Writing Retreat

The excavation has been a success, so I can bring you some pictures from the Writing Retreat:

Excavating

Back from a fabulous weekend with my writing buddies with my head spinning full of ideas. Chickollage will be much more than first envisioned.

And we have settled into the new house - well almost! There are still quite a few boxes to be unpacked, my scanner to be excavated, my USB cable for the digital camera to be discovered. I guess it is like being on an archaeological dig, sifting through centuries of time for hidden treasure.

We picked the right day to move. It has rained almost constantly since...hence the boxes that remain untouched in the shed. And I’m working more hours in response to the cyclone that ravaged the north end of our country. Home is not quite home yet. To date it is still just a place to eat and sleep. Oh but what sleep! It is of different quality to the suburban slumber interrupted by the sounds of trucks and cars at all hours. Here we converse with the crickets and the birds greet us with squawks and laughs but the deep long hours of the night are peaceful and dark.

The time it takes me to travel to or from work now is full of wonder. This morning, the hills were smothered in fog, tonight I watched a glorious sunset and lamented that I did not have my camera with me. The countryside is so beautiful, I’d rather travel the curving backroad than the exhaust choked highway any day.

A weekend of writing and moving

Big weekend coming up. I'm going on a writing retreat with my writing group buddies, staying at a lighthouse - meanwhile the significant other will be moving our stuff from noisy suburbia to Paradise. And I mean Paradise! I saw the house last weekend and I will have my own writing room - a sunroom - and I can already picture how it will look. The room gets the morning sun which I think will be really nice for a leisurely Saturday or Sunday morning writing, while the s.o. snores away.

The backyard has a lemon tree, an orange tree, a mandarin tree and a quince tree. We have big wide verandahs and it looks so inviting, especially after a hard week's work. Once we are settled in, I can't imagine I will be coming into town much on the weekend.

So how did I manage to get out of the physical labour of moving for the second time in a year? All in the timing. I need to book my time off around 6 weeks in advance, so I had booked a day off last week. Closer to the time when I realised we hadn’t found anywhere to live, I changed it to next Monday. But my s.o. doesn’t want to do the moving on Monday, he’s decided to do it on Sunday while I am at the retreat. What can I say? I’m not complaining!

But on Monday I will be cleaning the vacated house, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

The Chick Collage Poetry is coming along well, and I’ve got a lovely cover – just need to collate some more poems to fill it. There's always Friday night at the retreat. Here’s a preview of the cover.

And I've printed out the first draft of the film festival novel, ready to edit in my brand new writing room. Me? Excited? Never.

Competition for Blog Explosion Members:
In a general spellcheck/grammar edit of my manuscript, I found the following error:

Travis is still in the lounge room. He probably doesn't want to come into the bedroom to cop another dose of my fury. I'm not going to have a whowhere. I don't want to spend another moment here longer than I have to.


20 blog explosion credits to the first person who can tell me what the hell I meant by 'whowhere'!!

Sex and the Single Girl: a collage poem

Sex and the Single Girl

365 days of men
Oh my Lord!
Serious Fun
Throw caution to the wind and Shop Yourself Stupid
Sussing out the Bad Boys Wise Guys Smooth Talkers Heartbreakers
Mr Muscle Mr Right Now Mr Totally Wrong
Too much mindless sex?
Too much is never enough
Guys with fear of commitment, inner demons, anxiety, Paranoia
Why Worry?
Just Blow them away...
Laugh it off
Move On

Blogger is a poetry snob

Here is a collage poem: LOVE RAT

Actually - no collage poem as Blogger won't cooperate. Let's try another picture: - I think something will happen this time because the lines around the triangle are flashing.

So Blogger obviously likes Moving Pics but not my collage poetry!

This picture came from an Oz rock magazine which I purchased on ebay.

It begs the question: is this the best photo taken by the photographer? Did he only take one? Alex has his eyes closed in the shot - not the best look. I've taken better pictures of the band, and I'm sure I wasn't using the same equipment that the photographer would have had.

Okay, so now I'm convinced that Blogger doesn't like my collage poetry although I've only tried to upload the one called LOVE RAT!

I'll try another: The FAME GAME

Still doesn't want to work!

I guess the files are too big, and blogger doesn't like that. Or blogger is a poetry snob and thinks it should be written only in text form and not include scanned fonts from magazines. I'll work out the technical issues. But I don't see the problem: the Moving Pics photo I just uploaded was scanned from an A4 size of paper, the collage poems are collated on A4 paper. There should be no difference. So my conclusion still rests with Blogger being a poetry snob!

Moving Pics Pic

I found my flash drive - it had fallen behind a cupboard, doing its best to hide from me. So I'm happy again - and hopefully now able to bring you some pictures.

I've been buying more Moving Pictures items from ebay - here's a fabulous pic of Alex from a Japanese mag.

I have tried to upload a collage poem, but it didn't work - I'll try again tomorrow!

Try not to panic

Aagh, I can't find my flash drive. I'm sure I had it on Monday night when I loaded my complete collated first draft of the film festival story on to it, and some collage poetry (yes I was going to load a preview of the poetry on my blog) and now I can't find it.

Because we've started the packing process (or the man of the house has!), it could be anywhere - in any number of boxes.

I will not panic - I will use other backup methods in the meantime until I find the elusive little beast.

Not much writing going on at the moment, although I have started the process of spell checking/grammar checking the film festival story. I'm probably going to have to make two versions - the US one with double quotation marks (!!!) and lots of 'z's' (Today's episode of Sesame Street was brought to you by the letter Z' and the Aussie/English version with the single quotation marks and spelling with the letter 's'.

So much packing to do. So much work to do at the day job (although it's rapidly turning into day/night job as I spend more time there then at home). I think perhaps my brain might explode. But maybe not. If it does, I'll write a story about it.

March is the month to....

So much to do, so little time.

Moving House: Yesterday morning we got the okay for a new rental property. We're going back to Paradise. Back to the sticks, far enough from town to feel like sanctuary but close enough to travel to work, supermarkets and all the regional centre necessities. Not sure if we'll be quite back to kangaroos in the backyard as we were with the last property, but it sure beats having beer bottles lunged over the fence at your car, sharing driveways, and constant traffic noise all night.

We'd stopped packing. We'd been looking at houses and not finding anything that even approximated value for money, and this one came to us as a gift, a sequence of events that shows that this house was meant to be.

Writing Contest: I received my results from the Chick Lit Stiletto contest for my film festival manuscript (first 3 chapters and synopsis), and I am very encouraged by the comments from the judges. I now know that I'm definitely Write on Track. So March is the month to edit and rewrite this manuscript, working title: Making the Cut, as well as declutter, pack and move. Might have to rethink that - April may be the month to edit. March - I will write what I can.

New Car: And I've got wheels again. After months of being chauffeured, I have my own car. The little old lady one owner cliche, it's a beauty and a bargain and it's great to be driving again, especially down the highway. I didn't realise how much I'd missed driving.

Writers' Retreat: I'm also going on a retreat with my Writers' Group. We'll be staying in the lightkeepers cottages so I''m sure we will have a lot of fun, laughter and creativity over that weekend.

So March if full on: Please excuse me if I don't blog too often. I'll miss it but there is so much to do!

Collage Poetry

67,800 / 85,000 (79.8%)

Okay, progress on the novel seems to be crawling at the moment. I think it's at the stage where I don't want to let go and I don't have to if I don't keep going with the story. It's time to get a kick start and I've found in my previous manuscript - tackling a scene from another character's point of view opened up a whole new sub-plot and revealed why she acted so strange. From my main character Chloe's POV, she could only observe and see what Genevieve chose to reveal, but once I got into Genevieve's head, it all made send. Talk about skeletons in the closet! And it wasn't just the skeleton hiding in there!

Although there hasn't been much progress on the novel, my creativity has still been getting a workout...

Jennifer from my writer's group, introduced us to Collage Poetry. You cut words and phrases from magazines and then assemble the words to make a poem. We undertake this as an inebriated activity during our annual pilgrimage to the Byron Bay Writers' Festival.

Recently I've been cutting up a lot of Cosmopolitans and Cleo magazines from the nineties. And the articles never seem to change: How to dump a guy, how to tell if he's the one, how to tell if he's cheating, how to get over a broken heart, and the mandatory sex and the single girl articles. Loads of chick lit type scenarios and phrases.

I cut out the phrase '365 days of men' and was immediately inspired to create a book of chick lit collage poetry. I have excavated the collage poetry I've assembled over the last few years - although I can't find the LOVE-RAT poem - the poem composed during a session with an ad hoc writing group at work. The Love Rat has gone missing - as they often do!

I had fun sorting my pronouns, articles and conjunctions from the rest of the words at work. My podmate asked me if I was composing ransom notes or blackmail letters. NO! Collage poetry is more interesting and involves more lateral thinking than your average ransom note. The words are already there, waiting to be discovered, waiting for new associations and assemblages.

I rarely write conventional poetry. I had a moment a couple of years ago when a poem composed itself within 15 minutes from one image - 'hangnail moon'. I was still half asleep when I wrote it and I truly believe that the poem was channelled and I was merely the scribe. It hasn't happened since. Even when I did a poetry workshop, I had to force the images.

I sent that poem, called Prayer, to poetry.com. Ever since then, according to my inbox, I am a lauded international poet, invited to attend their poetry convetions (at a price), submit to upcoming publications (at a price) and collect awards which will only cost X number of dollars.

Next time they send me an email, perhaps I should tell them I have never written a poem since. But I can't be bothered. Instead I'm going to keep assembling the collage poetry and self-publish. It will cheaper than buying one of their volumes, and it will be all mine!

Blogging on a meal break (no food being consumed)

Still no internet access at home and probably won't get it back until I move in approx 6 weeks time. Still got to find a new place, and hopefully cheaper so that I can stop donating the majority of my funds to paying off someone else's mortgage and save for my own.

Blogging on a meal break before I pop back upstairs for overtime. Thinking of the money. My throat doesn't want to cooperate. Too many phone calls where I had to do too much talking today so tomorrow for Australia Day, I think I will take a vow of silence. Hard though with my partner, he doesn't stop talking and expects me to answer.

Still stagnating a bit with the writing - probably has gone up by about a thousand words but I need to get my act together. Just reread Stephen King's On writing which is inspirational.

signing off before I get kicked off the library computer by the next booking.

Musical memories

66,041 / 75,000 (88.1%)

That word count is starting to look very nice. Amazing what I can do with no internet, no television.

Still been watching movies. A DVD player and a data projector, and we have a home cinema and the cat is freaking out at the helicopters flying into the lounge room. Actually, I think he's quite amused by it, but he does leave the room or sulk under the table if it gets too noisy.

With the current musical obsession, I asked my partner the other day who he had seen in concert. So while I have seen Eurythmics four times, Transvision Vamp, Sandii & the Sunsetz, Hoodoo Gurus, Divinyls, Bachelor Girl, Leonardo's Bride, Chris Wilson x numerous incarnations, Moving Pics (as we know from my blog), Prince, Uncanny X Men, QED (Jenny Morris), k d lang, Jane Siberry, the Cranberries, Dynamic Hepnotics, Jon English, Tiddas,Deborah Conway, The Badloves, The Angels, Bjorn Again, jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss (but NOT Cold Chisel), Wendy Matthews and that's just what I can dredge up from my memory, he has never paid to see a live act because they're too expensive. Actually, I don't think he even listens to music for pleasure (just for work because he's a DJ). Well he's going to have to listen to some music now because he's in for a retrospective from my CD's.

So who have you seen live?

Aagh no internet access

What have they done to me? They have cut off my communication to the world.
Yes, my ISP has decided that I'm not to be on the internet at home at the moment and because things are so tight money wise there is nothing I can do about it.

The good thing about having no internet connection and no TV, aargh! is that I'm getting stuck into the writing. I have surpassed the 60k word mark now and hurtling towards the finish line. Have reread what I wrote in Nano and some of which will need to be rewritten. Especially the fact that Matt has morphed from drummer to keyboardist to guitarist but that's cool.

There'll only be sporadic updates here (with no piccies) as I need to go to the library to find a broadband connection. We only have one computer at work that allows us internet access and that's on dial-up so you are lucky to even pay one bill during a tea break. Sites such as blogger and blogexplosion are not accessible from my normal work computer! The forbidden zone.

Happy New Year everyone!

Missed it by that much!

Moving Pictures poster from Dolly magazine (1983?). Signed by all of band (in pen, so you can't see it in this small pic) after a gig at Campbelltown RSL which I forced my father to take me to because I was only 16. Maybe you can see Alex's autograph scrawled across his neck in the close-up below.

57,856 / 75,000 (77.1%)

Where does the weekend go? It's 8.30 pm Sunday evening and I'm facing a 5 day working week with two 12 hour days in there. Am I a glutton for punishment or what? I'm afraid not. I just need the money at this point.

Every second week at work, our social club holds a Lotto game. $2 for 4 entries. Pick 4 numbers out of 15, and you've got to get all the numbers to win the dosh. On Friday, it was $500 and guaranteed to go off. They would keep drawing until they had a winner. So, because I knew someone had to win, I put in an extra 4 games, in addition to my regular entry.

The first numbers were drawn 1, 4, 7, 15.

Damn! One of my extra games was 1, 4, 7, 14. As Maxwell Smart would have said, 'Missed it by THAT much!' Anyway, someone finally won the $500 after 9 draws.

Shame, it would have more than paid my excess on my insurance to get the replacement TV, DVD player etc that was taken out by lightning weeks ago. So instead, I'll keep working the overtime.

Oh well, instead of TV watching, I've been writing so it's all good. But I've been writing about the one night, the last night of the tour, for so long now, that surely this one night has gone for more than 12 hours. And the characters are showing no signs of even being tired. I suppose they're hyper after the gig. But guys, you will have to check out of the hotel in the morning. You will regret this!

Teenage Musical Obsession

Signed by Alex Smith in August this year.

56,500 / 75,000 (75.3%)

Thank god, it's Saturday! After two 12 hours days of work this week plus the usual 8 hour plus days, I'm thankful to have the weekend to concentrate on writing. The characters are talking to each other in my head, entertaining themselves when I'm not at the keyboard or with notebook in hand.

I have transcribed the last couple of days writing, will surrender the computer very soon, read the papers and go back to the long hand.

Perhaps I wasn't such a Moving Pictures obsessive in my youth after all? I don't seem to have much Moving Pictures stuff. Sure I had the two L.P's and some piccies but maybe my 'stuff' just didn't survive the last twenty years. I've got an poster (from Dolly mag) autographed by all the band members after a gig (will post pic later), I have most of the singles still, but I don't seem to have many articles. I can't remember having a scrapbook on Moving Pictures though I might have had one and it's now a black hole in my memory. I definitely remember having an Abba scrapbook which probably went to the tip when they were so uncool. And I also went through a rather obsessive John Lennon phase and had loads of John Lennon/Beatles stuff. Aside from that, my other musical obsession would be the Eurythmics, whom I have seen in concert four times.

As for the lack of Moving Pictures memorabillia - well, there's always Ebay to make amends. I won an 80's Oz music mag which I hope to receive shortly and I've just bid on an 80's Rolling Stones mag. Perhaps Smash Hits wasn't around that far back. More likely, I just didn't have the fundage to collect as much as I could.

Back to the writing....

Who was your teenage musical obsession????

Surprise

12 hours of the day job today. It was dark when I finished so it kind of defeats the purpose of referring to it as the day job. But at least I've got the day off tomorrow. During which, I do the unpaid job of my father's accounts. Maybe I need to find myself a rich arts patron.

The other day while browsing through the bookshop, I found Working Class Zero by Rob Payne. I'd been looking for it for a while, and it had been discounted. So when I caught up with my partner I said, 'Have you got a spare $5 to buy me a Christmas present?'

So he gives me $5, and tells me to go and get the book.

I said, 'Don't you want to go get it for me?'

'No,' he says, 'I want it to be a surprise.'

Okay then. I'll probably have to wrap it too. Can't have him knowing what he's bought me.

55,860 / 75,000 (74.5%)

Update

The day job got in the way again today but I managed to write some more during breaks and while waiting for my lift home. About to be kicked off the computer so this is only a rough word count:

55,304 / 75,000 (73.7%)

And I really like the phrase 'sex-lit smile' in the lexigram!

Alex Smith - Lexigram

same smile

I melt

his tale

heals time

lithe lies

steal heat

his sex-lit smile

let him steal me

Googling the past

Do you ever google people from your past to find out what they're up to?

So today I googled an old boyfriend and found a site that very much sounded like him, especially with the computer programming background. Okay, so he's still around.

I googled another: a theatre producer who hated having his photo taken. In fact the only photo I managed to half-snap of him, he was covering the top half of his face with a newspaper, and you can only see his smile and his beard. So it did not surprise me at all, that google yielded no likely results.

Then I googled the name of a lady who was my boss 10 years ago. To see what position she's now in, which roost in the arts world she's now ruling. The first result that came up was an obituary from 7 weeks ago. It was definitely her. I recognised her children's names. But the link took me nowhere. No further information as to what had happened. I wasn't expecting that result. I'm feeling sad. For her, because she wasn't old. For her adult sons, for losing their mother. I didn't always get on with her, she was a pretty tough boss, but I admired her for her toughness. Something I've never been able to achieve.

As you can tell from this post, I'm still sucked into the net. I blame BlogExplosion. It's all so tempting to surf blogs to earn credits for their Christmas competition and to do battle in Battle of the Blogs. So, not many words have been added. Although I have been playing around with lexigrams which I will post later. And writing a report which is due tomorrow.

54,863 / 75,000 (73.2%)

And Christmas has finally arrived in our house. After my cat's complaints that there was no tree on his blog Diary of a Mad Cat, the tree is now up, giving him a great ambush position. There are presents under it, and the Chrisco has arrived, so the cupboards are jampacked. I wonder how long it will take for the cat to unwrap the presents. A week, perhaps?

sucked into a black hole

I love the internet. Sometimes I love it too much, and get sucked into the black hole, to be spat out hours later with little memory of where I've been and why.

The other night I googled Moving Pictures & Alex Smith to see if I could come up with some inspiration. It lead me to a website on Countdown which listed all the old episodes. I remember seeing some on Rage early in the wee hours of the morning and they're so funny to look back on now. Wonder if they will ever release any of it on DVD.

Yesterday, I tinkered with this blog, adding the blog explosion logo, the blogshares logo, the stats counter into the new template. And then I surfed Blog Explosion for far too long.

But I did listen to a lot of CD's yesterday very loud including the Homebake CD which came free with the Sydney Morning Herald. I think I'm showing my age here, but some of those songs sounded like a cat was being strangled.

Did I write? Not a lot. Although the line I ended on late last night was interesting: Stu can go fuck himself.
Mmm, Kat, that's a lot of anger y0u're carrying around.

So progressive word count

54,425 / 75,000 (72.6%)

Not a huge increase considering its the weekend. But I am now going to ban myself from the computer for a couple of hours and write some long hand, that should get me back into the swing of things.