Happy New Year my darlings. May you all have an incredible journey through 2014 filled with love, inspiration, fun, laughter, a few challenges and the wherewithall to meet them.
Showing posts with label sketchedout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sketchedout. Show all posts
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Happy New Year
Happy New Year my darlings. May you all have an incredible journey through 2014 filled with love, inspiration, fun, laughter, a few challenges and the wherewithall to meet them.
Monday, 16 December 2013
Monday Monday can't stop that day
and a smiling Koala to start the day off right.
I slept in today after being up until 2am reading more than one hundred flash fiction pieces in a competition to write a holiday story. I really like the children's literature world I am diving into. People are so kind and supportive and the stories are lovely. I would recommend reading them all on Susanna Hill's blog http://susannahill.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/ho-ho-ho-3rd-annual-holiday-writing.html
I hope some of these stories end up in a Christmas/Holiday anthology for next year.
It is already Tuesday and I am heading to bed in a few minutes. My Goddess story is at 8000plus words and I am liking where it is going. Mirrors is still under review. I managed to get most of the paperwork for the school done without strangling anything. I had such a bizarre day. I need to get back to Goldilocks soon and finish the first full draft. I ran out and put the bins on the curb and fixed the toilet cistern and ironed some wet clothing I pulled off the line as it started to rain. I think the whole day needs to be tucked into a 'look at it all later' corner. I bought a tin today with the words for thankyou in many languages and I am going to make it my gratitude tin and every time I think of something I am grateful for I will put some coins in it and then when it is full I will find something really lovely to do with it to 'pay it forward'. There are so many wonderful people in my life who fill me with love and kindness, who support and encourage me and who make my world a wonderful place. I am supremely fortunate to live here in this country in this time and to have finally reached a point in my maturation to realise how fortunate I am.
On that night I bid you a fond goodnight and hope if you are reading this that your life is full of love and gentle things. xoxo
Saturday, 14 December 2013
more cool weather
Today for my ho ho doo da( Holiday doodle a day) I have poor Santa, much more appropriately dressed for the usual Australian heat and benefitting from Mrs. Santa's health regime, trying to find his way into the house. It is wonderful to see more and more solar panels on rooftops. If only there were also rooftop gardens and more trees.
I am finding great benefit in doing these drawings each day. The doing soothes and calms me and I find myself moving into my day with a smile on my face. Much as I dream of having the artistic skills of some of the brilliant children's illustrators I so admire, I am finding pleasure in my own skill and style and enjoying my little personal gallery.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
the tenth
As Aussie Christmas themes go, a surf life saver and a red and yellow flag pretty much encapsulates it all. I am going to do a GIRL life saver in a minute so don't get your togs in a knot, or your cozzies or your mankini, not even your bathers and board shorts. I will put up a girl very soon.
here are the women...
Now I have my Goddess at over 3000 words and I am learning so many things about writing that I had to type up some schedules to keep up with the things I am doing. Off to the other work tomorrow and then drop my paper work in at the hospital and back home to type and type and type. I do love creating.
Monday, 9 December 2013
Ninth of December
Happy birthday Grigor, older than me for a short while but I will catch up.
It is the time of year here in Australia when children have their concerts and communities gather in the park or on the green, down by a lake or river and sing Christmas carols by candlelight. It is a lovely way for a community to get together in the usually balmy summer evenings and share music and laughter. Often the candles are superfluous due to the long lingering twilight after the sunset however they do add a certain ambiance to the atmosphere. The new plastic flameless candles certainly flicker in regimented ways and wont cause bushfires or burn curious fingertips. Still it can't be carols y candlelight with out at least a token candle.
Let us sing something joyful now.
Yesterday was a huge push to get my room organised and i am very pleased with the progress. I over flowed the washing machine this morning so the laundry and toilet both had the floors mopped after dropping the girl at school and doing two loads of washing and two loads of dishes. I made my bed and gathered all the socks for pairing, organised paperwork for non writing purposes and made phone calls. Still avoiding putting in my paperwork for surgery and managed to do my daily drawing for my blog. I am doing a post SkaDaMo challenge to continue a daily drawing on a Christmas or Holiday theme. I am trying to keep mine very Australian in content. The new challenge is called Ho Ho Doo Da(Doo = doodle Da = Day) I had some feedback from a beta and she was appalled at the 'lack of editing' of most of the stories in two of the anthologies I have work in. I have given her my latest version of Mirrors to pick apart. I dread sending anything else out into the world that would not meet her inspection. My librarian friend also has a copy and she will be tough on me too. I think tough is good now. Not so long ago I would have been too fragile for a tough critique. Okay so have I written much today? Not yet but the day is young.
five hours later and I have hardly written a word but I did come up with a good line "many great writers had to be forged in the fires of hell" and I feel it might go places. I have been discovering small press and writers beware. I have looked at self publishing options and talked with people about their experiences, I have read two romances today one that annoyed the daylights out of me because the preliminary blurb felt like a synopsis instead and almost turned me off reading it and the second one had an opening chapter that felt like a fifteen year old hysterical facebook post so I went no further. A productive day in terms of learning but not in terms of writing. Still it is only 7.38 and I may yet find the push to move my goddess forward. wc at 10pm 1500+
It is the time of year here in Australia when children have their concerts and communities gather in the park or on the green, down by a lake or river and sing Christmas carols by candlelight. It is a lovely way for a community to get together in the usually balmy summer evenings and share music and laughter. Often the candles are superfluous due to the long lingering twilight after the sunset however they do add a certain ambiance to the atmosphere. The new plastic flameless candles certainly flicker in regimented ways and wont cause bushfires or burn curious fingertips. Still it can't be carols y candlelight with out at least a token candle.
Let us sing something joyful now.
Yesterday was a huge push to get my room organised and i am very pleased with the progress. I over flowed the washing machine this morning so the laundry and toilet both had the floors mopped after dropping the girl at school and doing two loads of washing and two loads of dishes. I made my bed and gathered all the socks for pairing, organised paperwork for non writing purposes and made phone calls. Still avoiding putting in my paperwork for surgery and managed to do my daily drawing for my blog. I am doing a post SkaDaMo challenge to continue a daily drawing on a Christmas or Holiday theme. I am trying to keep mine very Australian in content. The new challenge is called Ho Ho Doo Da(Doo = doodle Da = Day) I had some feedback from a beta and she was appalled at the 'lack of editing' of most of the stories in two of the anthologies I have work in. I have given her my latest version of Mirrors to pick apart. I dread sending anything else out into the world that would not meet her inspection. My librarian friend also has a copy and she will be tough on me too. I think tough is good now. Not so long ago I would have been too fragile for a tough critique. Okay so have I written much today? Not yet but the day is young.
five hours later and I have hardly written a word but I did come up with a good line "many great writers had to be forged in the fires of hell" and I feel it might go places. I have been discovering small press and writers beware. I have looked at self publishing options and talked with people about their experiences, I have read two romances today one that annoyed the daylights out of me because the preliminary blurb felt like a synopsis instead and almost turned me off reading it and the second one had an opening chapter that felt like a fifteen year old hysterical facebook post so I went no further. A productive day in terms of learning but not in terms of writing. Still it is only 7.38 and I may yet find the push to move my goddess forward. wc at 10pm 1500+
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Sunday a day of rest (for some)
I stayed in bed until 11.20am. Oh my goodness what a sleep in and very unusual because staying in bed that long usually causes me physical discomfort in the extreme but due to the lengthy noncycle ride last night I suspect it eased something in my structural integrity so I was able to sleep long and pain free for once. I am seeing much more of my bedroom floor(goodbye floordrobe) now that I am organising the space as my writing space. I just measured up the book shelf for my resource materials and it fits just perfectly in the designated space so I can take folders out of bags and have them ready to hand when I need them. This might be the first time in my life that my room will be totally organised. woo hoo. Today I did my eighth Aussie Christmas image for the sketched out challenge (HO HO Doo Da) and I am quite enjoying myself.
These images are appealing to my sense of rightness in the world. I have been tired of seeing northern hemisphere images at Christmas every year with snow and animals we never see here. Snow men, snow flakes and snow covered trees are things we see in winter but only in a very limited portion of Australia. My preferred Aussie images are the gorgeous red flowering native plants that bloom in December or the light displays on houses, hot sunny days, people at the beach, cricket and family and get-togethers. That is what the time of year is about. Getting in touch with each other when all through the year we make electronic notes that don't really feel the same. Typing HUG or LIKE is nothing like a real hug and a real word out of a real mouth. The middle of December has been a time for humans to celebrate and get together for thousands of years no matter what the trendy religion of the time is. I love that people are kinder, more generous, closer and want to give gifts of appreciation to each other. I also love Christmas songs. They are always cheerful and there are no dark malicious lyrics in them. There is no sex, drugs, violence and drive by shootings in Christmas Carols. Give me Christmas carols all year please.
I am struggling with the plot of a short story and my head is in overdrive working on reasons for the characters doing the things they do so I haven't much brain left over for everything else and I think my face to face (F2F) friends are becoming used to that. I am glad to know they love me enough to tolerate my eccentricities.
Time to write and work my head around the international tax file number application. I joined several motivation groups online so that will help keep me on track. Having the chat and interaction in sprints was a wonderful way of motivating myself with the support of others and I miss it. I am reorganising my room to have a permanent writing space and feeling very positive about it. I have never been so organised at home in my life, except when I had seven foster kids at once, now that was a logistics challenge if ever there was one. I am writing around 2500 words a day but not counting specifics. I think I write approximately 600 words at a time if I allow myself to edit as I go. The sprints gave me permission not to edit which is probably why I could get the 800 to 1000 words in 30 minute sprints. I have signed up for some revision groups for PB manuscripts and will play with that Idea for 12 months. I do love children's books but I suspect I will settle into relationship fiction in the long term. I have written and sent several short flash fiction pieces off to anthologies since nano and enjoy them for the challenge of getting a good story out in the world in a short space of time. I had some wonderful feedback from two readers of anthologies I am already in. One said my story stands like a beacon amongst dross and another said 'I only found one mistake in yours but the others are riddled with them' and I take that as high praise. She came through her schooling when grammar was an integral part of the curriculum and she went on to become a highly efficient copy editor and secretary in her years in the newspaper industry before proof reading became redundant as a practice. I refuse to give up my s for american z and entered a discussion on that very push by of course americans who demand everyone else fall in line with their spelling practices. I shall also refuse to delete 'u' where it is an automatic spelling choice. Off my soapbox again I have more vacuuming to do.
These images are appealing to my sense of rightness in the world. I have been tired of seeing northern hemisphere images at Christmas every year with snow and animals we never see here. Snow men, snow flakes and snow covered trees are things we see in winter but only in a very limited portion of Australia. My preferred Aussie images are the gorgeous red flowering native plants that bloom in December or the light displays on houses, hot sunny days, people at the beach, cricket and family and get-togethers. That is what the time of year is about. Getting in touch with each other when all through the year we make electronic notes that don't really feel the same. Typing HUG or LIKE is nothing like a real hug and a real word out of a real mouth. The middle of December has been a time for humans to celebrate and get together for thousands of years no matter what the trendy religion of the time is. I love that people are kinder, more generous, closer and want to give gifts of appreciation to each other. I also love Christmas songs. They are always cheerful and there are no dark malicious lyrics in them. There is no sex, drugs, violence and drive by shootings in Christmas Carols. Give me Christmas carols all year please.
I am struggling with the plot of a short story and my head is in overdrive working on reasons for the characters doing the things they do so I haven't much brain left over for everything else and I think my face to face (F2F) friends are becoming used to that. I am glad to know they love me enough to tolerate my eccentricities.
Time to write and work my head around the international tax file number application. I joined several motivation groups online so that will help keep me on track. Having the chat and interaction in sprints was a wonderful way of motivating myself with the support of others and I miss it. I am reorganising my room to have a permanent writing space and feeling very positive about it. I have never been so organised at home in my life, except when I had seven foster kids at once, now that was a logistics challenge if ever there was one. I am writing around 2500 words a day but not counting specifics. I think I write approximately 600 words at a time if I allow myself to edit as I go. The sprints gave me permission not to edit which is probably why I could get the 800 to 1000 words in 30 minute sprints. I have signed up for some revision groups for PB manuscripts and will play with that Idea for 12 months. I do love children's books but I suspect I will settle into relationship fiction in the long term. I have written and sent several short flash fiction pieces off to anthologies since nano and enjoy them for the challenge of getting a good story out in the world in a short space of time. I had some wonderful feedback from two readers of anthologies I am already in. One said my story stands like a beacon amongst dross and another said 'I only found one mistake in yours but the others are riddled with them' and I take that as high praise. She came through her schooling when grammar was an integral part of the curriculum and she went on to become a highly efficient copy editor and secretary in her years in the newspaper industry before proof reading became redundant as a practice. I refuse to give up my s for american z and entered a discussion on that very push by of course americans who demand everyone else fall in line with their spelling practices. I shall also refuse to delete 'u' where it is an automatic spelling choice. Off my soapbox again I have more vacuuming to do.
Friday, 6 December 2013
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