self doubt and Sunday's

One of the most debilitating things for any creative person is self doubt. There are any number of memes depicting the cyclic nature of perceived worth for any work, be it writing, music, or art in any form. I am no different from hundreds of thousands of other creatives who doubt themselves and their ability to create something worthwhile.

If I tally up the things I have done over the past year and a half I know I have produced an astounding number of words strung together as stories and an incredible amount of art. When I am listening rationally to the comments from others I can hear them say how much they like my work or how much they like my art but still I am more convinced by the negatives than the positives. I focus on my growing pile of rejections and my growing pile of failures in competitions. Rational me says that I need to research the judges and see what they like and not submit a story and hope it will win on its merits not the subjective likes of a judge. The rational me doesn't get a fair hearing.

I finally officially sent in an "I'm not coming back" letter to my former employer and they advertised my job within hours. I am relieved and scared at the same time. I need to make my writing and art an income generating activity but no one pays for anthology pieces, at least no one who will take my stories which brings me full circle into the belief that my work is only good enough for small press and vanity publishers who have no money to pay anyone (Or say they haven't). All the big publishers I have subbed to have either rejected me or not even known I subbed.

I sent one story to 12 people who offered to beta read for me and only two responded. Even my beta readers are rejecting me. So I am spiraling back to maybe I should quit this gig and go get a job cleaning toilets with my stories.

I ran out of money ages ago and I don't have a 'real job' to go back to. 

So before I sink into some quagmire of depressing thoughts I will share a bit of art for this week's 52 week challenge. Theme: Paris.
 I have never been, only seen, Paris through the lens. 
One day I'll go and see the show that poets scribe and then I'll know.

The first image was painted with water colours but I was not particularly happy with the soft pastel hues so I re-coloured with pencil next day. The image was in part inspired by the poster below and various images of the bridges over the Seine. I do love the lamp posts and hope some day to see them for myself. I am planning on one more image for the week of Coco Chanel.

My new garden plants are all sprouting leaves and the bulbs are up and flowering. I have never been an enthusiastic gardener and I am quite pleased when things actually grow well. My mother was an enthusiastic gardener, so enthusiastic she knew the common and scientific names of everything in her garden plus all the medical, cosmetic and edible properties of each and every leaf, stem, bulb and flower. Her talents were wasted, she should have been running the horticulture classes at a university somewhere. She loved plants so much that my sister wrote a song about it. The lyrics went something like this...  Plants, plates and other people always get your love, if I were to grow a leaf maybe you would see me... she will correct me, my sister, for having her lyrics wrong but it was four decades ago. I tell people I know nothing about plants but the truth is I do, I absorbed information about plants because that was all my mother was ever interested in. I don't willingly garden and until very recent times would only put edible plants in a garden and dismissed plants for their aesthetic appeal as purely fanciful and a waste of dirt and water. My mother did not grow food. She had eight children but did not grow food?

Goodness this post is maudlin I shall try and lift my dopamine and serotonin levels somewhat. The sun is shining, that should help or at least fill me with some vitamin D.

 My daughter is off to her second master class for acting today. She seems both terrified and enthusiastic and I am hoping it will strengthen her skills and give her a network of contacts.
 she is doing the 5 WEEK INTENSIVE MASTERCLASS WITH ANDY McPHEE through big&small acting studio

PO BOX 5244South Melbourne, VIC,3205

Andy McPhee  actor.  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0574173/

She is discovering that even adults do homework but the only people who check it is themselves. She has to read an actors autobiography each week, watch and review films, write poetry and monologues,  learn scripts, listen to music and analyse it and then in class she has to act and dance and change her accent and modify the scene to fit a different genre and so much more. It is intense and she was not prepared for the expectations of an adult class after fluffing around in high school but she will adapt. This is the career path she has always shown an interest in so I am hoping by supporting her to do this she can take flight.

I have paid for two courses to improve my own skills and I need to begin studying. I sent away for a book on self publishing which should be awesome. I am excited for friends and network acquaintances who have recently published their first books and signed their first contracts or signed new contracts. It is wonderful to see the successes of people I value. It gives me some hope to push past my own self depreciation.

Perseverance is the key. Most of the well known writers in giving tips say the same thing. BIC (bottom in chair), write every day and just keep going. So I shall just keep going. I have some more art to complete today and that always cheers me up.

Have a wonderful day dear readers.

ps I love you sister of mine.
pps. sorry I stood you up for the cuppa Shirley
ppps. did you know you could have a post post post script
pppps. the word Happy is used three times more often in English than sad

Dr Who Doctor Who 50th anniversary

Tonight I watched the 50th Anniversary special of Dr Who. Thankyou Toby Whithouse.
The appearance of Tom Baker had me sobbing for an hour. I have to stop typing to blow my nose and cry some more. Dr Who was the most influential thing of my childhood and now in this decade of my life has been brilliant. The new writers have taken something so fundamental to the shaping of who I am and treated it with respect and dignity and lots of fun. The new string of actors have brought The Doctor to my children in a manner I eminently approve of. Giving Sarah Jane her own show, having the Brigadier's daughter follow in his footsteps and the hundred million little details that make the whole thing continued magic. Thank you each and every one of the producers, directors, writers (especially the writers), actors and all the cast and crew.

Yesterday is history,who knows what there is going to be when we meet again...

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed....anyway it was a flat day yesterday and I felt like I achieved nothing of import. I did feel a grief for the death of two trees in my yard. One because wood borers had killed it, burrowing deep. I had watched it slowly dying over the past several years not knowing what to do to prevent its demise and yesterday the tree loppers came along and sliced through the branches and trunk with their variety of chainsaws then turn the stump to sawdust. The chipper came and turned the branches piled high on the front lawn, into tiny flakes of wood. The other tree had already been decimated when the house was built and was relegated to a mere stump, albeit a vigorously healthy stump which keeps putting out shoots to the chagrin of my neighbour. I am all in favour of the stump being vigorous. However the neighbour won this round by lopping off all the offending branches and sending them to the chipper with the branches from the bigger tree. I am planning to replace both trees with three more and deciding what I want to put in there. The tree loppers wanted to take out all my big trees and I felt very angry at the stupidity and shortsightedness of such a suggestion. One of them suggested I put in a nice shrub. I wanted to respond more aggressively to that suggestion but managed to contain myself.Sadly, no matter what I plant I will be unlikely to see it in full canopied glory, shading the house and providing shelter for cicadas and birds. A tree is a lifetime commitment.

Sometimes I feel we are all angry selfish babies and it is "All about me".

Today is a better day. Today I had a beautiful fruit salad for breakfast and then set about doing some drawing and getting my blog back on track after neglecting it yesterday. I only managed a meagre 400 words on my novels so today I will dedicate time and effort to building my word count. It is a better day today and I will have momentous results from a more positive attitude.

How to cut a coin in half

Today's PiBoIdMo idea stemmed from a dream I awoke from in which a teenage girl was visiting elderly relatives with her younger siblings. The uncle was encouraging the children to be inquisitive and rowdy and the older sister was trying to keep them in line. The uncle admonished her for being too straight laced and constrained and she retorted that she too would love to let loose and run around yelling and leaping but her needs did not outweigh her responsibility to keep the others safe or the neighbours rights to live quietly. It was an interesting debate between the two and the rest was irrelevant but I think I should mention the pregnant man and the clash between other siblings in the city(my dreams are often vivid and weird).
So then my dream wandered to a centrelink scene with some person screaming at the person working there that they had rights and the worker holding up a five cent coin and saying 'should I cut this in half and give it to you? This is legal tender and on this side there is a small animal and it represents your rights, your right to all the things you are yelling about but not once do you turn the coin around and look at the head of the monarch on this side. This side represents responsibility. It is a two sided coin. If I cut it in half it is no longer legal tender. Did I mention my dreams were weird? The worker went on to give quite a lecture on rights AND responsibilities. I woke up thinking about Baa Baa Rainbow sheep, which some thick witted fool decided was more appropriate than baa baa black sheep because a black sheep was racist or some moronic interpretation of the old nursery rhyme. A sheep is a sheep. In times past the wool of a black sheep was highly prized over that of white sheep. It is a sheep. A black sheep just as the nursery rhyme depicts. Then people decided they wanted red and purple and pink and green wool so the white wool became more prevalent because it can be dyed. Funny how fashion changes things. Now the only rainbow sheep that might exist is in a twisted ditty, because scientists haven't worked out how to pre-dye the wool unless we go back to black sheep and so there isn't one. A rain bow sheep - there isn't one! Except in that idiotic changed song that kids are being forced to sing in case they might misconstrue a sheep as a racist icon. How ridiculous. Why not talk to the kids about counting and sheep and historical context and fashion instead of pretending there is something racist about it? Why not be a responsible adult and talk to kids about lots of things. Enrich their world instead of restricting it.

Crones

Crones

“Who is that woman sitting across from us?” my table companion leaned close to be heard over the conversations and music. I looked at her and glanced at her husband's enquiring face. They really had no clue. I looked across the table to the weathered face of the woman I had known all her life. Her skin had aged beyond her years and contrasted glaringly with her dyed blonde hair in a Stevie Nicks 80's style, thirty years behind the times. Her make up sat heavy on her too soon crepe eyelids and her hands shook as she reached into her bag for the ever present cigarettes. She wore clothes a teenage girl would have been proud to wear and I felt sad for the teen girl lost in this aging woman.
“She is my sister, the bride's sister. She is the next youngest after me.” The couple looked shocked and puzzled.
“We didn't even know she existed.” These people had been friends of the bride's parents for many many years.
“That's because we are the green sheep of the family” I laughed as I always do to cover awkward moments and ease things for others. “Besides daughters don't count.” I smiled and got up from the table to talk with people who had kept themselves strangers from me when I lived here but who had put on their wedding happy faces and pretended they had missed me. The same people who had taken bets on which local man would invade my grief to offer me sexual solace after my husband left. The people who had no interest in my pain or loneliness or grief.
By chance I sat with another of my sister's. This one a tall robust woman with a giant heart and a difficult nature. Pain does that to people. She had had pain for a long time, physically, mentally and emotionally. We all had, and tonight was no exception. People had noticed. The main table was set for the father and mother of the bride, the father and mother of the groom, three of the bride's brothers and their partners but not us. Her sister's were relegated to wherever we could find a seat amongst the general guests. I doubt we would even have been invited if the bride had not insisted. One brother and one sister had not been invited at all.
I looked up as our other sister joined us after her smoke. A girl approached us with a camcorder, gushing and grinning and asking us to record something for the bride.
A fairy tale from my childhood floated into my fore brain as I looked at us. The three wise old crones leaving our wisdom and wishes for the new bride. Each bestowing her own particular gem.
It was only a moment but it was too much. We were all wondering why she had a father and a wedding and all these trimmings and we had been cast aside like waste products in an abattoir.
The brides mother dandled her grandchild on her knee. “oh it is so lovely that we finally have a grandchild” emphasising the we, she gushed and cooed at the baby. I looked at the dance floor and counted the other ten grandchildren who didn't rate a mention.
Of course they wouldn't, they were the children of her husbands first family. Mine and my sister's children.
I knew this would be a gruelling ordeal and I had been working up to it for weeks. I hadn't been able to attend my baby sister's engagement. I wasn't mentally prepared to face her parents. I had a breakdown in the car fifteen kilometres from the wedding venue. Sobbing and punching my steering wheel and fighting with myself not to just turn around and drive for three hours back to the safety of my own home.
My children were horrified. They could not fathom what was wrong with me. I told them that the people they were about to meet would be lovely and friendly and kind and probably funny and they would never understand what was wrong with me or what they were really like because they hadn't lived with them.
When I arrived I had support from a most unexpected quarter.
“Don't worry Mum, if anyone gives you shit just let me know and I'll deal with them for ya.” I was so stunned by this I burst into tears again. My tall skinny boy had my back. I hadn't dared hope any of my boys would support me. I thought they all lived in happy families pretend land. My first born just told me to get a grip in that gruff, don't embarrass me mum way of his.
I managed to catch my breath and put on my public smile in time to greet several of my brothers whom I had not seen for some time. I smiled at people I had not seen for years and smiled at nephews and nieces and strangers. I hugged my sisters and kept smiling even when my cheeks hurt.
I sprinkled glitter on the bride and she laughed. In an attempt at a positive interaction with her mother I said that the glitter down her dress would make her remember me, to which she responded “Why would she remember you? Oh that's right you are one of the, er, sisters.” must be alzheimer's setting in early since she has known me for 39 years. I didn't think anything would have changed but I am ever the optimist and hope burns eternal even in the face of all opposition.
I wished the bride a long and happy marriage. I think that is what I said. I think I said that the way the groom looked at her gave me hope that her future would be full of love. I am not sure really what I said but I wanted her to know that I really was there for her in my own small way.
I had always felt sad for the crones in the story and now I am one.

memories

In the deep, the two strong swimmers felt the pull and drag of the waves on their young bodies. They raced between waves, parallel to the shore, dragging their arms through the rippling turquoise liquid, flipping under the waves, somersaulting and splashing. Filled with joy and youthful enthusiasm for this warm tropical water. Movement toward the beach caught the girls attention and she swam through the breakers and paddled toward the shore, trying to see what was attracting so many people. Her ear detected a wailing sound as she moved closer. Her feet dropped slowly to the seabed and she stood up. The wailing became a siren.
“Jellies! Look at the Jellies!” people were yelling and gesticulating at the water. Just beyond the wave line the sea was covered with a blanket of bobbing gelatinous globes. “Get out of the water! Get out of the water!” The girls' stomach clenched and her heart started racing as her eye fell on the bobbing head of her brother just metres from the front line of Jellies. She raced back toward him, ignoring the cries of the crowd behind her. She ran through the water, her attempt to move swiftly taking on the frustrating slowness of a dream as the water sucked and dragged at her legs. Her terror for the fate of her brother pushed her onwards, she tried to yell and swallowed a mouthful of salt water. Coughing and spluttering she tread water and raised her arm trying to attract his attention. A wave of relief washed through her as he turned and looked at her. She was only two troughs from him. Horror gripped her as she watched the crest of the wave and pointed at the Jelly riding above him. He turned his head and quickly dived beneath the wave. She hoped he was out of reach of the tentacles dangling below the surface. Distracted by watching her brother she failed to notice the same Jelly as it crested the wave until the water pushed it against her abdomen. Abruptly she turned, instinctively using the next wave to wash the Jelly off before it tightened its contact. She headed for the shore, veering around the bobbing jelly, relieved to see her brother ahead of her. The panicking crowd concentrated at her part of the beach. They were waving and calling.
“Yeah Yeah, I know about the Jellies” she mumbled to herself as she reached shallower water and stood up to walk the last distance. The moment the air brushed her skin, intense scalding pain rippled along her nerves. She staggered and arms reached to hold her up.
“Call an ambulance!”
“Pour on the metho.”
“Call an ambulance!”
“No, vinegar, pour on vinegar!”
Acrid smelling liquids were poured lavishly over her body, momentarily intensifying the stinging then easing it to a duller edge of pain inside her skin, if only for a few seconds. Vicious purple welts were forming around her torso.
The hubbub of the crowd rolled over her as she tried to think through the screaming along her nerves.
“My brother, is my brother ok?” reassurances from the crowd and her brother's voice helped her relax enough to hear her mother telling the crowd.
“She's okay, she'll live. She has made it through the crucial three minutes so no need for an ambulance. Thank you for your help. She is okay. She is breathing okay...” her mothers voice flowed on reassuring the crowd of no permanent damage from the Jelly sting and was answered by an ebb of surprise and diminishing concern. The aunt gathered her northern browned children and laughed about the toughness of their southern cousins.
“We must have got the vinegar on you in time. There are only three recorded survivors of that particular jelly fish, that's why we have the sirens. You are pretty lucky”
“ Didn't you hear the siren? Would have served you right if you had died.” Her mother shoved her shoulder. “You can have a cold shower when you get back to the house and wash off any stinger left on you.”