Truce

The cat and I have made a truce. We fight a lot, usually, and we are both to blame. Well. OK. She’s a cat and so it’s mostly my fault. But only mostly. I’m not taking all of the blame. My fault is that she spends too much time home alone.

I have had a super productive weekend. Two assignments completed, next week’s lectures and tutorials read and absorbed, next week’s tutorial assignment drafted.  There is still a lot I want to get done but I’m well under way.

Most of this I did with the study door closed. As soon as I opened it she was in, and on the keyboard, or nudging me and breaking my concentration. This was followed by yelling and removal of cat and door slamming and possibly some sighing.

I know, I can hear you saying it, she’s just a cat.

So, in a flash of brilliance, and I have those sometimes, I put her snuggle house on the desk. And it was like magic. She was straight in and sitting quietly and we were both happy. I could work uninterrupted and she could rest knowing I was just there, within sight.

Now how do I get the same with the child do you suppose?

Smelling the Way...

Every time I pour hot water over a Bushels teabag I think of my grandfather. Every single time. I am instantly transported back to the old kitchen, him sitting at the head of the heavy kitchen table stirring his sickly sweet, hot black tea.

I don’t have mine the same. In fact I have milk and only one sugar, where he had three. But that initial smell of hot tea is just the same. It makes me smile, some days it makes me sad and other days it is only part of a second that the thought is in my head but it still appears. It doesn’t happen with other brands of tea either. Only Bushels. It must have been the brand he drank, but I don’t remember.

Funny how the nose can be such a link to the past. That sense of smell.  My grandfather died nearly twenty years ago and didn’t live in the house I visualise him in for the last ten years of his life. Is there something significant about my early childhood visits to that house, or did he change tea brands when he left the old place?

I had a similar feeling this morning when I dropped my daughter at school. The main school building is a similar style to one of the primary schools I attended, although in a different part of Australia, but they all smell the same. Is it a primary school thing? Is it related to the red brick building or the children in it? And surely we were different kinds of kids to those of today?

Smell is so important and can lend much to our writing. A smell can evoke a feeling, transport us to our childhood terrors, or joys, or wonders. It can remind us of lives lost, loves lost and new lives given. I shall try to ensure my senses include smell in my writing today. And while I’m out and about I will try to see what else I can smell and where it takes me. Just thinking about where the two scents from above have taken me has also provided some ideas for stories. Where will your nose take you today?

Happy Scribbles

Time Poor

Do you ever get the feeling that you have taken on too much? Don't get me wrong, I love everything I am doing at the moment but over the last few weeks I have struggled trying to get everything done that I have wanted to. And so when something had to give, I'm afraid it was the blog.
It may not have been the best choice to go. But as the assignments, weekly submissions, lectures, tutorials, exercises, quality family time and the need to write daily piles up, somehow the blog fell off the list. "No one really reads it anyway," I may have comforted myself with at one point. And the only scribbles making it to the kitchen door at the moment are shopping lists and reminders for housework, and then I'm behind with the vacuuming.

I don't want to sound like I'm whinging. Because I really am enjoying all of my writing at the moment. We have set some challenging tasks for my writers group that have been lots of fun. My fantasy novel is moving along reasonably well, despite me not quite knowing how I am going to get to the end yet. I have some small changes/edits for my first novel to complete and that can be submitted to a publisher (that in itself is scary, exciting and pushed down the list a little). My Masters course is fantastic, I'm learning so much and even though some units are a little more challenging, I am loving every minute.

So, I have a heavy workload at the moment but not only am I enjoying the work I am doing at the moment, it is what I want to do, to get me where I want to be.

Happy Scribbling

It Only Takes 10 Minutes

Taking 10 minutes to jot down some ideas can be very useful when you don’t have as much time to come up with an idea or simply as a brainstorming exercise. This could be for blog posts, I recently listed 4 or 5 topics I could discuss with some dot points just to get me started; some short story ideas, different names or places. They may not be used straight away but they all help to jog the muse when she doesn’t want to play. There are times that I have ideas all week to blog about but when it comes to Sunday morning they all evaporate.  With some ideas already there it is just a matter of picking one and fleshing it out, or reviewing the list might spark another idea.

As part of this process I have started thinking about what I want to achieve with my writing next year. Not to start but just to think about things. What did I always want to do that I haven’t yet. What has been recommended as a good idea to improve my skills? What can I think of to improve my skills or productivity? Is it entering competitions, another course, joining a new group (maybe a readers group)?

On a recent lunch time outing I steered away from the bookshops, in case I saw something to add to my reading pile. And chances are high; I always find something I want. Instead I found myself in a wondrous shop filled with stationery. Another little problem of mine and of course I made a purchase.

My find was a handy planner, come note book, that fits easily in my handbag. I am using it to list all of my goals, annual, monthly, weekly, daily and measure how they are going. And of course these all relate to my long term goals.

Truth be told I am a planner anyway. I like to have an idea about what I want to achieve each but sometimes all the little stuff gets in the way of the bigger picture. I wrote recently about energy management and time management and they are important but it is also worth reminding yourself about the overall goal, the long term ones that you are doing the daily tasks to achieve to ensure you are on track and that they are still what you want to achieve.

I will review the ideas I’m mapping out for next year over the next few months to ensure they are working towards my long term goals and that they are reasonable and achievable. But I don’t want to spend the time I should be doing other things planning for next year. A friend of mine, many years ago, would spend all of his study time mapping out his study and in the end there was little time left to do any actual study.

Goal setting is a tool to help you achieve what you want to achieve, don't let it get in the way of the goals. A lot can be achieved in just 10 minutes.

Happy Scribbling

Energy Management

This morning I had a little sleep in. I didn’t mean to, I was awake at my usual time but I rolled over and the next thing was my daughter standing in the doorway calling out good morning. I’m also ok with that. I have had a productive week, I was tired and today, being Sunday, we are not racing off anywhere and I can follow my usual routine when I do decide to get up.

‘Wow,’ you think aloud. ‘Where is her angst, her guilt of missing a morning writing?’

Well, I’m not missing out on my writing time and I’m not sure everyone writes every day. I have found I need to. One, it keeps my writing flowing and reduces the chance of blocks. The second reason and but probably the most important is that I have to. I can’t make it through the day if I haven’t had time writing.

The secret to my new guilt free sleep in is I have recently discovered energy management. Well the discussion of it and it has validated those times when I am just too tired, emotionally or physically to do what I need to. That doesn’t just mean writing. There are times I don’t have the energy for reading, or cleaning, or cooking.

In one of my follow the links sessions from one of the blogs I read, I discovered Scott H Young (www.Scotthyoung.com/blog). Quite a clever young man and if you are a student he has lots of ideas and techniques to help you get the most out of your study and reading time.

I am very big on time management and have completed a range of courses to find the tools to help me maximise my time. And I try and squash a lot into my time. I’m a mother, working full time, now studying (and I have started a second long term course for work) and I want to write. So of course some days this all seems a bit hard.

The idea of energy management is being aware that we don’t have a consistent level of energy that operates 24 hours a day. It would be great, but it’s not possible. We need to think about when we have energy peaks and use them. But it also means we need to take the time to recharge our energy. That includes getting enough sleep and taking a little time out now and then when we need to. And not feel guilty about it.

So I am focused when I have energy, then when my levels are low, I can rest or do something else. I find ironing doesn’t take much energy for me and when my creative energy drops, I can take some time, catch up on ironing and on the TV I’ve been missing out on when I do have the energy to study of an evening.

Not only has this idea helped me with my time management and getting through what I need to in a day, it has helped me understand how others work. A friend of mine recently talked about someone he works with that writes music. This guy found it really hard to put all the energy he needed to into his job because he wanted to have the creative energy to write when he got home. At the time I had said that was rubbish. But now, maybe he can’t give that much energy to both aspects of his life.

It is an interesting idea energy management and I am determined to get a better understanding so that I can use it for good, and not for evil (such as excuses). More reading to be done I think.  Have a look at Scott’s website, it is full of interesting ideas.

Happy Scribbling.

Negotiating with Cats

 

I have this thing with the cat of a morning, she jumps up on my desk, works her way around the computer and tries so hard to look like she doesn’t care I’m there as she drops onto my lap. If she were to curl up and sleep then this wouldn’t be a problem. But she doesn’t, she nuzzles me for cuddles and pats, rubs her wet nose against my arm. Annoys the heck out of me until I guide her back to the floor and she either wanders off or starts again.

It use to be that I wouldn’t shut the study door in case I couldn’t hear my daughter if she woke or needed me. But she is nearly 6 she keeps reminding me (although nearly is actually 6 months away). And she can reach the handle and let herself in, loudly chastising the cat and reminding it that it can’t enter the sacred zone because “mama is working and she needs quiet”.

The fact that this is relayed in a loud voice, to a cat that cannot understand, is lost on her and as the flow is already interrupted I take a few minutes to cuddle with her and talk about what we will do for the day. Then she is happy to watch the cartoons and mama gets another half hour of quiet time, so the door will stay shut.

Sometimes I think the cat wakes her out of spite, because if she can’t play with me then someone needs to. But at least that is all I have to negotiate with, or work around for my quiet time at the computer, where I can lose myself in my writing, or concentrate on my studies.

My physical writing environment has been working well for some time now. Everything within reach, space to make it in, small heater under the desk so that fresh Tasmanian mornings don’t keep me from drafting. But the emotional writing space is just as important. And sometimes I have trouble bringing the two together.

Family can be a great support and if they need to support you by leaving you alone for an hour or two a day, talk to them about it. You don’t want to spend your writing time trying to negotiate with a cat.

Happy Scribbling

Another bad week

My writing journey hasn’t been moving along all that well lately. I have been blocked, sleeping through my usual writing time or part of it and then unable to write anything when I’m at the computer. Even blogging has been a painful process. I actually feel physically sick trying to think about writing a post.

I think I understand why I am blocked. And I had thought that with that realisation the problem may just slip away. Not yet. The problem is, I think, that I have taken on too much. Pushed my goals to unreachable and it has killed my creative thinking.

Firstly, I was so keen after my workshop with Fiona McIntosh that I pushed my first draft word count up by 50,000 words. The problem being that I didn’t extend my draft deadline. The process nearly doubling my daily word goal.

Secondly, I am plagued with images and ideas for another story, which is pulling me away from where I need to be. And it I would like it to be a big story (over three books) and that worries me too.

I have just started my Masters in Arts (Writing) which is amazing and great, but more work and I am struggling with getting back into study and a different type of writing.

And lastly, to top it all off, I have been knocked about by the flu, again, draining all energy.

Over the last week with my study, I have been looking at the duality of the writerly self and the inner critic. I think the inner critic has taken over pushing the negativity and preventing my creative voice any air time at all.

I am trying some tactics to try and resolve the problem. I have revised my first draft deadline out and giving me an achievable daily word goal. I am allowing myself some down time to ensure I am well and truly over the bug. And I have negotiated with my daughter for some time on the weekends alone in the study.

A good night’s sleep and then a good hour writing in the morning and hopefully I will be back on track.

Happy Scribbling.