Musings

As time goes by

A couple of weeks ago, my blog quietly celebrated its first birthday. It was all very under-the-radar, I didn’t even put up a post to mark the occasion. To be honest, the only reason I knew it was coming up was because I received an invoice for the renewal fee. And that got me thinking…

Calling Time

Excitement here as one of my short stories, Calling Time, has been published on WORDLY Online. WORDLY Online (and its print counterpart WORDLY Magazine) is a literature publication of Deakin University. The publication includes everything from short fiction (like sci-fi piece Orb of Desecration), creative non-fiction (such as Eilean Donan which blends personal essay and…

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You may have noticed that I’m not posting much at the moment. Or maybe you haven’t. It’s cool either way. You’ll always be welcome here. 🙂 Anyway, I thought I’d drop in to let you know that the reason I haven’t been around much (actually, there’s more than one reason, but that’s something for another…

All in the name of research

I’d have to say that one of the best things about being a writer is that you can justify anything under the guise of ‘research’. Okay, maybe you can’t justify anything anything, but you can pretty much justify most things. As long as it isn’t illegal. Or immoral. Or bad taste. But everything other than…

Rarely linear, sometimes chaotic, always meaningful

One of my dear writing friends wrote to me recently, saying that she thought she shouldn’t be blogging because she felt that her semi-regular posts which touched on a range of topics made it look as though she had five personalities. ‘Your posts don’t strike me as being inconsistent at all,’ I reassured her. ‘If…

Multifaceted, not multiple

Interviewer: Great to have your here to talk about what it means to have multiple online identities. Me: Absolutely. Except, of course, that I don’t buy into the idea of multiple identities. Interviewer: Okay. Can you elaborate? Me: Well, I play many different roles in my life. And even though I give myself wholeheartedly to…

Growing old as an art form

You may recall that one of my summer reads was The Luminous Solution: Creativity, resilience and the inner life by Charlotte Wood. In the book, Wood shares work that she has written – and rewritten – over many years in her pursuit of understanding other people’s creative lives. Her astute observations about not only her…

Day 28. Tick.

Today marks the final day in my ‘post everyday for a month’ challenge. While I have absolutely enjoyed pushing myself to get something up each day, I’ll happily admit to finding the schedule rather brutal. It’d be fair to say that I’m not unhappy to have the pressure off for a little bit. To those…

My favourite street art

It’s festival season where I live – my absolute favourite time of the year. The city is vibrating to the thrum of theatre, film, visual arts, comedy, street performers, world music, artisan markets, forums, a week-long writer’s festival, and a celebration of food and wine, all with a backdrop of gorgeous summer evenings. Out and…

A literature clock … literally

This is one of the coolest things I’ve discovered lately and it’s all thanks to Jane Friedman and her Electric Speed newsletter. If you are not already signed up for her newsletter DO IT NOW. Each edition of Jane’s newsletter is packed full of useful information relating to the publishing world and writing generally. And…

I’m sorry wind, but I’m just not that into you

I don’t like the wind. It makes me agitated and unsettled. I think maybe it’s because my body struggles to settle into its own rhythm amid the noise and chaos of a windy day. Everyone in my family feels the same. Anytime we’ve ranked the weather elements on a likeability scale (yes, I have the…

Writing yourself into the story

I expect there’s more writing rules and pieces of writing advice out there in the world than there are writers. So, figuring out what works for you can be a bit of a trial-and-error process. As someone who spends most of my day in the business writing space, I’m still trying to figure out how…

Hen and chicks

My first Hen and Chicks was given to me by a relative after I complimented them on how wonderful it looked growing in their perfectly manicured garden. Despite their assurances that it was ‘very hardy’ and ‘anyone can grow it’, I left their house wondering if I would be able to keep their little gift…

A sense of occasion

In a previous post, I wrote about not being much of a photo taker and that my favourite photos are the imperfect ones; the ones that capture life as it unfolds, rather than life working to a script. In today’s world of the camera phone, it can be hard to remember there was a time…

Collaborative consumption

This morning I went down to my local bookshop to pick up a copy of What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. The book was first published some years ago, but like many things, I’m only getting to it now. The reason I’m getting to it now…

We spend our lives not seeing what we saw

It’s writing exercise time, again! This time the task was to use the prompt We spend our lives not seeing what we saw to draft three micro pieces – some poetry, some fiction, and a personal response. As always, I did these under time pressure and with the understanding that exercise of any kind isn’t…

Does the kettle really have emphysema?

‘Why did you call your blog The Kettle has Emphysema?’ no-one asked me ever. In the absence of any data, I can only assume that this means one of three things. It’s obvious why No one is curious (translation = no one cares) The one person who is curious just hasn’t got around to asking…

For the (photo) record

I don’t take many photos. It doesn’t matter if I’m at a family wedding, catching up with friends I don’t see very often, or on some amazing travel adventure (remember them?); you just won’t find me behind the lens. Lately I’ve been thinking about why this is. The best reason I can come up with…

Just because …

Because it is Sunday. Because it makes me smile. Because Tillandsia is such nice word to say. Because a friend and I have been talking about our house plants. Because I said I would post everyday in February and I have nothing else to offer right now. Just because.

My Grandmother’s Teapot

This was my Grandmother’s teapot. I can’t recall ever going to to her house and not seeing this little teapot sitting on the kitchen table, alongside her tannin stained teacup. As was the custom among her generation, she always used tea leaves and she always, always, steeped her tea way too long for anyone of…

Drawing energy from others (or a few of my blog discoveries)

As a newcomer to the blogosphere, I’ve been blown away by the willingness of established bloggers to visit my site and to leave me a ‘like’. Along with the warm fuzzy feeling this gives me, the other rather awesome benefit is that it has introduced me to some interesting/informative/fun blogs that I might not have…

Playing with perspectives: The girl in the hood

I’m not sure about you folks, but when I start a story, I usually have a clear idea of what POV it should be from, then invariably I get part way through and wonder if a different POV would tell the story better. Despite thinking about this a lot, I have to say that I…

‘To be or not to be’ should not be the question

As a rule, I don’t like definitions. It isn’t really that I don’t like them, it’s that I don’t find them very helpful. Their purpose seems to be to divide and conquer. In their assumption of an ‘other’, they trap us in unhelpful, unproductive, ‘either or’ thinking. Take the glass half-full or half-empty scenario. The…

Not. Not. Not. Not.

I have notebooks piled up around my study. One of them is my ‘Book of Memories’, where I scribble down random memories that pop up, usually triggered by some current event. Another, my commonplace book, records words and phrases that I like (I’ve talked about my commonplace book before). Yet another captures story ideas, in…

My treasure chest of life

In an earlier post, Fictional words with real-world swagger, I talked about how we can apply made-up worlds to our everyday lives and achieve real-world outcomes. Today, I want to give a shout out to the sentences that take your breath away; not in a oh-my-god-that’s-horrendous type of way, but in the I-have-to-go-back-and-read-that-again type of…

Embracing the bad

Kyle A. Massa’s recent post on his most embarrassing writing fails is a cracking read. But it’s not the writing fails that makes it so good; it’s Kyle’s retelling of events and his ability to look past the cringe of reading back through old writing to find the lessons therein. Those lessons being, if I…

Summer TBR list revisited

One of my summer reading picks was Devotion by Hannah Kent. Although I finished the book some time ago, I’ve struggled to pull together a review. That’s not because I didn’t enjoy it – quite the opposite, I adored this book – but because I think it is one of those books that is best…

A 28-day month has its advantages

Back at the dawn of the new year, I wrote a post explaining why this blog and why now. TL;DR The blog is my driver for writing more often and getting past the fear that strikes when I think about sharing my writing with, well, anyone! Since that post I’ve managed to post just twice….

Language and power: Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Today I’m going back to my academic roots to take a look at the use of language in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I got on a bit of a roll so it is a long one. Sorry! ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ George Orwell, 1946 Language is loaded with…

This is why I’m here …

For those that have followed my blog since its inception (quick pause here while I yell a big thank you into the bloggerverse), you’ll know that my posts tend to be a bit all over the place. In fairness, I do give a heads up on this in my ‘About’ page, so I don’t feel…

See you on the other side

I came into December thinking that I might just be able to keep up my blogging schedule if I was really, really disciplined. What’s become apparent is that I’m really, really not. Not at this time of the year, anyway. So I’ve decided to wave the white flag, take a little time off, and get…

Today I celebrate my tiredness

Today I woke up tired. It’s the end of the week, I didn’t get a great sleep last night. I have hay fever, client deadlines, parents to worry about. And this covid thing still won’t go away. Enough. It isn’t often that I wake up tired, which is great, but sadly it means that I…

Summer TBR pile is good to go

Is there anything better than holding a new book from one of your favourite writers in your hands, anticipating the feeling of being completely absorbed into another world, whether real or imagined? Nope, I can’t think of anything better either. Needless to say that it was an absolute delight to head to my local bookstore,…

The freedom to explore, change course and back-track

This post is a bit of a muddled reflection of how conditioning in childhood to ‘never give up’ can impact how we exercise our ability (and right) to change our mind in adulthood (of course, these days we like to call it ‘pivoting’ or some other inane descriptor in an attempt to make the fact…

Fictional words with real-world swagger

By any measure, I’m a pretty analytical person, someone who deals in facts and data. I studied science; I manage a small business; I’m very fond of excel spreadsheets; I don’t believe in the afterlife. Despite all this, I never pass up an opportunity to read my horoscope every morning. Of course, I only ever…

Praiseworthy failure. Yes, it does exist.

A few years ago, as part of my MBA, I took a course on company renewal and failure (amusingly, the university promoted it under a different name because it didn’t want to publicise that it offered a course on failure). Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about failure. While getting older seems…

Morning reflection

My home. My land. My space. My life. The kookaburras rouse us from our sleep with their staccato laugh and zest for the day. It is not possible to wake up unhappy here. The magpies greet us as we venture out onto the verandah with our coffee. They show off the newest additions to their…

The first feedback …

This is a diary entry I wrote some time back. It seemed like the perfect piece to kick-off this blog. I am writing this now, in this moment, so that down the track my more experienced, more writerly self can read it back and laugh about my humble beginnings. What momentous event has driven the…