UPDATE: I’ve just seen that Baby Teeth Journal has their blackout poetry competition on again. So, if you think you can do better than my entry from last year (and let’s face, probably all of you could), head over to their site now! You have until 1 March 2022 to enter. The System the system…
‘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…
Grey Box remnant
Like the Girl in the cafe, this piece riffs on the work of another. This time, my inspiration is from David Foster Wallace and the opening sequence of his unfinished novel The Pale King. His poetic first sentence is something else. Past the suburban chaos and false borders of ill-claimed land and past the bleak…
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…
Girl in the cafe
It’s easy to get into a bit of funk with your writing practice but it’s not always easy to find your way out again. One of the things I’ve learned to do when creativity goes missing is to pull out some writing from someone I admire and to try and imitate their work. I find…
Richard
This flash fiction came out of a writing exercise where one of the key characters had to be unable to speak. I’ve left it in its raw form – I’m trying to be brave about sharing first drafts! Richard heard the click-clack of Dr Johnson coming up the corridor. He buoyed at the thought of…
We have only this life
My jumping off point for this poem was a quote from ‘Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing‘ by Cixous (1994). ‘We spend our lives not seeing what we saw.’ heart ruptures released from its anchor I close my eyes to banish the vision exorcise the demons but they hold fast to my being infiltrating…
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…
Her time was coming
Her time was coming. Like a wave gaining momentum as it roars towards the beach, it was building within her. She didn’t know what her purpose was—she hadn’t figured that out yet—but she felt calm about it. Content in the knowledge that it would come. The universe would guide her, steer her to a calling….
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…
Once upon a time … truth, memory and storytelling
I was a bit late to the party with watching Sarah Polley’s 2013 documentary, Stories We Tell, but I’m so glad I eventually made my way to it. ‘Truth is often ephemeral and difficult to pin down.’ Sarah Polley, Stories We Tell (2013) At first glance, it appears that Sarah Polley’s documentary, Stories We Tell…
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…
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