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blogging planning & productivity

Setting the scene

January 26, 2013

setting the scene

There’s been a certain amount of scene setting for 2013 going on here at present. I’ve moved my roll-top desk, the centre of my creative universe, from the back of the room where for some reason I had my back to the window and trees. It’s now closer to the window where I can see the trees and feel a cool afternoon breeze wafting in. My room is less cluttered, still busy and full of books and papers, but more organised so I can see and find things. It feels cooler, calmer and a more relaxed place to be.

Today is Australia Day and it’s a long weekend, so a wonderful time to breathe in and out, and work on the personal planning I need for 2013. Much has been rattling around my head and I’ve had the opportunity to read how others are working on their plans for this year. I  have especially loved reading about the 2013 approaches and plans of my Blogging from the Heart buddies, Victoria Smith and Liv White and so many others which have warmed and inspired my heart. Such different and wonderful approaches to thinking about this year; some more structured and others more free flowing and intuitive, and now it’s time to work though my own.

Key members of my Seven Stars virtual support team, nearly three years on, continue to be a huge influence. I will start with Chris Guillebeau’s annual review process which I have worked through for a number of years now; it’s good to have a process that is consistent to go back to and review over time. Susannah Conway is a wonderfully wise and gentle support in so many ways and her Unravelling the year ahead 2013 workbook will also be something I will work through.

In terms of participating in projects and e-courses this year, I have started off this year with blogging buddy, Flo Gascon’s ‘Time of your Life’ ecourse . It’s about refocusing so you realise the positives and ensure you are in fact having the time of your life and not some sub-standard version of what it might be. It’s the first week but already the thoughts that are being sown are powerful and I look forward to this renewal of perspective.

I’m also working through Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map multimedia guide. Again, I’m just getting my toe in the water but it’s already enabling some refocusing on what my core desires drive me to do and understanding this better. I loved working through ‘Style Statement‘ and the power that this gave me for bringing together aspects of my core values that I hadn’t previously connected. I’m looking forward to more of this and am in no rush; I will just take this one gently and deeply and as I can.

I’m also joining the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge again this year and will post soon on last year’s experience and what I hope to focus on this year. I absolutely love this challenge, the reading and writing experiences and the community it brings with it. I have learned so much more about a space that brings together three of my great loves: Australia, women and women’s issues, and writing. Linking with people who also share these loves has been a source of inspiration and learning.

So, lots of scene-setting, physical, mental and emotional, and I’m looking forward to sharing the evolving scenes here as they play out this year.

What scene setting are you doing for this year?

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reading notes

On writing book reviews

September 12, 2012

Having asked the question about how to progress my writing of book reviews for the Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2012, here are a few gems on writing book reviews, with suggestions on techniques including what to do if you don’t actually like the book (always awkward):

As if immediately answering my question, Annabel Smith pops up on the AWW blog with a post on ‘What makes a good book review?’ I suppose with over 1000 reviews now under its belt, this question was bound to arise in the context of the Australian Women Writers’ Challenge. Annabel’s advice includes remembering that a review is an evaluation not a summary, it’s personal, and however you feel about the book, your argument should be supported by evidence. She includes some great questions to inspire your writing of reviews or just to keep your review on track.

In ‘Ten ways to write a book review and what to do when the book sucks’, Emlyn Chand provides some tips on traversing this genre. She is not afraid of a synopsis, as long as it doesn’t give things away. Most importantly for me, Emlyn talks about hitting your stride and finding your uniqueness with reviewing. I think this is what I was alluding to in my last post: trying to find a unique path between literary criticism and other genres in reviewing. Perhaps it’s not another genre; just a matter of being yourself and finding your place and voice. Perhaps, as with most things, it’s about practice

What to do if you don’t like the book? Emlyn touches on it; in ‘How to write a good bad book review‘, Tori rips right into what to do if you don’t really like the book you are reviewing.  There are lots of excellent practical suggestions for managing this situation including: being specific (similar to being evidence based); keeping it ‘between the pages’ and not being personal about the author; and writing in such a way, that however you feel, you know you can ‘own it’ ie the review and any response.

So some valuable tips and taking my own advice, it’s about practise, and a practice I’d best get on to instead of putting it off. I promise: the book reviews are coming soon!

PS Absolutely loving ‘The Engagement’ by Australian writer, Chloe Hooper – thrilling read!

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blogging music & images reading notes

What I’m loving

June 24, 2012

The orchids outside my front door

Image

The bracelet that attracted me yesterday: simple, cool and calm.

These books that arrived recently that I can’t wait to get more time to dive into.

Race out and buy them too:

This I Know: notes on unraveling the heart – Susannah Conway

Instant Love: how to make magic and memories with polaroids – Susannah Conway, Amanda Gilligan and Jenifer Altman

Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking – Susan Cain

Changing on the Job: developing leaders for a complex world – Jennifer Garvey Berger

‘Blogging from the Heart‘: the e-course, the creator – Susannah Conway, the community that has evolved from the group taking the course, the reading I have engaged in over the past 6 weeks from this brilliant creative tribe, how good we look on feedly when all together like a gorgeous magazine of kindred souls – thanks Susannah for yet another inspiring and perfect learning experience that will impact for a very long time…

The Lominger Leadership Architect tool and how we are using this in my work space to define and develop the leadership skills we need for the challenging times ahead in Australian vocational education and training

‘The Light Between Oceans’ by L.M.Stedman, an expat Australian writer living in London. I finished this novel this morning as part of the Australian Women Writers’ 2012 Challenge. It featured lighthouses, a wild West Australian coastline, a remote island, language that took me there and circumstances that wrenched my heart. And yes, I cried. A beautiful, atmospheric and engaging read.

What are you loving?

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creativity love, loss & longing transcending

Rebooting

July 16, 2012

Restart and reboot yourself

You’re free to go…

Shout for joy if you get the chance

Password, you, enter here, right now’

  from ‘Unknown Caller’, U2

It was a small, old, blue, beach cottage, up the coast, hidden in trees, shells everywhere suggesting a time to be spent collecting yourself. The cottage even had a name, ‘Chill-out’, written in shells and hanging on the lounge room wall.

There were magazines, books, TV, DVDs, day beds. There was no network connection, no phone line, no internet. You could hear the roar of the sea’s thunder from the back room open out onto the air.

It was also across the road from where my parents used to live for some 15 years, before they moved back to the city about eight years ago. Since then, my brother and father have died, and I was bringing my mother back to where she lived before all this, back to happy places and old friends. My aunty also was with us; she lost her husband six weeks before my dad died. We had all come to visit and stay in this little town for most of our lives. And so we returned, and lots of thoughts came along with us, of people we loved who had also loved this place and who came here to recharge and unwind.

Having no internet was challenging. Life is all so very connected and I realised this past week how dependent on technology I am. Apart from the obvious work reliance on email, I have a strong need for personal connectedness it seems. I read the papers on the net; do sudoku and crosswords; connect with family, colleagues, friends and fellow bloggers and online friends who value creativity, reading and writing as much as I. I read a book and find out more about it online; I connect through Goodreads and find out more about the author. I find out what’s happening in the world through the news in my twitter feed. I research online content to inform my writing and read a huge range of blogs through feedly.

I write a blog, I create content, choosing as my focus ‘Transcending’ and dealing with love, loss and longing, strengthening yourself through reading, music, writing, strategy and productivity, whatever it is that gets you through, takes you up and onwards. I connect with other creative people through this and am keen to progress my blog writing during the week away. I find that without the internet, I can’t connect the parts, do the research, create the images, and even instagram fails to work.

So I take photos on my iphone. I enjoy the company of my family; we eat, we drink, we relax, we walk through a canopy of trees on a boardwalk beside the beach, we read, do sudoku, play scrabble, catch up with our old neighbour, now a sparkling blue-eyed 86 years young. We reminisce, we talk about those not with us any more as the place brings them back into our conversation and our lives.

I take two books to read that week that both turn out to be about the presence of those not there any more in the physical sense. ‘Poet’s Cottage’, by Josephine Pennicott, set in Tasmania, is all about family, ghosts, old houses and their history and the interplay between them. As reviewer, Elizabeth Storrs, comments, ‘If you ever have doubts as to whether ghosts exist, then you should visit Tasmania.’ This is true – I’ve felt this when travelling there, in old houses where you can feel a strong presence of others no longer there. ‘Poet’s Cottage’ was an atmospheric read about the past and its influence on the present.

Then I read Anne Tyler’s ‘The Beginner’s Good-bye‘ in which the main character, Aaron, loses his wife when she is struck down by a tree. He starts to see her again and have conversations with her, never sure if they are real or not. Through this, he begins to re-establish a new and different life.

It was only last night, coming home and reflecting on the week, that I realised my head was fully engaged in reading about the presence of those not there any more, of reflecting and moving on.

When we got home last night, our ipads were not connecting to the wi-fi. To get mine to work, I turned off and rebooted, suggesting to my partner, “Sometimes you just need to restart to make all the connections again.” Even when the words come out of my own mouth, I don’t get it straight away. The universe must think me so slow.

So today with time to reflect on a deeper level and stumbling across the words above from U2’s ‘Unknown Caller’ in one of my notebooks, I finally gather together what the week was about: the opportunity to turn off some of the input, unscramble the data, to recalibrate and reboot, knowing I have the password and the resources to shift up and on to what matters, with the love of those who have left us, still ringing in our memories, somehow cheering us on.

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Full review of ‘Poet’s Cottage’ coming soon as part of the Australian Women Writer’s 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge.

6 Comments
creativity introversion writing

Making space to speak

July 29, 2012

The balance between partnerships and creativity, between being together and being alone, between doing/being and reflecting on the doing and being, is often a fine line. Like many people, I have sought to manage and maintain the balance. It is often easier to create when you have space and solitude; but relationships, family, work and friends are all so important.

Tillie Olsen’s, ‘Silences‘ published in 1978, is about the conditions for creating art, and the circumstances that inhibit and foster the development of writing and other art forms. She examines what works for creativity; the circumstances that she analyses include gender, race and economic situation. A product of its time, ‘Silences’ identifies the high number of women, for example, who have not married or had children and created works of art. Certainly the personal and social situations we create, choose and find ourselves in are an influence in what we create and the conditions in which it is created.

I wrote about this some time ago in a poem that still holds true for me about the balance between relationships and creativity:

Half a Man

If I had even half a man now
could I write the night,
out into its waiting wings
to penetrate delight.

If I had a part of one
who tried to gather all,
I’d run because his promise
is not wiser than the call.

If I had a whole man
who could teach me to receive,
I’d write between the space he gave
and love with sudden ease.

Sometimes , the space itself, when we do find it, can be almost too much, overwhelming in its vacancy to fill. The feeling of all that open space in which to create, once we have organised it or when it is just there due to circumstance, can in itself be intimidating as May Sarton writes in ‘Journal of a Solitude‘:

The ambience here is order and beauty. That is what frightens me when I am first alone again. I feel inadequate. I have made an open place, a place for meditation. What if I cannot find myself inside it? (p12)

I love the approach of Australian writer, Kate Grenville, to capturing every inspiration and opportunity to create. As she documents in ‘Searching for the Secret River‘, Kate uses a series of mantras to keep herself writing: ‘never have a blank page,’ ‘don’t wait for the mood’, ‘fix it up later’ and ‘don’t wait for time to write’. She further writes:

I learned to work in whatever slivers of time the day might give me – one of my favourite scenes in ‘Joan Makes History‘ was written in the car waiting to pick up Tom from a birthday party, on the only paper I could find, the inside of a flattened Panadol packet. I had slivers of time, so I wrote in slivers of words: a page here, a paragraph there. Eventually the slivers would add to something. (p145)

So it seems there is no perfect formula for making space to speak. Whilst some conditions might make writing and other creativity more likely, if we are serious about it, we need to write and create in whatever situation we find ourselves. It’s possibly also that waiting for the perfect conditions is just another form of resistance to getting down to work.

That’s why this blog is so important to me; it’s a stay against silence, a way of creating space to speak, a way of practising making space, so that my writing here now (nearly) each week is an achievement, a making of space in an otherwise very busy life.

So with all this in mind, what habitat suits you to create? What conditions help you write or create art? What have you learnt from your experiences in creativity over time ?

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