The Complete Collection

Editing- pushing boulders uphill

August 24, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

There are times when writing comes so easily to me its breath taking. I sit down at the desk, only to rise up again a few hours later with a couple of thousand words written. The next day I sit down and again the words flow like water down a fast moving stream gliding over river stones. And when I go back over my work several days later, I realise with a strange sort of pride, that all that flowing was really pretty good.
And then there are times – like right now – when writing and editing a novel feels like the hardest thing ever I have ever done – and I’ve given birth! This past week it has felt like I have been pushing boulders uphill only to get close to the summit, stub my toe, loose my grip and watch the boulder roll back to the bottom of the ravine where I know I have to start all over again. Cue much frustration.
This edit has been agonisingly slow work. I’ve read every word written and tried to justify its existence in the final product. Except that I don’t want to read my own work. And my inability to concentrate the past week has only added to my frustration. And I keep thinking, why can’t I concentrate? I think it’s because I’m having oh look… there’s a fluffy cloud shaped like a teddy bear…..
I have a writing group meeting this Wednesday; maybe dealing with four people critiquing my work will pull my head back into line. I have the deadline of September 1st as to when I hoped to have this edit finished. When the work should be complete enough to give to a few trusted friends to read and give first opinions at the very least. And if you don’t have a mathematical mind that worked it out in a nano-second, September 1st is eight days away.

Eight. Days. People.

Currently I’m working through page 133 of a 177 page manuscript. Sounds like I’m close, right? What am I belly-aching about, right? So now is where I confess that there are several scenes that need re-working or just waiting to be written for the first time. There are a few timeline mix ups that I need to sort out. In fact, the more I edit, the more convinced I become that my novel is pure gobblty-gook. The Itty Bitty S(h)itty Committee in my head have been raising their objections (loudly) for the last few weeks too. Telling me that I’m wasting my time, that this novel will end up stuffed under the bed keeping only the dust bunnies entertained, and wondering at the absurdity of my belief that I could ever be a writer.
So whats a girl to do when she hits the wall and can’t bear to look at her own manuscript any longer? She writes a blog post of course. And now that that’s done, I really have no excuse. So please, feel free to entertain yourselves for a while as I go back to my work and push on for September 1st.

Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection

Excellence in Dumb

August 16, 2010 By Courtney 1 Comment

When I set my mind to something, I generally aim to excel at anything I turn my hand to. Take my final subject for my post grad work – another High Distinction. I’m really thrilled that I got 88% for the essay, but secretly I’m wondering how I lost the last 12%. And my current novel? In yet another round of edits as I polish it up a little more. See – its all about the excellence. Because I want to be the very best at anything I do. Which obviously including being dumb.

I mean, reeeeeeally dumb.

Today Matthew asked me to call him after he finished at 4pm. OK. Admittedly I wasn’t so gracious about the idea of having to change my afternoon plans so I could be around to call him, but as I aim to excel in being dutiful (there is a word I won’t use too often about myself in a relationship!) at 4:05pm I started to punch the numbers in the phone keypad.

613 – 123-4567
Beeeeeeeeeeep of the busy signal.

4:08pm
613 – 123-4567
Beeeeeeeeeeep – get off the phone already!

4:14pm
613 – 123-4567
Beeeeeeeeeeep – mumbling under my breath.

4:19pm
613 – 123-4567
Beeeeeeeeeeep – openly calling out curses from the heavens in front of the girl child.

4:25pm
613 – 123-4567
Beeeeeeeeeeep – Fine! Bugger you. I’m not wasting any more of my time.

Flounce into the family room where my desk is set up, flip open the computer and sit down to start editing my current novel.

4:28pm
Realise that I’ve been calling 613- 123- 4567, that being my own home phone number instead of his mobile phone number.

And tonight, as his chest puffed out, wearing the hardly ever worn “I Am Right” shirt and he bragged about my stellar ditz moment to his friends over the phone, I confess I had tears of laughter streaming down my face all over again.

Oh my Lawd. Talk about dumb.

Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection

Cassandra and Jane (A Jane Austen Novel) -Jill Pitkeathley

August 5, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

I am a history buff from way back, even studying it at university level. I confess to a strange little quirk in that I hold onto objects from times past and think about all the people during history who have held the very same object before me. What were their lives like? Where did they live and what did they do? What was their favourite colour and did they live lives that allowed them to have such an extravagance of choice?

So it seemed like the right thing to do in starting the Everything Austen Challenge by reading something of the history of Jane. Of course, trying to discover the truth of the historical figure that is Miss Jane Austen is hampered somewhat by the lack of primary evidence available to the serious student of history now. According to reliable secondary records, her sister Cassandra destroyed a great deal of the written correspondence between the two of them from the course of their lives so that only the right kind of image of her sister would be portrayed after her death.

The fire is burning well now. I fed the letters on to the flames in small amounts to be sure they would catch …. As I threw each bundle into the fire, I kissed it.

Enough remain to give me and others pleasure, not none I hope which show Jane as she once described herself, “If I am a wild beast, I cannot help it. It is not my own fault.”

Indeed it was not her fault and no one will ever be allowed to think so. No one will ever be allowed either to see anything other than the perfection of our relationship as sisters. I am seventy years old now and my life may not be very much longer. I should not like to be suddenly taken ill and unable to make the arrangements for the disposal of Jane’s personal effects. Page 253

Jill Pitkeathley has written a biography of Jane Austen through the eyes of her sister Cassandra in her book “Cassandra and Jane – A Jane Austen Novel”, a clever twist. It is obvious that Pitkeathley has done her homework. She has read widely, searched for the truth and used it well in this ‘fictional memoir’. The historical accuracy of the story is as close as we can be sure of, as has been documented from her family’s telling of her life.

Our brothers have an image of our dear sister which is of someone clever, quick witted, a little sharp in her tone sometimes but loving, warm, daughter and aunt who was in the whole content with her life. If they sometimes saw, as I did, the low spirits, the anger, even the bitterness in her, they have forgotten it now in revering her memory. I am content with that. – page 84

I very much wanted to rave how much I adored this book. But perhaps the book fell flat because I didn’t set aside a whole day to read it from cover to cover; instead I broke my reading up into chunks to fit around the daily reality of life with a five year old on summer holidays which could have been an impediment to my enjoyment.

Yes, it was clever in execution and true to historical fact, but something holds me back from gushing. Personally I felt it hard to connect with Cassandra and Jane. They lacked warmth, which may actually be tribute to Pitkeathley’s ability to write so convincingly in the voice of the era, where there was little openness to strangers, and a certain aloofness and restraint. I admired the writing of this book, but I did not adore it. In my opinion it’s not a ‘not to be missed’ read. I will say it is worth the read to gain a better understanding of the reality of Jane’s life, because it makes her ability to write such timeless works all the more remarkable.

The copy of this book came from my local library

Publisher: Harper
Pages: 270
ISBN: 9780061446399
Language: English
Notes: First published in Great Britain in 2004

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Everything Austen II, The Complete Collection

Coining a New Term in Erotic Writing

July 28, 2010 By Courtney 3 Comments

For a prude like me it seems ironic that the first ever workshop I ever attend as a new writer is one on writing erotic fiction. Having my identity firmly connected to the idea of being a romance writer and having Jane Austen as my hero, the idea of writing toe curling sex scenes in any of my novels seemed impossible.

Which is exactly why I signed up for the workshop.

But now it’s been a few months and when faced with the question from Tiffany – “I am curious to know how it went, if you would recommend it” I see its now time to think carefully about the new skills that Opal Carrew tried to impart to me and consider if I have put any of them into practise yet.

Sadly, the truth of the matter is that no, I went to the workshop in January and yet I have not yet written anything remotely raunchy.

Honestly, the first six months of the year I was too busy reading educational philosophy to complete a university degree. And attempting to not appear too dumb in group discussions when people waxed lyrical about how enthralling and insightful such and such a piece was for them, when personally I considered whether the writer of the aforementioned piece was on drugs or I was needing to be on drugs to understand what the piece was (apparently eloquently) expressing.

Several weeks have elapsed since I completed my final course and it seems that the writing synapses in the brain are starting to fire up again. Instead of academic work I’ve been writing fiction and finding a certain pleasure in the completed scenes. And obviously, I’ve been writing blog posts at a rate much higher than one a quarter. I’ve also been revelling in the new e-reader that my husband bought for my birthday present, and reading copious amounts of books for no other reason than pure pleasure.

But I think the best thing that I learnt from the workshop was that I am no longer concerned about writing sex scenes that maybe required in my any of my stories. During the workshop we were given ample opportunity to write erotic fiction pieces, create sexy characters, think about clever experiences to have sexual events occur… oh you name it… we did it! So I don’t think that when the time comes (and it is coming soon) I will have any trouble writing erotic scenes for the book I’m currently working on. Obviously, I would probably need to read some erotic fiction to get into the right head space and remember all the turns of phrase erotic writers use to describe certain events. *ahem*

During Carrew’s workshop she took us through the story arcs that different genres follow. We spent a lot of time creating a rough outline for an erotic novel. For any fiction to be classified romantic, even erotic romance fiction, the rule within the publishing world is that there always has to be a happy ending. You know the story, Boy and girl meet. Fall in love. Have a falling out. Hate each other. Discover they can’t live without the other. Get back together. And this is where I brag about probably my one true claim to fame within the erotic fiction world right now. I coined a new term for the happy ending. Boy and girl live happily f^cking after.

Yeah Tiffany, I guess you could say I really learned a lot and would highly reccomend attending an erotic writing workshop.

Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection

Everything Austen II Challenge List

July 24, 2010 By Courtney 3 Comments

Sometime last year, for reasons unremembered to me now, I found my way to the blog “Stephanie’s Written Word” Maybe my memory of the reasons for finding the blog is coloured by the fact that I wanted to take part in the Everything Austen Challenge and couldn’t. What can I say? Life with a busy four year old and academic studies got in the way of more readerly desires.

Cue to this year, and the starting date for the Everything Austen Challenge was July 1. Anyone along the Eastern region of Canada or the United States would know that around that time, apart from the Tour de France starting, was one of the nastiest heatwaves ever to hit the region. I don’t know many people who can handle heat and much worse, humidity that makes it feel like it 45C /113F day after day! Further to the discomfort, we didn’t own an air conditioner, making it sticky, smelly and sweaty in this glass walled, sun filled apartment. So the idea of writing an entry stating what I would do for the challenge – even if I could have stopped my computer from overheating and fritzing out within five minutes – was much more than I could to do. But here it is, the end of the July, the extreme heat has blown out across the eastern seaboard, (or maybe it’s because we have blown out our budget and bought an air conditioner,) but I now have the ability to get four brain cells to jump together and form coherent sentences.

The first activity I am currently undertaking is reading Cassandra and Jane ; A Jane Austen Novel by Jill Pitkeathley. It fills me with wonder that for such a beloved author, we know so very little about her real life and have to fill in the gaps with hearsay and guesses. And as a student of the past, who has never quite gotten over the inhumanity of not being born in Europe where I could fully wallow in all things personally interesting historically speaking, it’s a given that I will choose something historical to complete.

University studies took over almost every moment for the last few years; watching television has been a luxury that I had to forgo. But not now, and I intend to watch all things Austen. I have the Emma Thompson version of Sense and Sensibility, as well as the BBC 2008 production. I must confess that I continually put this version on late at night as I snuggle down in bed, thinking I have the staying power to watch all the way through in one sitting and never do! I also own the Gwyneth Paltrow version of Emma, but as of yet I haven’t watched the 2009 BBC production and have been desperate to do so. Now that I think about it, I also saw one episode of Lost in Austen which made me giggle, but never saw the whole series. I should defiantly rectify that.

I have accepted the idea that to truly push the boundaries of my comfort zone, I should perhaps read one of those (ghastly) Jane Austen and Zombies / Vampires / Other Gobbltygook books that were so much the rage just a year or so ago. I haven’t really made up my mind as to which one yet – I’m open to suggestions. And of course, as befitting for a challenge I must read some of the work from Miss Austen. I intend to read Persuasion and Mansfield Park; two novels I’ve never actually read.

I do have the odd little thought in the back of my head that I should attempt some other kinds of challenges that make the most of my own personal skills and abilities. Something like trying my hand at completing some examples of embroidery from Miss Austen’s time. And maybe having a go at cooking a meal such as people from late 1700 to the early 1800’s would have enjoyed. As I said, odd little thoughts. And that, I should think, will see me through six months worth of Everything Austen.

Filed Under: Everything Austen II, The Complete Collection

Melting Pots, Mosaic’s and Canadian Literature

July 23, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

For me, one of the privileges of living in countries such as Australia and Canada is that there is a blending of peoples from the four corners of the world and the cultures that they bring to a new homeland. There is no room for the homogenisation of culture in a new country. The best of everywhere melts together and blends into a new thing altogether, or according to the cultural mosaic theory, everyone comes together and keeps themselves separate whilst creating a new whole together. I personally believe it’s one of the greatest strength of a new nation that there is room for everyone, but the pros and cons of such ideas as melting pots or mosaics are obviously a whole other blog entry and thought process altogether! So it was quite striking to me to read what could almost (almost) be considered mildly sour grapes in reading about an immigrants story in The Globe and Mail.

Writer Carole Enahoro’s satiric novel upends every cliché about Canadian writing – if you can still call it that.
Diasporic fiction is nothing new in Canada – it is fast becoming our national literature.
And the furthest frontier ever for anything that might credibly be called Canadian literature.

It seems that as a nation created of native and diasporic peoples, reading novels based in far away countries is a common theme, possibly even growing in popularity. Within my own critique group the women are enjoying listening to my romance novel that I’ve based in Australia, which bears witness to the idea that Canadians enjoy reading stories based in other countries. But it seems to me that if you are a country that welcomes strangers to your homeland and invite them to make it their own, of course the newest artistic members of society are going to use the memories, experiences and ideas that come from their original homeland into novels that are published in their new home.

And to be honest I’m not sure where its written to be the literature of a nation, a novelist must reflect the nation within the story to carry the title of the said nations literacy excellence. I’m willing to confess that personally, I don’t have a great deal of interest in Carole Enahoro’s book – it doesn’t sound like my kind of story. But the tone of the article really made me burn with frustration. True, I might have interpreted John Barbers article completely. Maybe he really is praising the strange places that immigrants are writing about in their debut novels which are most obviously not Canadian in setting. Maybe there aren’t any sour grapes in the tone of this piece; maybe I’m just plain wrong. And if you think that’s the truth of the matter feel free to leave a note telling me so.

But I don’t think I am.

Filed Under: The Complete Collection

Luna – Julie Anne Peters

July 18, 2010 By Courtney 2 Comments

One of the main characters within the novel “Luna” by Julie Anne Peters reminded me in some ways of Sidney Poitier’s portrayal of the character Dr. John Wade Prentice in the 1967 movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?”

Dr. Prentice was the perfect man in every way but one. Well educated, compassionate, hard working, funny and successful, the only thing that gave Joey Drayton’s parents any reservations about their daughter marrying him was that he had black skin. Similarly, Liam/Luna is a straight A’s high school student with a job on the side testing games which earns him mega money. Good looking (even if in a feminine manner) the world appeared to be at his feet. He was perfect.

Except for one, minor fly in the ointment.

When I sat down and first opened the cover to the book, I desperately wanted to like the character ‘Luna’, and such was the thrill of finishing university and having the freedom to read for pleasure rather than academic research, I read the whole book over the course of one day. Zoom.

Done.

Immediately when I closed the book I couldn’t make up my mind about Luna. Sure, I could feel sympathy for the plight of a person who feels like a female inside and has a male body outside – the reality in which Peters writes about transgendered people is stark, strong and insightful. The pain that Luna lived through is hard to comprehend. And yes, we can give lip service to the idea of a person being trapped in the body of the wrong sex, but really understanding it is way beyond most people’s day to day comprehension.

Once when I was little Dad let me try on his hunting jacket. It was huge; it hung to the floor, and it stank. But what I remember most was the weight. As if that coat would break my knees and drag me down and trap me inside and smother me. That’s how it felt with Liam. Like I was trapped. Suffocating. Was that fair? No. Life wasn’t fair. Liam proved that. pp. 180

But after a couple of hours I found myself actually angry with her. In fact, if I tell the truth and Luna had been a real person, I would have wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled around in her head. Because despite the flicker of understanding that other people were involved in her life that her choices would have an impact upon:
“Yes,” she insisted, squeezing my forearm.

“Yes Re. I’m always in here crying on your shoulder, asking your advice, taking up your time. It isn’t fair to you. All these years, I haven’t been fair to you.” She sat back on her haunches. “I’ve been so self-centred, so self-absorbed. I haven’t taken your feelings into consideration. I’ve leaned on you too hard. Depended on you too much.” pp.212

My conclusion was that Luna didn’t care about anyone but Luna and her problems, and in the end she ran away to did what was best for her and didn’t think about the repercussions for anyone else left behind in her wake. Ironically, several days later I’m back to feeling a sort of sympathy for her, understanding why she thought there was no other option and that she had to do the things she did.
“I was only doing what needs to be done. This is life or death for me, Re. If I don’t transition, I don’t want to live.”
All the blood drained from my face. How could she say that? She couldn’t mean it.
Our eyes met and understanding flowed between us. Total comprehension.
Life or death.
I got it. I finally got it. The change had to come in me. My acceptance of Luna, my support of her transition, my seeing her as a real person. pp.213

Regan, Luna’s long suffering sister however, I wanted to throw my arms around, tell her how incredible she was. I wanted to tell her that she needed to be able to live her own life and not worry about everyone else’s needs all the time. The times she allowed Luna’s needs to over ride her own happiness spoke to me on a very personal level.

The basement lights were out, which spooked me. Liam wouldn’t be in bed already. Chris reached over and took my hand. “It’s just family stuff,” I mumbled. “It’s not you.”
“Hey,” he said. “Family shit can wear you down.”
That was an understatement. I was suddenly angry. Here I was with this incredible guy who made me feel special and bought me dinner and took me to a move and wanted to spend time with me and all I could think about was what my brother was doing, what he was thinking and feeling. How I should have left him alone on his birthday, not tonight. Not the way he was acting. pp.233

But maybe that’s the magic and the true power of Peters writing. That she could take such a difficult, almost forbidden subject and infuse such humanity and emotions into the characters is quite a feat. A book dealing with an area of sexuality that on the whole is still very much shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding by mainstream society could have veered off into a nasty example of cheap titillation. Instead, Peters has written about the issue of being transgendered with dignity and respect.

I really enjoyed this book. But because I’m not sure that there are perfectly happy endings in this kind of situation for a family, I found myself hoping that Luna would find peace eventually and that Regan would find the freedom to be herself.

The copy of this book came from my local library.

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316733695

Filed Under: Book Reviews, The Complete Collection

Judging a Book by its Cover

July 11, 2010 By Courtney 2 Comments

If you’re a fan of the ‘Project Runway’ program with Heidi Klum then you’d love the latest incarnation of the style in the show Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. In this reality series, a group of artists face new challenges every week, where the worst work of art results in the dismissal of the artist until there is an ultimate winner who will have their own showing at the Brooklyn Museum.

Last night was the perfect challenge for a writer to watch. The contestants were to create a new cover for one of the following classic novels; The Time Machine, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland or Frankenstein.

The ultimate aim for almost any writer is to see their book in print, slick in a perfectly designed new dust cover, sitting gaily on the shelf of a book store with strangers picking it up and taking it to the check out. Because when a writer has a story idea, they often slave over the work for months, sometimes even years. From little more than a random thought of “I wonder what would happen if…” they have written and then re-written sentences until they don’t even resemble the original version. They had agonised over the placement of every comma, colon and full stop. The characters have become so real in their heads that sometimes phone calls and emails from people in the actual world are ignored because the flow of the story is such that it demands a writer’s full attention. Finally, an agent falls in love with the story; send it to one of their numerous contacts in a publishing house and JACKPOT! You have sold your story and it’s going to be published so that people everywhere will be able to read the fruits of your imagination – the goal of every hour of work you put into writing the story in the first place.

So it comes as a little bit of a shock that as a writer we will have no say in the cover art of the story. I’m imagining that’s something akin to telling a mother that she has no say in what her new born child is going to wear home from the hospital. Someone (a stranger!) is going to create a cover that is supposed to represent your years of work. They are going to create what will be the first thing a person sees, and sadly, will probably judge whether or not to buy your story. And it’s this reality that made the episode three, “Judging A Book By Its Cover” such an incredible one. The ultimate prize for the winning artist was for their work to grace the cover of the Penguin version of whatever classic novel they had pulled out of the hat, or paintbox as the case maybe. As you would expect in a show with 12 artists of various abilities and specialities, some of the results were amazing and others… not so much.

The artist Miles Mendenhall confessed that he hadn’t read the book he had been assigned (Dracula) and calculated that it would take him four hours to read. Taking four hours out of a seven hour work period to cloister himself off to read a book so to better portray the story in his artwork impressed me as an author. Just as watching Jaclyn Santos, working on a cover for Pride and Prejudice, admitting she had only read a synopsis of the book before embarking on creating a work that had herself on the cover, half naked with a top hat in one hand, frustrated me both as a writer and fan of the author. And let’s not get into the whole deal that she spelt Austen with an “i’ like the Texas city.

Given the choice between the two artists, as an author I would hope for a Miles to be assigned my book cover – an artist who respected my form of art enough to take the time to represent my work whole heartedly. I would hope for an artist who saw taking the time to get to know the story as vital to the portrayal of the story in the cover. And it reminded me that the old saying on not judging a book by its cover is sadly very true.

And just for the record, if anyone in the States just happens to know the eventual winner personally (John Parot, LA, California – The Time Machine) and he is willing to sign a copy of his front cover…please – feel free to hook me up!

Filed Under: The Complete Collection

Books the Cost of Cigarettes? I dare you Penguin!

June 28, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

The septuagenarian publishing company is celebrating its 75 anniversary. But rather than blow out 75 candles, it has pumped out 75 classics for our reading consumption.

The 75 new Popular Penguins feature 13 titles by some of Australia’s best known writers, including Thea Astley, Isobelle Carmody, Bryce Courtenay and Tim Winton

The first Penguin paperbacks appeared in the summer of 1935 and included works by Ernest Hemingway, André Maurois and Agatha Christie. They were colour coded – orange for fiction, blue for biography and green for crime – and cost sixpence, the same price as a packet of cigarettes, according to Penguin.

The latest batch of Popular Penguins are in bookstores now.

(taken from the Carte Blanche ,The Herald Sun, Melbourne, Australia)

One cannot help but notice that the whole pricing deal for books is very different now.

…and cost sixpence, the same price as a packet of cigarettes

Now I haven’t bought a book in Australia for 18 months, but wandering through stores and occasionally buying books in Canada is a favourite activity, and trust me when I say that the cost of a paperback book is nowhere near as ‘affordable’ as a packet of cigarettes.

Of course, not being a smoker, I had to do some research to write that last line with any authority, which resulted in my trolling though the internet to find the cost of smokes, raising eyebrows around here. With approximately ten packets in a carton, and the cheapest carton I could find being $55 (Marlboro King Size) then the cost of an individual packet of cigarettes is $5.50 a pack.

Any bookworm would know that getting the latest best seller for $5.50 is to dream the impossible dream. Heck, it’s almost impossible to get a modern day classic for $5.50. The Popular Penguins are priced at AUS$9.95 (tax in) which is CAD$8.98 which is still not as cheap as a packet of cigarettes, but it is getting there.

The only other thing I would add in my thoughts is that when Penguin started publishing books for the cost of a packet of cigarettes, the stories they were offering were not as old as they are now. That is, they were much closer to being considered ‘modern’ stories. And there are no current best sellers on the Popular Penguin list that I can see.

I get giddy at the thought of being able to fuel my addiction to the written word so affordably. Come on Penguin; I dare you. Start making cheap as ciggies books, because everyone knows that reading is a much healthier habit!

Filed Under: The Complete Collection, Writers & Publishers

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

June 11, 2010 By Courtney Leave a Comment

For five long months I was tortured. I was in the midst of educational philosophy and the amount of brain power it took to read and more, actually comprehend what I was reading for my university studies severely limited the amount of free time I had to dedicate to writing. In January I was able to concentrate on writing for a solid two hour block when Bronwen was at school. But the amount of work that came with my university course meant that for the last seven weeks I basically had to give up any and all creative writing and work solely on my mini thesis. In fact, I promised my Life Make Over group that I wouldn’t touch any creative work because I was finding it all too stressful to try and do it all. But I would look longingly at the spiral books that I enjoy writing by hand in and moan to anyone who would listen that I couldn’t wait to get back to my fiction writing.

Well get this. I finished the course last week. For the last seven days I have been free of the academic writing and I am struggling to get back into the swing of creative writing. I now lack the quiet spirit that I had cultivated last year and the idea of sitting for two hours and churning out 1000 words fills me fear and a certain awe; I used to do that five days a week? There are just too many distractions right now. The house has gone to pot whilst I was buried in my books, so I could spend every day for a month cleaning. My daughter has been gifted with bags of clothing that needs a permanent home, resulting in my needing to weed out the clothing too small to make room for the new, meaning I’m going down memory lane with every single item of clothing I’m having to put away. Having read so much educational stuff over the past five months, there is now a pile of books from the library >this big< that I want to lose myself in. And the World Cup has started.

So I remind myself that it was a scant week ago that I sent my work in. That seven days after five months of hard slog isn’t so very much. But I really ache to get back to my writing. Of churning out 1000 words a day. Of the ‘muse’ returning and the words flowing easily. Maybe I can fool my brain into thinking creatively rather than academically by writing this blog post. That or I’m going to have to get strict and force myself to write a smaller amount (500?) of words growing to larger numbers and simply train my head to get back into the swing of things.

I forsee hard work ahead.

Filed Under: Me, the Wannabe, The Complete Collection Tagged With: Fiction, Life Make Over group, writing

Editing- pushing boulders uphill

Excellence in Dumb

Cassandra and Jane (A Jane Austen Novel) -Jill Pitkeathley

Coining a New Term in Erotic Writing

Everything Austen II Challenge List

Melting Pots, Mosaic’s and Canadian Literature

Luna – Julie Anne Peters

Judging a Book by its Cover

Books the Cost of Cigarettes? I dare you Penguin!

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

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