cabin during the day. I was at the Festival from around 9.30 each morning until 5pm filling my head with writerly notions, literary aspirations and recharging my writing mojo. I ate at the site, I even braved the Kenny-style monster feet-pedal-flushing portaloos.

I resisted the urge of all those books in the Dymocks tent, although I mentally noted a number to track down at a later time. However I did buy The Shadow Thief by Alexandra Adornetto. What an amazing self-assured and gorgeous young lady she is! I got a shock several pages into the book to discover that the sister's name is Dorkus, the same as my cat. I sometimes see Dorcas but not spelled the exact same was as my boy!

Alexandra Adornetto on the Young and Female panel.

I was able to talk to Eva Sallis, who taught me Novel Writing many years ago in Adelaide, and thank her for setting me on the path. I really believe that people come into our lives at exactly the right time. And at that time I was ready to start on that path. In another session about publishing, they discussed the importance of having a writing community, and I know I have that with the wonderful Nambucca Valley Writers Group. So now I have my writing mojo back, and plan to have even more with the Romance Writers of Australia conference next weekend.

Blogoff post - VICTORY

2007-07-25T20:17:00.000+10:00

It's not if you win, it's how you play the game.

So they say. But there is still a joyful sweetness in victory, in being the best, that isn't matched by the taste of being runner-up.

My short story Beyond Happily Ever After won second prize in the Mid North Coast Writers Association short story competition which was fantastic. And I still thought how nice would it have been to take out first prize.

Still, if it hadn't been for Carrolline's encouragement I would not even have played that game. I wouldn't even have entered the competition. I hadn't written a short story with any intent for nine years (not counting homework and exercises with the writers group) and was convinced that I couldn't even think of a story that could have a beginning, middle and end in less than 2000 words. Holding the 'I can't do this' thought firmly in my head led me to thinking about fairytales and their short, succinct nature and I started wondered about Cinderella and what happened after the happily ever after. Once I combined the fairy tale traditional nature of the story with the perils of being a modern princess dealing with the tabloids and the pressure to produce an heir, the story practically wrote itself. I've just sent the story off to an anthology...we'll see what happens.

There was a time when I hated losing because my livelihood was depending on it. It's never fun to find out that you came second out of 150 applicants for a job. Then it becomes a what's wrong with me? But there are times over my career where I have applied for jobs that have been totally out of my league, and been hired for a secondary position that wasn't even advertised. I suppose it shows, you've got to be in it to win it. Even if it's not clear what the actual prize is.

One of the ladies at my writers group mentioned last week that she's become a competition addict. She's had a few highly commended but hasn't actually won anything as yet. But I can tell that she's enjoying the journey and in that process, she has her own sweet taste of victory.

Because when we set ourselves a goal and achieve it, we are victors in our own life. Far ahead of the couch potatoes mindlessly flicking the channels. There may be no prizes attached, unless you've bribed yourself with a box of chocolates or a dinner out, but it is the self-fulfillment that is the prize, that gives the sweet taste of victory. Maislow had it right with his heirarchy of needs - self-actualisation is the best. And being victorious does not necessarily mean beating other people. There is enough sweetness of victory for all of us to share...if only we are willing.

This is the final blog-off post in this round of the blogoff. Funny we talk about victory in this post, because yes someone will win and take home the pot of money, perhaps! Or maybe as in the last blogoff, the winner will donate the winnings back to Courtney's fundraiser. The victor is in the list on my sidebar under Blogoff Participants. Who do you think this round's victor will be?

Oh, and my post a little early this week as I'm off to Byron Bay Writers Festival tomorrow morning. Whoopee!

Holidays, Writing Festivals and Conferences

2007-07-22T11:44:00.000+10:00

Yeehah! I'm on holidays for a week!

I've been working really hard so these holidays seem more of a luxury than before, and well-deserved.

On Thursday, I go to the Byron Bay Writers Festival for my yearly pilgrimage of stocking up on writing mojo. Four days listening to writers, talking about writing, eating out every night, and sharing writing camaraderie. Twelve of us are going, sharing two cabins and there's a mixture of the usual faces who have trekked to Byron every year and then number of Writers Festival versions. Should be a great time.

But in the meantime, I have four days off and much to do. I'm reading my friend Roby's fantasy trilogy to be published with Pan McMillan next year and the writing is beautifully evocative. I don't usually read fantasy as a rule because of all the description necessary in world-building but this could just about turn me on to the genre. I finished book one last night, and will start book 2 today.

I also have the final three episodes of series 2 of Hex to watch. A very likeable British series - not many out there that can boast having lesbian ghosts.

After Byron Bay, I go back to work for a week of working hard, with a couple of twelve hours days packed in there....and then I go to Sydney to meet new nephews, to catch up with family, and to attend the Romance Writers of Australia conference. I joined Romance Writers after the Cinderella story won 2nd prize in the Mid North Coast Writers Association short story competition. I will be attending a full day workshop with Jennifer Cruisie and four other workshops over the weekend. Really looking forward to immersing myself in learning about the craft of writing.

On the Friday evening, is a masquerade cocktail party, so I got all inspired and decided to create a collage mask. Here are the raw ingredients.

I will bewearing a black dress with embroidered roses, so I decided the colours needed to be black and red to complement the dress, and have rose details, and fit in with the theme of romance.

Because I do collage poetry, I thought that incorporating collaged words would make the mask uniquely 'me'.

I love the result: there's a few more bead strands to add, and I will probably lacquer it to give it a shine, but the process has already sparked a few more 3-D ideas to play around with Chickollage Decoupage.

Speaking of Chickollage, Cafepress is currently having a special promotion: buy 3 t-shirts and get one free. So head on over to the Chickollage shop and while you're there take the time to browse our new section devoted entirely to greeting cards - you now have the option of buying one card, a pack of 10 or a pack of 20, as well as notecards and my Chickollage partner Jennifer Gordaon has come up with some stunning new photo collage designs.

Blogoff Post - Breasts

2007-07-19T20:52:00.000+10:00

When I was a teenager I really didn't have any.

Poached eggs maybe.

Bumps that completely disappeared when I lied down on my back.

Even the saying 'More than a mouthful is a waste' couldn't make up for the little I had.

But I ate as much as I wanted and couldn't put on weight. And without any extra body fat my tiny little breasts just weren't going to grow, no matter how many arm exercises I did, chanting 'I must, I must improve my bust.'

And when I got out of hospital four weeks after a car accident, having dropped another dress size, I thought there was no chance.

However, the next three months sitting around watching videos, unable to participate in my usual daily activities (e.g running up three flights of steps with two large pizzas and four bottles of coke) and my less frequent activities (sex!) saw my metabolism began to slow down.

The metabolic effect combined with the side effects of contraception and eating more because I was bored had a noticeable effect. I started to grow breasts, much to my delight. Suddenly there was something to push up with a push-up bra. I developed cleavage. I became voluptuous. Not quite Rubenesque but much more cuddly than skin and bones.

But my new voluptous curves were not just confined to my breasts. I had become curvier all over, curvier stomach, bigger thighs. I had meat on my bones. And I felt healthier. Much more healthier than when I was 48 kilos.

Of course the medical profession doesn't agree. I was mortified when I was told by a doctor doing a health check for my work place that I was obese. I don't feel obese. Sure, it might not always be fun shopping for clothes because designers still design for women with the shape of a fifteen year old boy, but I feel confident in my own skin.

But I get the lectures about the health factors, the need for exercise, the risk of diabetes, stroke, heart attack. And I wonder how unfair is the actual process of losing weight. Can someone explain why the first place that a woman tends to lose weight is her breasts? After all this work! And no matter what I do, I can't seem to shift that spare tyre!

Check out the 20 other bloggers competing in Courtney's blogoff in my sidebar. I'm sure they all have a thing or two to say about this week's topic, Breasts. If you'd like to make a donation to Courtney's three day walk for breast cancer, click on the link.

Other bloggers have talked in previous posts about serendipity. I received the word prompt on Tuesday. On Wednesday I got a call at work from a University. I was curious because I've had nothing to do with this university at all. Apparently they've been trying to locate me for a while for a breast cancer study because of the family history. Not quite serendipity, but certainly interesting timing!

Disappointed there's no photos? You want to see them. Tough titties!

Blogoff ver 2 - post 2 - HOPE

2007-07-12T23:07:00.000+10:00

I've never really subscribed to the concept of HOPE. When I was young, perhaps! But I think it was something I grew out of reasonably quickly. Neither do I subscribe to the concept of hopelessness. In every situation, we have a choice of how we react. We are never hopeless.

I did some personal development courses in my early twenties. Somebody in one of those courses defined hope as a 'turd with a cherry on top.' That image, funny enough, has stuck in the back of my mind ever since.

Hope is just a vague fancy if there is no action behind it.

When I was in my twenties, I wanted to be a writer. Yet I only wrote occasionally. I did not write with any discipline and I did not write with any intent. I was busy living a life and dreaming of one day being a writer.

About ten years ago, I re-visited my dreams of being a writer with serious intent. I committed to my dream. And I took concrete action to achieve those dreams. I started to write. I took writing lessons and workshops. I joined a writers' group.

I no longer thing about being a writer or even hope to be writer. I AM A WRITER BECAUSE I WRITE.

I can chant my writer's mantra: 'I will be a published author...I will be a published author.' But I'm not just sitting back and hoping for it. I am writing. I am editing. I am doing the hard yards. And at the same time, I'm remembering that it's not just about the destination...it's all about the journey

One day I will hold my published book in my hand. But it's not something I'm hoping for. I've done the creative visualisation. I've done the actualisation by having a Lulu.com copy of one of my manuscripts printed for myself. No, it's not something I'm hoping for. It's something I'm striving for.

One last thing about HOPE - we can all hope that one day they will find a cure for breast cancer. But we can also do something about it.

I am.

I'm blogging in this blogoff along with 20 other great bloggers listed in my blogroll. We're blogging to help Courtney raise money and to raise awareness. If you would like to do something to help the cause, then follow the links. This is the second post in Blogoff version 2. To support Courtney in her fundraising for the Three Day Walk for Breast Cancer, visit her website at Five Second Dance Party or click on this link:

When Inspiration wakes you....

2007-07-08T13:18:00.000+10:00

It's 1 pm on Sunday afternoon and I'm still in my pyjamas. Pretty slack, hey?

But let me explain. I've been working hard. My creative juices were fired up, so I jumped on the laptop to seize the thought while it was still in my brain.

I've been staying up late reading my friend's soon-to-be-published fantasy novel trilogy. I'm up to chapter five of tiny tiny print, single spaced double sided but I'm involved in the story and I want to read all (gulp) 450,000 words.

Anyway, her success has got me inspired once again and although I slept late this morning (blame the couple of 12 hour days I worked this week), my subconscious was mulling over my young adult manuscript Diary of the Future and I woke up with a fully-composed query letter in my mind. It's now on the hard drive. It's a bit left of field but I think that's okay.

Now all I have to do is compress my five page double-spaced synosis into one single-spaced page and give those first three chapters another polishing. And I'm ready! Finally, eight years of constant writing, and I'm finally getting brave enough to submit....

Blogoff post: Survivor

2007-07-05T22:21:00.000+10:00

Welcome to blogoff number 2 - this time there are no eliminations, no voting off the island, everyone will survive. Just like the song!

I'm pleased about that. I hated the eliminations, seeing a friendly voice disappear each week. This blogoff is much more inclusive but with 21 people playing the game, we will have a lot of words to read each week. And its great to welcome new people amongst the now familiar bloggers. All the bloggers are listed in the menu under 'Blogoff Participants.' Please pay them a visit.

I was surprised that I was a survivor for so long during the last competition. I'm not known for my survival skills. Leave me on an island, and I'd probably starve, go bonkers or both. I'd be totally consumed by chocolate cravings, and would probably start hallucinating, imagining that everything around me is turning to chocolate... just like the Cadbury commercial. Maybe I'd come to my senses just as I start gnawing on the palm tree. But maybe not.

While I don't think I'd cope very well if I was alone on an island or in the jungle, its not the being alone bit that I would mind. I often crave solitude. Especially after a day at work where I've been surrounded by noise all day, the constant chatter, the voices raising, the endless voices on the end of the telephone. Sometimes I just want silence when I get home. A chance for my mind to rest, for my ears to relax, and for my tongue to be still. Perhaps that's why the internet is so alluring - I can converse with fingers on the keyboard, and there is no accompanying white noise.

All I need to cope with the solitude is pen and paper. Or a laptop. Although I guess a laptop wouldn't last long on an island - unless it came with a solar charged battery.

Have you ever felt that your life is just about survival? Each day blends into another, and you constantly get a feeling of deja vu, because you've done exactly the same thing the day before. My life is flashing before my eyes, and I have nothing to mark one day off from the next. I'm spending a lot of extra time at work, and the collage poetry is not happening, the writing isn't happening, I've barely got it together to even write this post. But I keep telling myself I will survive. It's a temporary phase that I'm going through. And in three weeks time, I'll be on holidays, and travelling to Byron Bay Writers Festival. Until then, I have to survive. I've already paid for the ticket.

This is the second blogoff organised by Courtney at Five Second Dance Party. Raising money towards breast cancer research, for four weeks we blog on a one word topic. If you would like to make a donation to the cause, click on the banner at the top of the post which will take you to Courtney's fundraising page.

Why writing is better than booze

2007-06-24T10:18:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, it started to feel as if I was at an AA meeting. We had several new people show up at our monthly writers' group meeting and we were going around the circle introducing ourselves.

So when Ion before me, commented on the similarity to an AA meeting, I seized the moment to have a bit of fun with my introduction...

'My name is Diane and I'm a writerholic. Luckily, this group does not expect me to give up my addiction and there is no 12-step program to cure me.'

I've been thinking about the whole writing addiction a bit more and have some thoughts about why writing is better than booze (or nicotine or dope for that matter).

Writing is cheap. At the bare minimum, all you need is a pen and paper. Although a computer can be pretty good, but after the initial outlay of costs, the process costs nothing but time and imagination. The same cannot be said for alcohol or cigarettes. (Or photography, painting, sailing, flying or any other number of expensive hobbies.)

Writing is cathartic. You can write out your problems, remove the screaming banshees from your head and sort them out on paper. Sometimes it can even provide a solution, not a hangover.

Writing can be escapist. If reality is getting you down, you can slip into another world of your own creation. Hang out with characters who may be more fun than the real world, even control what happens. And if you don't like the direction the characters take the story, you can rewrite. Better than escaping through alcohol or drugs. Writing can be its own altered state of consciousness.

Writing exercises the grey matter. That's right! You're not killing brain cells, you're feeding them, stimulating them, exercising them, making them jump with joy. If you stimulate them enough, they will even work when you're asleep, discussing the ideas between them in a minature unconscious brainstorming which can unleash a torrent of words when you next boot up the computer or pick up a pen.

Writing can produce a natural high. When you're truly in the zone, and the story is zipping along almost by itself, it can feel fantastic. When you hear an audience laughing at your dialogue in a play that you have penned, it is euphoric. When you capture the perfect phrase or turn of words, you are exhilirated. When you read back your writing months later, you can wonder how you wrote it and where the inspiration came from. And there is no after-effect, no hangover -- unless you've sacrificed sleep and stayed up all night to write.

Writing is expressive. You can say things that you might not say in real life. Role play through characters who are stronger than yourself, or more assertive. You can play with all the 'what-if's?' and create many 'sliding door' moments. And you won't be phoned the day after a drunken binge to have your indiscretions relate back to you.

There are a few drawbacks. BICHOK'ing (Bum in chair, hands on keyboard) for days on end can cause the backside to widen, the hands to cramp and the eyes to lose focus. You must remember to leave the computer every hour, to stretch the legs, to flex the hands, and to gaze off into the distance and re-focus to save your eyesight. Still, it's a small price to pay because your imagination is grateful for the playtime.

So if I had a choice of a night on the booze or the dope, or a night on the computer exercising my imagination, I know which one I would choose!

Issues of formatting

2007-06-17T21:00:00.000+10:00

So I finished my entry for the competition and submitted. Diary of the Future now opens with Nicky's little brother dropping fartbombs. I realised recently that I hadn't made use of Tommy's character quite enough. Knowing how annoying little brothers can be. (And yes Chris you were very annoying as a kid, a teenager! Who knew from that you'd turn out to be such a great father.) So now Tommy will make extra very annoying and smelly appearances because his weapon of choice is flatulence.

Last time I entered this particular competition, I received some very odd remarks from one judge who could not cope with the fact that I'd used single quotation marks instead of double quotation marks. Single quotation marks are the standard submission requirement in Australia (and I think the UK) but obviously not the standard in the US. This time, I didn't want a judge to trip over the formatting and be blinded to the story, so I formatted it US style. I changed realise to realize. I changed mobile phone to cell phone (actually did that in the synopsis but didn't do it in the sample chapters.) And I changed the quotation marks. Don't you love find and replace? It's a marvellous thing. Until you realise that all your apostrophes are now double quotation marks. And there as a lot of them! You see, I'm quite fond of contractions. Especially in dialogue. It took quite a while to go through all those pages and change those apostrophes back. Too long!

So I guess the best thing I can do is retrain my typing to use double quotation marks for dialogue. Then when I want to submit to an Aussie publisher I can do a simple 'find and replace' which won't interfere with my apostrophes. But that could be easier said than done. I still haven't retrained myself to type one space after a full-stop instead of two. So the dilemma still stands....

Tagged!

2007-06-10T16:24:00.000+10:00

I've been tagged by Simmone Howell, author of Notes from the Teenage Underground. If you haven't read this book, get hold of it - it's a great young adult story with an interesting mixture of pop art and film-making.

So here's the meme:

simmone said...
found ya! and now I'm gonna tag ya:Turn to page 123 in your work-in-progress. (If you haven’t gotten to page 123 yet, then turn to page 23. If you haven’t gotten there yet, then get busy and write page 23.) Count down four sentences and then give us the next paragraph.

Craig draws me closer to him, and smiles. ‘And how did that make you feel?’

Okay so I'm in the middle of a dialogue scene so the paragraph isn't very long. And Craig's name is now Zach, so I better do a quick find and replace. And out of context I'll leave you wondering exactly what 'that' refers to... And it ain't sex!

If I turn to page 123 in the lulu.com printed version, I get:

'Well, thanks for your support, Nicky. It's appreciated.'

More dialogue. What can I say?

So if you are a writer reading this and have a long work in progress: consider yourself tagged. Leave a note in the comments linking to your meme, and I'll drop by.

While you're blogging about works in progress, mangle some prose in the Bonsai Story Generator. It'll give your writing a whole new perspective.

The following is not a blogoff post

2007-06-09T12:13:00.000+10:00

No blogoff post from me this week. I've been eliminated from the competition, leaving three wonderful writers still in the race. Check them out and drop them a line: Chris and Evey, Just Another Week, Write2B.

Courtney will be running another blogging competition in July, this time with no elimination but a cumulative total. Drop over to Five Second Dance Party and leave her a comment if you want to play the game.

I was actually surprised that I made it this far in the blog-off. Ironically, I was eliminated just as my chosen word 'dreams' was the topic of the week. I wonder if this has happened with any other blogoff participants. But I'm relieved in a way. This was a hectic week with a work trip to Brisbane and I probably wouldn't have had time to blog. The trip to Brisvegas and the workshop was so full-on, I even succumbed to drinking a coke that first afternoon (I so needed caffeine), and then two glasses of wine later that night. But I haven't relapsed - it was a one-off.

And seriously, we are going to end the blogoff next week (I presume) with the topic SHAMPOO. So glad that I'm not tackling that one.

I feel like I've already won no matter how far I got through the rounds of the blog-off. A new word topic every week challenged every writing muscle I possessed, and probably a few I didn't realise I had. I've discovered I can write on just about any topic presented to me. (still not sure about that 'shampoo' and glad I'm not going to find out.)

One of my big dreams since I first started conjuring up stories was to be a writer. And I have achieved that dream over the years by the mere act of writing, being an active member in my writers' group and participating in writing challenges such as this one. My dream now is to be a published writer (not just published in group anthologies or self-published) and to take a step to achieve that dream, I am now going to log off, turn off the internet, take the laptop out to my front verandah, and work on my Diary of the Future competition entry.

Blogoff Post: Camping

2007-05-30T21:55:00.000+10:00

I really don't like camping. I'm just not into the whole pitch-a-tent-thing, sleep on a bit of foam or inflated mattress and commune with the mosquitos. I'm even less enamoured of the communal toilet/shower block or (shudder) the toilet tent or find a tree to hide behind.

I'm a comfort kind of girl. I don't have to have five star luxury, but just the basic necessities to make me feel comfortable - a hot shower, a warm bed, and a toilet that flushes properly.

So it was probably a shock to everyone when I opted to do a three week 'rough tour' of Egypt. I didn't want to see the country from a gilded hotel room and sail down the Nile on a cruiser. No, I wanted to experience the real Egypt so I booked the tour that included camel safaris, camping in the desert, and climbing Mt Sinai. Yes, it was rough and it was dirty, but it would be a big adventure.

We climbed Mount Sinai at sunset, armed with some duty free liquor with the intention of sleeping the night on the mount. Only twenty minutes into the trek I realised that my fitness regime (or lack of) had not prepared me for the climb, so I bought a camel to carry me most of the way. However, my friendly camel had a distubing habit of walking very close to the edge of the trail and it was a long way down - it really didn't do too much for my fear of heights.

Finally we reached the end of the track and the beginning of the steep steps to the summit. Already wobbly from the inner thigh workout that the camel had provided me, I huffed and puffed up the steps thinking I was on a giant stepper machine. What an aerobics workout! I was glad that I had elected to sleep on the mountain for the night because there was no way I could've stumbled back down in the dark.

The night on Mount Sinai was amazing. Bloody freezing, but amazing. Once the sun went down and the sky turned black, we were surrounded by the light of a million stars. So far out of reach of any city lights, the sight was majestic. A little shop sits at the top of the mountain and the enterprising Bedouin stay up there a month at a time, selling tea and hiring out mattresses. (sidenote: the price of bottled water increases as you get further up at the mountain at the little kiosks on the side of the trail - wonder if that is called inflation or ascendation?) Oh, I waited. I asked. But there were no more commandments that night.

There was no chance of sleeping in on Mt Sinai. The next horde of tourists started arriving, chattering, alive at an ungodly hour of four o'clock the next morning. Soon we were surrounded by numerous languages and nationalities. But with a glorious sunrise illuminating the world.

Our next camping adventure was the Camel Safari into the desert with the Bedouin, my second camel ride in two days. We met the group of Bedouin men in a makeshift camel 'carpark' and I can't remember whether we selected our camels or if the camels selected us. I don't think I'd ever get used to a camel getting up off the ground with me on its back. Our mattresses were slung over the camels' backs and we journeyed deep into the rocky desert.

When we arrived, we slung out our mattresses on the ground and the Bedouin entertained us with camel races. That evening, they cooked us food, danced with us, and sang 'That's the Way, aha, aha, I like it, aha, aha.' yes it was KC and the Bedouin band.

I started to think of my Egypt experience as the Sunrise -Sunset tour as I was awake for every sunrise (very unusual for me) and every sunset.

Then we went on our 3 day felucca cruise on the Nile. The boat's captain was also our chef. And our mattresses on the deck were also our day beds, and our dining room. But I tell you, despite the search for somewhere appropriate to ablute when we stopped at shore, I have never been more relaxed in my life. Bliss!

Of course, I didn't mind sleeping out in the open but when I had a choice of pitching a tent or upgrading to a hotel room for 10 egyptian pounds, I always opted for the four walls and the bed.

So, if you ask me if I want to go camping in the Aussie bush, you're very likely to get a resounding 'No thanks' - but if you were to say, let's go and camp out in Egypt, I'd be there again any day. I'll even put up with the 'long drops' just to experience that amazing country again.

This blogoff post is brought to you by the word 'camping'. We are blogging to raise funds for Courtney's 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer. To make a donation to a great cause, please click on the banner.

Writing, shopping and addictions

2007-05-27T21:35:00.000+10:00

Wow, I've survived another week of the Blogoff. There are only four bloggers left. This week we sadly bid farewell to Carly of With a Twist and a Turn. Our next topic is CAMPING and I will be bringing you more tales (and photos) of Egypt on Wednesday. I find each week harder and harder. Not the writing part. That's reasonably easy, especially when my writing muscles are exercised. It's the voting part - that is getting really hard, especially as we have to rank each other's posts. I don't like playing judge and jury.

I've been a bit slack in the blogging department, only blogging for the blogoff topics. I hope you'll excuse me. With workshops, AGM's and a heap of overtime over the past couple of weeks, I haven't been writing much. Now it's time to get serious. I have a competition to enter so need to polish 35 pages of Diary of the Future and write a synopsis. (yes - that bit I have been putting off.) And I'm doing a lot more than polishing the prose. I have rewritten the first scene completely to give much more power to Nicky - now she finds the diary herself, instead of her mother giving it to her. A few weeks to that deadline. I've been motivated by the writing workshop I did a few weeks ago - the tutor gave us one to one session on the Sunday, and was very encouraging about the project. So at the same time, I will be polishing the first three chapters to send to a publisher. Just have to get that synopsis done!!!

My Chickollage 365 Day Collage Poetry Challenge has stalled. It's been a few weeks since I've composed a poem. But I will get organised and I will get creative and I WILL get back to it. Just not today.

About six weeks ago, I realised I needed new jeans. My old faves are coming apart at the seams. So I went to the shops and tried many on. And got very depressed. And didn't buy a thing. At that point, I realised I was in the grip of that evil black liquid again and the sugar was not doing me or my thighs any favours. So April 24th I stopped drinking Coca-Cola again. And I havent' had one since. It's been water, water, water - with the occasional ginger beer thrown in for flavour.

On Friday, I realised I've replaced the coke addiction with a new addiction. I'm addicted to sushi. Not the raw fish type of sushi. But the chicken teriyaki, the sweet chilli prawn with Japanese mayo. Yum! I've been eating almost every work day, and the loyalty card stamps fill up very quickly. The great thing about this new addiction is that I have to walk to satisfy my craving. So I'm getting healthy food and exercise. And it's paying off. On Thursday night, after another bout of overtime, I went jeans shopping again, taking advantage of a buy one pair and the second pair is 50% off sale. I'm happy to report I took three pairs of jeans into the fitting room, and didn't need to try any more. A pain free shopping experience. At last. The jeans went on lay-by and I'll pick them up on payday.

I've become a member of Romance Writers of Australia. After winning second prize in the Mid North Coast Writers Association short story competition with my Cinderella story Beyond Happy Ever After, I decided to invest my winnings into my writing 'career'. I will be attending their conference in August in Darling Harbour. Two weeks after the Byron Bay Writers Festival. August is going to be one hell of a month for writing mojo!!

Blogoff Post: Regrets

2007-05-23T21:47:00.000+10:00

Regrets...I've had a few....

but then again...

C'mon. Face it. Life is too short for regrets!

I'm not going to get all maudlin on you.

Sure, there's things that I could've done differently, experiences that I might choose to leave in the past, but I can't change anything now. So there's no point angsting about it. Just get over it, move on, move forward into the future.

I don't regret spending money on a trip to Egypt rather than putting a deposit on a block of land.

If I die not owning a piece of this earth, but with the sweet memories of standing in four thousand year old tombs and pyramids, and sailing down the Nile on a felucca, I die happy.

Too many people live in the past...regretting the dreams that they didn't live, the words they didn't speak, the people they didn't love. But they are so stuck in the past, they are not even present in the moment....and life is once again passing them by.

We all have a 'sliding doors' moment. A time where we wonder WHAT IF...I'd made the alternative decision. But we'll never really know the what if.... We can wonder, we can dream, but we still chose the path that we're now on, and turning back is not an option. And every decision you have ever made has led you to THIS place RIGHT NOW.

It's something I love about writing. I can explore the 'what's ifs'. I can 'choose-their-own-adventure' and if I don't like the outcome, I can rewrite it. Funny thing is, I rarely change the ending once it's in place. It's as if my sub-conscious knows the natural outcome of the story and once it is on paper, it only needs enhancing. Speaking of which, I need to go and do some enhancing of my current work in progress.

This was another entry in the Blogoff for Breast Cancer fundraiser. There's only a few of us left still blogging, and Courtney of Five Second Dance Party is the instigator of the fundraiser. Courtney wants to hold another blogoff in July, so if you're interested step on over to her blog, and let her know.

Blogoff Post # 9 - KISS

2007-05-15T21:50:00.000+10:00

This is Blogoff Post #9. Each week, raising funds for Breast Cancer research, we blog on a one-word topic. We then vote on each other's posts and the person with the least votes is eliminated from the blogoff.

KISS

I was 16. He was 21.

I was the props girl on the pantomime. He had one of the leading roles.

He would give me a lift home after rehearsals, which was dangerous, because I was developing a huge crush. And who could blame me? He was absolutely gorgeous. Picture Harrison Ford of the Han Solo era, but with blonder hair.

Our theatre group was staging three performances in one day at the local RSL club, the weekend before Christmas. I had no sleep the night before. I had baby-sat for my next door neighbour and she'd arrived home at 7.30 in the morning. Being a dutiful and responsible babysitter, I had stayed up all night. I went home, had a shower, got dressed and caught a train out to the venue.

It must have been my lack of sleep that made me so brazen. Between matinees, I gave the object of my desire a Christmas card. I signed it 'XXX. These kisses can be collected at any time in person.'

After the last performance, he collected.

Blame my lack of sleep. I seized the moment. I didn't let this gorgeous man get away with a peck on the lips. No way. I went for a full-on pash. Never let an opportunity pass you by!

He pulled back in surprise and said, 'Hang on! I'm sweet and innocent you know!' And I smiled. Yeah, right! Then he said, 'That was nice, let's do that again.'

Yummy. It wasn't my first kiss, but it was one of the most memorable. Probably because it fuelled my fantasies even further. He was so handsome, and a nice guy. But in the end, he was also the perfect gentleman. I would've been willing to go anywhere, do anything with him but he never once took advantage of me. So now he's just a very fond memory.

In anticipation....

2007-05-14T22:57:00.000+10:00

Well, it seems I've survived another round of the blog-off. This week's topic is KISS, so I will leave you to wonder if I will KISS & TELL - come back on Wednesday to find out.

In other news, after a fabulous writing workshop last weekend, I am now rewriting the first couple of chapters of Diary of the Future, and polishing it for a contest. I have decided that the previous opening of a diary entry that revealed that Nicky had been given the diary by her mother was too passive. In the new opening, Nicky finds the diary herself when she's undertaking 'slave labour' in her mother's second hand bookshop. But the boyfriend Craig needs a new name. Craig just doesn't invoke images of a 16 year old hottie. Suggestions, anyone?

I'm starting to count down the days (well the months at least) to the Byron Bay Writers Festival. There are 14 of us going this year. At least we have two 2-storey cabins between us. But still we are definitely going to need rosters for the bathrooms. And I can't imagine that we'll be able to rock up to many restaurants and find a table for 14 without booking first. Even though the program hasn't been launched, I'm already excited by the name's of the confirmed authors. And one in particular. You see, 9 years ago this author taught a novel writing subject that I did as part of a writing diploma. I never did finish the course, but she set me on the writing path. It will be great to say hello again after all this time.

Now I'm going to bed to dream about the kisses I may be writing about on Wednesday...

Blogoff Post #8: Friendship

2007-05-09T20:41:00.000+10:00

I'm a really slack friend.

Seriously.

You ask my friends!

I hardly ever ring my long-distance friends because the last thing I want to do when I get home from work after being on the phone all day is to get on the phone again!!

So I'm slack. I occasionally email. Or I ring on public holidays or weekends when I haven't had a chance to develop a phone aversion.

But you know the great thing? For most of my friendships, it doesn't matter. We have such a strong connection that when we finally catch up we pick up exactly where we left off.

Other friendships have not lasted the distance because they were built on random and arbitary factors such as location and schooling. It turned out the only thing we had in common was our high school - no shared interet, nothing strong enough to sustain an enduring friendship. Sometimes I reach out to the old days and contact someone through schoolfriends.com only to find that we still have nothing in common.

Leane and I have been best friends since 2nd grade when she turned up on the swing in my neighbour's yard and I recognised her from school. Her house backed onto bush and we had many great adventures exploring the river at the bottom of the bush. Later we were to have lots of adult adventures including the time we placed an ad in the paper, and then double-dated the guys who answered. My nana had a friendship that lasted 50 years - wonder if we will make it that far?

As we become older, we can pick our friends by shared interests. My writing friends are a great bunch of people and I love spending time with them. And I also believe that every person enters your life jst when they're supposed to. We all influence and motivate each other in different ways. And every year, I really look forward to our pilgrimage to Byron Bay Writers Festival.

My friends have contributed to my development as a writer. They have encouraged me, motivated me, inspired me - sometimes they have even pushed me. Beyond Happily Ever After, my short story about Cinderella, would not have been written without Caz's encouragement. And I hope that I do the same for them - encourage, motivate, inspire. After all, isn't that what friendship's about?

Blogoff Post: Blood

2007-05-02T21:02:00.000+10:00

This is blogoff post #7 - blogging to raise money for Courtney's 3 day walk for breast cancer. We started with 17? bloggers, now we're down to 8 as each week we blog on a one-word topic and then vote for each others' posts. Like the concept? Support the cause. Give if you can - a donation, a comment.

They say the first time's the hardest. Well, I never really found out. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just couldn't think about inflicting pain.

I was a teenager at an agricultural school. That education was such a waste on me. Much to my mother's disappointment, I didn't meet the son of a rich grazier (do they exist anymore?) and I couldn't bring myself to give an iron injection to a piglet. I couldn't stick a needle into an animal. I couldn't even jab a pin into my own finger to draw blood for testing. I have no idea how junkies do it. At least my mother didn't have to worry about me getting into drugs. And if it comes down to it, and I have to give my partner insulin injections because he can't do it, I don't know how I'll do it. I guess I'll have no option.

So at the age of 20, I was working for a pizza place delivering pizzas. One household ordered their second lot of pizzas for the night and that phone call changed my life. After delivering the pizzas, I drove back to the store. A familiar road, so familiar I barely remember that drive. But I woke up two days later in intensive care.

The nurses kept asking me if I knew what day it was. I thought the constant questions were stupid. There was a digital clock in plain sight with both the date and the time. I didn't realise they were testing to see if I had brain damage. There was no brain damage, but I had a broken femur, a broken pelvis, broken ribs and a hole in my tongue. I was 'lucky' to be alive everyone kept telling me. With my leg in traction, and barely able to move, I didn't feel lucky.

I'm alive because numerous kind souls gave a part of themselves to my recovery: their blood. A fantastic gift only surpassed by the selflessness of organ donation. I'm also alive because of the magnificent efforts of the emergency department where I spent five hours while they tried to find a hospital to admit me, and for the wonderful dedication of the nursing staff.

I ended up in a ward of 24 old senile women. They gave me the best bed in the house, where I had a view of Sydney Harbour. At 2am I would watch the red light on the bridge go off, and I'd block out the demented mutterings of my fellow patients with my earphones blasting Aussie pub rock. Every morning I asked the nurse if they had transferred me to the psychiatric hospital, because I truly thought that I was going insane, and that my ward mates already were. They would joke and laugh at me and assure me I was still in the normal hospital.

I craved normality. I craved my friends. I just wanted to get up and walk out of the place. My orthopaedic surgeon told me I didn't have a leg to stand on. Haha! My shoulder turned into a pin cushion as I surrendered daily for the nurses to take blood tests. I dropped my practical subjects in my degree, and finished the bare minimum of subjects by correspondence, the lectures sent to me on tape. I didn't want to defer my course because of the actions of a drunk driver. Because that's what put me there. A drunk guy had driven straight through the red light as I was travelling through the intersection. Ploughed straight into the driver's door of my mum's car with such force that my car spun around, and ended up resting against the traffic light with his car hitting the left side.

For that little adventure, I think he lost his licence for three months. I couldn't walk unaided for four months. I spent four insane weeks in the hospital before I was allowed to go home, and started the gruelling task of physiotherapy and rehabilitation. I had a pin and plate in my leg that had to be removed again twelve months later.

That was nearly half my lifetime ago. And it taught me several things. Life is short. You don't know what is going to happen any day of your life. And nurses are the most incredible and amazing workers in this world.