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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.

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?

creativity transcending writing

The Writer as hero

October 3, 2010

I’ve been reading Chris Guillebeau’s great post, ‘The Agenda Part II: The Individual as Hero’ about how it’s okay to pursue your big dreams, invest in yourself and understandable that you have difficulty explaining the reasons for your quests to others:

 

You don’t have to apologise for pursuing a big dream, because a distinguishing feature of such things is that not everyone relates to them.

Chris talks about the Olympics, marathon runners and other sports people among his heroes. I acknowledge these journey and achievements, but like Chris says, they are not the heroes I relate to. My heroes are writers – their stories are the ones I read, treasure and follow.

For me, there is something incredibly heroic about the writer’s life and journey. This is because it is my goal: to write and publish work of value that speaks to others: poetry, novels, creative non-fiction. This blog is part of that goal – getting me writing and connecting with writers – but the real goal is larger and more compelling, hard to explain, talk about and justify, but I know it’s what makes sense and connects the dots for me. I know it’s elusive and also very hard work, but it’s when I am writing that I feel truly alive and myself. So today, following Chris’s lead, I celebrate the writing heroes who inspire me.

My writer heroes fall into two categories:

  1. Published, famous writers whose books I read and biographies I study assiduously
  2. My blogging heroes who are all out there creating now and inspiring me

In this post, I’ll concentrate on the first category; next post, I’ll talk about my blogging heroes also writing books right now and documenting their journey.

My published and famous writing heroes’ lives intrigue me for their romanticism, their lyricism and their commitment to craft and writing practice. They embody what I aspire to. They are mostly women; today’s list of my key writing heroes is all women. Their stories of how they strived to balance work, family, creativity and their craft are often difficult journeys. There are themes of obsessive love, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, suicide, struggling to make ends meet, trying to write while making a living, reclusiveness and withdrawal. There are also themes of: success, achievement, the pursuit of perfection, hard work, constant crafting, connection with people, being in the literary milieu of an age,  publishing and public readings attracting many.

For these heroes, it was mostly a battle for their creativity to be expressed in the works that endure. I am grateful for their determination, their quest and the lyricism of their work that speaks to me over the years. It is because these heroes understood the ‘big dream’ and lived it that they mean so much to me. I celebrate these six heroes:

Daphne Du Maurier

I love Daphne Du Maurier’s sheer prolific work, diversity, narrative and story-telling skills and her dedication to her craft. Her unique vision created historical fiction, psychological thrillers such as ‘Rebecca’ and ‘The Birds’ and wonderfully innovative works such as ‘The House on the Strand’ which blends historical and psychological fiction together in a narrative about experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs way before it was fashionable. I am absolutely in awe of Daphne’s writing skills and writing life. My journey to Fowey in Cornwall where she lived was a pilgrimage and to be there taking the ferry across to Fowey and walking the narrow streets was thrilling. There are some excellent pictorial memoirs of Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall and the country that inspired her.

Suggestions to read: Rebecca, The Birds and other stories, The House on the Strand, Pictorial memoirs: Daphne Du Maurier Country – Martyn Shallcross; Daphne Du Maurier’s Cornwall – by Daphne Du Maurier.

 Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s novels are wonderful but I especially am inspired by her non-fiction, essays and diaries. ‘A Room of One’s Own’ is sitting here in front of me on my rolltop and is never far away. ‘Three Guineas’ is a favourite thought piece on war and also women; Virginia’s writing on women and writing excite and support me as the pioneering work they are. These works explore the barriers that women face in attempting to produce literature and help to understand the challenges in the dream of being a writer especially as a woman.

Suggestions to read: A Room of One’s Own, Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf: Women and Writing (The Women’s Press collection)

Sylvia Plath

I love Sylvia Plath’s poems for their genius, craft and power. Her poetry has had the most impact on me of any poet and I am thankful for her body of work and what she achieved in such difficult circumstances. I especially love the books that shows Sylvia’s mind at work as she edits and crafts her poems, the precision of it, the artist at work.

Suggestions to read: Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems, Sylvia Plath: a Critical Study – Tim Kendall (Faber & Faber) – for some wonderful copies of original drafting processes on poems

Emily Dickinson

I love Emily’s reclusiveness, her unique voice, her secretive commitment to her craft, her pearls created. The sheer volume of work created without an immediate audience is staggering showing a complete commitment to her individual vision and style. The story of her life is fascinating and worth a read for the contexts in which she was creating the work we now know and value.

Suggestions to read: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Vols 1 & 2, Richard B Sewall (Faber & Faber).

Elizabeth Smart

‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’ is one of my favourite books for its sheer poetic power. A novella, ‘a cry of complete vulnerability’ as my copy says on the back. The story of Elizabeth Smart’s life is about balancing love, writing, creativity, children and a fight for self-expression. The narrative of her life is about ‘the experience of being a woman artist in the middle of the century.’ (Sullivan – below p xi) I wish she’d written more but I know it was difficult with how life played out and the choices she made, but I treasure ‘Grand Central Station’ as a classic novella in the style I would like to write in.

Suggestions to read: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, By Heart: the life of Elizabeth Smart – Rosemary Sullivan (Flamingo)

Edna St Vincent Millay

I love Edna St Vincent Millay’s romantic lyricism, her sonnets and her commitment to form. She was amazingly well-known in her time – the most famous poet of the Jazz Age and the image of  ‘the new woman’. She was incredibly committed to her art and lived an extraordinary life for her times, taking many lovers of both sexes. Her poetry was widely celebrated with her poetry readings often sell-outs with around 1600 people attending in some cases and her collection of sonnets, ‘Fatal Interview’ selling 35,000 copies in the early weeks of release in the middle of the Depression. The beautiful  photo of Edna St Vincent Millay when young surrounded by blossoms graces my desk here and inspires me.

Suggestions to read: Savage Beauty: the life of Edna St Vincent Millay – Nancy Milford (Random House)

These are my heroes, my heroines. I didn’t seek out for them to be all women but they are. I love them for:

  • their commitment to their craft and art
  • the narrative of their writing lives
  • their passion and love for writing
  • the works they have created
  • the lines that make my heart sing
  • the ideas that support me

Especially I love them for being my heroes, the female role models of the ‘big dream’ of writing because they understood it and lived it. 

Image, Vintage Underwood Number 5 typewriter by emilydickinsonridesabmx from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

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reading notes

Reading Notes for Book Voyeurs #2

September 19, 2010

An occasional series on what I’m reading and why…

Paul Bowles, ‘The Sheltering Sky’, 1949 Penguin (Republished, 2009 with introduction by Paul Theroux)

I talked about the book voyeur phenomenon here. I’m always interested in the randomness and reasons around what others are reading, carrying around with them to read and also now reading on the kindle and internet. I contribute my reading experiences here in this same spirit.

I love a classic, especially one that may not be right out there and that has in any case bypassed me. Paul Bowles’ ‘The Sheltering Sky’ has been such a discovery. It’s the first book of his I have read and I look forward to reading his other writing now. The edition I have is one of the republished Penguin classics; available here in Australia for $9.95 and with a new introduction by Paul Theroux. I loved the introduction, but wisely left it to read till after ‘The Sheltering Sky’ itself as it tells you what happens.

I haven’t come across Paul Bowles in my literature travels and reading journey and I wonder why he has escaped me. His style is dark and hypnotic; beautiful prose describing horrific scenes that repulse and attract you at once. It’s like watching a train wreck, but a compelling and stylish one.

My reading experience was interrupted. Too much reading of blogs and a lot of work in the day job meant ‘The Sheltering Sky’ didn’t get read as well as it deserved; at least for half of it, it was piecemeal and interrupted. Ironically, some time away for work delivered some excellent uninterrupted reading time en route and over dinner at night on my own. Then, finally, I lost myself in the second half of the book and surrendered to its prose and unrelenting entropy. As soon as I finished, I wanted to read it again.

It’s not a happy story; I won’t tell you everything that happens. Husband and wife, Port and Kit Moresby travel to the Northern Africa and into the Sahara to escape something: their marriage, themselves, boredom, society. You wonder why they are making this journey. The landscape and people are haunting and alien, hostile and threatening, and Port and Kit, along with their acquired companion, Tunner, make the journey deeper and deeper. It’s exotic and spell-binding even as you want them to turn back and you also turn away.

As Theroux concludes in the introduction:

…it is obvious that he wanted to give the desert a face and a mood – or moods; he often depicts a landscape in anatomical terms, and he could only do that by describing people somewhat like ourselves crawling around it and becoming its victims.

I loved the quote accompanying Book One ‘Tea in the Sahara’:

Each man’s journey is personal only insofar as it may resemble what is already in his memory. Eduardo Mallea

The book has that same unobtainable quality, like a maze of mirrors or a mirage; hard to pin down and unsure of its destination. Theroux describes the novel as ‘strange, uneven and somewhat hallucinatory…’  A journey, a process, but one full of breath-taking prose, the sheltering sky of the title woven through-out as a recurring image in different forms. Tennessee Williams’ 1949 review in the New York Times, ‘An Allegory of Man and his Sahara’  talks of the layers and depth experienced as a reader:

There is a curiously double level to this novel. The surface is enthralling as narrative. It is impressive as writing. But above that surface is the aura that I spoke of, intangible and powerful, bringing to mind one of those clouds that you have seen in summer, close to the horizon and dark in color and now and then silently pulsing with interior flashes of fire. And that is the surface of the novel that has filled me with such excitement.

I am chasing up the Bertolucci movie of the book which I’m sure is equally hypnotic. I’ll also be chasing up more of Paul Bowles’ books to indulge myself in his beautiful, dark, spare and eloquent prose. And I’ll be reading the work of his wife, Jane Bowles, who I have not had the pleasure of reading yet. If you haven’t experienced the strange pleasure of ‘The Sheltering Sky,’ do surrender to its allure.

I have learnt more about Paul Bowles and his wife Jane Bowles through the following excellent article:

The Forces Within: The Millicent Dillon Interview on Jane Bowles Part 1 on A Victoria Mixon’s Editor’s blog

There are other resources and background here:

The Authorised Paul Bowles website – extensive links and resources including many reviews

The Sheltering Sky – wikipedia Fascinating to see how ‘The Sheltering Sky’ has emerged in so many modern songs and lyrics

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family history reading notes

Reading Notes for Book Voyeurs #1

August 16, 2010

An occasional series on what I’m reading and why…

The Journal of Fletcher Christian, Together with the history of Henry Corkhill, Peter Corris, Vintage, 2005

I am an avid reader and read widely. I’m interested in what other people are reading and why they are reading it. I love photos of bookshelves and strain, often sideways, to see what titles are there and how they connect with my own interests and bookshelves. I very much connected with David Barnett’s thoughts in the Guardian:

‘I think it was Sarah Crown who first set me off. “Is it just me?” she asked (while accepting the cliche of that opening phrase), “is it just me, or are the contents of other people’s bookshelves/bedside tables/desks/whatever ALWAYS more interesting than your own?”

Well, is it just me, or … look, does anyone else have an unhealthy obsession not just with what people have on their bookshelves but what they’re actually reading right there and then? Does anyone else stare unashamedly at the paperback that is tucked under someone’s arm while they sort through their purse for change in the queue at Boots? Does anyone else have a better memory for the novel poking out of a new acquaintance’s pocket than that person’s face or name?’

That’s me: a ‘book voyeur’ apparently according to the article. Hopefully others out there have the same fascination with what other people are reading and why. In this spirit, I begin this series with my recent reading of Australian author, Peter Corris’ work, ‘The Journal of Fletcher Christian, Together with the journal of Henry Corkhill.’

Why am I reading this book?

Because I am interested in the genre of historical fiction and especially the place where fact and fiction come together. I am planning a novel based on the facts of the life of my great, great, great-grandmother. There will be some facts but much invention and creation based on intuition and research about times and contexts. I am interested in this nexus and keen to read in the genre I will be writing in. I also wish to understand what a sea voyage and journey to a new life was like at that time.

What was my reading experience like?

The Journal is based around the extended conceit of Corris, a historian and fiction writer, receiving a parcel in the mail with two journals enclosed, one being the journal of Henry Corkhill and the other being the journal of Fletcher Christian. Christian is well known as the mutineer of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame and the journal is the possible story of what really happened in the events leading up to the mutiny and the eventual beginning of the Pitcairn Island community.

I have to admit I was confused while I read about what was real and what was fiction.  The account of receiving the two journals is in the introduction to the book, a place where I would expect some truth from the author. But it seems that this is part of the conceit and the book is fiction. It was in the fiction section of my library, so this was a clue… Finally, I read this interview with Peter Corris which explains that it all was an elaborate conceit – a story within a story. Corris does have a distant family connection but the journals are fictional creations based on this link. I felt more comfortable once I understood this and it does work well as a literary device, if an unclear one for this reader at first.

I loved the writing, the era it evoked, the events and the characters’ psyches it unpacked, especially the clashing wills and personalities of Christian and Bligh. Being a historian as well as a novelist, Corris has created a world that is real and detailed, with the vernacular well captured. I especially loved the voice of the characters captured in the journals themselves. The journal of Henry Corkhill is equally engaging, a different voice to Christian’s and particularly eloquent and surprisingly tender in his accounts of his sexual experiences.

At other times, I found the misogyny difficult to read and hard to stomach, but I understand it was part of the times, with women being currency in the exchanges of men around land and rights. These are times that I will need to write about also and need to understand the dynamics of but the extent and ‘reality’ of it hit me very hard.

I was interested in the book because it was about sea voyages and ship life in the time my ancestor sailed to Australia. I was transported also to another time, another paradigm, to a story about two men who both seem unstable and mad but held the lives of so many in their hands. The interplay between them is compelling and a fascinating psychological insight into what might have happened and why.

I recommend it for anyone interested in the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty which I know has its own fascination and followers,  and for anyone interested in historical fiction, journals, family history, sea  journeys and the interplay between fact and fiction.

Other related reading:

Making true fiction – Shanna Germain

The lying art of historical fiction – James Forrester (Guardian)

Other reading blogs I enjoy:

Girls Just Reading

Bibliophile by the Sea

More about what others are reading:

The Book Depository Map: a boon for book voyeurs – David Barnett (Guardian)

Please send me any other links and leads in the book voyeur genre!

Image, 317/366 The Bountyby Magic Madzik from flickr and used under a Creative Commons license with thanks

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