knitting the wind

how to write the perfect blogpost

2012-01-28T13:15:00.001+12:00

Yesterday I read about how to make one's weblog more popular. It was an interesting article, but contained one major flaw.

Not all blog audiences are the same.

If I began making my posts easy to scan, as the article recommended, using bold sub-headers, liberal application of italics, and lists, I would undoubtedly displease those who come here for lyrical musings (sorry, there haven't been many lyrical posts lately ... soon, I promise!)

And if I offered advice and solutions, rather than talking about my own life, I would certainly displease many of my readers.

On the other hand ...

Internet reading has destroyed my attention span. At least insofar as it pertains to reading on a screen. I struggle to read lengthy blogposts (although obviously not to write them!) Sometimes I even struggle to read short blogposts. I am never interested in lists. I delve into the posts of those I consider my friends, or whose writing is reliably excellent, but otherwise I scan.

The main reason I subscribe to weblogs is because I like their photographs.

However ...

If you have small, snapshot photos, I won't be interested.
If your photographs are too big for the screen, I won't be interested.
If you mainly have photographs of people I don't know (ie, clients), I won't be interested.
If your photographs are too colourful, too perfect, too fake, I won't be interested.
If you have nothing but photographs, I won't be interested.

Obviously, snappy titles, bold subheadings, and important points made in italics aren't going to attract me as a reader.

(Oh, and I don't scan a post from top to bottom as apparently most people do. Usually I'll start reading right in the middle of a post and then work my way to the edges.)

I am a unique reader. Just like everyone else.

I know what I like.

What I like is highly individual and rather diverse. You won't win me as a blog reader by following someone else's rules. You'll win me by being yourself, and if I happen to like your style, then I'll subscribe to your weblog.

If I don't like your style, it doesn't mean you're a bad person or a bad blogger. It doesn't even mean we wouldn't be friends if we met in real life.

All it means is that my visual attention style doesn't gel with your visual presentation style.

Or possibly I have technical problems with your blog, time issues, or other biases. For example, I probably won't read your weblog if ...

You have a shortened feed in my Reader (even though I appreciate why you'd do that)
Your weblog crashes my computer for some reason
I can't leave comments for some reason (and I won't sign in with Facebook to do so)
You play background music (except for Kerrie, because I'd tolerate anything for her sake)
Your weblog is too business like
Your weblog is too homemade.

That's just me. And you read here because something I do attracts you visually or intellectually. That's just you. We are human. Very few rules apply.

winners know when to quit

2012-01-27T14:28:00.000+12:00

Today was all about learning when to quit. Rose went out in offshore winds, which is never easy, especially when you have the wrong equipment for the conditions. After an hour or so, she was deeply frustrated and wanted to come in. I encouraged her to do so. She'd put in the effort, learned some important things, and there was no real point in forcing her to endure another hour just for the sake of it. Sometimes you have to know when to quit for the day so that you don't end up wanting to quit forever.

This week, I quit my book. (For the second time!) I'd changed a major plot detail and it was just all too much to handle. But then I told myself, why not quit for now? For the next three weeks, three months - until I get the original plot out of my heart and can take on the revisions with fresh enthusiasm?

So I lay the work aside and began on my next book ...

And today, sitting on a brick wall at the beach, watching a storm move towards me ... listening to people excitedly saying things like "35 knots at such-and-such a location! it's coming closer!" ... I found myself writing down notes for what I needed to make those revisions work.

It was exactly as I thought it would be. Quitting for now is not about quitting at all, but managing your energy and committing your spirit to a long term process. I believe that, if you give yourself permission to pause occassionally, rather than constantly ploughing on, you are more likely to stay on course to your goal.

Sometimes the temptation to keep going is really strong. Those 35 knots are always inviting (except we walked away, and a few minutes later the rain arrived, clagging the sky.) Usually, fear is what keeps me from making good choices about when to quit or when to keep going. (There will never be good wind ever again! Fear says some incredibly stupid things. But it's easy to believe in the moment!)

This year, I want to trust love instead.

__________________________________________________________

(In response to those who asked about my hero, here is one picture. Yes, lots of information in that image.)

PS, I am now a contributing photographer at Tweetspeak. Not sure how little old me with my point and click camera managed that, except that LL Barkat is a very nice person. I actually wrote a poem in my head the other day ... but then forgot it.

the daily real

2012-01-26T14:57:00.000+12:00

Do you remember how I told you I am currently standing in the inbetween space? Well, an update. I am currently running in frantic circles, tearing out my hair, in the inbetween space.

Things are stressful, and they just keep piling up on each other, as if stress attracts stress, getting bigger and more complicated and yes, if you sense that I am writing this in the tone of voice of Beaker, you are correct. Meeeeep!

I am moving ahead with my writing, although not in the direction anyone might expect. I actually wrote all about it here ... but when I am stressed, I hide away. So I will tell you about it later.

The photo today is of a little writer's shed located in a beautiful garden I recently visited. When I saw it, I knew many of you would just swoon right then and there if you'd seen it. I myself prefer to write at the kitchen table, surrounded by daily life, but for those who like tranquility and beautiful isolation while they write, this was a little piece of heaven.

Meep!

things, which made me happy today

2012-01-25T19:00:00.000+12:00

Getting a reference from a previous landlord who said I was the best tenant she'd ever had and there would never again be any tenant like me. Aww. I miss that house alot. Transport it and especially its garden to the seaside and I'd be blissed out.

Knowing my house is truly clean. Never mind that when a friend visited today, flies swarmed in my living room. They went away when she left. Of course.

Finding a little more money in my bank account than I expected. I bought chocolate brownies and strawberries for my visitor.

Having Rose's best friend stay for the afternoon. Seriously, I will angst over Socialisation until she is an adult.

Working on the Book. I'm not sure about the pacing, but the character arcs have improved, and the new plot will probably work, and I'm considering two volumes now, maybe, so it's going okay.

Finally finding a picture of the hero. He's a much more complex character now that I've altered the plot, and I could not get the image of him right. Until now. I'll show you the picture if you want.

This song. It inspires my imagination. I'm so much looking forward to the next story - perhaps too much actually. I need to regain my momentum for the Book. Being hideously busy and stressed at the moment doesn't help.

This song. It's the one that makes me think of my daughter.

This one is for me.

The cool summer evening. Today everyone was complaining about the heat, it was our first truly summer day, but actually the temperature didn't get much higher than 25 degrees Celsius. I love La Nina!

Our beach. Our busy, beautiful beach with its moods and all its strange, wonderful magic.

You guys. Thank you for your comments, your friendship, your emails. I appreciate it so much.

love, romance, and fiesty girls

2012-01-24T20:21:00.003+12:00

There is a tiny, beautiful image in the photograph above. I just saw it by chance now, as I was deleting yet another confused paragraph ... it is stressful at the moment, here in the shrinking inbetween, and my thoughts won't settle easily into public words ... I simply had to say that I saw it, although I doubt anyone else will.

It reminded me that we are always held by something more than hope - by promise, by skinless soul love. Even when we are watching our hands knead bread in the wood-shadowed kitchen; even when we sail white over a sea of light; even when we turn our faces away busily and bruised with too much shadow and light, it is activating always, for us all. Love.

I am currently watching a movie I love. Perhaps almost as much as the other movies I love (The Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, Persuasion, Terminator, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show). It is Ever After, a sweet and rather silly romantic movie. I may be an old, grizzled hillwife, but I do appreciate magic and romance.

Danielle is a wonderful heroine. Having said that, she is also a typical heroine. My favourite is Anne Elliot, who demonstrates strength and heroism through her gentle character, her grace, steadiness, and kindness. Anne inspired me when I created the heroine of my own book. I very much wanted to write a girl who is not fiesty, who almost always does as she is required - not from weakness, but rather the strength of kindness and compassion. It is scary, though. Readers like fiesty girls.

Readers like fiesty bloggers too. I feel I must apologise for my dark and heavy photographs lately. It's all I've managed with Paint.net - and besides, I'm in a dark hill mood these days. I'm in love with the lush and gentle romance of the storm.

miles from anywhere

2012-01-23T14:24:00.002+12:00

The storm was here. All afternoon we had watched its approach, its shadow congealing slowly through the prairie brightness until certainty and sound were gone. And then we heard what we forgot to hear before - the absence, the loss.

Worst for me (I dont know about him) was waiting for its inevitability. I was almost glad when hours of intensification had broken in a rush of water, light yielding finally to cloudshadow or simply night. We weren't sure which.

He had secured the farm. I had brought in the laundry, set a fire in the hearth, made dinner, kept the children occupied. That's how we stayed calm through the tumult. We were used to this kind of thing.

Storms came often here.

(please email me at knittingthewind-dot-yahoo-dot-com if you are having trouble with the embedded comments form and I will change back to the old form.)

(photos processed using the simplicity texture from kim klassen.)

seven things

2012-01-22T17:57:00.004+12:00

One ~ I can't remember when I wrote my last blogpost. My dashboard doesn't really help as it goes by American time, and converting that to New Zealand time involves maths. I don't do maths. I'm fairly sure it was last night, which means it's okay to write this one now.

Two ~ The reason I can't remember this detail is because I'm tired after spending the entire day scrubbing my house from top to bottom. Literally. From ceiling to carpet. My house is now very, very clean.

Three ~ Except I should not say very, very, because that shows I am a bad writer. According to some guy who thinks he's an expert on what good writing looks like. I swear, if people actually paid attention to all the writing advice available online, their brains would get far too clogged with pedantic, often contradictory nonsense to ever produce worthy literature. The only good advice can be found here and here. (Yes, insert winking-eyed icon.) (I think I might have mentioned this subject once or maybe twice before - ?)

Four ~ Picnik is closing down. Google purchased it a while ago, and now they are sliding it in very, very incomplete form into Google Plus. I have downloaded Paint.net as the best solution to this utterly catastrophic disaster, but I'm not completely happy. Mark my words, people. One day Google will rule the world.

this is the picnik version; it took about three minutes

this is the paint.net version ~ I had to flatten it and save as png; it took ages

Five ~ I myself will probably never rule the world. But I know how it should be done. Which is why I am a writer.

Six ~ And I am writing. It's a little difficult, because although I really think I'll be able to make the Book work, my heart had already begun reaching into a new story, and I very, very much want to write that now. But I shall look upon it as a reward for completing the Book. It's also difficult because I'm so busy with preparing for the upcoming move, as well as a few events with which I'm involved during February.

Seven ~ I don't usually enjoy the month of February. It's so hot, my fibromyalgia flares up, and I spend the night pacing, trying to ease cramp in my joints. However, this year we are experiencing a very, very mild summer. (Actually only very mild, but I couldn't help myself.) For example, today has been raining, and I'm a little chilled as I sit here after dinner with a light breeze coming through the window. I worry about our world. Our climate. There's nothing I can do about it, of course, except reduce my own footprint as much as possible ... and write books about it. (Very, very ungrammatical and ill-advised books, no doubt.) After the Book, that is.

I'm sorry this hasn't been a lyrical, meaningful post. I hope you have a lovely day. Blessings to you all.

ps, I love this geeky font.

in between

2012-01-21T22:21:00.002+13:00

My fingernails are ruined from an hour's scrubbing of the shower. My lounge is full of books and bags and three-quarters of the video set of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady ... we've lost spring somewhere along the way ... and a tea cup, camera, cardboard boxes, notes.

By Monday, it will be pristine for the landlord.

Words are flaking from the Book, and other words are slipping in like a tide under stones. I've changed my hero's hair, his name, and that has made everything else so much easier to change that I wonder why I ever complained. It's going to be okay after all. Stories can't seem to help themselves, you know? Give them a few sentences, a little encouragement, and they just go and go and go. And they draw other stories to them - do you ever notice that? As if all stories want to sing a part in each other. But I'm going to start talking about holy harmony and the universal song so I'd better quickly move along ...

My daughter is growing. She has to bend a little now to hug me. But I don't really mean that kind of growing. These days, what I know she can do doesn't always match what I feel she can do. I have more confidence in her than I've quite trained myself for. But I don't wish her to stop growing, or even to slow down. There's a certain sparkling joy in running to catch up to her, after all those years of leading her.

These times, they seem like inbetween times. And I always feel most secure here.

Between shores.
Between hoping and knowing.
Between dark and moon-up.

The moment to inhale.

resistance fighter

2012-01-21T09:32:00.001+13:00

I see writing as a gentle cutting away of layers to reveal the sinews and the slow longing of blood beneath. But I tend to have the problem of losing myself in those beautifully complex, tattooed, scarred layers. I think the words are important, the individual scenes. I will give up an entire book for the sake of retaining its ending. I just have.

My brother sent his two cents about my book debacle this morning. They were along the lines of "a tragic waste of time and effort" ... Which made me smile, because my brother is very straightforward. I shook my head at his inability to understand the politics involved ... and nodded my head at the waste of time part ... and within all that movement, something knocked free. And I understood myself again.

I had an intention for my book from the start. I had a clear vision. I let that slide away, let in something else I knew deep down could not be allowed. And once it was finished, once I was literally on the verge of writing a query letter, I turned around and said it could not be published, it had to be thrown away, given away - rewriting it would only ruin it.

But that's all resistance.

(Yes, Mel.)

It's the Enemy, fear.

I don't want to get into a long ramble about my lifelong issues with resistance. I have to hurry up with my day. But know this: I have sighted my enemy, and I'm not going to let her win this time. The combat boots have been put on, then pen sharpened. I am a strong woman (sigh). I will triumph over myself.

You know, I'd do anything for my girl. I'd bash through any inner resistance and try to find a way through any external resistance. So the question is, will I do the same for myself?

The anatomy of a spirit is fascinating, beautiful. The sinews of courage; the slow longing of holy blood. I must not get distracted and disempowered by the layers - all my scars, my wanted and unwanted tattoos. I must listen for the pulse that we all share beneath those layers, at the heart of things; the song of the universe.

Three is back after our holiday break. Please join me, Kelly, and Claire in photographing "anatomy."

hillwife

2012-01-20T16:44:00.001+13:00

I have hills and haunted wind in my soul. Vivesect me, poeticise me, turn me upside down and shake me until all the secrets fall out, and that is what you will get.

Today I went to the hills. Firstly the deep hills, where trees conceal the ghosts of ancient tribes and the wind is a waiata. I was actually visiting gardens, the mission being to see butterflies, but as everyone else sighed over flowers, and complained about the lack of sunshine, I drifted at their edges taking photographs of the wild.

I do have almost two hundred pictures of the gardens, though. I kept photographing and thinking, Lissa would love this, Susan would love this ... and I will show you all that bright beauty soon. Today, though, you're getting my hillwife side. It's the Adie in me.

The shadowed forest, the hunkering down, with goddesses half-hidden in an overgrown garden.

Afterwards, we emerged to a lighter place, with an open view of countryside over which everyone else raved. The garden was beautiful, but I preferred the dense, haunted place we'd visited earlier. I felt a little unsafe in all that vast, fresh air.

On the drive home, we talked about our dystopian vision of the future, and it sounded to me like the waiata of a story ... the one which I became obsessed with a couple of months ago, and which kick-started my creativity again. I realised I still love that story. It needs some modifications, and I've been thinking how it can be merged with my latest concept, and if I wasn't incredibly tired I'd be writing it this very moment.

I am not a butterfly girl. I am not orange flowers and wide summery skies. I need to sink into old brown energy, mustiness, and hand-knitted blankets. And then everything is alright.

broken bones and broken books

2012-01-19T15:45:00.002+13:00

There is a secret bone inside of us, I'm sure of it. I don't know what I'd call it. The soul bone? The deepest-feeling bone? The wishbone? For me, it runs between heart and stomach - between essence and essential. And sometimes it breaks.

I wrote a post this morning as my bone was breaking, but then I deleted it. However, I see the post lingered in google reader for hours ... is probably still there. If nothing else, this was a reminder to return my feed to the shortened version, with apologies to those who don't have the time or inclination to click over. Those of you who saw the post will understand where I'm coming from here. Those of you who didn't - just let me say, I'm a very shy person who has a very strong sense of justice, and sometimes the clash between those two things leaves me with a broken wishbone.

A few days ago, I realised I could not publish my book. I'd always known the politics were going to be tricky, but I'd honestly not appreciated how the story would evolve. It was supposed to be about mermaids and sea monsters! It turned out to be more real. The moment I got serious about preparing it for submission, I realised I could not risk doing so. It's just too close to home. So I sat down with the intention of changing it back to mermaids and sea monsters. And worked out very quickly that doing so would ruin the whole book.

It hurts alot to think it will never be read. I had all kinds of silly dreams. Please understand, I don't think it's a particularly good book. In particular, the plot is a mess, because I kept trying to do the pleasing-everyone thing at the expense of the good-writing thing. Even so, it's a little bit special to me.

So what I'm thinking of doing is maybe putting it into a read-only PDF format, and giving it away for free. I don't want money for it, that would be awkward. The plan would be to give it to anyone who wants it, who is also a consistent commenter on this weblog. So lurkers won't get it, and people who know me in other places (Facebook, Three, Twitter) but seldom/never comment here won't get it, and people who click onto every giveaway available won't get it. Just those people who have given back to me over the years, and whom I consider friends.

Maybe. My trust is a bit shaky these days. But this morning I wrote, "I am not going to walk the money walk. I am going to go with love." The best way to do that is to pave my way with love.

Anyway, in the meanwhile, I have another book to write. This one's about demons. The other one was too, but this time the demons come screaming at you in the night & you have to shoot them. Fun.

far away over the hills

2012-01-18T13:51:00.004+13:00

A languid sky drapes over our afternoon. We are just sitting around with nothing much to do. We'd planned to go to the beach, but there's no wind, not even much of a breeze. We could go anyway, lounge around in the sunshine, catch up with friends, maybe do some swimming. But it's just too far away to make the effort.

For that matter, we could go all kinds of places, but they're too far away also.

I'd make cinnamon scrolled scones, or chocolate coconut slice, but I'm out of flour, and the grocery store is just that little bit ... too far away.

If you want to know the truth, I don't think it's possible to homeschool an older and only child really well unless you have a car. Or unless you are sensible and live in a centralised location, instead of out back, in a valley with nothing but houses and overgrown grass for miles.

Not long now, I keep telling her. Infact, we ought to be filling boxes, sorting things - because really, it's not long now. But it seems these days we can't quite get going without a breeze to move us. And when there is a breeze, we're tracking it, instead of filling boxes or baking scones.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with having a lazy day reading or writing or playing sailing simulator games.

Unless you've grown used to storms.

a wind change

2012-01-17T19:13:00.002+13:00

This morning I walked into my bathroom and found uphaul rope in the sink. And as I stood there smiling, I got to thinking about the richness of my life, the small funny things, the joys and worries ... and how I never write any of it here. That suddenly seemed very sad to me.

So I sifted back through my weblog, and I folded away the words I need to keep safe. Funnily enough, most of them were from posts I considered at the time to be quite shallow, frivilous; I have maintained the older posts which in some ways expose me the most, and which resonate with my deep heart. I don't mind who reads them, because they are true.

It seemed to me, as I read back through my archives, that the more I tried to write cautiously, the further I got from anything I was happy to share with people I know in real life.

From now on, I am going to blog about uphaul ropes, and wetsuits left in the shower, and adrenaline. I'm going to chronicle the wild, sandy, beautiful daily real.

I'll be closing down my old weblogs like paper roads. So if you come here via those links, as many of you do, please change that habit. Thank you for visiting me at all! May I suggest that, if you want to continue reading here, you subscribe to the rss feed or bookmark the link.

I'm not going to make a great change to my writing. I'll still ramble on in my strange and dreamy way. I'll just mention neoprene and carbohydrates, southerlies and selkies a lot more.

Soundtrack

someday

2012-01-16T15:58:00.001+13:00

Susan asked, what is on your list for someday? This.

Someday I will wander through the other island of my country, gathering images, gathering words. Because I think I ought.

Someday I will sit on the dunes at a certain west coast beach, and watch magic stir from the sea as a smile is stirred from me.

Someday I will see her smile as she says, this. Someday he will walk into my kitchen and say hey, and I'll remember how I knew for years that he would.

Someday I will see my own book on a shelf in a bookstore. No more mistakes, no more dreams carrying me smack into a barbed wire fence I knew was there all along. Someday.

Someday I will have the website of my dreams.

Someday I will let my hair grow long again.

Someday I will be one those those girls, the published ones who talk to each other on twitter, never mind everyone else. Except I will mind everyone else. Someday I will make it, even though I have spent my whole life trying to show that there is happiness besides making it ... even though.

Someday I will believe. And maybe then other people will believe too.

Someday I will have my own home.

Someday I will bow my head in England, Ireland, Macedonia, Russia, and thank God for walking with me through this beautiful world, this beautiful scarred life.

Someday I won't have to be so damned strong.

Someday it will be one day, and it will be all about me.

Please consider visiting Susan at her new weblog, Tea & Cake.

Soundtrack.

fevered

2012-01-15T18:32:00.004+13:00

This evening, I finished the final edit of my book.

I really do like the quiet little thing that it is. And I've learned many things during the writing of this book. Here is the most important of them.

Write things people will care about. Which generally means, the personal issues of engaging characters. Setting is interesting, style is attractive, but none of it will matter if no one cares about the characters and how they feel. I didn't particularly care about my heroine when I began writing. And my hero was just a cute blond guy in boardshorts. But I came to love them, and worry about them, and fret deeply over their conflicts. I also cared about my secondary characters, despite the fact they were hurting the heroine and hero. That caring enabled me to see things from their perspective and so (hopefully) give substance to their actions. Which is why I was in tears at the end. For what my hero and heroine gained and lost. For the grief of my secondary characters.

Next week, I have to construct a query letter.

Edited: after considering various real-life issues, I realised the book needs to be reworked ... I hope it won't take much longer ... although it might end up taking three books long. We'll see.

a cottage in my heart

2012-01-14T18:20:00.000+13:00

I love a house. It's a green cottage behind a tall wooden fence, and every time I drive past I sigh and yearn and wish that somehow I could own that house. Today I pulled into the driveway of that house, on unexpected business. And it was exactly as wonderful as I imagined it would be.

A cottage door. Windchimes. Vinyl records stacked in a wooden beer crate in the lounge. A lovely garden out back, with flowering vines and pale roses growing around vegetable patches. A west wind drifting through. It's not a pretty place, it's more soulful, "country bohemian" if such a thing is possible; an edge place, a place for artists.

My dream house. I felt enspelled, amazed, so deeply grateful, to be standing there.

Of all the thousands of houses in this city, to have been unknowingly directed to my favourite ...
Rose says you have to dream big. Because if you dream small, you'll only get small. So I dream that one day I'll live in that green cottage. Today, getting to stand in its driveway, I felt nudged by a smile. A reminder. The universe is open to your love if you are open to loving.

Soundtrack

heroines

2012-01-13T20:04:00.000+13:00

Today I read The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. I liked it alot. I would have preferred more romance, but that's just me. The heroine was a really cool chick and that's always satisfying to read. I certainly recommend this book.

At first, I liked that the heroine was a fat girl ... but as I went along I did not like how much that was a problem for her, and how the issue developed by the end of the story. (Although I understand why, and I like the points Rae was making. I especially loved what she did with the love interests. Very unusual and, oddly enough, enjoyable to read.)

I'm interested in the way appearance is often managed in YA novels around a norm of physical desirability. If a heroine isn't pretty, that is an issue, and so often she is made pretty at some point in the story - dressed up, covered in make-up, enchanted, etc. Only then does she become physically desirable to herself and other people. Off the top of my head, the only YA book on my own shelves with a plain heroine who never gets a makeover (er, apart from learning how to handle a bloody big sword) is Harry Crewe from The Blue Sword. She gets the guy not despite her plainness but simply because she's such a cool chick.

The heroine of my book-in-progress has rather low self-esteem, so she frets about her appearance, but I don't transform her physically - worrying about her looks is just an expression of her self-doubt, not anything that needs to be fixed outwardly. What she can do is far more valued than how she looks.

It is very important to me that my characters' appearance is not important, unless it relates directly to their personality or how they perceive themselves (and I'll always take care to show they are unreliable reporters on that subject.) I want any person reading my stories to know ordinary can be desirable, heroic, interesting, valuable.

If I had a fat heroine, I would not make her thin through the story. Nor would I make her fat as a result of overeating. Nor would I use the word fat. I'd say luscious, voluptuous, curvaceous, all the beautiful words for a beautiful body. Her size would not be a flaw. She would be desirable, or at the very least her size would be not important, and she would be a Heroine.

luscious: mia tyler

The Girl of Fire and Thorns explores issues of physical size and desirability, and I admire it for that. Also, I haven't come across a heroine more enchanting than Elisa in a long time. It really is a wonderful book. Read it! For my own writing, I prefer to not explore those issues, but take a different approach and make them not-issues, which is my own political statement.

beautiful sure, but oh god, what she can do! : adele

seen at the beach

2012-01-13T06:40:00.000+13:00

A skinny old lady in a bright green bikini, lounging elegantly. She could not walk without limping - but it was easy to see she'd been a hottie in her day (and probably still was.)

Another old lady, this one softer-bodied, in a bikini. She dragged a laser dinghy through the tide, rigged the sail, and went off for a sail before coming back to sunbathe. How cool is that?

I wondered about their stories.

(Have you ever noticed there is no nice way to say "old lady" ... old woman, elderly person ... No way to convey that they may still be a wild spirit, or beautiful soul, or gorgeous desirable creature, or valuable member of society. Every term feels so contemptuous to me.)

A little child playing in grim puddles coming out of a stormwater drain, with Mother looking on fondly.

Another little child doing the same further along the beach. Rose considered going over to advise the parents just how bloody stupid they were, but we decided against it.

Alot of people in singlets, sleeveless dresses, and togs - while I sat wrapped in a shawl under a tree. Fibromyalgia wreaks havoc with your temperature control. The slightest breeze and I become freezing cold. I felt stupid in my shawl ... until it started to rain. I quietly raised my umbrella and went on placidly reading while everyone else ran about squealing under towels.

Lifeguards. I think casual sexiness must be a requirement of the job. My dad was a lifeguard when he was a teenager. He helped save a guy's life. Either that or he watched as a guy died. Details, details.

A young goddess communing with her sacred familiar.

a double post

2012-01-12T08:22:00.003+13:00

I am torn between two subjects I want to discuss today, so I'm going to do them both. You can choose which one you want to read. You might also like to join in the conversation at this post about the blog persona.

Today's post kind of goes against my calm, peaceful, loving persona ... I'm feeling bolshy this morning.

Topic One: The Online Profusion of Writing Advice

I've written about this one before. It's a pet peeve. Every time I turn around, especially when I load Twitter, some self-proclaimed expert is giving advice on how to write fiction effectively. I have two comments to make on this.

Firstly, if you're going to lecture people, make sure you can write well yourself. Please. Do not give "best practice" examples which are so terrible they make real experts cringe.

Secondly, if someone needs all the advice that is being doled out, they shouldn't be writing in the first place. We have enough lousy books out there. Stop the madness! Everyone does NOT have a book in them. Writing is NOT easy. NOT any person can do it. A 50,000 word manuscript plonked together during Nanowrimo is NOT going to be the next best thing, or even the next tolerable thing.

If you want to be a writer, my advice to you would be to take it seriously. Study hard - read excellent books, look closely at what they do, copy them, see where you go wrong. Put in the hours. Be humble. Acknowledge this is a craft like woodworking, sculpting, robot constructing. It takes work. But it is also an art, like ballet, surfing, painting. It takes inherent talent. If you don't have the talent, or the inclination to stay up until midnight for weeks on end, you may want to choose another job.

Topic Two: I Just Want Her To Be Happy

I've written on this before too. More than once, probably. I am getting so fed up with the whole "as long as the kid is happy, that's the important thing." Again with capital letters: NO. I was happy when I wagged school and hung around with my friends in the local park, drinking homemade wine. Do you think my mother would have been fine with that, had she known, because at least I was happy? My daughter would be happy if I let her stay on the water all day long, with occassional pieces of chocolate tossed her way. But no one would think that was good for her health.

I tell my child, "I just want you to be happy," but that's shorthand for, "I struggle every day to parent you well and in balance with all the other influences in your life, and to prioritise what is really important while at the same time keeping you cheerful, positive and motivated." Happiness is on my list of priorities for her, but it's not in the top five.

My top five: connection with the Divine, health, kindness, positive outlook, and consideration for others.

ps, happy birthday to my wonderful Mum!

Soundtrack

the blog persona

2012-01-10T20:59:00.001+13:00

Today I told someone that I am conscious of what I write here, in order to protect my blog persona. I realised later how awful that sounded - like I am disingenuous in my blogging.

So I got to thinking about the facets of myself I present here. I tend to show my nice, kind side. I certainly never use swear words on the weblog, although I do in real life - I am a fisherman's daughter, after all. I seldom snark, although some of my online friends know that I am capable of it. Certainly friends in real life know my sardonic smile. And you never get to see the part of me which has an unfortunate weakness for bitchy gossip (I'm really working to overcome that one.)

The thing is, I am nice and kind too.

I am a lot of things.

One of the things I am is inconsistent. I believe in gentle parenting, but have a temper. I love reading classic novels like Persuasion and Agnes Grey, but will always pick up Angel Burn or Shatter Me instead if given a choice. I love Merchant Ivory movies - but Terminator and Universal Soldier are amongst my favourite films. And I am a prude, but enjoyed reading romance.

One of the problems with blogging is that it's considered helpful and proper to write with a consistent voice. But how many of us are simplistic? And how many of us who blog choose to only present one part of themselves, not for deceptive reasons, or even to make ourselves look better, but only because it's easier that way?

More acceptable.

More likely to keep a steady audience.

When I think about what I want to do with this space, it generally involves trying to find connection, trying to share the beauty I experience, hoping to give something small. Maybe hoping to entertain a little, because that is what all writers wish. Towards these ends, my kind and nice voice is lifted. My snarky voice wouldn't be so helpful.

I am always honest here. The way I tell the honesty, the words I use, are deliberately chosen to fit a certain persona. But the heart is true. And because of that, I feel less judgmental these days about bloggers who only show the pretty things, or are eternally cheerful, or seem to have perfect relationships with their family members. It's not a deception. It's just what they choose to do with the space they have.

ps, on the writing front, I am now doing a line by line edit of The Book, and have made good headway into the Next Book, and am looking forward to another new project as well. Fun times.

a bad book review

2012-01-10T17:03:00.001+13:00

Now I'm going to review a book. I'm doing it for Olivia Waite, whose weblog I love. Most of you will not read her books because you are good clean upright women ... infact, most of you are Catholic ... but I am glad to have a chance to promote Olivia anyway. This has been a difficult post to construct because it's a subject very distant from what I usually write.

So, Olivia's book. It's called Damned If You Do, and I'll tell you straight out that it's erotic romance. Or maybe I should write that as erotic romance so you understand I am saying it in a loud whisper.

I am not the sort of person who reads erotic romance. Apparently, it's hugely popular these days with really smart women. I accidentally picked one up at the library the other day and gaped my way through the first chapter like people tend to do at disaster scenes or horror movies. I actually feel like it stained my soul a little. It was nasty, heartless stuff, and I hid it behind other books in the hope it would go unread for a long time.

Having said that, I generally don't read books unless they include romance of some kind. I'm girly like that. My own Book is a teen romance, and has quite a bit of kissing it in, along the lines of Hunger Games and Angel Burn. But erotica goes too far for me. Even books like Darkfever, standard fantasy novels which contain overt lewdness, go too far for me.

However, I am fond of writers like Julia Quinn, whose books include some very explicit scenes. The fact is though, her characters are fun, engaging, and complex. Her stories are real stories, not just an excuse for sex scenes. And those scenes are obviously meant for fun, as well as character development. So what is the difference between a modern romance novel by someone like Julia Quinn or Nora Roberts, and an erotic romance?

It seems to me it's a matter of focus and vocabulary. And I would say the only difference between Julia and Olivia is that they use different vocabularies. I'd rather not give examples, but some of you may know what I mean. (Not the nice Catholics ones of you, of course.) Otherwise, the two writers absolutely share the same charming wit and clever writing. You can see a nice clean version of it on Olivia's weblog.

But I have a big problem with Damned If You Do. (I warned Olivia it wasn't going to be a sweet, cheerful review.)

The book is only 45 pages long. It's called a "quickie", apparently. The premise is so interesting, I was fascinated to read it, thinking I could probably survive the erotic scenes. I wasn't even finished with the first chapter before I was thinking, this should be a proper full-length novel. Turns out, the characters are great. The writing is witty. I laughed aloud a couple of times. I especially loved Lucifer and Miss Greening. I wanted to know more about them.

I also felt that the scenes were like teasers. I wanted to read a novel-size version. I wanted to know more.

The erotica was not particularly scary. I think Olivia tried to make it so, but really she should read the book I accidentally opened at the library. Her story is mostly about two people finding love and fulfillment in each other, and the other stuff develops from that. (I suspect this is the most damaging part of my review. Sorry, Olivia!)

Novellas probably make good money and are no doubt a lark to write. However, I think Olivia is brilliantly funny, and I believe she could be the next Julia Quinn if she went the paperback romance route. Damned If I Do will stick around in my memory for a long time.But it only took half an hour to read, and I felt frustrated afterwards for lost potential. If it had been a novel, it would be one of those "forget-to-make-the-dinner-because-of-reading" books.

ps, I found reading this a little hard on the eyes. Is the font too small, do you think? Is the column size too wide? I'd appreciate feedback.

pps, I love this.

soundtrack!

love

2012-01-09T20:32:00.000+13:00

People, love your children. Lavish them with love. Fill them up with love. Make them absolutely overcome and undone with love. Make love their extra, emergency bones and the fibres of their deepest soul. There can never be too much of it.

Even if I live a very long and open life, I'll never be able to bring into this world enough love for the darkness people shovel in. (Including me.)

May you and I and the whole world have love, and love, and love infinitum. Even for the people with shovels. They were little children once.

six things

2012-01-07T14:30:00.004+13:00

one
I woke tired this morning. I have to make blueberry muffins & chocolate coconut cookies, but I also have to rewrite the revelation scene in the New Book (which shall from now on be known as Stars, and abbreviation of its full title.) Guess which of these will be happening?

two
{Something I decided not to keep on the public record.}

three
I walked past a dalek yesterday. It was saying exterminate, exterminate, as they do. I nearly had a panic attack. I did stumble and bang into a tree. It was a dalek, people.

four
Stars has a theme song.

five
Here's an extract of the book, just because I'm in a good mood. (The Emily to which I'm referring is Emily Bronte.)

There's no way I can take all mybelongings with me. I doubt I even have time to sort through them. My heartsinks a little at the thought of leaving it all, especially the volume ofEmily's poems. Mum gave me that on my birthday last year. But safety is moreimportant than poetry. I'm sure Emily would make the same choice. Infact, shewould probably be out the window, halfway down the hill, by now, mutteringirritably under her breath.

Finally, my English literature degree proves good for something.

(Yes, that is first person present. I remember when I first encountered that style of writing, I hated it so much I would not read the book. Now it is my own preferred form. I fell in love with it during The Hunger Games.)

six
Someone said about me, "she looks like a school ma'am, don't you think." I'm still deciding whether to be offended or not. I'd just come from buying a sari, so hopefully soon I will look less teachery and more wierd writery.

seven
The giveaway. I said I'd do it today. So here you go, a winner at random .... Lesley Austin. She is recipient of the photograph Lux Roses. I am very pleased, as I adore Lesley (you really must visit her spellbinding weblog!) but also nervous as I hope that particular photograph comes out well as a print.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the giveaway, I am grateful for your support. I will hold another one soon.

ps, is anyone else really hating the new(ish) Blogger editing suite? Half the time I have to go into html just to fix spacing issues which I can't correct in Compose mode.

why?

2012-01-07T09:29:00.004+13:00

So the New Book is hurtling along at a terrific speed, to the point where I expect it will be 50,000 words within two or three weeks, at least if I'm able to keep up this pace. Hey, who really needs eight hours' sleep?

I do most of my thinking about it in the morning before I sit down to work. My brain has quickly realised this new schedule, and I get some wonderful ideas, thoughts, and questions from the moment I wake up, all through making breakfast. This morning, it reminded me of the most important tool I have as a writer. This tool is also the most important I have as an educator/learner and critiquer of books.

The question why.

When I was writing the First Book, I just plowed along with gritted determination - but during the edit, most of what I did was simply ask "why?" Why did the character react in that way? Why have I added this scene? Why should we care? With the New Book, I've been remembering to ask as I go along. It helps enormously, and is probably the reason the manuscript has more weight than the first one.

Asking why is something I teach my students to do all the time. It is so much more effective than that old school question of "how?" More than once I've sent an essay back, covered in a dozen red "why?s"

Why is actually the most essential question we ask at any time. Why do I feel like this? Why are there rainbows? Why am I alive? Something which upsets me is that certain people think there is only one answer to why. Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, and yes plenty of religious greats also, aggravate me with their arrogant opinion that they can find the answer to why inside in their own brain. Maybe they should write a novel, or even just analyse a novel. Maybe then they will discover there are a thousand, million ways to answer the slightest why ... and 99.9% of the time we can not do it with any certainty.

Why did Rebecca follow Alex out of the bedroom?

Because she didn't know what else to do. (Why? Why was she lacking mental resources in that situation?)

Because she was scared to be alone. (Why? If she didn't believe his warnings about the danger, why should she be scared to be left unattended?)

Because she was drawn to him in a way she didn't understand, despite everything. (Why? What was it about him, about her, that connected them?)

I can write a dozen different stories from each immediate answer to those questions ... and then a dozen more ... and a dozen more.

Ultimately, for me, the great Story of life is about why. It's the asking, the yearning, the reaching towards some ultimate unknown. How else would we grow, if we didn't have a light to grow towards? Anyone who tells me that they have the answer ... string theory, multiple universes, religious dogma ... does nothing but diminish life, and my own existence.

I don't want to know why. I want to keep reaching in wonder.

tonight

2012-01-04T23:10:00.002+13:00

A dark, subtle wind is shifting through the night outside my house. I don't know, maybe seven knots. This valley attracts wind. This house, we call it Windy Cottage. We loved that when we first moved here. Now we are fed up with doors that slam every time windows are left open.

But I have an intuition that we'll always look back on this place with a fondness we don't quite feel now. And maybe I'll remember this very night. Me, sitting alone at my old oak table, with a small wind outside, and 43, 006 words down. My unexpected little book about the sea ...

Second edit done.

Now I have to wait for Rose to read the manuscript. She's gone through most of the first chapter and approved it, but I think she's scared to read on. Scared I'll interrogate her. Or that she won't like it. Or that the ending will be opposite to what she wishes it to be.

But I've just read back over the ending. And I know I got it right.

She advised me to cram it full of heartbreak. That's my girl.

(She came home today after seeing Dolphin Tales at the movie theatre and told me all about its foreshadowing and pacing, and I commiserated with her. It's hard when you know how stories work. Some of the magic fades ... although another kind is revealed.)

I followed her advice. I did not fix every problem. I honoured the regrets, and gave strength to the sorrows by not resolving them neatly. Even so, I can say, it is the ending it deserved to be. And there's one phrase that makes me cry, over and again. I hope it makes readers cry too. I would like to write well enough for tears at the closing of a book.

Once Rose reads it, I'll fix any little leftover errors, then launch it on its way.

And then I can start on the next one.

It's going to be about night winds.

bumper issue

2012-01-04T08:48:00.001+13:00

I have been keeping a weblog for about seven years now. And for those years I've watched blogging grow and change and change again. At first it seemed mainly an outlet for stay at home mothers, including homeschoolers, who wanted to connect and share, and for assorted weirdos. These days, it is big business.

My own blogging has changed hugely over those years, and I sense that it is slowly metamorphising again as I look forward to things I plan for 2012. Yesterday, I wrote a post about The Book, but then I took it down as I was uncertain if it was appropriate for someone who will try to seek standard publication. On the other hand, it was exactly the right thing for a self-publisher to do. I still don't know where I stand there. And that amazes me. When I began writing (more than seven years ago!) formal publishing was the only option. Now it isn't even necessarily the best option.

I'm fascinated to see what will become of blogging as time goes by. Personally, I think it will become more difficult to find a space and attract an audience in a crowded, highly designed marketplace. I also think everyone who is in the people business - especially writers - will need a weblog. One of my concerns as I contemplate approaching publishing companies is that my blog audience may not be big enough to prove I have marketability. That's a mind-boggling thought to someone who used to sell magazines all around the world with nothing more than one small, static website and a PO Box!

Anyway, today I want to do something old school. A little meme based on this post at My Little Men of God. It means a long post, which is one of the current no-nos of blogging .... but I have always hated rules ... If you choose to do the meme also, please let me know so I can enjoy reading it!

My loves as experienced through the known senses.

The wild, provocative voice of wind through the night.
Rock music.
Rain on a tin roof.

The way north in darkness.

Sea salt.
Freshly baked bread.
A child's newly washed hair.

Wind against the upraised fingertips.
Hair blowing gently against my face.

Warm tea after a winter's beach.
Smoked chicken fettucine.
Tears.

The moment before a phone call.
Recognising her from the bend of her smallest finger.
The peace of certainty.

Watching them speed through light.
Dancing in the night kitchen.
Stillness.

Evening cosiness.
A little cold in the wind to thrill.
Iciness in the overheated night.

Just enough heartache to enable writing.
The small, almost comfortable pain.
Knowing I am alive..

ps, thank you for your entries into my giveaway. I will draw a recipient in the weekend, so please feel welcome to enter if you have not done so yet.

giveaway

2012-01-02T08:19:00.003+13:00

So I am no longer the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But I have exceeded my word count goal for The Book, thanks to the editing process, therefore am content.

Here is the giveaway I offered.

I've never liked those giveaways which require the entrants to promote the weblog in return for entries ... I should do it, to be all properly self-marketing, but ... all I'm going to ask is for you to leave a comment, telling me which photograph you would like to win.

There are three from which to choose, representing my three different styles of photography. The print will be ... um, I can't remember the exact dimensions. Biggish.

wuthered

lux rose

bright blue sea

I'm having a little bet with myself as to which will be most popular.

So let me know which you'd like, and I'll announce a recipient ... um, some time soon.

untouched

2011-12-31T17:05:00.002+13:00

I don't believe in the new year. It has never made sense to me that it should begin on a random day in the middle of a season. Also, there's something disturbing to my wild ocean-tide soul about everyone being forced to keep the same time as everyone else.

I feel each of us has our own personal new year which begins on our birthday. Luckily for me, my birthday is at the official new year.

I am going to try to focus on love in 2012.

Do you have a word for your new year?

So today I get to say with a fairly easy conscience, hello, new year. (Well, hello for tomorrow, but you know.) I hug you. I am going to enter into you with faith, and hope, and love. Never mind about all the supposed should-things. I'm going to try to open my heart, let the wishes fly out.

I'm going to believe in you, year.

I promised y'all a giveaway, so a giveaway you shall get. I might as well make it a celebration of my birthday as well as finishing my book, so I'll do it tomorrow. It will involve photographs.

Speaking of the book, I thought you might like to see the cover picture I would love for it, had it not already been used for the wonderful The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.

{all the pictures in this post are straight out of camera. I get my picnik premium renewed as a birthday present. besides, untouched photographs at the start of a new year, this one in particular, felt right somehow.}

Blessings to you, may 2012 bring you all that you dream for yourself, and all that your loving god dreams for you.

am

2011-12-30T19:36:00.000+13:00

Inside me is a woman who has long hair, dark sunglasses and writes poetry while her wild child plays in the storm. There is a woman who writes in lowercase, interlinked letters, and lets punctuation fall like the silence before a sigh.

The things I am, but somehow manage not to be.

I don't really understand how I can be things and yet ... not.

Could be that maybe it's not about what other people see, but the courage we have (or don't have) to let them see the truth.

I've been thinking alot lately about shame and entitlement. And about how my daughter is negotiating other people's vision of her. And about how I think other people see me, and how that changes how I see myself.

soundtrack for this post

shattered

2011-12-30T07:39:00.004+13:00

Last night, or early this morning to be more pecise, I woke to a storm in my bedroom. Rain had penetrated the window casing and was coming in vehemently, all over the windowsill and drapes. I looked out at brown clouds, black sky - beautiful, just not so much so when spilling on my bed. I found rags, old baby dresses, to soak up the rain. But it was hard to go back to sleep with a drip as my companion. Then again, it was probably just as well I woke up in the first place. I'd been dreaming imaginary quotes from other people's unpublished stories. I'd been racing my daughter's rival on a kayak over concrete, using only a broken paddle.

Also, it didn't help that I'd stayed up until almost midnight finishing Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi. What a wonderful book. At least, I thought so when I started it that morning. Beautiful, gorgeously written, unique. I was initially in full-degree love with it. But sadly it lost its special spirit about half way through - although that probably says more about me than Mafi. I want the aching, half-crazy characters to stay that way, or to at least be eased slowly back into normalcy. But other reviews of the book say the opposite, that they couldn't wait for Juliette to become strong, so I guess I'm strange. I was also little disappointed with the ending; it reminded me of a certain popular movie franchise. The haunting, surreal, desperately yearning atmosphere of the early book was gone. I was completely enthralled for most of the day as I devoured the book ... and yet, not sad to be putting it down at the end. However, I'd still recommend Shatter Me, the first half will absolutely blow you away. And the second half is exciting and even funny in parts.

(I probably should set up a separate page for these book reviews, shouldn't I?)

I wonder actually whether my penchant for awkward, uncertain, shame-burdened, shy heroines will be my downfall as a writer.

Apparently, the film rights for Shatter Me have been optioned - just like almost every book I've read recently. Seems the YA genre is certainly red hot. That's not why I wrote my book for the teen market - I just happened to tell a story about teens. Speaking of which, I chaptered it last night (thirty) and did a quick go-through: I don't think there's too much editing left to be done. This is the benefit of having edited all the way along. Once the padding is added, the final check done, I'll hand it over to my girl for feedback. In the meanwhile, a couple of other stories are arm-wrestling at the back of my mind.

Thank you so much for your kind support and well-wishes. I am endlessly grateful, charmed, amazed. I promise not to fill my weblog with writing about writing. And I will be offering that giveaway on Monday - photo it is!

completion

2011-12-29T07:46:00.000+13:00

Once upon a time, I wrote a book. I was just a kid, so the book wasn't amazing, but it fulfilled a dream in me. I sent it off to a publishing company.

The receiving editor got all excited. He sent it to their head office on the other side of the world. And they liked it too. But in the end they had no space for a new writer. The editor, he was so disappointed, apparently. He sent me a lovely letter, urging me to keep going.

So what did I do? Well, I was a kid. I didn't keep going.

I had no idea how close I'd actually come ... how I should have just continued sending that book out. Started on the next one. Trusted the disappointment of an editor. Kept going. But, well, it's a long story why I didn't.

I never gave up writing. That would have been impossible. But I never quite finished anything, either - because finishing would mean facing the whole query issue again.

Several years later, I wrote a book of poems. And then another. And it amazed me. I honestly didn't think I was capable of completing anything. I self-published those books, for the sake of my seventeen-year-old heart. And it was a good experience. I sold a great deal more copies than I would have done if they'd been published by an official company. I still smile when I think of Otherwise, the book that made me feel ale to say, I'm a writer.

But it was not good enough. I'm not a poet. I'm a storyteller, a novelist. And I had a dream left undone.

Last night, I finished.

Last night, I got a whole novel written.

Yay me.

all the pretty stuff

2011-12-28T08:54:00.002+13:00

all images credited here

Geek Mom usually offers great conversations. Today I joined in their discussion about Pinterest.

I am a highly visual person. I think in visuals, which can be frustrating sometimes - I learnt as a child that this was "the wrong way" to think, and I developed a bad habit of translating my picture-thoughts into word-thoughts, and even to this day I sometimes find myself having a thought, then repeating it laboriously to myself in word form. Drives me crazy. (An example: that last sentence, I saw it in a flash, but had to repeat it "verbally" - silently in my head - before I could type it out.)

For people like me, Pinterest is a kind of heaven. I could spend all day there - although to be honest, I actually prefer We Heart It, because the images collected there are more dreamy and bohemian. However, like tumblr, it doesn't come up consistently for me, whereas Pinterest loads reliably.

I do have one big problem with Pinterest, and its growing worse as time goes on, to the point where I'm starting to feel triggered every time I go there. Browsing through all the lush, gorgeous imagery of housewares, clothing, and so on, I feel a strong disgust for our materialistic culture. When I look at pictures of sitting rooms bulging with lace and ornaments and flowers and stuff, I can't help but think of half-starved children living in shacks built from scrap iron and cardboard. As I wrote in my comment to Geek Mom, the thought of revelling in $50 napkins and $5000 coffee tables while children go to sleep amongst dirt and fleas, is sickening.

I know the women on Pinterest are just having fun. And many of them will be donating to those half-starved children. And I post plenty of materialistic beauty myself, for that matter. This really isn't a complaint about Pinterest. It is about me acknowledging my growing uncertainty about what actually has value in this world.

As I look through my boards, I'm pleased to see that there is very little gratuitous luxury there. Well, actually, it all seems luxurious to me - but infact most of the things I have pinned are examples of useful items made beautiful. Lace-trimmed sheets. Painted cupboards. China teacups. Which isn't to brag, it's just that I'm relieved to be not too much a hypocrite! And actually I pin most of the images because they create in me a mood rather than a desire for the actual item. I do feel guilty though - pot plants? When people are living in refugee camps, dying from dysentry? Shame!

all images credited here

Lately my primary use of Pinterest (and We Heart It) has been gathering images which I use in my writing. I have actually created several short stories, as well as scenes for books, from pictures I've found in those places. You can also see them turn up at gnossienne.

all images credited here

Do you have a Pinterest board? Feel welcome to share the link in the comments.

(PS, I'm still feeling shy about my giveaway, struggling not to delete that post. If you would like to get something free from me, you'd probably better hurry to leave a comment before my ~~low self-esteem~~ modesty gets the better of me.)

maybe a giveaway

2011-12-27T09:54:00.000+13:00

So I've been trying to think of poetic or dreamy or hopefully inspiring things to write here this morning ... but I am only 4,000 words away from my target goal with the book, at which point I will feel happy about declaring the first draft finished. You may be able to imagine, therefore, the state of my mind. There is not a single dreamy or poetic thing in it (unless you count the novel's hero.)

Earlier this week I was even closer to my goal, but instinct had me scrap a whole bunch of scenes and rewrite. The problem when you take your characters to a certain location is that the story really needs to finish before they come back, or at least very soon afterwards - but alot of my issues can only be tied up after their return. So I've been wrangling timelines and trying to work out how I can have big scenes by telephone instead of in person!

One thing I have decided is that I want to offer a giveaway to celebrate the completion of the book. Now you know I'm really shy about these things, so it will probably take a few days for me to get up the courage to actually make the offer. I have some ideas in mind ....

* the opportunity to be a beta reader of my manuscript (which actually would be more of a favour to me than a prize for you, since currently my only beta reader is my twelve year old, and I keep editing the romance scenes to protect her sensibilities, which isn't so good considering this is a teen romance story) ...

* a free ebook of Otherwise ...

* a photo print ...

* a free ebook of my stories (including several that have never been on show before) ...

* your name and character put into a scene in the manuscript ...

So I guess let me know if anything sounds interesting. I have a self-imposed goal of getting the manuscript done by my birthday, so we're talking a week.

In the meanwhile, here's hoping my back holds out so I can keep sitting at my computer, getting those 4,000 words down.

a Christmas list

2011-12-26T08:48:00.002+13:00

Christmas was quiet.
I was glad because I hurt my back & that made me tired.
The best part was the present part, because so much love was revealed.
I also got this teapot.

Among other things. Wonderful things.
We played Scattegories over lunch. Third year now, a tradition growing.
Next year, Rose & I will probably spend Christmas at the beach.
We talked to my brother on Skype. I love Skype.
I love his smile.

We ate salmon and English muffins and a whole lot of chocolate.
I painted my fingernails then realised I'd forgotten to file them first.
I didn't really care. No one looks at me anyway when my daughter is around.
Besides, I always think, don't look at me to know me, read one of my books instead.

It was a day of music.
Rose bought me my favourite song in the whole world.
I remember when I was pregnant with her, I said, this child will have a generous heart.

My second cousins have all grown so much. Babies are now young adults.
But in all other things, a year doesn't matter when it comes to families. It might as well have been a week.
I watched Die Hard, which is another Kiwi tradition.

I stayed up until midnight working on my book.
It was one of my favourite parts of the day.
This is what my heroine looks like.

So it was a quiet Christmas.
The small moments were the best moments.
And really, it was all about love.
Just perfect.

I hope yours was perfect also.

the word

2011-12-24T20:55:00.000+13:00

Love. It is a light which dissolves all my ordinary words. And then I find myself standing amongst the broken silent pieces of myself, wondering what to do next. How to write the poem. Finish the novel. Tell someone. Get any rest at all.

I was thinking about what my word for the next year should be. Hope, or potential, or kindness ... And then I decided to get straight to the point. Because after all, every word has one single root. Love.

I love this song. I love this photograph and all the things it suggests. I love this girl. I love the thought of working with a friend. I love the wilds of Old Russia, and the rain, and watching people smile about the weather forecast. I love the story of love which creates us and brings us together. It's exactly the right word to hold at the heart of my year. And if I do walk around broken to bits by beauty, well, the world needs all the dreamstruck poets it can get, don't you think?

I love Christmas too, and probably when most of you are reading this, I'll be celebrating with my family. I truly wish you joy, and chocolate, and love, for the holy day and always.

Soundtrack

some music

2011-12-24T08:42:00.000+13:00

I wish I could sing.

I think Justin Beiber is a sweet lad, although I don't like to hear him sing. He made me cry, the way he treated Drew on the X-Factor.

I wish my mp3 player hadn't got all wet and sandy, because life is so much better with music. I could play this song over and over all day long.

Soundtrack
Leanne Ellis

just chatting

2011-12-23T09:09:00.001+13:00

I'm sorry, this is going to be a boring post. Christmas is only two days away, people. My brain is starting to spin and sizzle.

This morning, I realised that the big scene near the end of my book is actually mid-point. I felt stunned, but not for the reason you might expect. I've just spent the past year trying to hammer story structure into the heads of young students, and yet here I'd missed it entirely myself! Well, I hadn't really missed it. My unease about how "the ending" was dragging out ... my anxious word-counting ... Subconsciously, I knew exactly what was going on. But this novel started out as a poem, and kind of grew from there, so I don't blame myself too much for my confusion over pacing. At least I caught it in time.

In one way, I'm happy to be spending more time with my characters. Last night, the hero did something that left me and the heroine absolutely stunned with delight - I honestly did not see it coming. (He's such a sweetie. And he can do a tabletop too, which is not what you think.) In another way, though, I'm impatient to be done, because, well, I'm always impatient. And because I have another story developing in the back of my mind which I love love love as much as this one. I've sprinkled one or two clues about it here over the past few days ...

You may have noticed that I am beginning to define my photography style. "Nostalgic" - what do you think, right word? My picnik subscription ends in three days, and then I have to wait until my renewal comes as a birthday gift. So I've been madly taking and processing photos over the past couple of days. (When I finally reissue Otherwise as an ebook, I'll include photographs in it.)

We are anticipating a small and quiet Christmas Day here.

Soundtrack for today's post

starlight

2011-12-22T11:10:00.000+13:00

There are thousands of stories.

There are as many stories as stars in the sky.

Different cultures tell the same stories.

All of us, we share one night, one ancient light.

As you know, I believe in the power of stories. Turn anything talewise and the deeper truth of it rises by magic, by ancient memory.

What is wrong with this teenager, for God's sake? It's like he's a warrior at my gate, heavily armoured, with a spitting monster on a chain. And I wonder, why does he need that steel protection? And what is he wanting from me so desperately he will bash on my gate? And who is holding that chain, him or the monster?

She's one tough lady. She's a warrior. What strifes and sorrows trained her up to it?

Stories make us wonder. They allow us to ask questions, instinctively, bravely, whereas we so often shrink from doing so with stark realities.

Why are you hurting me with your horrible words? What torture twisted your tongue, and can I bear to be tortured too?

I've heard people describe writers as creative liars, but actually I think the best know how to tell truth in the strongest possible way. I'd even say they are, along with priests, our guardians of truth.

Our star-makers. Shaping light, casting light, revealing the face of a Soul.

(I haven't mentioned scientists, although I'm sure they'd list themselves as foremost amongst truth-tellers. I honestly believe science is a genre of story. And so I put scientists in with priests, and novelists, and poets.)

(The not-so-good ones either fail to create a spark, or else distort the light so we think we are seeing a truth but actually it is not real, not at all. I've read a couple of books lately that have been provocative for the sake of it, and I had to put them down because all I'm interested in is truth, not false shadows. Write about violence, even sexual violence, if you want, but do it honestly, with real consequences, because sometimes beauty is dark and painful ... don't do it just for drama or to thrill more people into buying your books.)

The story I'm writing at the moment is not a bright star. It is not poetic or gentle or in any way special. It started out like that, but somehow all the planking just peeled away, leaving wind and wordlessness and midnight kisses, an ordinary story. The characters sulk, swear (behind the scenes), and don't even get to make choices. I've got both my big disasters in the same chapter. The answer at the end is nothing.

But it is my star. It has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

credit

soundtrack

solstice

2011-12-21T15:55:00.003+13:00

soundtrack for today's post

Hello from a sacred summer day under this world's heart. I hope it is as lovely for you as it has been for me.

Used to be, we celebrated the solstice for its natural significance, but these days we live so deep in nature, Rose & I, it seems crazy to celebrate midsummer and similar things when actually we celebrate windshifts, rising suns, old fingernail moons, on an hourly basis.

Mainly now, I try to remember the solstice as the day my uncle died. These people who pass over on significant dates - much appreciated. My dad died on Anzac Day, ensuring I never forget to pray for him & my stepmother specially hard at that time.

I think though that this evening I'll add something special to dinner, or to my evening blessings. Because life can always use more Love, don't you think?

Blessings to you on this solstice day.

dreams & old things

2011-12-20T10:17:00.002+13:00

Last night in my dreams I designed the most lovely weblog template. Of course, I can not remember it this morning. But I suspect it looked something like this. Or possibly featuring the photographs in this post, which are my favourites of all I've taken.

And I dreamed I got to hug my grandmother one last time. I dream that a lot. I wonder where we go when we dream, and don't talk to me about degaussing the brain. Don't you ever wake tired, just knowing that you've been travelling?

Last night I dreamed too of my story, and morning saw me groping for paper to write notes. All it took was one small question ... what are they wearing? ... and I found the extra fifty pages I was wanting as I head towards the final scenes.

"All my wishes lift up from me and fly like lost pages, or sails let go, turning white then grey then utterly invisible against the vast opaque sky ..."

I like my heroine. I like her sorrow, because I know I've got a happy ending in store for her. And I very much like being able to draw her into pleasure (although I ruin it again almost immediately afterwards). Most of all though I like watching how naive she is about almost everything. It's especially fun to write from the first person perspective of someone who has no real clue about what's going on in her own heart. It's that mix of candid and cryptic, you know?

(smile)

Hopefully, readers will see more clearly than she does.

Hopefully, there will be readers.

Anyway .... because so much of my creative thinking is being taken up lately by the book, I find myself having little of worth to write here. Even the photographs are repeats, because Picnik isn't working this morning. So in lieu of something good enough from me, I'll suggest this one instead.

{Soundtrack for today's post: Coldplay's Paradise.}

disconnected

2011-12-19T11:49:00.002+13:00

My blogger account was locked this morning. My weblogs were removed, I was shut out from Google Reader, and I couldn't even get up the support page to find out what had happened or how to fix it. All I knew was that "suspicious activity had been detected on my account" so it was shut down.

I guess I was in shock ... all those old stories and photographs, many of which don't even exist in any other place ... I didn't start crying until someone so kindly sent a note to an acquaintance of theirs in Google, in an effort to help me. You know, kindness will get me every time. Luckily, after following a wildly convoluted pathway, I happened upon a page where I could get a verification code sent to me. And so I'm back.

It's amazing what you can learn in moments of crisis. My main thought was, none of this really matters. It's simply not important in the grand scheme of things. I can make another weblog (although all the searchable terms I'd use were taken up over at wordpress!) No one cares anyway. My daughter is sitting here hugging me. My book is getting written. Children are starving in Africa.

And then I thought about how I blog. About whether it does matter if my voice disappears or not. What am I giving people? There are some bloggers I'd miss desperately if they disappeared because they give me so much. They inspire me with their poetry, their insights, their humour and the sweet insights into their daily lives, not to mention the reaching out in friendship when things go bad. Sometimes, they're blogposts are just a lovely rambling on, but it's like I can see them smiling, or sighing, and I wish so much I lived down the road from them so we could talk in person. They're of the race of Joseph, you know?

And then other bloggers, they're so concerned about themselves, even when they offer up poetry or beauty it means nothing because all their giving is a kind of taking. They don't comfort or encourage other people. They don't share a personal connection. Them, I wouldn't miss, no matter how pretty their blogs are.

I would like to be a blogger I'd miss if my voice disappeared.

Well, I have a book to get on with, and lunch to make, and a kitchen floor that really needs washing. And so we resume normal scheduling ...

saying hi

2011-12-18T18:17:00.001+13:00

Can't stop now, except for this quick note to say hi. Only four scenes to go, maybe one week, and then the first draft of my manuscript is finished. Well, you know, about sixteenth draft, considering I go back constantly to edit.

I'm really not sure how I accumulated that many words. They just seemed to happen. Although of course there have been long nights writing until midnight, days dreaming the story as I sit at the beach or walk through the shops.

And the best part? I know exactly what to write next.

How about you? How are you today? Me, I'm not actually soaking wet on a blood-stained beach, although a part of me is, and longs to get back there, get warm, go home. But here I'm already at home, warmed by a nourishing dinner, and about to delve into six more hours of writing. I hope you are warm too, well-fed, and loved (and, er, not blood-stained!)

the true meaning of christmas

2011-12-17T08:24:00.001+13:00

I've been reading a lot lately about the true meaning of Christmas. I can hardly help it - blogposts and pinterest pins are arising all over the place, reminding us that this holiday is about the birth of Christ. So I thought I'd add to that conversation from a way different perspective.

And now I tap the keys lightly, wondering how to write this ...

When I was growing up, we didn't have religious traditions about Christmas. It was all presents and family and food. And so that is where I find my personal "true meaning of Christmas."

In buying gifts for people, very carefully, with love and thought, so they know how much I care about them.

Gathering with family I never see at any other time during the year, unless there is a crisis. Knowing that, despite ignoring each other for the most part, we share a connection which will always be there.

Eating the foods we love. Even if it means we go hungry all next week (or survive on leftover ham and scorched almonds). Because this is a time for celebration, and everyone needs days in which celebration is more important than being sensible. It reminds us that we are souls with bodies, and that there is more to this existence than grocery bills and daily concerns.

So for me the true meaning of Christmas is giving because of loving.

Which just so happens to be what the Christian story is about too.

And the old "pagan" story of Winter Solstice also.

I think maybe sometimes we are so loyal to our own stories that we can't possibly see the value in those of other people. If you're not kneeling before a creche scene in church, you haven't really grasped Christmas' true meaning - ? Or for that matter if you aren't burning a Yule log and singing pagan hymns, you are buying into a lie about Christmas - ?

Seems to me though that, for cultures which have Christmas, the story is pretty much the same, however you word it. Christmas is a celebration of giving because of loving. Christians can own it, pagans can own it, atheists can own it too. One person's overflowing family dinner table is the same as another's white church pew.

Also : I have begun reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. I am really looking forward to reveiwing this book when I'm done, because I'm confident of giving it a glowing report. Beautifully written! Funny! Spooky! With a charming heroine. So far, I'm loving it.

remembering

2011-12-15T10:05:00.003+13:00

This year went by so quickly, I can hardly believe we're at Christmas already. When I summarise the months, I can make it look very exciting ... but disconnection was a big issue this year. Rose did have some friends, and I smile as I recall her afternoon tea birthday party with several lovely girls ... although perhaps the smile is for myself, and the panic I felt when I realised I didn't have enough food for them (they were already sitting at the table), and urgently made a huge pile of awful toasted cheese sandwiches which they didn't eat anyway. But we live too far from everything, and we made some choices which led us further into isolation, and I really need to fix that next year.

January was summer, and the beach, and long drives into the countryside as if we were tugging on dreams which never quite materialised.

February was busy as usual, the starting month for so many people in our country after the long peace of the holiday month. I wrote this: Fear is the hero with his arms wrapped around me, stopping me from shaping into wild, ferocious, unexpected expressions of myself.

March, and my daughter taught me again about being ferocious and strong. She is amazing. Sometimes I watch her pacing the limits of where I let her go (and must keep her, for the sake of the unexpected, at least for a while yet) and I think of the jaguars in the zoo, pacing, pacing. Also in March, I had an epiphany, which eventually slipped away from me as the months went on ... This is where you are, right now: with your God, in a perfect state. All else is just the world. I also wrote about my favourite fairy tale.

April, I was fighting the long fight for my daughter's dreams. (I fight it still.) Here is a story about it. I read Black Out & All Clear by Connie Willis and fell in love with a timeless love, a longing, the masterful writing that drew a lovely boy into a truly heroic man.

May seems, in retrospect, to be all storms and smiles and sunsets. It was a good month.

June is the joy month here. I wrote about my weblog design process, and somehow got more comments about it than on any post in a long time (nothing like Amanda Soule's inbox of course, but a surprise to me.) I've found metablogging is a popular subject. Although June contained its frustrations, it also had a day of wonder, in which I could not have been prouder of my brave girl. And I wrote what may be the best thing I've ever written.

July, we had our eyes opened. And Rose had her spirit stitched up tight. Looking back, I can see that although the fight had been raging for a long time even before this, July was when I dragged Rose wounded from the battlefield, and since then life has felt somewhat like a hospital. I am too impatient a nurse, and it doesn't help when people keep bursting in with guns blazing.

August : despite the blossoms, the gentle warming, a cold had settled in our souls.

September, I just kept trying. The spring spirit came to me, and I wrote about it: I feel closest to God in spring, as if open blue skies and small bird sound are our song, and we stand together, a private dance of stillness, like two who have been travelling - writing, glimpsing, calling down the long distance wire - and are at last reunited. Maybe God made me with blue in my bones. Every spring, I fall in love with him all over again.

October, I got one thing right. Sometimes that's all a mother can manage. I shared a piece of the story I was writing, Sea Fever, which I very much wish I was still writing (because, you know, it was actually quite good) but it became exhausting to fight the fight all day long and then write about it in my private hours after dark ...

November was a weary month. We decided it was time to run away, and began making plans which probably won't work. I also settled in at pilgrim soul, which was a mistake. I lost readers, people stopped commenting, and I came very close to giving up blogging altogether. So although I will keep that page for dreams, strange things, it wasn't very long before I knew I needed to crawl back home. (I've decided to keep the minimal template I love so much though.)

December is speeding by. I am glad this year is coming a close, because 2012 offers real hope for change ... if I make the right decisions. I know these next two photographs are very different from the others, but they are perhaps more me than sunlit blossoms ... something scarred, ugly, but with its own story to tell.

I hope your year was a good one, and I truly wish you many blessings for the next to come.

fire & burn

2011-12-14T06:26:00.001+13:00

The pain eats into me. I pull off all the blankets, relying on the cold for a solution which will soon no longer be possible as the nights warm up - warmth that will make the pain worsen.

It takes longer than usual - cold seeping, dark coiling, while I try not to sleep despite the fire. Finally, I am frozen.

And it doesn't help.

So hard getting up this morning after only two hours' sleep. The pain has subsided in my right leg, but is growing slowly again in the left leg, and the left shoulder. I really shouldn't have carried those heavy groceries yesterday, I know I have fibromylagia no matter the tiny smile on my mother's face whenever I mention it. But you tell me what a girl can do when she has groceries and must get them home.

At least I was able to put my book down earlier in the evening, or it would have been no sleep at all. I told you I loved Angel Burn, by LA Weatherly - I loved it so much (best book I've read in a long time, yes even better than the last one I raved about, way better) that when I found the sequel in Borders yesterday, I bought in on the spot. Eventually, I will have to buy Angel Burn too! And survive the months until the third book is published.

Please ignore any weird suggestions from the internet that Angel Burn (or just Angel in the UK) is about "a teenaged Bonnie and Clyde." So not true. It's a beautifully written adventure story with wonderful characters and a clever premise which takes a real dig at the mega churches of today.

If like me you grew up with movies such as Terminator and Universal Soldier, you will really love it. As I read it, I kept saying to myself, finally. Finally a really cool book.

So far, Angel Fire is almost as good. I'd found Angel Burn so very refreshing, so adult and common sensical in its construction, that I'm a wee bit disappointed to see this sequel has a love triangle. I know the market demands it, but it's hard for us adults who read the genre too! (Although so far I love the character of Seb.)

Even so, Angel Fire is very enjoyable. The two hours I did sleep, I dreamt about it. And I was pleased to see in the first pages that the author did something to the heroine which I'd been itching to do through at least half of the first book. But I am determined never to write a love triangle myself, except, well, its true that in my current book there is one ... but only in the deformed brain of the bad guy.

Tonight I shall go to bed with panadol on my bedside table and whatever is left of Angel Fire after I've spent the day reading it. Tomorrow if I'm lucky Wither should arrive, and we'll see if that is worth the anticipation I've been feeling. I've heard its good, but it has a long way to climb before it reaches Angel Burn in my heart.

(And yes I am really only about fifteen in my heart & reading tastes. I've read classic Russian literature, Thomas Mann, I can read Henryson & Chaucer in the original, I'm not dumb about books. But did you know the YA genre is actually full of fun & intelligent gems?)

ps, oh seriously cool - I've just found out the movie rights have been optioned. Awesome. My inner teen is doing a happy dance. Shame.

pps, added a correction to this post here.

dangerous words

2011-12-13T09:12:00.001+13:00

This morning on twitter I saw something about "the twelve most dangerous words for writers," and I clicked over, arguments already forming in my mind. It turned out to be something different altogether, so I clicked on back to twitter. Then someone wrote a clever and poignant tweet, and I immediately saw how to turn it around and in doing so ravel together a little story. And so I did ...

But at the last moment before posting, I changed all the pronouns, and destroyed the story, then sent it out bland. Because between the writing and the reading there is a space which is as empty as the air we breathe.

{By which I mean, of course, not empty at all. But you got that.}

Synchronicity. I always pay attention to it. I knew immediately I wanted to write a weblog post about this.

Words are dangerous. Spoken words can be killing, of course. I know someone who can bludgeon me casually with a half-word formed in the back of the throat then wander away, leaving me literally gasping and weak-kneed. But written words in a make-believe world you can close up anytime, they are just as bad.

Words said to you can really only hurt you if you care about the other person and their opinion. Writers, though, they work hard to make you care. It's absolutely their job, and the good ones do it very well, so that you lie awake half the night reading their book never mind that you have alot to do in the morning. They draw you in, use all kinds of tricks to make you love them, love their story, their characters. The whole point is to make you care. So their words, they can hurt bad.

I've been arguing with myself for days over certain words in my book. They hurt the heroine for a while, then she learns the truth. But I know they will hurt the reader for a lot longer. And I'm just not sure I want to do that. Usually, my feeling about dangerous words is, use them. Use them all to hell and back. But I also recognise that the difference between a good writer and a crappy writer is that the good one uses dangerous words for a reason. To set up a draining, or a healing. The bad ones just get overtaken by the sadistic streak all fiction writers must have to some degree.

The thing is, when you use words for effect, dangerous words, you have to be constantly aware of where the limits should lie. You don't want to go hurting people just for the sake of it. You wouldn't say the f-word to your granny just because it would shock her, not if you really loved her more than you loved your own cool attitude.

It takes courage to know when a story should not be told, no matter how much you like it, because the chances are too high that people will read it wrong, get hurt, or you yourself will be hurt, disturbed, knowing that you should have stopped. And sometimes the courage to stop can be harder than the courage to go ahead and share what is in your head regardless.

On the other hand, you can't tame things just because people might get it wrong. Lots of skinny poetic girls these days think Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a tender and tragic love story. It really takes courage to tell your story the way you know it should be told, and trust other people to get it.

{And I hope you know I'm talking about daily life here too, not just writing books.}

Sorry for the long post.

Also. In case you missed the link above, I'm reading Angel Burn. I'm loving it. So much. I'm really, really loving it. I'll tell you why some time soon when I haven't already written such a long post.

a love letter not written

2011-12-12T08:29:00.001+13:00

Seems a whole lot of people are writing love letters these days, sending out good vibes to strangers and distant word-friends. When I paused this morning to think about it, I realised there is only one I want to write to.

(To whom I want to write. Help, I'm stuck on teacher mode.)

I would say hey you, thank you. And then I would get all shy and stop. Because for all that I lift my heart for him, and lay down dreaming within him, and for all that some days his eyes on me, his touch on me, is all that keeps me upright ... and sometimes brings me down, beautiful down, falling with love, to my knees ... yeah for all that, I falter and hide when it comes to articulating just how I feel.

I can not throw myself at my god, like a wanton woman. It's taken years to even believe he notices me at all. Only science supports me in allowing it. Well, you know, a strange and mystic kind of science in my own mind, along the lines of "we are all the Woman, they are all the Man, with a little bit of half-understood quantum physics thrown in."

But I wonder at myself, that I'll take from him, and yet all I give back, most times, is only a thank you.

Some religions say its enough. But I think it's just a polite form of taking. I would like to do for my god. So I think about what I value in relationships, and that's easy. Being there for someone, acknowledging them, not just taking (even with thank yous) but being aware of what they might want, and acknowledging that too, and trying to give it to them if you can.

(You know, "want" as in "the hole that needs filling.")

I'll get down on my knees for god, and not only because sometimes I can not stand for the weight of love. But I'd also like to be able to stand for my god, and reach for my god, and pass him the salt, and open the door for him, and just sit quiet in his sad moments, and write him a letter with my finger against his heart. I love you. I need you. I'd like to be what you need too.

Pinterest is full of Christmas colour, driving me a little crazy. These are a few pictures I gleaned from the sparkly mess. Each reminds me in some way of standing at the skinless space between me and him, the space I am always trying to fill up with you. It's a lesson slowly learned. How "want" can be a love letter too.

Links: url, url, url, url, url, url.

storms and cups of tea

2011-12-11T09:23:00.001+13:00

I look at the week's weather forecast and feel exhausted. With just over a fortnight until Christmas, I still have a fair bit of shopping, baking, cleaning, fretting, to do. But I know how I will be spending many of the coming days.

This is what I'd like.

This is what Rose would like. (Although she wouldn't say no to a nice hot cup of tea afterwards.)

Guess which one of us will win?

On the writing front (and sometimes it does feel like a frontline). I know I promised a taster, and I don't mean to be coy. Just now I'm doubting that anyone would really be interested. (Maybe the spambots would like to read it though!) But I have got my eye on one or two things I might share ... more than a sentence, less than a page. I'll let you know.

In the meanwhile, my ebooks make absolutely no progress. I still haven't even touched the work waiting to be done towards a national networking programme I was asked to create. I have to budget for our upcoming move and keep annoying everyone by saying, after Christmas, after Christmas. And the list of presents I need to buy somehow keeps expanding. I was supposed to get myself new shoes for the day, but I might just wear Rose's sandals instead (yes our feet are the same size now!) Can I tick that off as one thing achieved from my list?

I hope you are having a wonderful day.

songs and stories

2011-12-09T14:09:00.001+13:00

My day is layered with dreaming. I got my students through a test, and at the end I could not stop laughing at the story one of them told. Then my dog threw up, and then they were leaving, and that's class over for the year. I hope I will be able to teach in some way next year. For all I hate it, I love it ... which seems typical.

If you would like to use my test questions as writing prompts for your own children, I will put them in the combox. They seem a little silly, pointless ... but I was testing for skills developed over the year, creating hooks, building character, expanding ideas, handling transitions, and so forth. They did well where I expected, and each of them in their own way not so well where I thought they might slide. I loved seeing how I changed their ability over time. And how I could gauge where I'd left them, and the reasons for it. I thought, I am not a teacher watching them. I am a storyteller enjoying the story of them.

Rose and I had cookies for lunch. One of my student's mother gave them to me, and they were too golden syrupy and warm to not eat immediately.

I crossed two more things off my to-do list, but still it blossoms.

{random proof that I do feed my child healthy food}

I thought I'd share the soundtrack to my manuscript. Everything is available on You Tube. I haven't provided links, because I want to get back to my book!

Bring Me To Life, by Evanescence (theme song)
No Light No Light, by Florence & The Machine
Shake It Out, by Florence & The Machine
Fleurs Du Mal, by Sarah Brightman

There are several others to which I listen repeatedly for inspiration, and to get me into the mood of the setting, but these are absolutely integral. And now I'd better get on with it.

romance

2011-12-07T19:08:00.001+13:00

The little girl ran past, laughing as a breeze washed her face with sensation. I looked up from her to the older girl, rushing into the wind.

Sometimes it's just easy. Finding love on a sunlit day. Kissing God.

Rose did her first work experience today, teaching some other children. I felt very proud of her. I doubt I myself will work today, though. Hours in the sun have left me with a headache. I'll just lie on the couch reading The Goddess Test and drinking tea, and watching Survivor with my girl, and going to bed before midnight for a change instead of staying up as long as possible writing.

I'm reading The Goddess Test because I skimmed it in the bookstore the other day and thought it looked good ... it is, so far ... and because its foundation is the same as I'm using for my own book (although my setting is very different).

I wish you fun in what you do. I wish that, when you turn your face towards your favourite thing, you meet God.

between

2011-12-06T11:02:00.001+13:00

She walks past with her hair half ironed, half wild curls, and she looks like my life feels at the moment. The Christmas spirit resounds in my heart ... but I have only played Snoopy's Christmas once, and no other carols. I'm too busy dancing with strange people in the darkness.

To music like this.

I'm also swaying between two choices, two very different lifestyles, and I love both so much, it is hard to decide. Once the choice is made, there is no changing our minds or circumstances. I wish I could sneak into the future just a little, to know how to get it right.

But some things never change. Buying notebooks for ourselves instead of all the necessities on our shopping list. (I am filling mine with words ... brittle, intangible, revelation.) Watching for storms. I'm supposed to be creating e-books of my poetry volumes and a new story collection, not to mention establishing a national support network, fact-finding before we move house, and preparing my last writing class for the term. And don't even talk to me about sorting out Christmas presents. Thank goodness for having bought most of them early!

But the thing is, I just can't stop dancing.

weekend wishing

2011-12-03T16:36:00.001+13:00

We visited a dream today. And it felt just like a dream. Lovely, comforting, and a little bit wistful. Afterwards, we ate lunch at yet a different beach and sighed over all the things we wanted back in reality.

It was hard being away from my manuscript for so long. I felt at peace while I was wandering, taking photographs, but as soon as we got into the car all I wanted was to be home, home on my couch, home in my imaginary world.

And when we did get home, there were burrs to cut from the dog's fur, and dishes to be done (an endless chore), and spiced potatoes to be baked ... They are in the oven now, filling the rooms with a divine aroma, and soon I will mix them with bacon, spring salad, for dinner. Strawberries for pudding. The lovely food of early summer.

I think some dreams will not be found in big things, but in the moments, where ever you are.

matched

2011-11-30T16:02:00.001+13:00

What is it about stories that they can move us so strongly, passionately ... so longingly that, upon the final chapter, we feel ourselves straining against skin and sound, as if we would go free into the story if we could? Today I sat on a plastic chair in a damp basement, my feet up on a canoe rack, as I finished Matched by Ally Condie ... beautiful, beautiful ... Then I had to pace, back and forth amongst the boats, trying to keep myself in. I cried a little, behind my sunglasses. I paced some more. I was moved.

Yes, Matched is a girl version of The Giver. (I handed it to Rose and said, "it's like that book, you know the one ... um ... and she said, The Giver? And I wondered again about the existence of telepathy.) And yes, it was slow-going at the start. Perhaps it also could do with more backstory. I tripped over some holes.

But I could not quite breathe when I finished it, and I paced, suspended in Cassia's heart, never mind the cold concrete shadows and the sandy wind and a long, frustrating wait to read the sequel. What had seemed at first like a fairly Young Adult fantasy contained sudden, secret wings; bursts of beautiful wild poetry; and such a yearning for the lover's touch I found myself leaning towards the page, yearning also ...

And I thought, this thing people say about stories - "we need them because they reflect our own experiences" - have you heard that? It's the wisdom. But its not always true. I believe the reason we need stories is because they give us what we want to experience.

A purposeful life.
To ride a dragon.
Adventure.
The true potency of poetry, long diminished in this lectured world of ours.
Justice. Confirmation of what we've always secretly believed. Hope. Understanding. Comfort.
Soulful, undeniable love.

I've discovered lately that teenagers are lucky these days. If they can get past all the vampires, ghosts, and black-eyed angels, there are so many amazing stories published for them. {And perhaps this is where the paperback book market will settle finally - in the YA section, as well as the Romance section, and everyone else will read on their Kindles like the sensible, serious-minded adults they are.} Someone loaned my twelve year old a series of cat adventurer books, and I won't let her read them, not when she only reads for a little time each day, not when there are books like Matched and The Hunger Games she could be reading instead. Stories that will feed her mind and leave an aftertaste forever on her soul.

dreams

2011-11-29T09:31:00.001+13:00

When I finally got to my email box this morning, I found notice from Kamana that she has today featured an interview with me at her lovely weblog, Journalling Through Photographs. I'm grateful for her kindness - and for seeing my photographs described as "dreamy". I can not think of a word I love better. It is exactly how I would want my pictures, and my words, to be. I've seen photographers talk about branding, and shied from it myself, but now I have the right word, I know how I want to focus my work. Dreamy as in creamy, soft, luscious, mysterious and slightly dark but in a safe way, something you would like to sink into. How I'd love to achieve this on a consistent basis in both photography and writing!

This morning's photographs are not very successful, but I thought I would demonstrate how I changed them with Picnik. I used to rail against over-editing images, but now I love to do it because it allows me to create the impression I saw myself when I took the photograph, but which my camera might not have captured.

The first thing I do is over-expose and increase the contrast. Then I add Velvia, which brings in more light, and possibly some Ortonish for even more light (no bloom) if needed. I play around with curves, maybe do a slight cross-process, add a texture sometimes, change the tint for that texture, and might add a touch of 1960s if there is too much white light. I don't process all my photographs this much, and usually won't spend more than five minutes on each picture. It feels like art and I take back all the bad words I used to say about it.

And now I must go mark my daughter's Hunger Games essay. And then, I should probably make lamingtons for the visitors we are expecting this afternoon ... and vacuum the bird's feathers which have shed all over the lounge again ... and wash the kitchen floor ... and ...

home made gifts

2011-11-28T08:45:00.001+13:00

I have not given homemade gifts to my family for a while. The extended family don't like them, and what I made for Rose was usually clothing - and she eventually grew out of wanting Mummy's sewing. But this year I am paying off sails and boating club fees, therefore many people are getting homemade whether they like it or not!

Mostly, it will be photographs. Calendars made from my pictures. Framed pictures. Most photographs look lovely in a professional style frame - be certain to have a wide white space between the photo and the outer frame - and you can buy a frame for under $10 at warehouse stores. So for $12 you can give a stylish gift of unique art. Last year, my brother & his wife got photographs of our local neighbourhood, because they now live overseas.

In previous years, the calendars were made from Rose's art, and each month had special celebration days marked out - International Cookie Day, that kind of thing. She is now too old for this to be cute. However, I have commissioned a special piece of art from her for my own gift this year.

I've also made a little movie of the family for my distant brother. And one year they got a fully scrapbooked album of family photographs.

Last year, Rose got a movie of herself which traced her sports development through the entire year. I put together all the little pieces of footage and photographs I'd taken through the year, as well as interviews with her (which she gave innocently) and her coach.

More than once, I have given a handmade recipe book. But I always think of recipe books as rather desperate gifts, offered up when you have no better ideas! Perhaps that's just because I don't like cooking! They do go together nicely with some pretty tea towels or a handmade apron.

Actually, I have made Rose aprons in the past. She also got several new hand-sewn dresses. It was difficult sewing late at night after she'd gone to bed ... especially the year that I made her a new piece of clothing for each day of advent! Never again!

When I was younger, I knitted scarves for people. Not such a good present considering our Christmas is in midsummer.

This year I want to get a memory jar for my grandmother, who has arrived at the age of Perpetual Nostalgia, and I just have to go through the awkward process of contacting my extended family asking for memories. That might scupper the whole plan.

I have previously made fleece fairies and gnomes for younger children. I packed them in tissue inside little white boxes. Some liked them, some didn't. This year for the children, I'll probably just make chocolate fudge. This isn't necessarily a cheap gift if you then turn around and buy fancy boxes or tins for it. So we'll probably make paper mache bowls as we did several years ago, and wrap them in cellophane.

One of my favourite gift ideas was buying lovely second hand books and filling them with pressed flowers and little quote cards. I don't know how the recipients felt about them, but I put a lot of thought into that.

Which reminds me of one of the best gifts I've ever received. A few years ago, Rose got a little book of recycled paper and filled it with pressed flowers. For weeks, she kept the secret. That book remains one of my favourite treasures, along with the wise gnome and his little assistant gnome which she made me a couple of years past. She has a genius for thoughtful handmade gifts. This year, in addition to the artwork, I'm hoping she'll make me some knitted cushion covers.

The internet is beginning to bristle with ideas for homemade gifts. I am hesitant to add my own. But the fact is, these are all real things I have actually done, and not all of them were a bust. And as I browse through pinterest, looking at all the exorbitant beauty, the houses brimming over with furnishings that, if sold, could feed a small country for a year, I feel guilty. I am not rich, and my house is furnished with hand-me-downs and handmade things. But it feels obscene to be contemplating how much money I can spend on gifts for people who have more than enough stuff already when so many millions of others would be grateful for a batch of homemade cookies.

ps, upon writing this post, I realised just how often I actually do give handmade presents. I'm surprised (and pleased). Do you like getting handmade presents yourself? I can truly say that I do.

the christmas spirit

2011-11-22T12:27:00.001+13:00

Rose and I walked to the bakehouse today, bought croissants and strawberries, and sat in a nearby park for the whimsy of a little picnic. As we gazed sleepily at the wooded hills, I thought of how this time of year is truly my favourite. I always believe I like spring best, and then I change my mind at the coming of autumn, but truly it is the childlike month in anticipation of Christmas which brings me greatest joy.

The world feels warm and innocent and ripe with love.

This is the time for scorched almonds, antique storybooks, tiny wildflowers in the sunlit grass, lunches of cold meat and strawberries, best tablecloths, Christmas trees, Snoopy, starlight, laughter, family, memory, peace.

ps, I have been trying out Lightroom 3. While I like some of its presets, and I definitely like the image clarity, I must admit I do not like the programme as a whole. I prefer being able to play around with all the features on Picnik. Having said that, Lightroom does preserve the quality of the image better.

Lightroom (and yes I know her hair is in her eyes. It was a snapshot.)

With Picnik.

what I think about writing

2011-10-29T09:52:00.000+13:00

I have already written a post this morning, but am about to break one of the first rules of blogging successfully: don't write too much too often. Because it seems that, while Pinterest just makes me snarky, Twitter is encouraging my vehemence. Sorry.

I have seen so many articles lately on how to become a successful writer. It's most likely I shouldn't say anything on this subject, since I've carefully avoided the whole issue by self-publishing, but I am going to comment in my capacity as a ~~bumptious know it all~~ witness to the literary field.

Advice To One Who Would Be A Successful Writer.

1. Write bloody well.

The end.

Yes, I know all about slush piles. But I also know that anyone who has genuine talent will be noticed. Even if they have bushy hair and are too shy to schmooze effectively at publishing conferences. Even if they don't network widely online. Talent is easy to spot. I can say that after years of analysing student writing. Talent is apparent on the first page. And people get very excited about it. Even if the writer is a grumpy cuss who has no respect for deadlines, or doesn't want to travel to market their book, or never hired an agent.

I dont want to offend anyone by saying this, and certainly don't want to make a bad name for myself by being argumentative. But I'm an unschooler, right? This is how I see things. Marketing and blogging are great tools for the clever, social writer. But the writer who is outside that box, and yet has genuine talent, can be successful also. The only reason to believe otherwise is if you doubt your own talent can carry you through, and so you feel you have to make a whole lot of publicity noise to cover up your bad grammar and flat dialogue.

Once again, I blame fear. The fear of would-be writers. The fear of an industry which is wavering and sliding, and needs all the marketing fuss it can get. The fear of readers who love good books. Always, always, you have to go beneath fear to find truth. And then things become very simple.

Write. Do it well. Decide how you define success, and write for that.

The end.

Obligatory photograph to maintain the calm and pleasing atmosphere:

And ... one woman's thoughts on what defines success.

And ... another woman, a success of real.

on teenagers

2011-10-29T09:20:00.004+13:00

I've said this before, but am in the mood for lecturing today. I don't believe in adolescence. It seems to me an enormous trick played on young people in order to keep them in school, out of the workforce, for as long as possible. A hundred years ago, when society needed all the labourers it could get, adolescence did not exist. It still does not today in countries where everyone's input is valued.

Of course, others have more noble beliefs about the invention of adolescence. "Universal education laws kept them in school, thus prolonging the period of dependence—a dependence that allowed them to address psychological tasks they might have ignored when they took on adult roles straight out of childhood." source

And yet have you noticed how many unhappy, unfulfilled adults we have these days? How much business there is for therapists? How many divorces, abortions, self-harms, substance abuses, complaints about worklife, hours wasted on computer gaming? Addressing psychological tasks has not helped us. But if you look at a busy teenager doing work they value, you'll see little introspection ... and yet a healthy psychology, an independent person, and someone who feels good about their life.

(I'll admit that valued work makes all the difference, and in those countries without adolescence the work is often not valued, and keeps them from realising any dreams they might have.)

I began working part-time when I was thirteen. By the time I was seventeen, I was living alone, working full-time, and writing. I wanted very much to be a responsible contributor to society, and I often wonder what I might have achieved had my teachers guided me instead of allowing me to just opt out of classes, and not even really caring that I existed. As it is, I strove towards my dreams, and achieved them eventually, although not to the fullness I had wished - perhaps I could have if someone had said, you have value besides a number on a school roll, how can I help you towards success? Or even if they had said, this school stuff is a waste of time for you, stay at home and write a novel, and become yourself.

School only inspires and guides those youth who need it to become themselves. And so for them, adolescence is working time. Those classes and exams are steps on their pathway towards becoming the lawyer, doctor, teacher they dream of being. For the rest of us, it is a prison.

I will not be allowing adolescence for my daughter. And I doubt I could even if I wanted - she is already on her path, and blithely ignoring those people who might suggest she's too young to be thinking seriously about her future. She has two role models. One is seventeen and a world champion. The other is twenty and has just been nominated for sailor of the year. Rose looks at them and thinks, why should I wait?

There is only one reason why: because other people don't feel comfortable about self-determined, ambitious, focussed children. They say things like, yes but don't you need to play the school game and get your exams? I can't think of anything more silly. Why would any self-motivated and confident young person want to shackle themselves to a system designed to hold them back? (Unless they want to be a lawyer, doctor, teacher.)

Personally, I think it comes down to fear. No doubt thousands of parents, and teenagers, think school is a waste of time but if you don't get your exams you will have no success in adulthood at all. Fear is the great undoer.

I am inspired this morning by an article from Elizabeth Foss, which I highly recommend reading.

on a spring afternoon

2011-10-27T13:55:00.000+13:00

The world is like a poem being constantly written. I love its annual cadences, and its motifs, and the way it echoes lines composed thirty years ago.

(Would it be extending the metaphor too far to say Spring is my favourite stanza?)

I am unwell today with a fibromylagia flare, so we ambled slowly to the store to buy some lunch and I did necessary housework, and now am resting on the couch.

Google Reader is soon going to disallow shared items. This is very sad to me as one of the purposes I enjoy in being online is sharing discoveries with other people. I will miss having an easy widget in my sidebar, but will always share links any way I can.

Here are a few I have appreciated lately.

Brain-picking is an amazing online gathering house of intelligent resources, and a playground for this unschooling mother (although I dislike their contempt for creationist theories and mythology.)

They featured the comic book Hark! - I loved the strip about Hamlet.

And these cartoon animations about philosophical theories went immediately into an email (modern day strewing) to Rose.

Brain-picking also led me to this BBC series on the Romantics - good enough in itself, but the sidebar choices are exciting too.

This slideshow on do-it-yourself education is fascinating. I was stunned by the trend for tuition costs.

This article on the importance of grit over talent puts forward a belief both Rose and I share, although I do see that having talent enables you to progress more readily and so encourages you, makes you more determined, makes your goal to seem more possible than it does when you have no talent.

We love this little story.

And we love this cool advert for the Beetle car.

Mia's Landliv is my favourite of several northern European weblogs which have beautiful charm and style.

kindred spirit

2011-10-26T17:22:00.003+13:00

Why I read the Anne of Green Gables books so often ...

home and I are such good friends
the water lay like a great silver dream
that little white porch room, sacred to the dreams of girlhood

still
motherly
meadows
apple-tree
enraptured

the wholesome, simple life
the steadfast, abiding love that was there for her

an autumn sunset of deep red fire and pallid gold
one of my old, delightful, funny aches
the rosebud tea-set

the life of heaven must be begun here on earth
lines of love and trust

deep, sad hymns of the sea
I like flowers I can live with
the moonlit road

rambled
blessing
sorrowful rain
muslin
drifted

the guardian spirit of the garden
a warm plummy odour filled the whole house

renewing
embroidered
pleasantly
compassion
anticipations
love

she wondered if old dreams could haunt rooms - if, when one left for ever the room where she had joyed and suffered and laughed and wept, something of her, tangible and invisible, yet none the less real, did not remain behind like a voiceful memory

dreamily
inmost reflections
spring evening
camaraderie
shawl
meandered

the beauty of moonlight on familiar fields
the moon lay like a great, drowned blossom of gold
it is sometimes a little lonely to be surrounded everywhere by a happiness that is not your own

a hush fell over the world

all quotes from Anne of the Island, LM Montgomery.

Would you like to draw some words, phrases, from your current read & share them here (or at your own place) with us?

domestic days

2011-10-23T15:45:00.000+13:00

Last evening, Rose and I took a stroll around our neighbourhood. Normally we go westward, but this time we took an eastern path and discovered places we had not seen before, despite living here almost two years. Ours is not the prettiest neighbourhood, but everything is beautified by twilight.

Our little dog had a marvellous time. She doesn't get out on adventures nearly as often as she deserves. Although she finds even the daily run up the hill a grand lark. That's dogs for you. They exude love ...

Except to cats.

We are looking forward to the Rugby World Cup final tonight. I've never liked rugby, but this is different somehow. Our country has had a very difficult couple of years, and we need this excitement and this chance to celebrate. I love how patriotic Kiwis are. This is such a lovely land and, although I wish I could live in Europe for the opportunities it would afford Rose, I will always be proud to be a nuclear-free Kiwi. (Which was what I wrote on the back of envelopes in the old days when people still sent paper letters.)

We will have smoked chicken pasta for dinner, tabouleh made fresh from ingredients grown in our own garden, and apple pancakes. I might write soon about my thoughts on toxic childhood and how I have tried to protect my child from harm while at the same time allowing in a certain amount of plastic and potato chips.

Many blessings to you all.

books and things

2011-10-22T18:20:00.002+12:00

I have finished a slow reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. Which doesn't mean I have finished the book itself, but it has to go back to the library. I admire Ann's courage in sharing so much of herself in such an intensely honest way.

I'm currently reading a charming biography of the young Dalai Lama, and also Anne of the Island. I love all the Anne books, they bring me back to my heart's home. Even half a chapter read at bedtime one evening made me feel warm and cheerful for the next few days.

Waiting to be read are Children First by Penelope Leach and Toxic Childhood by Sue Palmer. A glimpse in the latter just before doing my grocery shopping reminded me to buy healthy food. We had manuka smoked chicken salad for dinner, and early season strawberries with vanilla ice cream and honey for pudding. Actually, this is how we usually eat ...

One book I am greatly anticipating is The Thorn and The Blossom by Theodora Goss. She has such a calm and intelligent understanding of language. Her stories linger in the memory, like light or an old ache, for years. This particular book looks intriguing, beautiful, and although I would buy any Theodora book anyway, I'm especially wanting to have this one, even if only for its cover.

ps, I am having trouble commenting on some weblogs, so please forgive me if you have not heard from me lately. Chances are I've written and it's just not gone through.

welcoming

2011-10-19T16:28:00.000+12:00

I am inspired in this post by Mrs M of the sight of morning, who has inspired me in other ways previously also. I am reminded yet again that a weblog gives one the opportunity to welcome visitors into a special space, an imagined sitting room - people you would love to meet with, and share time with, if only they did not live so far away.

That is why I write in this public forum. To offer thoughts and experiences and stories, other little things, such as one does with friends.

(Visiting Lesley Austin's beautiful journal always helps me recollect my heart.)

no hurry

2011-10-18T19:15:00.000+12:00

I am learning that I don't have to fill every silence, answer every question, fix every small issue. Infact, trying to do that often causes more problems.

Slowing down is not just about action, but also how you feel inside.

It's about not being afraid.

Why should I be in such a hurry? There is richness and beauty in every moment, and each time I try to rush it forward I miss that. I miss the words which might be born from an anxious silence. I might miss deeper wisdom I could develop if giving something more than reflexive thought.

Slowing down means trusting the moment.

an observation

2011-10-17T15:28:00.000+12:00

I am fascinated by how some people can give you the silent treatment while still engaging you in pleasant conversation. Questions they don't answer. Words they pretend not to have heard.

As if they think you will not notice.

It is an act which speaks volumes.

noticing

2011-10-16T15:54:00.001+12:00

Have you ever noticed how you are made ready, even just a little bit, for major changes in your life? You are gently oriented towards future understanding and hope.

Have you ever noticed how, when change is necessary to get you out of a difficult situation, but for some reason you just can't manage it, the people responsible for the difficulties are so often the ones who enact that change? You may hate them for it at the time, but sooner or later you realise how grateful you are.

Have you ever noticed how, when things seem the worst, that means you are almost to the top of your mountain, and very soon you will be able to fly from the summit, on wings you never knew you had, into beautiful sunlight.

the shape of light

2011-10-14T12:49:00.000+12:00

There is so much I would love to share with you. Laughter and coiled sunlight and gold against a white sky. The way she walks across the sand, casting a shadow of her future self which inspires my heart and makes me want to follow her always to see what she will do next. The horizon, always changing, a stretching god, a promise of wind and rain and dreaming light.

There are people I wish I could tell you about. Selfish people who turn up only for joy, love, the free pursuit of happiness. They lift my heart in ways I've never experienced before and change the way I see the world. They require nothing from anyone else except that you follow your own heart too, or else stay out of their way. That is the best, most generous gift of all. I was warned about their selfishness. But I find it beautiful.

And yet, if I told you about that, I'd also have to tell you about the sorrows, the disappointments. Days when everything we want is coming from the wrong direction, so we can't have it. Trying to hold hope when it exists only as a small glint of something which might exist beyond western shores.

My life is storms and soft lulls. Don't suppose which is the best one. Everything is made raw, revealed beneath its surface, inside the wind.

mermaids and poets

2011-10-13T09:17:00.001+12:00

She skims across the swollen sea, and little rainbows flash in her wake. She is a mermaid girl, tossing up magic without thinking, the natural consequence of her inner magic. On land, she goes deep.

We live in a country of pioneers' children. Our hollow meadows and vast aching farms were hacked out of forest. The veins and amputations of ancestral trees still trouble our pastures. We jut wharves into the ocean, pile houses high on islands, and only believe in gold when we see it hammered to a disc and stamped with a symbol.

But some of us are haunted by ghost forests. And some of us are mermaids. Rose and I have seen a taniwha, rising dreamlike from the waters, gliding importantly beneath. This land, these souls, are wild and sacred territory. The skin of God.

This is why I homeschool. Because the one thing I believe enough to fight for is that every child should be able to lie skin-on-skin with God, feeling the pulse beneath. And they can never do that if they are standing on someone else's platform.

Kelly and Claire at High Calling Focus are exploring double-exposures this week. I was inspired, and so I played.

in the beautiful maybe

2011-10-12T14:19:00.004+12:00

I once said something to Mel, I don't remember what, but in amongst all the words there were these few. The beautiful maybe. She drew them out and hung them up, and for months now I have been looking at them without much feeling. It was just a pretty thing I once said.

Today as I was rummaging for words to write this post, I visited Mel's weblog, and those old words of mine reached out to me. This place, I can call it hopeless, difficult.

Or I can choose to see it as the beautiful maybe.

Maybe the maybe is that I am growing into understanding, and my bones are aching for it, but they will not break.

Or maybe the maybe is that climbing mountains is difficult, but the summit remains.

One thing I do know. Wise men have said it more than once. "Do it your way. Have fun, your way." Follow your own heart.

It is something I said to Mel today. Follow your love, and everything else will come.

And I know all I can do is keep pouring love into my situation. Maybe the maybe is being reminded that love doesn't always mean words, and doing, and making a difference.

Sometimes it's just standing on the beach in the rain and letting things unfold their own way.

small moments

2011-10-09T09:06:00.002+12:00

Some thoughts drifting through the sparrow quiet of Sunday morning.

photos from my pinterest collection, please visit to see credits

Why do Americans call china a name so dull as "transfer ware"? Every moment offers a choice of beauty, of poetry. Some moments do require simplicity, like bleached linen in a rose-papered kitchen - a respite. But china is an old poem which should not be translated into prose.

photos from my pinterest collection, please visit to see credits

I have never considered myself a particularly good writer. After all, this world has known Robert Frost and Jane Austen and Shakespeare. But last night I was reading through the book I am writing (still thanking you here in my heart, Lissa, for the idea and inspiration) and I had one moment when I thought, this is not so terrible maybe. I can't show you what I read in that moment, because it has no power out of context. I can only offer you one ordinary little bit, which is worthless but I wanted to give you something, to share my process ...

"Hey there Rocket," Eric said,
because he did that –
called me a silly name like that –
knowing
it embarrassed me.
He grinned at mum until she laughed.
But the laugh
shuddered
a little
and then she drove away.
I felt as if my shore
had pulled out from
the sea of me.

"Hey there Rocket," Eric said,
and tossed a bag at me.

We got on the plane, flew
halfway round the world
again.

Alot of it works best in context, which is always the way with poetry. I am discovering how to write a narrative poem without losing either the narrative thread and the poetry. It's not easy, but it is fun, and there are moments ... moments when it works ... half a line falling into something perfect ... and I think, this is why I write. For the moments.

The new prompt is up at The Aeolian Harp.

hell on earth

2011-10-06T07:41:00.002+12:00

The older I get, the more simple things seem. I used to think I would only be happy if I had a certain kind of house in a certain kind of neighbourhood. But now I understand that happiness is false, it is allowing myself to fall into the mass delusion of this commercial world where we are constantly drawn from ourselves, and our connection with the Source, in order to make other people rich.

True joy is holding your baby in your arms. Feeling sunlight on your face and experiencing it deep in your instinctual awareness as a mindful caress. Sitting at a computer on a Thursday morning and hearing all the gentle calm of the garden, the meadow, the hills rising to roads where even the traffic sounds like soft music. Happiness is knowing you are in possession of ... and yourself possessed by ... something more vast and beautiful than anything money could buy.

Some people say hell is being disconnected from God. If we die disavowing the existence of God, we will be in a hell of our own separation. I personally believe we don't need to wait until we're dead. With our superyachts and our hugely expensive college degrees and our Father's Day gifts and all our focus on materialism, we have made a palace of illusion, and denied ourselves the heaven we can experience every single day if we just look, listen, and love.

october afternoon

2011-10-04T19:48:00.003+12:00

The birds are singing a forest in my hedged back garden. I wonder if they are only dreaming, or if they have flown recently from the great dark gathering of trees in the north, and have stories they are telling the blossom birds, the small birds of the lanes.

More and more these days, I am bewildered by those people who urge their children into career success, or worry about their own material achievements, or struggle to gain more money. Is this really want they want to do with their precious lives? Developing my faith has changed me in profound ways. I can no longer find value in presidential power, great wealth, or Olympic success. I keep wanting to ask millionaires, so what helpful things are you doing with your money? I want to ask Olympic stars, so what good are you doing with your medals? And I want to know, is a real leader someone who has to pay millions of dollars, in this world of starving children, to convince us to elect him?

In my daughter's sport, there is a man who answers the letters of admiring children. Converts his fame and fortune into promotion for his homeland and meaningful work there. He is my hero, because he isn't just good at the sport, he uses it for good.

What matters? At fourty-something, I ask myself this about life. What really matters? Acknowledgement and wealth and publishing deals? Proving what, to whom?

Actually I think it's important to listen to bird song. And when you listen, you know, because you are listening, that God sings through us all when we tell stories of what is real in our souls.

I want to tell my soul story through what I do with my life.

ps, is this template too crowded for you, also can you read the font clearly enough?

sometimes

2011-09-27T15:03:00.001+12:00

Sometimes you have to take your fears, wrap them up in your needs, and do the brave thing. I don't know that many people realise how much courage shyness requires. Last night, I had to be brave. I was until I didn't have to be anymore, and then I crept home aching through the star-smacked darkness. But I am better today because I am busy.

It's easier to be brave when you are busy.

Today we wandered along a beach, quiet and wondering. Because sometimes, after courage, after stories and stars, you need water amongst stones. And it has to be enough.

desaturation

2011-09-23T19:46:00.002+12:00

I glanced out the window and saw redgold light illuminating pink blossoms. So of course I ran out with my camera ... my dear little fuji which is starting to falter ... and with great enthusiasm I gathered colour and light.

But when I opened the images into my virtual darkroom, all I wanted to do was remove the colour, exalting light.

You know I can say things poetic, religious, and wise about light. Anyone can. But the fact is, I blanched these images because it was the perverse thing to do. I had taken them specifically for the sake of colour. And the colour was beautiful. It pulsed through the images : Life's heartbeat against its petalled skin.

(I will show you tomorrow or some day.)

But what I love about taking pictures is the same as what I love about writing : looking at things the wrong way. Because when you do that, you find the story.

A student of mine sent me a creative piece of writing this week. She had narrated an episode of her personal history exactly as it had occured. Yet nowhere in there had she captured its truth.

Actual, obvious truth is so much different from the sinew truth that makes things move.

As I was reading her story, I came across a casual line in which the main character admitted it wasn't that she distrusted the vehicle she was about to board, but herself in handling it. There, I told her in big red letters (I am one of those teachers.) There is your story. Throw away the thousands of other true words, and write that sentence wide and hard and into the marrow. And then you will have a truly true story.

It's what I would also tell someone about the narrative of their life. All these things you have, these lovely linens and polished cars and high-heeled shoes, tell a certain truth about you. They are the light and colour of you. And they have worth.

But the real truth of your life is what remains when all the light and colour has been desaturated, and it's just you, in your one silent moment before you begin answering why.

ps, these thoughts merge with our current three prompt: left of centre. Where will you choose to focus, and what will that reveal? In my picture, I set the focus on the knuckled branch rather than the flower. Seemed to me there was a different, darker beauty there than in the petals - usually ignored or unvalued, but worth its own story. So many people could say the same thing about themselves, don't you think?

Unfortunately, resizing the photograph to fit it into the triptych slightly distorted and spoiled the image. Maybe there is a message there too.

room

2011-09-22T09:39:00.001+12:00

Melissa Wiley can be a dangerous person to know! She recommends books which will have you so absorbed that, when you finally remember to look up, you discover your child is so far from shore she can not even see you waving at her to come back.

I ordered Room because Lissa mentioned it. I read it in one afternoon (inbetween traipsing along shorelines, grocery shopping, snarling at Facebook for all its sudden manglings of what had once been a lovely space, and cooking dinner.)

At first I loved the book. I thought the child narrator's voice was very well done, although after about twenty pages I began quick-scanning to get to the interesting parts. (It was not as well done as The Boy Who Wore Striped Pyjamas, but still sweet and endearing.) I loved the sense of his deep intimacy with his world, which I think every child has regardless of their circumstances. And I was inspired by Ma.

The story of how Ma consciously created such a beautiful relationship between herself and Jack, as well as a beautiful safe world for him in such limited circumstances, really spoke to my own perspective on motherhood, especially as a homeschooling single mother who tried to follow Waldorf principles of attachment and imagination. Although of course Lily and I have never been locked up in a garden shed, nor anything even close - although we did spend her first year living in an isolated house high in a cloud forest!

But ...

The second half of the book ruined everything for me. Ma became a person I could only despise, and thus absolutely spoiled all the inspiration of the first half. Even made it into perhaps a lie, something I could doubt as Jack must have doubted. Was she only acting the devoted mother because she had no choice, no other entertainment?

I appreciate she was traumatised. And it is true that mothering is harder in the Outside. Perhaps Donoghue was just trying to be realistic. But I felt her idea of realism was to make everyone just ever so slightly repulsive. I also don't think characters' behaviour was authentic to the circumstances, but perhaps I am too versed in trauma responses to read a novel which imagines them!

Ultimately, I came away from the book with a feeling of sadness, disgust, and loss. The loss was in sympathy with Jack - not because he lost his beloved universe, but because in many ways he lost his ma. The loss was also for myself. I'd been so uplifted by the consciousness of motherhood (even with its several small, normal flaws), that to have it destroyed just when it really needed strength was utterly demoralising to me.

I don't think literature needs to provide readers with inspiration for self-betterment. But my problem with Room was that it took Ma's beautiful selflessness, her heroic strength, her love, and smashed it all to pieces, for apparently no better reason than to expand Jack's viewpoint of the world.

I have since read about how Donoghue used details from the Fritzl case for her story, and that was ... food for thought. Writers do use such things. Apparently though, many people felt she was exploitative. I don't know. I can tell you I think she exploited her own characters. Perhaps, though, I am too much a mother. I do recommend this book, because not every reader will be as sensitive as I. Also, I'm aware I often give negative reviews - sorry. This book did bring up a lot of thoughts for me, which is good. It did its job. I would love to write more about those thoughts ... especially about how motherhood can be changed, distorted, stretched by outside influences ... but I'm aware this is already a very long post. Perhaps tomorrow.

Have you read Room? What did you think of it?

(ps, does anyone have any idea why Link Within is not working for me?)

how I take photographs

2011-09-20T10:15:00.002+12:00

I am going to do something ridiculous and possibly offensive today. I am going to give advice on taking photographs. Please understand however, I am not a professional photographer, nor am I ever likely to be, considering I don't know or care what an f-stop is and I will never be interested in making a flash diffuser (or even bothering with a flash at all.) I actually have no right advising you on taking photographs.

But I shall.

(my other camera is fancier - although not much so!)

1. Notice.
I was walking up some stairs the other day, and stopped to take a photograph of the stair tread. My friends looked at me with amusement and kept walking. They had not seen the art in the stone. Imagine how many hours it took for someone to create beauty that people would not notice, would trample, but would be blessed by, deep beyond their mind, into their knowing bones. Only much later did I notice the white heart superimposed on the spiral. It's a message about the nature of living, don't you think? When I was walking those stairs, I was surrounded by grandeur, by elegance and wonder and light. But I looked where I was going, and found the meaning of life. (I am nothing special, this moment was a gift given to me.)

2. Love.
You always get better pictures when you love what you are photographing. But the best pictures of all are when you are able to photograph love itself. This might not happen in any expected way. Love seldom does. A photograph of a woman kissing her newborn grandchild will show love, for sure. But this next photograph reminds me of how anything can carry love. Lily was standing under a wet, transparent umbrella. The resulting sparkles seemed to speak of her love for the water, the light ... and of my love for her.

3. Trust.

I took the following photograph half-blind. The sun was shining right at me, so I simply lifted my camera and clicked. I'd been taking several random pictures that morning. My heart was open to whatever the world had to show me. This was the result.

4. Find the heart.
This next photograph is of the heart of a rose. But I don't just mean the centre of it. I was amazed and delighted to have portrayed the essence of this particular flower -its softness and purity, and the warmth at its core.

5. Be there.
You have to be in life in order to photograph life. And that means more than walking along a beach and snapping pictures of pretty things you see along the way. My favourite beach photos reflect the things I know and understand about the shoreline. Everything in life is about relationships. That is what you are photographing. The more you see those relationships, the better your pictures will be. Also, don't assume it's all about the relationship between f-stop and shutter speed and the lens and the light. The following photograph was taken on a small point-and-click camera, and the only editing was a little increase in contrast. I hope I was nevertheless successful in portraying the sense of distance that I feel when I am standing on a beach looking out to sea.

6. Really be there.
This next photograph was taken while driving along a main highway. The car did not stop, I simply put my camera out the window and snapped. It was an impossible hope that somehow managed to work. I could not help myself - I loved the view so much. Often, I will go through my day looking constantly for photographs. It is a beautiful, blessing way to live, because I am forever seeing the beauty in everything. I wish everyone in the whole world could have a camera.

7. Draw out the art.
I used to be opposed to photoshopping programmes, but now I appreciate mine. I use Picnik Premium and it's just right for me. I still dislike the overly manipulated photographs that so often come from photoshop devotees. Picnik encourages me to use my virtual darkroom to repair what problems my meagre camera causes and replace the functions it does not have. It also helps me sometimes to bring out the inner truth of a photograph which a straightforward picture will not illustrate.

8. Be humble.
This is just something which works for me, both in photography and writing. If I ever produce anything of worth to other people, it is because I have been given a tool, a moment, a view, of something God wishes to communicate, and the ability somehow to do that so other people may hear or see. I always knew with writing that I was merely taking dictation, and my job was to perfect my technique as much as possible in order to honour the responsibility I had been granted. The most I will say about my writing ability is that, when I apply it properly, I have good technical skills, following years of self-training. With photography, I am even more a cipher. And so all credit goes always to the one who created these images in the first place.

moments from my week

2011-09-17T13:01:00.000+12:00

My daughter saying, "there's not much story in being rich and getting everything you want."

Finding a warm, sunlit place to sit on a boat ramp while everywhere else was ravaged by cold wind.

Listening to this song. (When I was 14, I had a thing for rock stars with wild hair (and anyone named Ace.) Don't judge me. It was the 80s. Robin Zander not only had lots of insane hair, he also had a name starting with Z. Sigh, I was pathetic. Note: was. But please, people. Swoon. Oh, and pause it at 1.20mins. Sexy man with wild hair and spectacles. Double swoon.)

Watching Rose jump calmly onto a board and sail out into 80km winds - feeling just how awesome and inspiring she is. And realising I am less scared than I used to be. The kid knows what she is doing.

Realising two of the students in my writing class are letting themselves get in the way of their learning and performance, and that I am completely unable to fix this.

The kindness of a friend who helped us out simply because he understood (and shared) Rose's enthusiasm ... and the tiresome attitude of another person, who did us a favour and then reminded me four times what I owed him because of it.

Getting my hands on George Millar's crazy, overblown, fascinating memoir of his time in the maquis.

The sun after a storm.

the failed experiment

2011-09-15T21:12:00.002+12:00

There was a man with a great heart for his own ambition. He would never be king of the world, but his niece would be empress of a large portion of it, and his nephew was a likely lad who, properly educated and then married to the niece, might create the world this man desired - and in that secret way he would be its king, its maker.

So the niece married the nephew, and together they bred their mentor's dream. Their daughter married a man who would become an emperor at the world's heart. And almost it came true. Almost they made that wonderful world of peace, democracy, liberality.

But the old order still had some strength remaining, and they got hold of the little son who personified all that long-fostered hope. They took him and blackened him with their cold and cruel ideas, and they shrunk his soul like his arm was shrunken, and in doing so they broke the heart of the world, and laid waste to millions of as-yet unborn lives.

I am going to be teaching Lily about WWII (with certain omissions). Despite what I wrote recently about our homeschooling, I feel our two-year unschooling experiment has proven in many ways a failure for us. While I'm not going to take us back to a comprehensive curriculum, because Lily really does learn very well on her own, I am introducing a sequence of major unit studies.

Left to her own devices, Lily would probably get around to learning about the war in one way or another. I'd probably continue to feed her books such as Number the Stars, which she is reading now although it is too young for her. But would she know to learn it in the context of history? I myself am particularly interested in that moment when the path diverged - where hope failed - where choices most clearly could have been made either way. I also find it fascinating how the private stories of individuals can create world disasters.

Over the years, I have read hundreds of books about Europe from the 1700s to 1950. I've studied Nazi Germany, including reading biographies of its leaders and other major players; I've read fact and fiction about Britain at war; I've studied World War I from the perspectives of Germans, Russians, French, and British. (Not really anything about the Americans.) I've also read individual biographies of dozens of royals from that era - all the cousin-kings, their brides, mad sisters, and tragic children. I've learned about the generally unknown, but highly influential, people such as Baron Stockmar. I know the family stories ... the kings and emperors playing practical jokes on each other ... the bedroom secrets ... what they ate for supper while reading in bed. I've read their diaries and letters.

I can not bear the thought of my daughter learning that World War II happened because of Hitler's ambition, or even because Germany was disenfranchised after losing World War I. I'd hate her to learn all about the subject without ever encountering Nancy Wake, or the citizens of Dresden, or King George when he was a frightened little boy.

There are so many wonderful, fascinating true stories in this world. If I could get Lily to simply read more, I would be content. But it took me years - decades - to read all those books. At this point, I might as well just tell her what I know. And let other people tell her know about their favourite subjects (through books or lectures). Why should she repeat all their hard work? One person, one child, can not possibly learn so much from scratch on their own.

I am tired of watching my daughter walk unguided through this culture, learning a great deal on certain subjects but nothing on others. She could teach me about meterology or physics. She does teach me about computing! But I think she also needs to know about Leopold, and Wilhelm, and Nancy Wake. And how will she know if I don't tell her?

ps, thanks to those who so kindly answered some of my questions in this previous post. I really need all the help I can get with the story prompt!

trying to adapt

2011-09-13T19:37:00.004+12:00

When my daughter was little, I dressed her like an old-fashioned prairie girl, kept her from climbing trees, told her probably every fairy tale in existence, and to balance out all the advanced science studies I gave her fleece fairies and gnomes for toys. She was my sweet, gentle angel.

So when I see her do an extreme sport in huge gale force winds that overwhelm some adults, it's hard to get my head around. I veer wildly between videoing her (proud mama) and urgently pacing the carpark, praying, and flapping my hands (hysterical mama). I think my fear would be a lot less if I accepted how capable she is. But I can't get the image of a little girl in ribbons and pinafore out of my mind.

We were talking today about how she would be high school age next year, and I felt a little breathless. Those thirteen years went so fast! But I don't mind. I have lived every moment of them to the fullest, and so really can't regret their passing. However, I never expected that everything would become so different. I'm not complaining - I love our life - I'm just still trying to adapt.

I never expected my daughter would be so cool.

two stories at either edge of the evening

2011-09-12T09:51:00.000+12:00

Sunday, 7.30pm

He has a smile which diminishes the whole world. As he steps towards her there is nothing she can do but stand her ground, like a small surrender to ensure she is not destroyed.

Half a dozen countries have now surrendered. She experiences their war in intense microcosm in that elegant, crowded party room. He waits for her to fall in love with him, as he knows everyone does. She wonders how long it will take for someone to kill him.

And somewhere out there in the poised city, a phone is ringing, but no one picks it up.

I stand in these moments and want them, live them, in the little way of a writer wanting her story into words like life ... But first I have to plough my way through a long difficult dialogue, and that stalls everything. It is the real side of the dream.

Monday 9.00am

She grows beyond the edges of what I have dreamed for her. When the bandit stops their coach, she quickly takes her rings, earrings, and hides them in her bodice.

What happens next inverts everything I expected. And it makes me laugh, which is always welcome. I think about how much I want to live in Europe, and wonder if Charlotte might get me there one of these days.

I remember winged children I was on the verge of setting free, and realise their whole story is captivity. I want to watch people dancing, and I want to lie down in bluebells laughing, and it would be nice to inspire other people but only if it means I too can be happy.

Where should the light fall? Chiaroscuro on the poem on the page? Or ravishing right through my heart until I am dancing, and laughing, like the people I pretend?

What I really want is to take one step towards an uncertain sweetness, and then one more step, until I no longer have to write in riddles and dreaming. But I can't do that, because I know too well my own reality, and it's just me sitting here at this computer, surrounded by books and empty tea cups. This world has too many oceans, including the vast silent one around me. So maybe I should just give myself dancing, imaginary bluebells, and hope for Europe.

The House Party

2011-09-11T09:30:00.001+12:00

The latest prompt for The Aeolian Harp is now up. I organised it this morning instead of taking Lily to the beach in the wonderful thunderstorm we have here at the moment. We have run out of umbrellas - they never last long in the abuse of wind and rain to which we subject them - and while there is shelter at the beach, I don't fancy walking the mile to the bus stop unprotected from a thundery downpour. Oh, but the guilt! Lily is being exquisitely good about it, but I still feel wretched.

So here is my story for the AH prompt. It's not very good - reading through it now, I can see dozens of ways in which I would improve it, given time and any sense of seriousness about the matter. But I'd rather focus my energies on Jaeger and Hanna (Anna? - all my heroines seem to be Anne lately; I had to change the name of the girl in the following story to Charlotte this morning, since I realised she'd been written as yet another Anne!) There is a phone ringing in a house further up their street, and I have been harassed all week to write it down.

I actually composed the following story as an exercise in dialogue. I am terrible at dialogue. Infact dialogue is one of the main reasons I turned to writing poetry - so I wouldnt have to write any damned dialogue. When I read the random words Susan provided for this fortnight's prompt, I thought it would be a simple matter to slip them into this piece. As it turned out, they significantly reshaped the storyline. (See if you can find the words even after you have seen them listed at AH.)

The piece is actually based on a true story. I don't like the ending, I feel I have overstated it. Actually, the third-to-last paragraph was not part of the original draft, but I added it because I know I tend to understate things, and feared people might miss the point Ashwell was making. If it was up to me, that paragraph would be removed. But in it I was writing to my audience. Enough said; why I don't just let you read it?

First, though, obligatory photograph ... Oh, and thank you to the very kind people who asked about tutorials. How nice of you to ask little old me such a thing! Here is my advice, from one hobbyist to another: Find an interesting image. Look for the best angle in terms of composition and lighting. Press down the shutter of your camera (and ensure you have the best camera you can afford). Repair exposure or contrast issues in a virtual darkroom - I like Picnik. Then go out and take more photos. Hundreds more photos. Try different focus settings. Learn what works best by experiencing it. When you have a picture you like, publish it large on your website. That's a little trick which improves the look of any picture. And that's it.

This is my photo for the latest three prompt. It was taken on a very shoddy camera, and I think that shows. But the patterns are interesting.

The House Party

She was beautiful. She was gold and grace and the easy smile of a woman who knows she is beautiful and exactly how to use it. Youth gave her beauty worth, for she was nineteen, old enough to seek advantage, but not so old as to need it. The world was hers. All eyes in the room were hers, and surely more than one of the hearts.

From the corner, I watched her. I was infact employed to watch her – chaperone, cousin - it was my responsibility to keep Miss Maria Beechley in my sight. But I would have watched her anyway, myself unseen and unlit beside a statue of Minerva's bird. I could not help it.

She was sitting with Lady Ashwell, whom everyone knew would be Maria's mother-in-law if either woman had anything to do with it. This had not prevented severalyoung gentlemen from giving Maria their best shot. After all, anything might happen at a house party. Almost anything.

"Miss Beechley is in fine fettle tonight," said a quiet, amused voice, interrupting my reverie. I looked up to find Lord Ashwell standing beside me. My heart pounded, and I prayed my face revealed nothing but a polite smile. He bowed, and I gave him a small curtesy, and by the time we were looking at each other again I had myself under firm management.

It was not because he was handsome, charming, exquisitely eligible. Nor was it due to attraction. I was far too sensible for anything like that. A plain old maid such as I had no business being attracted to anyone, noticing physical attributes, or even admitting in herself the capacity for doing so. But ever since the young Earl of Ashwell had witnessedme tripping over a pail of flowers and staggering idiotically down the hall in an effort to stay aright, he had considered me a source of amusement. Increasingly through this long week of the house party, he had called upon my conversation to distract him from the serious, tedious business of getting himself a wife. I played along because – well, there were many reasons, beginning with me having no real choice, since I was a female guest in his house, ending with my duty to Maria, and containing in between several things best left unmentioned.

"Good evening, Lord Ashwell," I said. "How do you do?"

"I do not at all," he replied, and in his light smile I recognised the playfulness he like to share in our discussions. He turned to look meaningfully upon Maria. "A man with my income need do nothing, in no manner, in order to have success."

"I m sorry to hear it," I said. And as I could not regard him without feeling his height in comparison with my own meagre stature, his elegance next to my poor country cousin visage, his thirty years being so young and vibrant against my wilting eight-and-twenty, I too fixed upon Maria instead, and did not hate her, not truly, only allowed myself a little undefined sorrow.

"You find something to pity in success?" he asked me in a teasing tone.

"I do not know that I would define success as the gaining of something any man with an equally prodigious income might have if passing a few moments earlier."

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised, one corner of his mouth twitching with amusement. It had been a dreadfully rude insinuation to make about my own dear cousin, but I was not afraid. This game of words was rarely dangerous for one in my position. No one cared what I thought or said – if they even noticed me at all. In my home village, I was Miss Beechley, the vicar's daughter; here, I had become only Charlotte, as my younger cousin, daughter of the family heir, claimed precedence.

But I was not truly a shrewish woman, and I found very little pleasure in cutting with wit. So I said more softly, "To be fair, I must admit, if a man with good character wants to gainsomething, whether by chance or purpose, then it surely can be defined worthy simply by his wanting it."

He bowed his head to my graciousness, but there was mischief in his eye. "A man of character would not want something anyone might have," he said.

"We all might have the blessing of God's grace," I answered, "and that is something any good man would desire."

He laughed. "Well, if you are going to talk religion at me, I shall be off, for I can not possibly counter it."

I smiled nicely, as I was meant to do. He did not leave. His silence as he stood watching me felt unpleasantly taut – he was waiting for my next offering, wanting to continue the game.

Suddenly tired, I tried to moblise my wits while keeping my expression as composed as possible. But I wished I could be in my bedchamber, with a candle and the latest missive from home, never mind all this nonsense. We had been partying five days now, and Maria had almost certainly secured her aim of becoming engaged to Lord Ashwell. I had done my part, with more effort than my smiles and drollery would suggest, and now rather felt I might rest. But here he still was beside me, wanting to keep on playing, long after he had won.And of course the truth was, I wanted him there even more than I wanted to not want it, or else I would have taken myself away upon any excuse.

"Will there be dancing tonight?" I asked : a random thought that at least was something to say.

"I have failed to prevent it," he replied with a mock sigh. "One man is no match for five ladies in such a matter, for all that I am earl and master of the house."

I willed myself not to blush, for he would have to count me to come up with five ladies – but in the next moment he put that idea safely away. "I mean my mother along with Miss Beechley, my sister, and the Misses Grey," he said, and then I did blush. Although I was not looking at him, I knew he grinned to see he had scored a point. "My mother is as much a fool as any ladies when it comes to trotting across a ballroom floor. But I exclude you, Charlotte, from such company, for I know how you dislike dancing."

I said promptly, knowing my part - "And of course, my lord, I am no lady."He made a very peculiar noise, as if he had begun to laugh but tried to stop it.

"I mean," I said sweetly, looking at him sidelong, " I am just a vicar's daughter, without even aname in such society. Though you are incorrect, if you will excuse me for saying so. I like dancing very much."

That genuinely surprised him. "But you never do it."

Of course not. I would rather sit out than see sufferance in the faces of those who, through good manners alone, asked me to the floor. I would rather not be touched at all than be touched inconsequentially, for the purposes of the dance and no other reason, while around me fingers met and stroked and lingered.

I had far too much self-respect for my position in society.

"I am chaperoning my cousin," I told him in a lofty tone. "It would be inappropriate for me to dance."

He said nothing. He put one hand on the wall and leaned against it, looking at me with narrowed eyes - clearly trying to decide what riposte he could make for maximum amusement without risking impropriety. His conclusion appeared to be that just looking was sufficient, for he kept doing it until I grew discomforted and perilously close to tears. I knew he was trying to goad me into saying something interesting, but the truth of my emotions brought a weight to the situation he could not – must not - comprehend.Again weariness swelled up in me, and I sighed. I looked at Maria framed by the royal red of the drapes behind her, lit by the grandiose shine of the chandelier above. She was the heroine of this story.

I would not cry. Instead I said, "Is not my cousin very beautiful?"

"The most beautiful woman in all of Southern England," he replied, not taking his eyes from me. He would not be so easily diverted. I was trapped. I could not excuse myself at that point without alerting him to my vulnerability on the subject, but I did not know how I could stay without alerting him of the same with tears.

He must have guessed something of it, for he kept staring, smiling – waiting for me to entertain him with either repartee or revelation. I urged my brain to come up with some flash of brilliance that would send him away chastened and leave me to a dubious peace. But my brain, it seemed, had given up in disgust and abandoned me.

"You should not dance," he said suddenly, unexpectedly. I was so surprised, I looked up at him, and discovered he was no longer smiling.

The game was over.

"I beg your pardon?" I said warily.

"You should not dance," he repeated. His voice was so quiet it would have been a whisper had I not known that to be entirely unlikely, unsocial, and scandalous. "You should sit on the sidelines for the whole evening - perfect, unmoving, and quiet."

"Why so, my lord?" I asked.

"So I may always know where to look to see you."

He took my hand and very slowly lifted it to kiss the white-gloved knuckles. I could have sworn my heart stopped beating. This is just another piece of wit, I warned myself ... but the expression on his face contradicted me.

The dinner bell rang. He stepped away. I turned, blinking with a suffusation of emotion, and saw Maria golden, luminous, on the sofa.

She was staring at me.

the voice of truth

2011-09-10T16:50:00.005+12:00

I have been doing a lot of talking lately. It is my way - to talk, to advise. I am a woman of words. But every now and then I remember the wisdom of silence. When I am silent, the universe can finally be heard.

Nature is the expression of truth.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes things are constantly difficult? And then you try a different thing, and it all comes together perfectly. Of course, we occasionally need a challenge to help shape and strengthen our souls. But when every step you take involves negotiating problems, you have to eventually acknowledge that nature's natural flow into rightness is against you.

Of course, sometimes you need to make the wrong choices so you can experience that resistance and, in it, just how rightness feels. Feeling it, you can shape it for yourself.

All too often, I want to speak a pathway for other people, especially when I see clearly what is right and true. As if I am a little god. As if I am entitled to take away their learning so I may have my teaching.

Sometimes I find myself interfering between my child and God. (Or just about anyone and God : I am a busybody.) And then I really need to stand back, let them have a relationship, let learning and love be done.

ps, sorry if none of this made much sense. After a day of sunshine and shadow, I'm very tired!

pps, a new cycle at three has begun. I hope you will consider joining me, Kelly and Claire in photographing "gathering blue".

ppps, the next prompt for Aeolian Harp will be up tomorrow. I do not know how long the site will continue on, as we have not managed to encourage or inspire people to join us. But I have had fun writing for it. My story tomorrow is more light fluffiness like last time ... I am working on something quite dark, so these moments of story sunshine endear themselves to me.

outside and off the page

2011-09-08T16:40:00.001+12:00

Thanks to everyone who so kindly responded to my last post. I decided to take it down because the comments section was leading me into a discussion which went beyond my boundary of privacy and comfort. There is a lot I would love to write about sport politics and being an unschooler and raising an exceptionally gifted child - but I cringe even at using the latter phrase, so any honest commentary on these issues either remains off the page or gets taken down a few hours after I put it up. I confess I am the sort of person who, during war or enemy occupation, would keep my head down and my door shut, protecting my own family.

Although to be fair, in my real life, I do stand up as an advocate for some things, and in those cases I also walk my talk. (I just don't tell my school-at-home friends that I am an unschooler!)

Today was an outside day, by which I mean I spent most of it outside myself. We enjoyed the company of friends - very much enjoyed it. Good friends, good day. But there are very few people in this world with whom I can be my true self, and with whom I'm able to talk about things like writing, dreaming, worshipping.

One day I'd love to have a friend who'd go driving with me and my kid to some wild beach, and along the way we'd play music like this full blast, and when we got there we'd take photos and gather poems, and not need to talk much. And when we did talk, it'd be about the haunting in the hills, or the substance of a cloud.

Actually, I do have a friend like that. Her name is Lily.

I feel so blessed that my daughter is a kindred spirit.

I feel blessed that she has helped me find my own spirit. I never would have guessed how much I'd wish to spend a day on a lonely, feral shoreline, watching people throw themselves at the sea. I'd never have woken to how wonderful life can be when you live it with passion and ferocity.

I also feel blessed to have you. Some people may deride internet connections, but before the web was invented one could go for an entire lifetime without meeting another person who saw things similarly.

emily, a wandering priest, and zombies again

2011-09-04T19:19:00.000+12:00

I want to write about being a sports mother, which is the strangest thing I've ever called myself, although it's true, I am a sports mother. Infact, I am a pushy sports mother, something I despise but my daughter asks me to be. She appreciates it when I push her, and when I push the system for her sake.

But I'm not going to write about that, because my rule for web journalling is, would I be happy for anyone I know in real life to read it? And the answer with that subject is no.

So since my mind is occupied tonight with all the issues surrounding being a sports mother, I will write instead about a couple of interesting things I read online this week.

A Wounded Deer is a book about Emily Dickinson. I have not read it, but would love to, as Wendy Perriman is the first person I've encountered who has reached the same conclusion about Emily as I - that so many of her poems and life circumstances can be explained by abuse. When I studied Emily at university, I suffered a lesbian lecturer who taught us Emily too was a lesbian. It struck me as a ridiculous, self-serving theory, and made me realise universities aren't always the home of good scholarship. Years later, reading Emily's work for love not exams, I noticed she wrote as my abuse clients spoke. I have written more about this, but you'll have to wait for my next book to read it. (I'm working on a March deadline - unless, that is, I get distracted by zombies.)

Drew Jacob writes at A Rogue Priest about not being special. "Anytime you’re doing something interesting, people will find excuses why they can’t do it too. They make you out to be “special.” The reason is simple: if you aren’t special, then they could be doing something just as awesome as you are. But they aren’t doing this awesome thing, so you must be special." I love his message that anyone can be special if they are willing to do what it takes. But have you noticed how most people, especially youth, don't really care?

I'm sorry, I blame the school system. Lily and I were talking the other day about what we'd do if caught in a zombie apocalypse and had the option of joining a group of high school students or a group of homeschoolers. Really, it was an obvious choice. Homeschoolers seem to regularly do special things, probably because they are not restricted by other people's excuses on their behalf. They don't get told they're too young, that there's not enough time, that maths is more important than their dreams. (Of course, many school students do special things too, and I admire them hugely for managing it within the system.)

Which actually brings me back to being a sports mother. (It's funny how often an unrelated blogpost ends up answering what I'm really thinking about.) I find it hard sometimes having a child who doesn't bother with excuses - from herself or other people - considering I was raised by the system to not care, be quiet, and not disturb the status quo.

the secret of success

2011-08-31T19:24:00.004+12:00

Last night I did not take a book to bed with me, because the only one I wanted to read was the one in progress on my computer. So I wrote a little instead. It was lovely. However, I will not be writing tonight. I am very tired. The sort of tired where you lose your voice and everything aches. Old woman tired.

But that's alright, because I know I will be able to write the next time I feel ready. And I know I will feel ready again.

This has been an old fear of mine. Each time I've put down the pen, I've wondered with dread if I will ever feel inspired to pick it up again. More than once, months have passed between the putting down, the picking up ... and then the dread has turned to depression. But I've learnt something recently. I can write, and I will be inspired to write, if I write.

I've noticed this kind of thing in other realms of my life also. I will be happy if I just smile. I will be calm if I be calm.

This is very simple. It requires no faith, only the strength and will-power to ignore excuses and make that first effort. I've taught myself now to write on ragged old paper with whatever pen I pull from the tangle inside my bag. I've convinced myself it is possible to create coziness in an ugly, cold house. And I know perfectly well that I can be a warm, nurturing mother even when standing in soaked shoes on a windswept shore or tramping through muddy bush or when so tired all of me feels like grit.

It's so simple. I just have to do it. That's all it takes for it to happen.

yesterday's book

2011-08-30T09:15:00.007+12:00

Looking down the quiet, sandy mile of shoreline, he selects the one place which is populated, which is actually a thoroughfare, and he settles himself there. I watch nervously as he brings out a music stand, music sheets; as he wages a small war with the wind for the sheets which, old, stained, finally lie mastered on the stand. And then it emerges - the accordion. I escape.

But he haunts me long after the echo of his awful music has faded - this old Chinese man, his inconsideration, and then his aching vulnerability as people using the stairs force him rapidly aside so that the wind snatches upon that opportunity and snatches at his music sheets, and he trudges off the beach.

She stands in the shop, her hair damp and coiling after an afternoon in the sea. She is spending $20 on a bit of string. I don't see the look on her face when they tell her they're so excited about her future, because my own eyes are filled with love.

I receive notice about a meeting we can not possibly attend. I think about all the words that will be said, the ground laid, the ladders placed for dream-reaching and star-gathering, a magical event, an important event, and we can not possibly attend. My heart bends with sorrow. Then I think about standing in a shop late in an afternoon, looking at a small white length of string, figuring hastily if I have enough cash in my purse to pay for it - and I know what is truly important. I know where the magic resides.

He is sitting in a chair at the back of the library, reading. I don't see what the book is, because I don't want to be rude by peering too closely. So all I really see is him, in his business suit, at the end of the day, reading alone in a library.

But I want to step over very quietly and tip the book up towards him so I can see its cover, and the hands that hold it, and the look in his eyes when he is discovered.

And then there is him. I don't know him. He's just someone on tv. But I am fascinated by the starkness behind his smile ... and the tenderness ... and the way a child's voice rising can send his spirit soaring. (I know it because I see it through his eyes and it makes my spirit reach out towards him, seeking that inspiration.)

That night, I try to read a novel, but it is too much a novel. I love its words and images, but I can see the staples, the sellotape, putting them together, and I have no patience for it after a day that was a compendium of smaller, more evocative stories held together by life's breathing.

the quick wife

2011-08-28T09:31:00.002+12:00

New Zealand is one of the first in the world to greet the morning sun. And yet we must linger always in chronological deference to the North. I have decided that in one small thing I will not defer. The Aeolian Harp prompt will go out on my Sunday. To be honest, I can not recall if Tibbie and I originally settled on a Sunday or Monday publication - but I'm sure other mothers and homeschoolers will understand my choice.

I hope you enjoy this week's prompt. You will see from the following story how I took it in the most skewed way I could manage. I always rebel against prompts - and so I am bemused that I co-created a prompt site! I have seen the next-after-this prompt, and it is driving me crazy because the only way to make it creatively my own is to ignore its rules completely.

My family call me Monica because I am even more a control freak than that Friends character. Perhaps control freakishness is why I always simply must defy any rule, prompt, suggestion, or ought-to. The problem is that I even defy my own rules and suggestions.

Anyway, here is my story for the current prompt: "We met Dr Hall in such deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead." - Jane Austen.

I felt there was only one thing I could do with a prompt like that ...

________________________________________________________________

The Quick Wife

© Sarah Elwell

When news reached us that Dr Hall had died, we did not hesitate to call. Which is to say, Mother did not hesitate, gathering her gloves and shawl almost before Father finished reading the obituary. Cassandra and I were less enthusiastic. We remembered the man from our summer days in the south, when he would visit Father to discuss science and hunting and other masculine concerns. He was bony, stiff-necked, and always smelled of camphor. But Dr Hall, despite his unlanded situation and lack of physical charm, was an eligible gentleman of considerable fortune. Therefore Mother beshawled us and bonneted us, reminded us under pain of old-maidenhood of our best manners, and in full battle regalia we called upon Elliott Lane.

Dr Hall received us most nicely in his drawing room.

The tea was poured, the weather categorized, but Mother was there for business purposes, and we all knew it. Her eloquent smile opened the negotiations, but Dr Hall himself was quick off the mark with a compliment to both me and Cassandra; his eye, however, fell particularly on me. I would not presume a hypothesis regarding this preference, only a distaste for it, which good breeding prevented me from expressing. We girls acknowledged his fine words with a small nod each, and Cassandra even managed a blush. But Mother had no time to waste in such delicacy. I was twenty-three already. Something urgent had to be done.

The doctor himself of course possessed all the time in the world, having so recently arranged that he need never worry about age again. But as a man of good fortune he was naturally (or unnaturally, as I suppose his case must be) in want of a wife. Consequently, we had half an hour of sidelong glances, insinuations, metaphors, and mentions, at the close of which Dr Hall and I were engaged.

The doctor was inclined to visit a magistrate immediately in pursuit of a special licence so we might be wed by week's end. Mother amazed me with her cheerful acceptance of such indecorous, almost lewd, haste. I managed to avoid it however by exceeding my known powers of persuasion, and we settled into a fashionably long engagement. Dr Hall inundated me with roses and candy, but thankfully not his company, as this was in too much demand from all quarters. After all, phrenologist is a sought-after entity in our modern society. In the meanwhile, I attempted to find myself in compromising positions, naughty behaviour, and poor health. But it was to no avail. I persisted in such a state of maidenly virtue and well-being that a wedding was inevitable.

And then I had a visit from Lord Mansfield.

Mother and Father were out, and Cassie had gone down with a migraine, so the visitor and I were forced to meet alone - albeit with the door open and servants lurking - in the white rose drawing room. We discussed the fine morning until tea arrived, and if I looked a little too closely at this handsome gentleman with blonde hair and perfect teeth and every other sign of being entirely alive, I hope I was not obvious with my attention.

"How may I be of service to you?" I asked, just as soon as we were settled nicely with our tea and shortbread.

"Miss March," he said, bowing his head a little to me. "Pardon my ill manners, but I believe you are engaged to marry a certain Dr William Hall of Hall Manor, Elliott Lane?"

"Your information is correct, my lord," I said cautiously.

"Miss March, I belong to a small, private society of concerned citizens who offer assistance to young ladies in your position, should they wish to take it. In short, Miss March, may we help you?"

Despite good breeding and years of relentless training, I sat forward eagerly. "Help me?" I asked - but oh, as you may well imagine, it was with a tone of, Indeed! Yes please!

He smiled knowingly. "We can supply a lady with medical certificates to prevent matrimony on the grounds of incompetency, internal disfigurement (pardon me), or temporary insanity. One of our society can marry you by emergency elopement, only to later obtain a divorce on fautless grounds, or to die (although not actually, in fact, but by use of falsified documents,) rendering you respectably widowed. We can even purchase a ticket to America, complete with new identity, for the more adventurous gentlewoman."

My eyes were wide now, my tea forgotten. "But why would you do this?" I asked. And suddenly recollecting my situation - "I can not pay."

With a wave of his gloved hand, he discarded that concern. "The only payment required is the purpose we have for helping - the protection of our country's future from the pernicious threat of the undead. His Majesty's law forbids discrimination against them, and so we have no other recourse but to private, secret action so we may ensure (pardon me) the continued fertility of our better classes."

I blushed at his frank language, but was not so feminine as to miss his point. "Goodness, do you mean -?"

"Miss March, let us not beat around the bush. How many recently married ladies of your acquaintance have born children?"

"Why - why - that is to say - oh! - none," I concluded with astonishment.

"Precisely. These 'born-again gentlemen,' as they call themselves, are growing in number, thanks to the new sciences. In their determination to prove respectable, they have begun snatching up attractive, well born ladies for wives. Their success is no surprise. Only the richest men can afford to cheat the Reaper, and so they are good marriage material. But a man without vitality can not produce. I do not know how many parents have realised this but ignored the fact, thinking that a wealthy connection for themselves is more valuable than children for their daughters. Also I can imagine some women would not regret avoiding the perils of childbirth. However, we believe the situation is even more dire. We believe many are murdering their wives, then reanimating them, to ensure a perpetually young and beautiful - but soulless - spouse."

"Good God!" I blasphemed in horror.

"Indeed, Miss March," he said grimly. "Unfortunately, it is impossible to demand proof from wealthy or noble men, protected by the law, whose wives are still apparently living."

I tried to pour myself more tea, but there was no hope for it. My nerves were shot.

"Lord Mansfield," I said as calmly as I could. "Would you be so kind as to save my life?"

"Miss March," he replied with a charming smile. "It would be an honour."

Alas, our well-laid plans, drawn up that afternoon and further by letter, were for nought. Someone betrayed me - perhaps a maid, overhearing my conversation with Lord Mansfield; perhaps the boy who delivered our letters. Dr Hall came calling unexpectedly on Thursday morning, and with him was not only the magistrate but a wizened old clergyman who ought to have known better. By noon were were married and heading off on our honeymoon.

Lord Mansfield did not arrive in the nick of time. Infact, I did not see him until we reached my husband's summer house in Scotland, three days later. He entered the garden silently and found me there; we crept away behind the hedges for a desperate, clandestine conversation.

What I did not tell him, I will not tell you either, except to say that a man lacking vitality may compensate with certain modes of humour. I was undefiled - except in the province of my soul.

"I am so sorry, Miss March," said Lord Mansfield, going so far as to take my hand. In his eyes I saw all I had lost.

I laughed. "Mrs Dr Hall, you mean," I said, and his expression, already tragic, became utterly ruined.

"Fear not, my lord," I comforted him. "All is not lost. I am but a woman, and yet I stand ready and able to serve England in your cause. Our cause."

"But Anne," he said, dispensing with all good manners in the agony of his heart. "He will kill you."

I knew it. Already he had tried, but I had spilled the poisoned tea, run away from the clifftop stroll - laughing, pretending I had no sense of danger. But it was certain he would continue trying until I was dead. And then undead again.

"Not if I kill him first," I said.

"You can not kill a man who is already dead!" Mansfield reminded me bitterly.

"True," I agreed - and yet I smiled. "Tell me though, how far do you think he will he proceed without his head?"

And so it was that, as the sorrowful but vastly wealthy Widow Hall (my husband having met his demise - again - in a freak accident whilst walking alone through the woods) I joined the great and noble fight against England's gentlemen zombies. It was endless, dangerous work ... dare I say deadly? ... but it came with the most lively, charming, and handsome perk of all.

I was a very merry widow.

the heart turning

2011-08-26T14:55:00.004+12:00

If you saw my post this morning, you'll know I was in an opinionated mood (again). Reading this article about the desecration of a girl's sacred moment set me off on a long rant about the nature of evil. However, I managed to use my emotions to better purpose in my writing class, leading the children in a discussion of active and passive evil, allowing me to get it out of my system and so keep this daybook a relatively gentle place.

Yesterday Rose and I went for a long walk. We'd only intended a short and purposeful one, but the day was so nice, and the bakery further along the road so nice, we just kept going. Arriving home an hour later, we felt really satisfied, and I was reminded how good an afternoon stroll can be ...

And yet, to be honest, we take them less and less often these days. The neighbourhood is so ugly, I am uninspired to tour it - although the photographs in this post, taken yesterday, prove there is beauty here, if I choose to turn its way and simply pretend the ugliness does not exist.

My post this morning talked about how it can be evil to deliberately turn your face away from ugliness and wrongdoing. Yet there are other times it can be evil not to do so. Life is complicated. And so while I would love to be one of those soulful, beautiful writers of public journals who inspire with their peaceful attitude, every now and then I am going to rant when I see some wrongdoing and can not turn from it.

And every now and then I am going to delete a rant, post serene pictures of nature instead, because my best response to wrongdoing under some circumstances is simply handing back goodness and beauty ... being the change I want to see in the world.

a few words

2011-08-25T08:38:00.009+12:00

This is just my personal opinion. I am an obnxious opinionated judgmental person. I also have synaesthesia.

words I don't like

blog: it sounds as if it belongs in the sickroom, I'd rather use journal, diary, chronicle, daybook, commonplace book, album instead. I'm not surprised blog evolved into common use, considering "log" is such a techy-geeky word. But the internet is now such a place of marvels, a museum, a living art show. Let's have some poetry to define it. Mindy is back writing in her journal at in a country of my own making.

capture: a trendy word for photograph, and I can't stand trendy words and phrases. You can see photographs I love at pinterest.

purple: an ugly bulbous word; infact, I dislike most of the colour words. I rather like purple itself, though. Sometimes.

words I do like

theurgy: once we get past thinking & talking about divinity, and start working with divinity, everything becomes easy. We may all have different ideas and values, but I'd be willing to bet those of us who have experienced divinity in our lives would describe the sensation in very similar ways. Perhaps because there is really only oneness about us.

any word written by Laura Grace Weldon: my scrollbar is full of her links this morning. I love what she writes about spirituality, homeschooling, okay everything.

free: as in university courses available free online. Lily and I are having a wonderful time with this excellent Cognitive Science course from Berkeley University. For example, this morning we talked about how the bicycle could be seen as information technology - for example, not only the usual, of being able to deliver news, but also as informative about a certain woman's character during the Victorian era (which we are reading and talking about lately). And then how the dishrack could be seen as information technology too. And when exactly did the information age start - and why are we only discussing it from the perception of Western Civilisation's history - and what will information and communication look like in five hundred years' time? And oh so much discussion, debate, and rich food for thought. Fun!

towards the upwind mark

2011-08-23T09:40:00.005+12:00

It seems like a long time ago
now

that he told her to look where she was going -

and I picked those words out of normal talking,
made them into a life philosophy.

I was so proud of myself.
I had found the zen in sport.
I was a poet and a wise woman.

I know better now.

Look where you are going
is beginner wisdom.

A long time now
of seasons
and of watching her
learning
has taught me
to put the words back
into context
and pay attention to
what is really happening.

Look where you are going -
and then look everywhere else
for what you can use
to get you there.

Which is not a poem, not really. Just a thought written in jointed sentences.

To me, a poem goes deeper than an idea or image fit into a certain "poem" structure. I personally feel it must be rendered alive by all the things going on under its skin.

Writing a book-length poem is difficult for this reason. My experience of prose is that there are times when the words are utilitarian - a necessary bridge between events or emotions - and that's just fine. Not every phrase in a novel has to be deep and profound.

But it must in poetry.

When I am working on a poem, every single word in it ... and the exact placement of every single word ... and every single empty space ... absolutely counts. This is one of the reasons I love writing poetry. However, I'm finding it unusual to write a novel in which the story must be progressed normally and yet at the same time every word must be perfect and meaningful.

Unusual.
Wonderful.
Exhilirating.

I have not actually written anything for two days. I found a picture which inspired me to try a different story, see if it was better for the format, see if my heart soared as much in the writing as the dreaming of it. Twelve hours of trying in vain to find the heroine's name told me all I needed to know! And brought me back to reason.

If I am forever running towards something that may be better, I'm never going to get anything done.

Once I decided that I needed to stay with the story I had started, and just darned well work on it in a mature fashion, I was able to absorb the picture into the original idea, and so enrich my concept and actually solve some of the problems which had sent me out searching in the first place.

So it's true: look where you are going. But it's also true: look around for what you can use to get there, without relinquishing your goal. Because if you only ever look ahead, you'll see nothing but the goal. You won't notice that going away from it for a moment might shift you into a gust of wind which will drive you to your goal more effectively.

You also might miss seeing a beautiful swan rising from the water, spreading herself to the fierce, loving morning light.

poetic musings

2011-08-22T15:03:00.013+12:00

I have been thinking today about poetry, which isn't as romantic and dreamy as it sounds. I hope my thoughts here don't come across as lecturing or argumentative. I have tried to express myself politely!

I was a student of the stuff long before I began to write it (although I remember my teenaged yearnings towards the lyric and the jointed phrase. I even put a poem into a university essay, although I was not brave enough to claim it as my own.) Perhaps it is this long and thorough training that drives my perspective. But to be honest I suspect it's more about my empathy with poets and my tender mother-feeling towards anyone who offers up a piece of their soul, risking misunderstanding or rejection.

Many people believe that poems are open, and so personal interpretation is the only way to find their value - a subjective value, attained (or not) through the eye of the beholder. This means a poem changes with each person who reads it.

I can appreciate this argument, but I don't hold it in my heart.

I believe that the best way to read a poem is to appreciate our personal experience of it, but also to attempt an understanding of what the poet himself was actually wanting to say. Otherwise we end up thinking a poem about abuse is just describing Springtime, and a poem about overthinking things to a foolish degree is about boldly travelling the road less taken.

(Yes, I know the irony of using a poem about overthinking to advocate overthinking poetry - but it is conversely also an example of how people can be foolish by underthinking, considering how many take the opposite meaning than that which the writer of that poem intended.)

Does it matter if we miss an abuse theme or a piece of advice by only doing a surface reading? I guess your answer to that depends on who you think is more important, the poet or the reader.

I know many people truly feel the reader is most important. I agree with them that a poem can deepen and widen as it is read through different filters. And I appreciate not every poet intends a definite meaning. Infact, some poets want readers to take their work subjectively.

I myself I believe the poet is more important than the reader. Yes, I believed this even before I realised I was a poet!

A poem written for no audience is still valuable. Its being read does not give it life. It is born and grown and lovingly nurtured even before we get to see it. To discount that is to lose the experience of its unique spirit. And so what we gain from reading it is only what is already in our own minds.

But if we strive to see it the way the poet saw it, we truly open our minds and hearts to a new perspective. In this approach, the poem may not be deepened or widened, but we are.

I feel the same way about religion. If we want to call ourselves Christians, or Druids, or Witches, we should (in my fuddy duddy opinion) adhere to what the creators of those religions believed - or else call ourselves something different that expresses our own beliefs and practices. For example, Witches were hideous imaginary creatures reviled even by the pagans whose practices modern Witches have appropriated. I'm all for finding your own personal path Home, but I personally believe it is important to self-authenticate it, rather than taking the name of someone else's faith, or else it is surely a false path, leading you nowhere but back inside your own mind.

Which returns me to poetry. There's nothing wrong with using a poem as reflection of yourself. (Infact, many poems are written for this purpose.) Sometimes the most valuable road for us is the inner one. We don't always have to be going forth.

But I myself can not hold a poem, a small dynamic thing with such a subtle pulse, and not want to know all of it, from the colours I would call its feathers to the essential core that gives it life.

(I feel very differently about novels.)

Just my opinion. I am not always right. (I just think I am!)

stories in the night

2011-08-19T19:32:00.005+12:00

So tired. But it was a good day.

This afternoon I sat at the beach and wrote my next story for The Aeolian Harp. It was tremendous fun, and made me feel light-hearted and happy for a long time afterwards. I wonder how I can encourage people to submit to our new site. I certainly hope you will find the next prompt as enjoyable as I have (or the current one, for that matter!)

Now I am thinking joyfully about what I can do with poetry. My project is transforming in my heart and imagination, as if the wind, which always was itself, has changed to a new direction, and I can feel it more clearly. Thanks, Lissa! (I answered you in the combox.) If I ever get it finished, I ought to dedicate it to you. And Stephen. And my girl as always.

Oh, and Susan too!

But really, I dedicate my writing to all of you who are so kind and encouraging to me. Thank you, thank you.

I finished reading Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry last night. It seemed very much a Lowry book, but since that is a good thing I am not complaining. My favourite part was how she made me love a certain character, and then turned that completely inside out, and yet somehow the love lingered, although it was horrible and betrayed and I felt hurt. I also very much appreciated the uncompromising ending.

But friends, I am so tired. And all I really have in my mind is poetry, haunting me, drawing me towards it with dark eyes. How strange that fracturing something, whispering it, turning it into half a dream of dreaming, can make it more real for me.