self-sabotage 101…

please excuse this week’s entry w/out caps.

brilliant lesson about self-care – did a task for work that i THOUGHT i had to do because nobody else would (oh my, can you smell the stench of burning human flesh??? – but i digress…)

anywho, that choice resulted in an rsi type injury and now i have to keep keyboarding to short bursts or not at all (hence the 1-handed blog)

which means this weekend’s intensive edit is not going to happen.

aaargh!

wow, that is one way to finally, once and for all, get the message to JUST SAY NO!!!

Anyone game for Dr Wicked?

Just stumbled across Dr Wicked’s Write or Die page – how cute! Pick how long you want to write for, start typing and if you stop SOMETHING HORRIBLE HAPPENS! You can set the level of horribleness and you can pause ONCE during the attempt.

Haven’t tried it myself yet as it’s time for bed and I have a sore arm (ooh I’m good at the excuses…). It’s one to check out over the weekend or next time I get completely stuck. Wahay!

Total immersion

I’m feeling the need to immerse myself in SF so have just signed up for TWO events which are serendipitously cheek-by-jowl on the last weekend of March.

A few weeks ago, I submitted to go into the Vic Writers’ Centre “Year of Speculative Fiction” program with Lucy Sussex. Now feeling quite clever about this, BTW, since several people subsequently emailed me to suggest it, haha! Best of all, I’ve submitted a new novel, so it’s a FABULOUS incentive to get the current one wrapped up by my intended deadline of 9 March (yes, I know, just over a week to go, so what am I doing spending time blogging?) First session is on 28 March.

Have also just now booked in for the world-building workshop at Supernova with Jennifer Fallon and Sonny Whitelaw, and that’s on 29 March! Chose the option that includes an ms assessment of 1000 words within 30 days of the workshop – can you see where I”m going with this? Cunning plan to get as much expert critiquing as possible nice and EARLY so this one doesn’t take <ahem> years to write. 

Talk about an immersive weekend, floating on a sea of creativity … bliss.  I hope to catch up with the excellent Marianne de Pierres as well, probably have to wade through scads of other adoring fans   

So it’s back to Kindred Spirit for now. The chisels, planes and sandpaper are all put away and I’m now buffing with the polishing cloth. Bits are lovely and shiny, others are still stubbornly matt but the gleam lurks underneath. Thanks to J-A and F who have kindly agreed to do a final read for me.

Onward and upward!

Ozcars

So, what did everyone think of the Oscars this year? 

Loved Hugh Jackman, loved the return to a more intimate, relaxed, approach – size, as I’ve said on this blog before, is not everything! – and LOVED the way all the acting nominees got a personal affirmation from a previous winner. How great to have that peer recognition!

But it got me thinking about the concept of competition and prizes as a mark of validation. Does the winning of a prize make someone a better artist? Is it necessary to have that validation to feel good about oneself?  How do we, as viewers of competitions, feed into that energy?  Do we value people because of what they win?

I don’t follow sports but I do barrack for friends who are shortlisted for literary prizes, get a thrill when Aussies win Oscars, watch the occasional equestrian event. And in some environments I can be intensely competitive – just watch me in a computer class; pick the geek not wanting to show her age…

But of course, when we stand out of the way enough to let the truly amazing and brilliant through, it’s not really coming from us at all. The value we bring to the things we do comes from two things: our capacity to get our egos out of the way so great ideas can come through; and our willingness to put in whatever’s needed to polish the gem so it sparkles.

Perhaps competition is simply a recognition of that capacity to stand aside; and the commitment to the work. And I can live with that. 

Thought I still don’t get football and cricket

Book progress

Right, time to report in for all the Orbiteers and anyone else who is keeping track. Love you for keeping me motivated!

Kindred Spirit is making steady progress at last. Chapter One has been almost entirely rewritten, to up the adrenaline and intrigue. Act 2 has been tightened and expanded where needed. And I’ve found more ways to confuse and torture my heroine (yes!)

Word count is now 74,500 approx, with another 5,000 still to be written, possibly more.  I’m battling a flaky internet connection which is highly irritating for those moments where I need to do quick research. For instance, when Triss is given her lost father’s ring – what stone would have the most appropriate significance? (Currently I’m deciding between carnelian – action; and bloodstone – courage)

I’m going public now to declare I will have this draft completed by 9th March, the day before my parents come to visit for 2 weeks.  Wow, it’s unnerving to have an actual deadline.

The Universe loves me!

For the past week I’ve been consciously practising the Law of Attraction to support me having the Writing Life. (Thanks Kim Falconer for reminding me what I already knew; and for putting me onto Pray Rain Journalling)

Last night, the Universe came through.The thing is, when the Universe delivers, it isn’t always immediately apparent. Sometimes you have to look for the gift inside the shit. Messy work, but rewarding.

Yesterday my previously-reliable internet connection started falling over. Eventually it wouldn’t reconnect at all. After three calls to the service provider I was advised the upstream provider wouldn’t be able to look at it until after the weekend.

First I wanted to hurl the phone through the wall. The blog I was drafting seemed so important! Plus I was working from home and wouldn’t be able to check work emails for the last 30 minutes of my (paid) working day.

Then I sat forlornly at the computer for ten minutes. And finally – because there was nothing else to do – I turned to the scene I’d been putting off because it was going to be difficult.

Doh.

Not only did I have fun doing the ‘difficult’ scene – I knocked five or six other editing and rewriting items off my ‘to do’ list. Bloody wonderful!  All I’d needed was a gentle kick up the pants to get through the fear of that scene; and the Universe provided it.

By the way, if you are cynical about LOA that’s cool. I know it works because I’m really good at it for some very specific things. I can find a parking space ANYWHERE I WANT by visualising it on the drive to my destination, even if I’ve never been there before. My family didn’t believe it but these days when I stay with my parents, they get me to drive if we’re going somewhere busy, on the assumption I’m the only one who will get a park.

The best reason not to blog

Well, the 2009 daily blog resolution didn’t get very far. But that’s because the 2009 WRITING THE NOVEL resolution is going swimmingly!!

I’ve dispensed with all the excuses and the dramas of 2008, I’m back in the saddle – and loving it.

My word count has actually fallen because I’ve taken out scenes that were naff or pedestrian or just plain boring, and I haven’t yet inserted all their sparkly new replacements.

As I look at my diminishing word count, I comfort myself by looking at the list of new scenes yet to be born; and the mantra “size isn’t everything…”

Because we all know that’s so true.

Vale The Prisoner

The sad loss of Patrick McGoohan at age 80 has me remembering that mad and wonderful show The Prisoner, and a weekend in Harlech, Wales, while on tour with a production of Peter Pan.

I hadn’t even realised The Village was a real place until I discovered it less than 10K from my B & B.  Spent an entire day exploring what has to be one of the oddest places in the world, and marvelling at its transformation into one of the oddest places on television.

The makers of the aughties remake are shooting in Swakopmund, Namibia, which looks charming and eccentrically European. But can it possible be as surreal, weird, just plain Out There?  Portmeirion will be a tough act to follow. 

Almost as tough as Mr McGoohan.

Are future readers being let down?

Witnessed today at a local (corporatised) child care centre (marketed as ‘early childhood learning’ centre), a fully qualified worker who could not read the word ‘chameleon’ in a book being read to the children.

Perhaps I’m just feeling tired and emotional, but how on earth can we instill a love of reading when those charged with teaching it are not adequately prepared by their own education? Sigh

Beating The Man

The new solar power system was hooked up at around 4 pm Friday and within the first 72 hours we’ve generated over 18 Kw. We’ve used about 13 Kw and sold the rest to the Electrickery Company Man. At the same time we’ve bought back some of his pesky coal-fired juice (at night when we can’t make our own), to the value of about 4 Kw.

There is somehing quite delightful about sitting on one’s porch with a chilled beverage, doing absolutely nothing and simultaneously contributing to the State’s generating capacity.