Missing in Action

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.

My Writing Journey

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.

A long weekend

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....

Finally a day at home

Much as I love going away with my friends from the Writers Group, it was such a pleasure to spend the day at home today. It's the first day at home I've had for two weeks. Much needed. And appreciated. I watched The Chronicles of Narnia, Love My Way (why oh why did Foxtel decide to rush through the season by screening double episodes), scanned photos and updated blogs.

But now I have five days of work and then I'm off for ten days straight including the Easter break. The first five days will be spent at home, then a couple of days will be spent with dad over easter, and then another day at home. I'm looking forward to some solid editing time over those five days.n bbbbm bbbbbb (if you're wondering about the sanity of that last sentence - it's a statement from Dorkus the cat as he walked across the keyboard. He doesn't like me going away either so I'll whisper about the plans for Easter.)

I've spent the last week at work throwing out lots of stuff. I can't believe how much I'd managed to accumulate over 7 years. But as of Monday, I'm a virtual person with no permanent desk. All my Egyptian artefacts went home. All my photos, my Nanowrimo winners certificates, the pics of me and Alex from Moving Pictures, the flower calendar from last year which was no longer functional but looked pretty, the magazines I'd been cutting up, all have migrated home. And then I culled all the information, brochures, training material so that I could fit everything into one chest of drawers. It's going to be strange not having my own desk, and moving every week or so as I need to.

On Friday evening I went to a farewell for a work friend who is moving to Brisbane. Sometimes, it feels that my workplace is a transit lounge, there are so many people moving on, sometimes within the organisation and others out of the organisation. I've lost count of the number of people that I've bid farewell to over the years.

Speaking of bidding farewell, we are saying farewell to Motivated Motion and Super Duper Fantastic in the blog-off as they had the lowest points after all the votes were tallied. I found writing my piece easy but ranking every one else's contribution was excrutiating and I'm sure it will get harder as we get more into the competition. Personally, I wouldn't mind if we all kept writing for 16 weeks and had no winner, and just donated the whole lot of the money to Breast Cancer. But that's probably just me. The next topic is 'Police' and I have no idea what I will be writing for that one.

And it seems that I haven't had any visits from people looking for porn sites since my Blog-off post. I'm sure they'll be around some time, they just haven't linked the terms together as yet.

The Blog Off starts tomorrow

I'm back from the retreat and the result of taking my SLR camera means that I hardly took any digital photos. So posting of photos willl have to wait.

We had a fabulous, relaxing and creative weekend. The weather was stunning on Friday and Saturday, although overcast on Sunday morning. Maggie had a visit from a ghost named Fred on Friday night and swapped cottages the next night. We ended up with eight more 'Pass-the-Stories', I read my first monologue for the Monologue Project, and we exercised our writing muscles in all three workshops.

We wrote a five page letter to Jen, who is pining for us in Melbourne, and after telling her in the letter that I had not taken any collage stuff (words nor magazines) to the retreat, I discovered an envelope of words in the side pocket of my suitcase. They have been in there since my trip to Adelaide. And so I made Jen a collage to accompany the letter. It is always incredible in collage poetry that the perfect words are available at just the right time. Will post this to the blog early next week.

In the meantime, the Blog-off is about to start, and I have blogrolled all the participants on my sidebar. The first topic is LAUGHTER and the blog post will be up on Wednesday. As this is a fundraiser for breast cancer, I have used the first topic as a catalyst to write about my mother, who fought hard and long against the disease.

I better go - I need to find the photos to accompany the LAUGHTER post.

The Annual Writers Retreat

It's back to the Lighthouse tomorrow for our annual Writers Retreat. (well, at least I hope the fact that this is Number 2 means that it will be an annual event!)

We had such a great time last year! I've been looking forward to this weekend for a long time. The scenery is gorgeous, the company is superb, and I don't have to drive too far to make my escape! (2 hours each way)

Although all these shots from last year were taken with my trusty little Kodak Easyshare digital, I'm taking the film SLR camera as well this time. I'm hoping I can get some more shots like this friendly kookaburra, and some great landscapes. Much as I love the instant gratification of the digital, the shutter takes a long time to activate, and sometimes I miss the bit I wanted to shoot. So the Canon SLR is loaded with film, with a couple of spare rolls and I will try and do some nature walks over the weekend and get some special sunrise and sunset shots.

I expect this year's retreat will have a totally different flavour to last year's because it will be a different mix of people. Last year there was me, Carol, Roby, Lisa, Jen, Markus, Rose, Marilyn, Sue S and Sue M.

This year Jen (below) has moved to Melbourne (we will miss you Jen!), Sue M is climbing Everest for the second time (because the first time wasn't enough) and we won't even have a token male to outnumber in our discussions.

Carol, Roby,Lisa and I will still be there but we will be joind by five NEW members of the writers' group which is very exciting. Lisa is cooking an Indian banquet on Saturday night, and we all have to dress up for the occasion and we will have a series of workshops over the weekend including Writing Fiction from Real Life Stories and Writing Life Stories. I will be giving a workshop on using Astrology to write fictional characters.

I'll be back to report on the weekend on Sunday night!

Dorkus helps with the editing - NOT!

Dorkus decided he wanted to help me edit. Which is all well and good, but it makes my task a little harder, trying to read around him.

Well, it seems that everyone's a critic. I left the pages out for him and he slept on them. Next morning, he'd given his considered opinion by throwing up all over the manuscript.

Beautiful! Thank you very much. Lucky I wasn't the one to discover it, and my partner cleaned up the mess. Hehe!

But this version of the manuscript was chucked out after being chucked up on. Thankfully, I had finished transferring all the corrections to date to the computer file, and printed a new and clean edit copy which is safely encased in plastic.

Yesterday I finished my Cinderella short story and mailed it today for the short story competition. Because I was working so close to the deadline, there was no time for an edit after my beta reader checked it out today, but she thought it was very funny and politically uncorrect. So the premise is...what happens when the Prince and Cinderella are having trouble conceiving the heir to the throne? And I take potshots at tabloids and paparazzi, and modern royalty and celebrity.It was challenging to write a story with a beginning, middle and end in under 2000 words after writing 50k, 80k, 100k - you get the idea! In 2000 words, I'm just getting warmed up.

I also reserved a place in the blogosphere for Nambucca Valley Writers' Group, who are my favourite bunch of people. I have been posting the 2006 Year in Review for the group. You can check it out here.

Because it was relatively quiet at work today, I started working on the One-Pass Manuscript Revision on Making the Cut. And yes, I have worked through all the steps of Part One, including condensing the novel into 25 words. I'm still working on the 250 words - that will need a few more revisions.

Another work day (hopefully reasonably quiet again) and then another three day weekend. I just wish every weekend would last three days!