Writing Up a Storm

Playing hookey

2011-02-07T20:30:00.004+11:00

I'm not supposed to be blogging right now. I should be doing my bookwork.

But it's a big ugly pile of bookwork, with bills to pay and forms to fill in and applications to make and payrolls to run. Agggh. Doesn't my inbox know that I'm really not in the mood?

But you can see my pile. If it could talk, it would not be using nice words.

So i'm going to do fifteen minutes pile and five minutes blog. That way both me and the pile will be happy (in theory).

Here goes (headphones on, I'm shuffling off to my bookwork - 8.42pm)

8.45pm:
Crikey banana! if my husband makes one more trip to Coles I'm going to cry! How many dockets can one man collect in his wallet?? And each one has to be entered seperately...aggggh!!

okay, roll back shoulders, put my pajamas on.

8.49pm - make note to tell husband not to take 'cash out' on company card. Does my head in.

right, back to work.

9.04pm: It ceased to be 2010 38 days ago. If I keep typing 2010 I shouldn't be surprised when the transactions appear in the 2010 reports and not 2011.

9.12pm Got sprung desk dancing to itunes. People should NOT sneak up behind you when they're supposed to be sleeping off a headcold in bed.

9.27PM - I love it when I go on an internal rant that some unfeeling person hasn't written the cheque details down on an invoice (meaning I have to go searching for them), only to find my writing on the cheque stub.

9.43pm - am being scouted by a mozzie. And I can't hear the little blighter because my headphones are too loud. Some idiot around here must have some stagnant water because they're just everywhere. I'm hoping the OFF! I liberally applied works.

9.50pm -- sad face. Still have big pile to go. I actually haven't even made it to my inbox yet, just working on random papers on my desk. Feel a bit sick.

Mozzie just dive-bombed me!! BRAZEN (also, coincidentally, the working title of my next book, LOL).

10.16PM - Why is it that the oldest stapler you have always works the best?

I'm slowing down now. The internet beckons...but really, I need to stop reading those parent forums that talk about how their 20-month-olds are talking in complete sentences, know their abc and are doing olympic worthy somersaults. Always makes me want to punch something.

ps - now have ten-cent-piece shaped bite from dive-bombing mozzie - he bit my **neck** the thieving little vampire! Because, you know, it's the one spot I don't have repellent.

10.44pm...i can't do any more...please send chocolate.

Not the sharpest tool

2010-10-08T22:18:00.003+11:00

So, how long have we owned this cafe??
Since january, so that's ten months. So why in the name of God's green earth did I never put it together that:

a) i have always written well in cafes
b) i now have my own cafe and should perhaps, oh, i don't know -- WRITE IN IT!!

now, I understand that during the day there's work to do (and most nights too) and babies to play with and love and cherish, but after the cherub has gone to bed?

it finally clicked tonight, and i stole downstairs at 9pm armed with a wad of paper and three different coloured pens and voila - pages were written. Good pages too. Ideas flowing, characters talking ten to the dozen, asking me where I've been and what took me so long to get to their story.

Who knew?

Of course I had to do a little bit of work on my space. A lamp pulled out of storage, chairs placed in strategic positions to create a kind of cafe cave. But it works! I have FOUND MY PLACE. My days of wandering from the bed to the couch to my paperwork ridden desk are over!

I'm so happy for writer me.

And it's a slightly different process for this book. Entirely different process actually. I'm doing a month of prewriting rather than the usual feet first oh crap process. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tomorrow night I might even crank up the stereo! Lord above - it's a riot over here!

Congrats Elisa!

2010-08-01T20:32:00.002+10:00

The results from the Golden Heart happened today and I send out a big congrats to my fellow Unsinkable Elisa Beatty.

She also won the Royal Ascot, go Elisa!

I'm looking forward to seeing her book on the shelves.

In the meantime, I find that even thousands of miles away, the excitement of RWA10 is contagious. Can't wait to get into my work and feel newly dedicated. Gotta love that!

Sweet Enough?

2010-07-22T14:06:00.007+10:00

I was at Costco the other day, when a nifty little book caught my eye. Sweet Poison. Nice title. And about a subject close to my heart - sugar. About how our bodies use is, about how we eat waaaay to much for our bodies to cope with. This book might have been written for me. I lurve sugar.
To me it's comfort. It's birthday parties with home cooked sponge or mum's lemon delicious pudding. It's sitting in front of the fire with mum chatting until she said 'i wish there was something nice to eat', only to have dad bring out a block of peppermint cadbury he'd squirrelled away for just such an occasion. It's lopsided, chocolate soaked lamingtons in my lunchbox and fresh baked biscuits picked off the cooling tray.
When I'm sad I eat sweet things. When I'm angry I eat sweet things. When I'm bored...well you get the picture. It was my all-rounder medicine. Although, come to think of it, it never actually fixed any of those things.
I read Sweet Poison in a night, stayed up late with the lamp down by the side of the bed. Gulped it down like a cinnamon donut.
And have been sugar free ever since. Ten days. Not that I'm counting or anything.
Cold turkey. Because I'm pretty sure that if I don't do something soon, I'm going to have another spare tyre and type 2 diabetes. I don't like the sound of that. I also don't like feeling beholden to a condiment.
And I am beholden, pretty much all of the time.
I proved it in the first two days when I realised that if something didn't have sugar in it, I really wasn't interested in eating it. Coffee? I've discovered I don't particularly have the palate for it unless I can heap sugar into it.
Who knew?
Every day so far has been a battle. And it's only been a week.
But I have to do cold turkey, because I'm that kind of person. If I muddy the boundaries, I'll be back to muffins for breakfast and hot chocolate with marshmallows for morning tea in a split second.
I don't know what I'm going to do the first time I get angry, or bored or sad. Perhaps actually try to deal with it? Novel thought.

I can't say I've got heaps more energy. Yet, anyway. I can say I've already lost 3 kilos. I can say that my skin is soft and clear now. I can say that the second day migraine was a corker. I can say fruit never tasted so good and so fresh and lovely.
so send me good sugar-free thoughts, I need the green vibes to keep me going!

When Secondary Characters Attack

2010-05-31T23:07:00.004+10:00

I was doing some revision tonight.
Well, to set the scene, I was sitting in Starbucks, drinking a hazelnut latte FAR TOO LATE in the evening, plus a cupcake, plus a krispy kreme (and I wonder why I can't lose weight?), with Gabrielle sitting across from me pretending to revise but probably reading Facebook...
...anyway, I was reading over my scene. It was an innocuous scene. My hero and his buddie were playing billiards having escaped the ballroom. The problem was, somewhere during the rewrite, the best buddie, Captain Cosgrove, suddenly got some killer lines and a bit too much personality.
Suddenly HE was backing my hero into a corner, analysing him, finding him wanting. Next thing I know, I'm laughing out loud at his witty repartie, his bravery, his intelligence.
OH NO!!! The dreaded 'secondary-character-who-leaps-off-the-page' syndrome.
Crap. Now I don't know what to do, or even if I have to do anything. Captain Cosgrove is whispering in my ear (after thoroughly trouncing my hero at billiards) that he should have his own book, that he's worthy.

But I've got news for you, Captain Cosgrove. Make the most of your five minutes in the sun because no matter how witty and lovely you are - YOU ARE NOT GETTING YOUR OWN BOOK. Your happily ever after comes in about three chapters, and that's the end of you!
Deal with it, you gorgeous thing.

A pocket full of time

2010-05-29T14:47:00.004+10:00

I'm here.
I've come to the page.
It might be late, I might have had a crazy hectic day, but all that is done and I've finally arrived - dipping my hand into the small pocket of time I've found.

I ferret out these pockets most days with a stubborness that would surprise the me of two years ago, who could spend all Sunday in her pajamas.

Sometimes the pockets are ten minutes, sometimes fifty.
They encourage me not to sleep, or watch a rerun of the Vicar of Dibley, even though Dawn French always makes me laugh.

These little pockets are beautiful to me. A green oasis. A tropical island.

They are hard won and highly treasured.

They are most often before bedtime, when the demands of the day are truly done, and my man and my baby are fast asleep.

It's like that tonight. I'm sitting on the sofa, the lights out and a candle lit beside me. The swoosh of the dryer in the background is strangely soothing and it's just me and my laptop, throwing a stream of words into the quiet night.

I'm here.
I've come to the page.

Life by Brochure Drop

2010-05-12T20:21:00.003+10:00

This week I've been delivering brochures. Hundreds of them, to any house that doesn't have a 'no junk mail' sticker on their letterbox. I find now, that although I had one of those stickers on my last mail box, courtesy of the Wilderness Society, now I am utterly offended by them.

Junk, you say? What is it about the menu to my cafe that is junky? It's not junky! it's gold, I tell you, pure GOLD! You should be so lucky to read about our ricotta pancakes with spiced apples, hazelnuts and honey labne. lol.

But nevertheless, I walk past those letterboxes, even though most of the time they look like the letterboxes of precisely the kind of customers I would love to have.

But I digress.

I've discovered that delivering brochures gives me extreme envy. I walk past the sweet little cottages with gardenias planted by the door and wonder what those people did to be so lucky to own such a lovely house. House after house, each charming in its own way. Until I discover the house that just makes my heart sink into my stomach I want to own it so badly.

True to form, it's old. Old and falling down. The weatherboards are severely weathered, the garden crazy and overgrown. And the icing on the cake -- it has a vintage phone booth perched in the front garden, overgrown by vines, waiting for a vintage superman to come along and change in it. And I wonder, yet again, who is lucky enough to own this house? what did they do? Who are they? I wonder if i knock on the door if they'll give me a cup of tea and tell me their life story for the price of a piece of junk mail.

In the moment

2010-05-10T15:45:00.003+10:00

I'm sitting on the floor, spoonfeeding my little girl. Between chews and spits of polenta and beans, I rifle through the coffee table drawers and come across a chemist prescription.
Cephalexin, dated 9th May. Yesterday? How can that be? I could certainly use some anti-biotics at the moment, but I'm still going au natural for my remedies.

But no, it's 9th of May a year ago, when I had a week old baby and nether regions that were none-to-happy about it. I read on the prescription that Dr Hilary Donald saw me. Now I remember that too. She was brusk in the way she normally is, but more sympathetic than normal too - like she knows i could burst into tears at any moment.

But it wasn't the memory of my nether-regions that made me pause. A year ago, a whole year, I had this precious little bundle of newborn baby that I hadn't a clue what to do with. And I was so busy having no clue that I don't think I felt the joy of it. I was never in the moment, I was worried if I'd be able to feed in four hours, wondering if it would be permissable to fall asleep before dinner, crying because my breasts wouldn't co-operate.

Sitting here now, a year later, I find I want to go back there. I want to be in those moments again when she was first born and actually experience them this time rather than survive them. I have answers to all those questions I had when I was pregnant, and a year later, i feel very ready to have a newborn. lol.

I want to bath her again, being confident and not scared. I want to try feeding again, this time understanding my body and the way it works. I can't, we all know i can't and it's stupid to long for it.

So I have now. I have this sweet little one-year-old who is a joy beyond imagining. I need to be always in the moment with her, crawling on the floor, singing off-key, splashing in the bath with her, because this precious time will pass too. All those things I worry about?

Just things.

Today in Brunswick on the way home from the supermarket

2010-04-19T22:36:00.004+10:00

me: "that's a very sweet dog."
Him: "Yep. He's a brunswick terrier."
me (stupidly): "Oh? I've never heard of that."
hm, laughing. "it just means he's a mutt, like Brunswick."

I love mutts. I love this place.

Good Little Manuscript!

2010-03-26T20:31:00.004+11:00

Awww, I feel so proud! The dear manuscript, A Whiff of Scandal, has gone and gotten itself a nomination for the Golden Heart® award with Romance Writers of America. I recently spoke to my manuscript and it had the following to say:

WOS: "Huh? You sent me WHERE?"
Me: "I sent you to the US, to be read by independent judges who would tell me how good or crap you were."
WOS: "You WHAT? Holy freaking hell, what were you thinking? Did you not for a moment wonder if you should run this by me first! I have rights!"
ME: "They loved it and you finaled..."
WOS: "Oh." Pause. "Are those flowers for me?"
me: "Yes indeed. You did good work."
Grumble grumble. "Why do you sound surprised?"

Well it's been a while

2010-03-10T21:48:00.002+11:00

I miss you, bloggie!
If there was to be a general catchup of what's been going on, it would go something like this.

BLOG: Where have you been? Is it SO hard to hit the 'new post' key?

ME: It's been hard to remember I even have a blog, much less technologically advanced processes like hitting the 'new post key'. I only did it now because i came here by accident.

BLOG: I've forgotten what you look like.

ME: Same as before, but lost two pounds. So, same as before but my pants fit a smidge better. Ie, no buttons popping off, no seams recklessly endangering life.

BLOG: Hmph. I heard you have been eating muffins and cream cheese frosting on a daily basis.

ME: You would too if you opened a cafe. SOMEONE has to test the produce!!

BLOG: A Cafe? Why would you do that?

ME: Good question. A cafe is stupidly hard work. I mean, worthy work and all, fun work and all, but ack, what a salt mine it is.

BLOG: So i guess between that and your baby you haven't been writing much? Should we change the blog template? Perhaps something bland and beige?

ME: Au contraire, little bloggie. I have finished my manuscript! In a hundred daily acts of defiance, writing time was found and pounced on, early or late, sometimes in the car at traffic lights. Triumph we have!

BLOG: Is Yoda here?

ME: Will you stop pouting if I say 'yes'?

BLOG: No. Pouting is my right.

ME: As are inane entries.

Yawn...zzzz

2009-10-13T22:01:00.000+11:00

269 words

Daily words

2009-10-11T21:46:00.002+11:00

Daily words sit at 685. At this rate I will be finished the book by next easter. lol.

Hubby is watching awful looking Section 9 alien movie. I gave up the ghost when limbs started flying. A girl's gotta draw the line somewhere.

Zip and Zip

2009-10-09T20:17:00.001+11:00

Nothing yesterday, nothing to day, but damn it, there will be words tomorrow!
lol

Today's effort is...

2009-10-07T23:00:00.000+11:00

1009. I seem to be picking up some momentum and learning to write in snatches as the lovely Nicola Marsh suggests!

0 words

2009-10-06T22:20:00.002+11:00

0 is for Oops.
Sad sad word day.
Baby was so excited to learn how to roll over that she refused to go down for her naps. It was all 'la la la' from the cot and trying to roll over in there too.
lol

898 words

2009-10-05T22:48:00.003+11:00

That's a leeetle better, and at least I'm on to another scene. The scene in which our heroine confronts her dastardly stepmother.

Last line written:

Daphne stared at the five sausage fingers bedecked in emerald and sapphire rings, one of which looked horribly familiar. Mama's engagement ring. She forgot her manners.

What Daphne says next is a decision for tomorrow.

450 words

2009-10-04T23:08:00.002+11:00

Barely two pages. Ah well!
At least I had a lovely day. Full of baby smiles and cute toes, a walk to the park, trip to the supermarket and roast for dinner.

503 words

2009-10-03T22:23:00.004+10:00

Really is was more like 1,500, but a series of 'crap, that's no good' DELETE episodes, has bought it down to 500.
lol
I'm still on the same scene too. They're at the Bow Street Magistrates Court and I keep getting sucked into trying to research and write at the same time. I adore researching, but it doesn't make for words on the page. So in the end, I've had to do the dodgy old 'insert something historically accurate' as a placeholder so I can get them thar words done.

In other news: Went to Porgie & Mr Jones for breakfast this morning with the lovely Matilda & Peter. Phoebe told me in no uncertain terms that Aunty Matilda plans to dress her up as a pumpkin for halloween. THAT I'd like to see!

In other other news: The urban myth that where there's one huntsman there's always two has so far proven inaccurate.

Keeping the girl honest

2009-10-02T21:48:00.004+10:00

Here's the deal.
I come here every day for a month.
I post how many words I did to finish my lovely book - even if it's a big whopping zero.
This keeps me motivated because, lord, how embarrassing it would be to write ZERO for the thirty-one days of October.

In retrospect:
Yesterday = 1621 words. Precisely.

Today = 1126

In other news - I closed the curtains at around 8 and a whopping big, and I mean BIG, huntsman stared down at me from the top of the curtain. The size of a cheeseburger, I kid you not. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, it was more like the diameter of a coffee cup, but still. HUGE.
I only tell you this because me and the spider stood there looking at each other - me with my hands quivering and a can of flyspray in my hand, it with its fangs raised and long hairy legs ready to pounce. Then all of a sudden I realised that we were doing the exact same thing - waiting for a monster to make its move. Poor dear thing. So I went and got a vase and plopped him in it (I'm leaving out the part where I made squealing noises) and took him outside to a tree three houses down.
Then I laughed at myself. THREE HOUSES DOWN? Overreaction MUCH?

Reasons not to go shopping:

2009-09-10T22:12:00.004+10:00

1. People without prams always take the 'parents with prams' car spots. I know. I looked. They don't have baby seats in the back. Then I have to trudge on the road while cars whizz around the pram and it generally starts raining (poor me).

2. Bubbie likes me pushing the pram around the shopping centre, but has a distinct dislike of me stopping. Which means I choose my purchases at lightspeed. So if you're a rellie or friend and get a very strange birthday present - now you know why. I've taken to internet shopping which is fun but kind of like the lucky dip at a primary school fair. You always think you're going to get something awesome - but it ends up being a plastic ring or miniture deck of cards. Last week, I bought hubby some nice Calvin Klein underwear and only discovered when it arrived, that sure it was Calvin Klein underwear -- circa 1985. lol. I was all 'honey, they're still in the box, the Op Shop will like them!' but he said 'no, i'll wear them' with the expression of someone sentenced to enternal dagdom.

3. I hate that I seem to be physically incapable of telling the salesmen in those temporary stalls down the promanades to leave me alone. Worse than that, I allow myself to be pulled into their makeshift space while they do the hard sell. I had to wonder about those Jericho people today though. This is perhaps the crappiest sales hook I've ever heard:

"can i ask you if you use any eyecream? because LOOK AT THOSE LINES AND BAGS UNDER YOUR EYES!".

I must be tired because I not only let him say this, I let him poke under my eye with some cream and then shove a mirror in my face to show me how the lines had miraculously disappeared. Yeah right. It was only when he said 'let me take a photo!' that i snapped out of my daze and ran for the nearest bookshop. Take a photo? What the?

4. Random people like to touch babies. Who knew? They peer into the pram, then after the obligatory compliment, paw her while she squirms. I mean, i don't have a problem with stopping and letting them coo at her, of course i don't! But keep your dirty-i-just-ate-a-dimsim-hands to yourselves people!

5. One step worse. They poke the baby and then say 'isn't she sweet. And wow, look at you, another on the way already.'
OH MG people - NEVER tell another woman she's pregnant unless she first volunteers this information. Now, to someone's shame (not sure if it's me because i obviously haven't shed the kilos fast enough or if it's them) I would usually let a person get away with this, not wanting to embarrass them like they've just embarrassed me. But heck, I've about had enough. So, for all of us who don't lose that baby fat like Nicole Ritchie, I said:
"No, I just haven't gotten over this one yet. But lady, you have *no* tact."

6. I always forget the one thing I actually went to buy and end up with a bootload of stuff I had no intention of buying. Am I the only one this happens to??

When it's good to have a sister who is a bookseller

2009-09-09T10:19:00.005+10:00

1. Birthday time
2. Christmas time
3. All the time!!!!

Here is part of my stash from yesterday's birthday, my all time favourite - Anne Gracie. I've been waiting for this book for months and here it is, just in time for my birthday. Thanks Anne - thanks Jill!

If you ever want some wonderful reading at extremely competitive pricing - she's your girl. Years and years of research have gone into her business, she really knows her stuff! There's nothing she can't find if you want something really obscure (which I have - often).

www.romancedirect.com.au

Vacuum Bag Wrongtown

2009-08-25T16:54:00.004+10:00

I went too far
I did too much
and the softies paid for it.

Wrap me up and call me slacker

2009-07-23T20:21:00.003+10:00

Well...not really!

I mean, I've been very very busy since my last post waaaay back on the 27th of March.

Lots of things, but chiefly... I had a baby!

Along the way here's what i've learned since March 27:

PUPPS make your skin itch so bad that you'd cheerfully take to it with a Steelo.

All your obstatrician will do is look at them and say 'oh, are they still there are they? annoying.'

My chiropractor can work magic turning a breech baby.

Don't tell your husband how far apart your contractions are or he'll have you in hospital before you can say 'did my water break or am i just incontinent?'

Nothing is as comfortable as sitting on the toilet in labor.

At least until the wind changes direction and the rain comes in through the louvre window. Then perhaps it's time to tell you husband how close the contractions really are and hot foot it into hospital.

They expect you to *work* during your birthing time! Like, get up, walk around, do the hokey pokey. Visions of me having grapes peeled and reclining on a sofa GONE.

When you go to hospital, you can take all the blankets, lamps and teddy bears you like, but in the end you'll spend your twelve hours having face plant time with a pillow.

Hypnobabies is better than any drug in the known world.

Midwives don't believe you can be so relaxed in labor and tell you later they thought you were 'fluffing around'. FLUFFING AROUND MY ARSE!!! Did these women have any idea how long and hard i worked for two months to get myself to that state of catatonia without drugs? The hours of meditation, staring at my navel around the clock, and saying so many positive affirmations that I had enough for my own 365 day calendar.

I never expected labor to feel like such a beautiful journey that me and my little girl made together. I'm sure we'll never be as connected as we were for those twelve hours.

My friends really do love me.

My sister really is an angel.

No amount of breast feeding classes can prepare you for the real thing.

No amount of people saying 'ha ha, you won't sleep much now!' can prepare you for waking every four hours and wrangling with express pumps and nipple shields and hungry little bubbie.

No amount of 40 week pregnancies could prepare me for how much i love my little girl.

Revision

2009-03-27T20:57:00.002+11:00

So, finally, finally the revision is getting very close to being done.
Oh, not the *final* revision - but the nuts and bolts - all my ducks in a row revision.
85% there in fact.
Hallelujah!

It hasn't really been so difficult - it was just not being able to achieve as much as I normally can due to feeling tired after work - but I've stopped working now - so going great guns.

It's wonderful not to have to schlep my massive stomach into work and waddle around there trying to look/sound/be professional. I can just mess around in my pajamas, drinking tea and being happy about things in general.

Hilariously, I was banging my head on the desk wondering WHY oh WHY all those words weren't piling up to something more impressive in the page count stakes, when I realised I had the manuscript on TNR in a small size. Upped it to Courier New 12 point and voila! I was MUCH further along than I realised. Which is just as well, because I didn't have a whole lot more story to tell.

More soon as I unclog my blogbrain.

Fluffy Bum, Fluffy Paws

2009-01-18T23:00:00.002+11:00

I'm a pushover for a fluffy bum. Be it a teddy or a puppy or in this case POLAR BEAR.

If I'd known just how cute a polar bear bum would be, I would've been looking out for one well before now. Giant bear, king of beasts, seal killer and .... sweet little furry tush and paws. Awwwwww!

One of the guys at work had it up on his 2008 BBC Wildlife calendar (no idea who the photographer was and google gave me nothing), and I'd giggle every time I walked past his desk. When he put the whole calendar in the recycle bin it was the highlight of my day. It just appeals to me. Look at those big paws and yet I'll swear that mighty polar bear is just paddling along. Imagine being the photographer and taking that photo - how awesome.

Damn towel. Damn sense of smell.

2009-01-13T21:22:00.004+11:00

It's hot here today. 39 degrees. The kind of hot where concrete radiates heat for hours after sundown, where we tip ice into the evaporative cooler and pretend like it's an air conditioner, where even having a lamp on makes it unbearable, where I have a shower because I can't stand it for another second.

So there I was having my 'can't stand it' shower. Popped out, wrapped myself in a towel that felt like it had come out of a hot box. Dried my face, breathing in, as you normally do after you breathe out.

But when I breathed in, the towel smelled just like my mother.

Not my mother's perfume, and not any bad smell, but the beautiful smell that was uniquely hers and no-one elses, warm, sweet and a little bit musky. Suddenly, I'm a child laying in bed, she's bending over to kiss me goodnight and i breathe her in.

I held my breath, hoping somehow to keep it inside me, knowing it was a trick of the mind and on my next breath it would be gone. But no, it was still there when I breathed in again, and again and again. I breathed it in until I felt stupid. I miss her right now, being pregnant and not having her here to tell me it's all going to be okay, that it doesn't matter if I can't breast feed or any number of the things I'm stressing about. I'd like to say that her scent in that towel (was it me? Do i smell like her and didn't realise?) made it seem okay for just a moment, like she was there with me and always will be. But the truth is that it didn't. It just made me miss her like it all happened yesterday.

New Year - Woot!

2009-01-09T07:32:00.003+11:00

Last week - bumper week. No work, just play play play all the time.Went to the beach, sat up late reading books and eating chocolate. Walked in the sand. Made/burned some banana bread beyond recognition. Got up early early to write while everyone else slept off their red wine.

Manuscript VERY happy with the love, care and attention given to it. By the pale morning light, manuscript says 'I forgive you! we're friends again, in fact, I think i love you'.

Words, if not flow, definitely trundle along in an orderly fashion. Feel joy akin to cartwheeling along aforementioned sand. Unfortunately, massive belly prohibits cartwheeling across the sand and instead lends itself to feeling like beached whale.

Listened to a few hours of Eric Meisel talking about creativity. Felt happy that I found this FANTASTIC NEW WONDERFUL way of building a creativity practice in the new year when everything is fresh and good.

UNTIL

Fast forward to this week.Back at day job. Blerk week for the manuscript with only a trickle of words every day. Manuscript wonders where I've gone, and how I could've deserted it so quickly after we obviously connected. Feel like a heel and send manuscript some flowers and chocolate.
Silence on the other end of the line.
Lifting head off pillow seems like gargantuan task, even without red wine.

Moral of the story - go and live at the beach.

Headlong rush into christmas

2008-12-07T19:58:00.004+11:00

Busy week, people, in which I:

Celebrated thanksgiving a little late with Matilda and friends. We made candied yams (!). Ate so much I had to take a day off work to recover.

Continued with reviso by getting up early and tapping on the spanking new laptop. Went back to the place with aniseed flavoured coffee, promising myself I'd just have a muffin, but habit kicked in and I ordered coffee. It was STILL BAD.

Deleted scenes from book thus reducing my books page count to a dismal number that feels like ten.

Worked. If you can call it that when all I seem to do is stagger from the coffee machine to the printer to my desk and back again.

Saw the new James Bond movie. Boy flick done - next up - girl flick AUSTRALIA. Hoping it won't be lame and that all that Hugh will make up for any atrocities.

Fell in love with a new puppy, and after much internal wrangling, decided I like it's new mumma too much to pop it into my handbag.

Started my christmas shopping. I can recommend bringing TJ along on shopping expeditions because not only does he carry all the bags, he stops you dithering and forces decisions like a Major General.

BBQ today at one of TJ's favourite people's place. No-one does a BBQ like a bunch of chefs. Once again, continued the theme of eating too much.

Have belly the size of a large watermelon.

I don't know how this works...

2008-11-23T20:03:00.002+11:00

No idea how it works, but if you plug in your blog address to typealyzer, it will tell you what sort of person you are after scanning your blog.

Apparently I am the gentle/compassionate/quiet Artist. It mentioned NOTHING about my love of donuts which is obviously some kind of malfunction.

What are you??

Image from Typealyzer

Nope

2008-11-22T00:02:00.002+11:00

The pot is in the bin. I think I almost made a diamond!
It was on its tenth life anyway, having survived the great scrambled eggs debacle of 2001.

My recipe for Balsamic Toffee (don't try this at home)

2008-11-21T20:22:00.003+11:00

I've got the crit group coming over tomorrow. We try and eat healthily between bouts of chocolate, so I'd decided on a roast pumpkin salad with fetta and pine nuts. And on top, a drizzle of sticky balsamic. Only problem was, I'd run out of the sticky and had to make a fresh batch (put balsamic vinegar in pot, reduce, voila).

Now they're a lovely bunch, the lulus, and not all that fussy when it comes to food. Keri has even been known to try 'green stuff' and survive.

However I think even THEY would baulk if I tried to serve this:

In case that photo doesn't do it justice, what you're looking at resembles hot volcanic rock, and when I took the photo it was still crackling and popping like it was about to spew lava at me.

I'm actually quite proud of it. I've never burnt something so thoroughly in my life. I couldn't help smiling when I brought the pot in from it's decontamination point outside the back door. Not that I should be smiling - I think I just killed over $200 worth of Le Creuset pot.

My gorgeous father in law said I'm more than welcome to blame him for it, since I was gabbering to him on the phone when the smell of beyond-burnt vinegar reached me on the sofa.

Maybe I can save the pot. I think it should've stopped popping by now and be safe to take to with a crow bar.

Monday Reviso update

2008-11-17T20:18:00.003+11:00

18 pages further along. Not as far as I hoped to be, but I did an extra reviso of 50 pages for my Golden Heart entry. I enter this little baby every year with the same sterling result of nada, but it's such a thrill to enter that I can never resist.

I managed two early morning cafe jaunts. I got totally burned at one by adding extras onto my breakfast, not realising they were $4 dollars a pop so that I had to work half the morning just to pay off my breakfast debt. Needless to say that misleading blackboard won't be getting my custom any more! AND the bacon was awful, the eggs were done on the griddle and the toast was mushy. I think that about covers it. Oh, no, and the coffee tasted like aniseed and I still can't figure out why. I'm all for a nutty coffee, but aniseed first thing in the morning? BLERK.

But still, 18 pages is 18 pages closer. Hopefully more to report soon.

What we do when revising gets too hard

2008-11-13T18:32:00.000+11:00

What do we do? Why take a break, of course.
And this kind of faffing is among my favorite kind and incidentally the sort that can suck HOURS out of your day.

Backstory: I bought my much anticipated and shiny new laptop last week. There it is to the left.

Pretty in all the right computer spec ways, but Oh My God, could it BE any more boring?

So off I went, in my best faffing fashion and found http://www.schtickers.com where they have lots of ways to pretty up your otherwise generic/boring/coma-inducing black laptop.

Of course it took me *some time* to chose a design. And then *some more time* to discover that I wanted to design my own. Then *even more time* (and to be fair I've been sick and couldn't do much else) doing some truly awful ink drawings of flowers and leaves before FINALLY throwing my hands up in the air and tonking on over to istock to savage some photos.

This laptop is all about the writing. There will be no internet, there will be no email. So I figured the skin had to be all about writing too. My brain (not functioning on all cylinders, but still hanging in there), took me back to a particularly special time in my history when I first realised I wanted to become a published writer. I was about seventeen. Picture it. I was sitting on the floor in front of the fire at home, curled up against my mother's chair, a spot that had seen countless conversations on everything under the sun.
Mum: So, if you could do anything in the world, whatever you wanted, what would it be?
Me: I'd be a novel writer.
Mum: (rolls eyes). Not pie-in-the-sky stuff. Something real. What would it be?

Of course then I had nothing to say because I'd really given the question some thought. It set bells off in my head and made me want to cry whenever I thought about it. It still does.

It took me some years to get back to my pie in the sky, but it's always been what I wanted more than any thing else.
So I made this laptop skin and hope that the good people at whatever Cafe don't laugh too hard at me. I reassure myself that they'll have no clue what it really means.

I also find it funny which is a bonus.

I figure when I get my first publishing contract I'll have it redone to say "eating pie in the sky since xxxx"

Or maybe I should've gone with those ink drawings after all....

In any case, I think I'll be doing these on a regular basis. It feels good for the soul for some reason.

Hairy for the Cause

2008-11-11T19:42:00.005+11:00

For the past week or so, I've been looking around me at the men at work thinking 'you look different in a kind of dangerous/porn-star kind of way, but I'm not sure why'.
Then, sitting in a meeting today and gazing across at the normally squeaky clean Jan, I realised 'IT'S MOVEMBER!'
I love Movember. It's such a good cause. Prostate cancer kills just as many men as breast cancer kills women (who knew?) and Beyond Blue do some fantastic work too.
And each guy has a different reaction to his mo. Some are embarrassed, some can't stop touching it while others send a picture to everyone they know with growth updates.

If a heap of guys growing facial hair for a month draws awareness and some well needed funds - then I'm all for it! I'll even try and grow my own Mo in a statement of solidarity. I'm sure I've got it in me. Or maybe I could just grow my armpit hair, or wear my bra on the outside for all of November.
Or just donate. That's a plan.

Update for Monday

2008-11-10T19:03:00.002+11:00

Revision Update:
Today, while sitting in a meeting where I served no other purpose than to make sure the web hookup didn't fall over, I wrote the end of my synopsis. Yay team Reviso! I'm sure they wondered what the heck I could possibly be writing when it was a Partner's meeting and let's just say I'm not exactly Partner material. More than one confused look was thrown in my direction, I can tell you that much.

Tonight: I have to proof it so I can send it through to the lulus in the lead up to our critique session this Saturday. So it's finished for now, I guess, because they always give me food for thought.

Strange happening of the day:
On my lunch break, I locked myself out on the balcony at work by mistake and had to wait for security to come unlock the door. It was the same guy who gave me a serve last week for moving one of the coffee tables so I could type on it. I think I'm his Dennis the Menace.

NanoReviso

2008-11-09T09:09:00.002+11:00

It's supposed to be Nanowrimo. Write a book, or 50,000 words of a book, in the month of November.

But now is not the time for me to start a new book. I have a perfectly good old book that's begging to be finished. So I've changed it to NanoReviso.

There are two hundred pages of manuscript that need rewriting/pulling apart/binning and if I do ten or so pages a day.....well it sounds easy. But it's been like trawling through treacle these past few weeks. Which for me normally means I've taken a wrong turn somewhere, or am writing something that would be better skipped. Time to move on to the next shiny scene rather than trying to link them together far too chronologically.

Or maybe I'm just nervous about getting to the guts of the novel where I've made some big but really cool changes in my head that scare the pants off me. Somehow I have to get the good stuff on to the page.
But hold on, just typing that sentence made me realize how monumentally stupid I'm being.

JUST WRITE THE FREAKING BOOK.

I think I need to go here and get me some pep talks from my favorite writers.

But for anyone who's interested - it's not too late to start writing your first novel!
Go here www.nanowrimo.org for details.

And stay tuned for updates on how I'm going with it.

Wicked Good

2008-10-23T19:51:00.002+11:00

You know you're excited about something when you start counting sleeps.

So I must have been really looking forward to going to see Wicked because I'd been counting sleeps ever since L gave me the tickets for my birthday. Yipee! Fabulous show. Yipee! Yummy dinner beforehand.

We had an amazing dinner at Gingerboy. It's only a tiny restaurant, sitting maybe 50, but the walls and ceiling are like a bamboo screen with a starry night behind it. I got lucky and took the bench seat, but TJ had to put up with the prespex wonder chair that did nothing for butt comfort.

This photo is from The Age because I left my camera behind.

We had big tall fruity cocktails to start with, followed by scallops with crumbly stuff and coriander on top, son-in-law eggs (battered and deep fried egg with yummy chili dip) and then a really good duck curry. Really good. I mean, I have a problem eating duck for the same reason I have a problem eating quail and lamb - they're so cute. I don't want to eat anything I would normally fawn over. But I'm ashamed to say, it smelled so good that gobbled it down and then chased coconut rice all over the plate trying to get that last little bit of fragrant sauce. Then it was onto the dessert platter and before we knew it, it was time to roll off to the theatre.

But no.

Wait.

How can I not tell you about the desert plate? I love this (now old) trend of a little bit of everything on the desert menu carefully lined up on a long plate and plonked down between the two of you. I can never choose which desert to have, and it only ever ends in a growly husband when I poach off his. So, on the plate:

1) sticky black rice w mango and jasmine tea icecream (7/10)

2) tofu cheesecake w crispy sugary thing on top (10/10). Both of us had read this on the menu and said 'blerk, no WAY are we ordering that' and yet it was divine. Smooth and cheesy in a way tofu should never be. Or should always be. One or the other.

3) pear and cinnamon pancake with red bean icecream (3/10) - This was my choice if I had an individual dessert, but it was very ordinary. Sue me, but redbean icecream should be a redder, and beanier. Don't give me Asian Lite!!

4) vanilla and apple dumpling (4/10) Was Tony's individual choice, but again, was a little disappointing in a chewy, apple wrapped in dimsum pastry kind of way.

5) white chocolate cold pudding (8/10). Really a pannacotta, so as such, very yummy. However don't make the mistake of saying to the waiter 'the pannacotta was nice' because their reply will be something like "it's not pannacotta because that's not asian. It's a cold pudding."

To which *I* say - if you simmer up cream, sugar, vanilla then add gelatin, you can *call* it whatever the heck you want -- it's panna cotta. I almost wanted to kidnap the 'cold pudding' and take it back to its Italian heritage at Pelligrini's, but then their creme caramels might have taken offence. So I gobbled it down instead.

So as you can see, it was piglets anonymous and tight trousers after the Gingerboy adventure, even after the waitress told us we'd been 'circumspect'. I'd hate to see indulgence!

Then onto Wicked, which was fabulous. Clever use of the original story and I was entranced the whole way through. We had amazing seats that only L knows how to source (how does she do it?) and the night zoomed by.

Go see it!

Go eat at Gingerboy under the starry bamboo sky on a clear perspex seat. You won't regret it.

The new mantra for the treatment of characters

2008-10-13T21:02:00.003+11:00

So I'm stuck with my darling beautiful book and I can't seem to move through it. Every paragraph feels like a page, every page a scene, every scene a book of war & peace proportions. You get the picture.

And I *love* revising my manuscripts, too much, really. Improving my sucky first draft is often more rewarding than getting the pages done in the first place. But right now, ack, I don't know, I'm bored.

And initially I'll blame anything but the scene. It's daylight savings and being unable to get up and do my pages. It's my desk, which is an old kitchen table and has never felt conducive to writing, it's the headache I can't quite seem to get rid of or maybe it's work and the fact I'm so tired when i get home that all I can do is beg TJ to make my dinner and pop me into bed.

But eventually I realise what I'm actually bored with is the scene. Ho hum, they're in a carriage. Ho hum, they arrive at a beautiful London townhouse - blah blah blah - haven't I read this a hundred times before? Yawn.

So could somebody please send a note to my characters and tell them they have to start spicing things up or i'm going to fall asleep at my keyboard? And if they could do a few things that are just WRONG, that would be good too. I don't want them treating each other all nicey nice. I want them to arrive at the London townhouse and find themselves in quarters little better than the housekeeper. I want my heroine to arrive in London only to witness the one things she's most frightened of. I want the long anticipated visit to the dressmakers not to happen, but for them to get a wardrobe of cast-me-downs that don't fit.

Hold on! I feel less bored already. Excuse me while I go write.

Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen. I have found my new character mantra.

Hanging my hopes on a zucchini

2008-09-06T19:27:00.003+10:00

I'm sure I knew how to cook. There are recipe books with pages that stick together to prove it.

I think.

I seem to remember loving cooking and adoring whipping something up for T for dinner.

Didn't I??

Hard to say, because my cooking mojo has been gone now for so long that I think a toasted cheese sandwich is 'special' effort. Nothing is turning out right.

Most dinners look like I have attention-deficit-disorder. Just look at them and you *know* I wandered away from the kitchen and got distracted by shiny things. Meat is overcooked, vegetables grey or just non existant. And everything is boring. Boring with a capital B.

Maybe it was the Tasmanian adventure. Maybe it was the kerfunctness of the fridge on return and complete lack of dollars to replace it (hey, paying a mortgage and rent is HARD). But recently I can't cook to save myself.

This has been going on for months.

Then last night I'd had enough. We had our monthly crit meeting and I'd said I'd bring a cake. Big chance to step up to the plate. The cake plate that is.

So I remember the lovely Keziah telling me about a foolproof cake recipe that everyone LOVED at her place recently. So armed with a zucchini and some mixed spices I tried to save my cooking career.

And it was YUM. No strange lumpy foreign pieces in the middle, just a dense spice cake with a lime dressing that I could've downed a whole bowl of. So THANKS Keziah and thanks Delicious Magazine...

zucchini & pistachio spice cake with lime frosting
Serves 10-12

¾ Cup (185ml) sunflower oil
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup (75g) unsalted pistachios, finely chopped, plus ¼ cup (35g) slivered unsalted pistachios to decorate
½ cup (60g) almond meal
2 cups grated zucchini (about 3-4)
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground mixed spice
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1½ cups (225g) self-raising flour
½ cup (75g) plain flour
Lime frosting
180g unsalted butter, softened
1¼ cups (200g) icing sugar, sifted
250g cream cheese, softened, chopped
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime

Preheat oven to 170°C.
Grease a 22cm springform pan and line base and sides with baking paper. Using an electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat the oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla until thick. Stir in chopped nuts, meal, zucchini and spices. Sift over soda and flours, and stir to combine. Pour into pan and bake for 70 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack and cool completely.
For frosting, use electric beaters to beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With motor running, gradually add cheese, beating well between additions. Add zest and juice and beat until smooth. Using a bread knife, slice the cake into two rounds and set aside top. Spread a third of the frosting over the bottom half, then replace top and spread cake with remaining frosting. Decorate with slivered pistachios.

From delicious magazine February 2007.

One hour later

2008-08-29T20:29:00.002+10:00

USB of Great Suckiness

2008-08-29T19:39:00.005+10:00

Dear USB stick,

I did love you.

A friend gave you to me and she had taken great effort to personalise you.

I put a ribbon on your arse so I could find you easily. It was aqua blue and I used to cut the small fraying inches off the end so you would always look glamorous.

You had a Gb of memory, more than enough for my pesky briefcase of writing back up.

I always treated you well, pushing that stupid ‘safely remove your hardware’ button to stop you freaking out.

I fretted over you, often driving back home to make sure you were always with me.

So WHY, WHY?? did you have to kamakaze from my handbag to God knows where? And I say God knows because i'm sure He watched me tear the city apart looking for you.

Where you are not:

Under the bar chair at the casino where we drank champagne last night
In the car
Floating in the Yarra
Still plugged into my work pc
At the convention centre
At the Royal Rose where we had birthday dinner with Freya
On the street outside her house
Chewed by Oliver
On the 5^th floor of the car park in the spot by the elevator

I know you did this on purpose. I have any number of crappy lipsticks in my handbag, much the same size as you, that NEVER go astray. After much soul searching, I can only come to the conclusion you are a faithless piece of hardware. My love was enduring and strong – while you just took the chance to leave me behind for greener pastures. I hope you find what you're looking for - mp3s, DivX, .jpgs - all those things I never offered you with my boring pile of .doc files.

I am sorely disappointed in you. I thought you were different.

Robyn

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway....even if you ruin your mascara

2008-08-26T22:02:00.005+10:00

It was conference time again for Romance Writers of Australia! Fun fun stuff, with the always inspiring Barbara Samuel, all time favourite Jo Beverley and new favourite Margie Lawson. I had excellent light bulb moments in Anna Campbell's deep POV workshop, and hung on every word of Jennifer Kloester who has to be one of the foremost authorities on my favourite subject - Georgette Heyer.

But I didn't learn as much as I normally do because I was busy stressing about the fact I was MC at the awards night. Wrap me up and call me scatter brain, but I couldn't string a coherent thought together until Sunday morning, and by then it was frankly too late.

When the conference co-ordinator asked me to emcee my first reaction was unadulterated fear. But along with it was the kind of excitement that I know always means I’m on the right track. That bubbling joy and ‘this is going to be fun’ feeling. I really love the awards night, celebrating everyone’s hard work and the beautiful stories they create. We sit there like a big family that hasn’t been together in a year (probably because we haven’t been together in a year) and talk and laugh and generally have the best time. So if I could be a bigger part of it, then all good.

At the end of the day, emceeing is a really simple job. But boy did I plan my little heart out for it. I’d covered for every little thing that could go wrong. Luckily I didn’t need to use any of it, but having it there made me feel better. And after some jitters at the start where my biggest fear was that I’d succumb to ‘little lamb’ voice, I really did have the time of my life. The bubbling joy and the ‘this is going to be fun’ feeling had not let me down.

There was only one little problem I didn’t foresee. Because I’m so unco with mascara and the more makeup I put on the closer to Krusty the Clown I look, I’d asked the lovely Mia Hawkswell to come do my hair and makeup for me. All good. Looking fantastic, made up to the wazoo and feeling glamorous.

And then my crit partner Carolyn Comito won the Emerald. She’s such a talented writer and her manuscript ‘Her Majesty’s Spy’ is absolutely brilliant. I admire her in so many ways. She’s dedicated, she’s focused and she deserves not only this award but the big fat book contracts that should follow. And when I think about much she deserves this and how her two beautiful children and husband are at home waiting to hear how mummy did – of COURSE I start crying. And all that smoky and glamorous eye makeup starts to puddle up.

Then and editor came and plonked herself down next to my other crit partner Chris (who won the prestigious Romance Writers of NZ Clendon Award last week). Without a pitch or query letter in sight, the editor asked Chris to send in whatever work she has. I cried even more because Chris writes books that wrap around you like a warm blanket and we know that, and we’ve known it for years, but it seems now that everyone else is catching up and her future sparkles like a sparkly thing.

So CC's crying, Chris is crying, Keri's crying, Freya was all teary too so what the hell hope did I have?? So I’m dabbing away at my eyes with my napkin (sorry Langham, there’s one you’ll have to turf) and hoping my voice doesn’t warble.

It was a great night and not because it was the first time I was brave enough to get up in front of a hundred and fifty people and be myself, but as the night Carolyn and Chris made me so proud I almost burst out of my little white bustier.

In my news from the conference, I pitched my book to an editor and was hugely excited/relieved to hear she thought it was an original concept and would love to see some chapters. Woo hoo! Not only that, but she went above and beyond and gave me some ideas on how I could ramp up the conflict. Editors! We loves them! Revisions we loves them less because they make us sweat but if I get a better book from it, i'll roll up my sleeves and do the dirty.

We should've burned stockings not bras

2008-08-17T18:30:00.002+10:00

I have SO had enough of pantyhose. I know, I know, all the injustice in the world and I reach boiling point over a layer of sheer something I use to cover my legs. It seems wrong somehow. Shallow. Inconsequential. But I am reserving the kind of loathing for stockings that I usually have for animal cruelty and the girl that comes into work each day with a different fur item on (no, I do NOT care if they were your grandmothers!!!!).

But back to pantyhose. Firstly, they do NOT keep you warm in winter. Not even vaguely. I'm not sure if this was ever used as a selling proposition, but my mother always used to tell me to go put tights on because I'd freeze otherwise. Newsflash Mum - I'm still freezing. Yesterday i stood at the tramstop completely certain I had tucked my skirt into my pants, so cold was the arctic wind up my leg tunnel.

Secondly, what in the history of fashion do we pay so much for for so little return?

Monday - buy stockings - ladder stockings by my second coffee

Tuesday - buy stockings - rip a massive hole in the butt of them yanking them up. Figure I can get away with this and wear them anyway, even though hole gets bigger as the day progresses

Wednesday - Wear a pair I picked up at the Bonds Factory Outlet for 3.95 (marked down from 19.95, which is my only excuse for not hearing the alarm bells). Put stockings on. Think to self 'hmmm, these are a little inflexible." Stockings look lovely on the leg, but unfortunately only cover half my butt. As the day wears on and I make the fatal mistake of walking around, the stockings fall down...
down...

further...

until I am forced to penguin walk to the toilets before they drop to my ankles.

Thursday - figuring there has to be a better way - go to specialised stocking shop and invest in a pair of thicker denier fishnetty numbers. Feel very sexy and urban until I realise my massive calves turn the fishnets into something more akin to a fish trawler. Unsexy. But at least they last the entire day with no mishap.

Friday - get smart and wear pants.

Really, 'get smart and wear pants' should have happened on Tuesday - but nobody every said I was a fast learner.

The Winter of my Discontent

2008-08-03T20:48:00.003+10:00

BLOG: Roooobyn! Come and play with me.
Me: Who is this??
BLOG: It's me, remember? Your blog. I've got pretty butterflies and you are supposed to come and talk complete and utter rubbish about the unco things you do.
Me: I have a blog???

Hey I have a blog!
How could I leave something that's so much fun for such an extended period of time?
I could blame my new job taking every ounce of creative energy I have through its sheer boringness, but that wouldn't be fair, because the more boring the work is, the more hyperactive little writer brain becomes and let me tell you - there is one totally HOT rewrite of my book that's going on at the moment.

But in a nutshell --
I'm back in Melbourne and it feels strange. It's not that I'm pining for Launceston, because well, it's freaking freezing down there and there are only two movies showing at the cinema at any one time, but Melbourne is leaving me less than enchanted too. And I love this place, so I'm waiting impatiently to fall back in love with it. Maybe it's just winter. The winter of my discontent.

Although just last weekend, it was the winter of freaky snowstorms, hair raising driving through mountain ranges and feeding pademelons with apples when T and I celebrated our anniversary by going to Cradle Mountain Lodge. We flew over and hired a little hyandai Getz, that probably would've been fine if we hadn't encountered SNOW on the way there.

At first, climbing over Mt Round, we were all 'oh isn't this the most beautiful thing EVER.' because the snow floated around the car like we were in fairy land. I have never seen anything so beautiful and unexpected. Enchanted, would be a good word to describe me.

Stupid would be another.

Ten kilometres into the hundred kilometre trip I started to get worried. The road was disappearing and icy. I had to drive this tiny crappy car in other people's tracks, my heart beating like a wild thing whenever the tracks disappeared completely or I had to round a sharp corner.

In short it was the most harrowing drive I've ever done. I counted down those kilometres until we got to zero and there was still no lodge in sight.
Road signs LIE!! Who knew?

It was about then that we heard an ominous THUMP THUMP coming from the back side of the car. Flat tire goodness. It's lots of fun changing a tyre in the middle of a snow storm. At least the car was so small you barely needed the jack. TJ is a tyre changing genius.

And I am SO not a snow driving genius. When the tracks disappeared on my side a few kilometres past the flat tyre, I said "to heck with it, i'm going on the wrong side of the road" where the tracks were clear and deep.

Cue on-coming SUV.

I slide (really, the car slid) over to the other side of the road where in trying to slow down and not lose control of the car and land in the ditch - we completely stop. On a hill. Still in the blizzard. SUV couple kindly stop and PUSH us up the hill where I limp the extra few km to the lodge. Up the final tiny hill to the lodge, anyone close by would have heard my gently cajouling the little blue car:
"Come on sweetie, you can do it, come on, a little bit further darling, you know you want to you @#EE#_ hunk of @$U%R" junk!!!"

But here's what we saw when we got there. Pretty and drop dead romantic. Almost worth ditching over a cliff for.

After a few stiff drinks my hands stopped shaking and I was ready to sit by the fire.

We took Lonnie Bear with us, who we caught out frolicking in the snow instead of taking our bags to the room like he was supposed to.

So having been let down by the bear - T had to lug the suitcase up through the snow.

Then it was fun all the way, with wine chilled in the snow, good food and staring aimlessly into a log fire for hours on end.

And by the time I had beaten the pants off Tony TWICE in Scrabble (I have never beaten him before) the snow had melted like it was never there.

Where I am

2008-03-14T13:31:00.001+11:00

http://tasirenoadventure.blogspot.com/

for a few weeks. Renovating up a Dust Storm.

Cleaning - Why Bother?

2007-12-01T08:38:00.000+11:00

My house is a disaster zone right now. Stuff dripping from every surface and threatening to topple, so i thought I better clean up a bit cos there's nothing on this weekend, and if i leave it as it is, they might have to use GPS to find me after I collapse under the weight of all my crap.

Anyway, I'd just finished making the lounge room sparkle with cleany goodness and stood back to survey my handiwork when a thought struck me. 'Hmmm," I thought. "Wouldn't it be good, if i could just move my bookcase like an inch to the left?'
GIRL - LEAVE YOUR FREAKING BOOKCASE WHERE IT IS. I mean, what sort of person thinks about shifting a bookshelf at 7am when they should be SLEEPING IN?
Anyway, this is the aftermath of what happens when you try to shift a bookshelf 'just an inch' while the books are still in it.

Man. I mean that bookshelf had *way* to much in it to start with, but it looks like so much more when it avalanches itself onto the floor. Also take a gander at my circa 1991 tv. You should see my microwave - it has a DIAL and I'm sure is emitting enough radiation to light up all of Melbourne if it chose to use its powers for good.
But of course even this piece of tosspottery has a silver lining. There I was putting them into the neat piles you see before you, when I start slowing right down, saying 'wow, there's that copy of P&P mum picked up from a bookstall in Cornwell in 1983' and 'cool, who knew I had that Pan version of 'Beauvallet?'
Sad sad book girl.
So now I need coffee. I mean, you can't expect me to clean up that kind of mess on no coffee?
Kosina this morning. Because they will give me eggs or pancakes too.
We loves them.

Breakfast Bungle

2007-11-17T14:17:00.000+11:00

After last Sunday's horrendous breakfast bungle in which TJ and I spent an HOUR trying to find somewhere open before nine, forgetting half the places we love and ending up siting outside Filter in Fitzroy doing much griping and groaning, I have decided to list all my favourite breakfast places HERE, in a spot where I can't misplace the piece of paper where I scrawled it all down.

So,

Filter - 285 Brunswick St Fitzroy.
Corn cakes...mmmm. Coffee...double mmmmm.
ICI - 359 Napier St Fitzroy.
Organic kickass coffee and the best brioche french toast in town.
Fandango - 97 Errol St North Melbourne.
To die for coffee (even the skinny), and the poached eggs with beetroot & fetta relish is SUPREME.
Apte - 538 Heidelberg Rd Alphington
Yummy, scrumptious menu. Wish i could go past the banana bread with labna for once in my life.
Kosina -2 Napier St Essendon
Pancakes, thick, luscious, often embedded with blueberries - droolworthy.
Mart130 -107a Canterbury Rd Middle Park - Good all rounder.
Circa the Prince - St Kilda - for the mornings we feel more spiffy and presentable (doesn't happen often).
Fruits of Passion -188 Bellair St Kensington.
Recently revamped in very chic modern country style, meaning for a brief few weeks during the reno, I had to find an alternate coffee dealer. Still some of the best coffee I've ever had. Seriously. Orgasmic. My fav off the menu is the eggs benedict defying its name by being served on a hash brown. The muffins fresh out of the oven and still in the tray rock too.

Trotters - 400 Lygon Street, Carlton- if only for those amazing lemon ricotta muffins. The home made hash browns are pretty special too.

Balzari - 130 Lygon St Carlton. Excellent brekky.
The Boathouse - 7 The Boulevard Moonee Ponds
Absolute riverfront on the Maribyrnong, excellent views, beauuutiful food. Coffee pretty ordinary. But a very chill spot.

See, and I know there are so many more!!

Oh, wait on.

The Commoner 122 Johnston Street, Fitzroy.
What a place. Feels like sitting in someone's kitchen eating while they cook. Love their work (and their coffee, and those wicked good pancakes).

Oh, God, that place near Newmarket Station that is in the old Hygienic Library. Their coffee and breakfast is beyond good. The name will come to me. TJ's not so impressed because it's an egg heavy menu and he does love a good serve of french toast/pancakes.

And GAS in South Melbourne, although I hope they're getting over the middle eastern poached egg thing. If i have to eat another egg with dukkhah sprinkled on top, well, I won't be responsible for my actions. But great coffee.

I'm just going to have to keep on adding to this as I remember places, because this is the EXACT problem I ran into last Sunday.

Much love sent to Jeremy (no, i don't know him, but by God I owe him BIG TIME) of the breakfast blog for continually pointing us in goodly breakfast directions.

Mum - a poltergeist flipped my bike!

2007-10-31T18:32:00.000+11:00

I've just spent the last half hour wandering around the house looking for a drink i poured.
I swear there are gremlins in my house. Can't find it anywhere and I'M REALLY THIRSTY AND IT WAS THE LAST drop of that yummy stuff Freya brought over the other day.

And who put the celery in the *pantry* last night, so that when i went to look for it to make my risotto, all hell broke loose.

All of this = me going slowly crazy.
or there are gremlins. One or the other.

I've been doing Dream Incubation (whereby you think on a problem before you go to sleep and your dream self provides the answers). It normally works a treat, and I'm getting more and more into it, so you can imagine my surprise when I asked my dream self 'what is going on with all my clumsiness lately' and the dream answer i get?
Poltergeists.
Wow. Thanks a bunch dream self. Really insightful.

So in the tradition of what I'm now going to call The Elephant Files in honour of that most auspicious time I fell off an elephant in Thailand - we have today's story, which was actually yesterday's story - but my hands hurt so bad that I could barely type after the incident.

Here goes:
The Elephant Files 2

Or

How I flipped off my bike onto my head.

So here was the thought process. "Hmmm, I have a day off work. I need coffee, I have a mountain of drycleaning, and yet I have an ass the size of Tasmania. What should i do? I know! I'll bike ride down to Cosina for my coffee, dropping off my drycleaning on the way."
Tick
Tick
Tick.

So after the usual fifteen minutes of faffing to find my helmet get my gear on, off i went - putting the motherload of drycleaning into my basket on the front.

Okay - you can stop laughing now, yes i really do have a basket. No, it does not have flowers. No, I do not have streamers from my handlebars although yes, if i find some I WILL buy them.

(in an aside, just found my drink. I left it in the laundry) (????)

Now the bike ride was going fairly well. Thighs were working, I actually seemed to have the whole gear change thing going on for once and I was feeling pretty confident. The backroad I was on sloped wonderfully downhill, and I prepared to coast all the way to Buckley Street. Which I'm sure would've worked a treat if it weren't for two things:

1. Speed hump
2. Basket

I hit the speed hump just fine, but the shock combined with the sheer TON of drycleaning was too much for a girly girl basket. It came loose from the top, but still miraculously attached to the bike down at the wheel. So it's creating sparks off the road while I'm screaming something that sounded like 'duck' but was in actuality 'f*ck' in rapid succession.

Finally the bike runs over the metal basket flipping me into the air like a freaking pancake to land firmly on my
a) hands
b) head
c) butt

My drycleaning drags on the ground (which is something I've longed to do to my pin-stripped suit forever). I bounce off the road ending up in a glorious fetal position where I stay like a limp kitten until three, count them, three separate young men pull over saying 'you right, luv?'

Who said chivalry is dead?
That person obviously didn't have a mangled bike basket and cracked helmet to get things moving.

Anyway, long story short, Stefan helped me up, inspected my gravel rash hands, unscrewed the remainder of the basket with a set of keys (!!), put the chain back on and sent me on my shaky way. I called him Macgyver, which he probably didn't realise was the highest compliment I could humanly pay him.

So I sat by the side of the road for twenty minutes wondering if after a bit of an accident, I was the kind of person who would forge on to finish my task (coffee/drycleaning/writing) or would i be the kind of person who ran back to the nest licking her wounds.

Then the little voice inside me, that **might** sometimes sound like Melanie Scott, said 'you have gravel rash, go clean your gravel rash IDIOT'.

insightful soulful moment over.

Worst part? Uphill all the way home with bleeding hands that couldn't grip the handlebars properly.

Poltergeists. Sniff.

Hey Murphy - want your law back??

2007-10-24T19:54:00.000+10:00

Today, woke up feeling good, the sad grumpy mood from the night before dissipated UNTIL...

I looked in the mirror and LOW AND BEHOLD there was a GIANT DOUBLE DECKER cold sore under my lip. Double decker meaning THREE cold sores that miraculously hatched and then merged under the cover of night into one mammoth glob that threatens to cover a square inch of very obvious facial property.

Where did it come from? Normally, I might get a cold sore about three weeks after a bad virus. Or if I’ve been super run down and stressed. Not just a little stressed, but super stressed. In fact last time I had one was two years ago after that whole Mum and Dad dying within six weeks of each other schemozzle.

My life at the moment, with the coffee, banana bread and lazy weekends, does not warrant a cold sore.

Press Undo! I want my face back!

Fran here at work suggested a boost of zinc and a healthy slather of zovirax. Done!

Cold sore - STILL THERE.

Of course, it would be the day I have a job interview. How hilarious is that. Only a temp role – but one that should take me through the hard-to-find-work Christmas period – so go me.

Luckily they overlooked my massive face impediment and offered me the role. So it’s bye-bye lovely little lawyers library with funky green lights and HELLO dancing girls at the new workplace.

Dropping off the radar

2007-10-21T19:45:00.001+10:00

Hey look! I'm still alive!

But by god, I have been working my ass off (oh, if only that were true and my ass really WERE smaller, but alas, I'll just have to settle with the working thing).
I have, drum roll please, finally trained this little capooty to get up an hour earlier and go sit in a coffee shop and write write write before work.
and eat banana toasted banana bread (see aforementioned ass)
and drink coffee
oh, and can i please have another coffee, because that one seems to have disappeared.
Decaff? no, no thank you. I like the way the second coffee gives me heart palpitations and makes my hands shake.

and then, write at lunchtime, trying to find somewhere suitable that doesn't sting me $5 for a coffee. At the moment the front runners are:
1. Starbucks. This one has the bonus of sometimes running into Freya who writes at lunchtime too. It has the down side of having to have THREE shots of espresso before it starts to taste like real coffee - but hey, there's always the chai for a sugar hit.
2. The basement library in the place I'm working at the mo. Seriously, how cool is it that this place has a library? Okay, it's a legal library and therefore boring as batshit, but nevertheless, there are desks, and cubicles and little green lights that are totally conducive to forgetting to go back to the office when the allotted half hour is over. I love lawyers. They are smart and funny and have libraries in their buildings where alphasmart typing is not frowned upon.
3. The little park with tables and a nice view of the old law courts i found last week. But this one is totally weather dependent. During that evil northerly that blew my skirt up around my ears last Friday (I kid you not, and yes there were witnesses, and yes they were a group of teenage boys playing downball against the building wall and yes I did run), I couldn't even make it there.

and then, write after work on the train on the way home, not giving a TOSS who's reading over my shoulder (because they always do).

and then come home and watch tv all night (ah, remnants of my old life coming to the fore).

And to wit - there's a third of a book done. And let me tell you, i totally earned that third of a book. And the dishes in my sink will attest to the fact I've done ZERO housework since this whole gangbusters effort. Ha! It feels great. I may never do housework again.

Really the whole thing is just a big warm up for Nanowrimo. The aim of the November writing fest is to reach 50,000, but that's not going to do me much good since I'm aiming for 90,000, so I decided to give myself a head start. I think this might preclude me from actually signing up for Nanowrimo? Not sure. Maybe if I still write 50,000 in November?
In any case, no one can stop me buying the t-shirt which actually looks kind of cute this year. And really, it's getting a bit old that I'm still wearing my 2003 nano t.

Seriously girl, cough up some dosh and buy yourself a new one! Stop being a cheapskate.

Well that was a mess. If you're still with me by this last line you must truly be my friend
Either that or you enjoy watching train wrecks.

Stationery Fiend

2007-09-30T15:19:00.000+10:00

I've always been a stationery fiend. As a kid, I'd skip the toy department, the barbies and bears (well maybe not the bears), and head straight to the erasers and notebooks.
I fact, late last year I cleaned up my office and put all the empty notebooks on one shelf, and to my not-so surprise, they took up almost half a shelf. I've been on a personal vendetta this year to fill them all up so I can start buying new ones again.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone, and least of all me, when I decided there HAD to be a rubber band that would fit around my manuscripts better than the ugly brown ones I'd been using. I searched high and low people. I went to Kikki K, Officeworks, Penfolds, Borders and finally, successfully, the place I probably should've gone first - SMIGGLE. Mmmmm Smiggle. So many erasers, notebooks, pens, folders in so many colours. And of course, kick ass elastic bands like this one, that fit around my manuscript like a bum in a bucket.

Not sure what it says about me, that finding a frog green elastic band for $1.20 has made my day.

Also making my day and possibly week, is that the lovely vivacious Ziggy is coming for a visit.

This dog is the sweetest thing, although you have to be careful not to open your mouth while you're patting her because odds on you'll get a dog tongue right on in there. And yes, this is the voice of experience over here - I have been french kissed by a dog. Eeeeeeeeeek.

Ziggle is also quite fond of head butting you until you pat her, and less endearingly, launching herself uninvited,onto your solar plexus while you lie on the couch after a big dinner.

It's nice to have a dog in the house again. TJ's been away for a few days and I felt very alone and quiet there for a while.

Birthday Goodness

2007-09-09T17:43:00.002+10:00

I think it's probably fair to say that I've been narky lately. Upset, angry, disenchanted and easily ticked off.
Not sure I've ever been this narky. Ever. The other day, the guy sitting across from me on the peak hour train alternatively sucked up snot and kicked my shin. I pushed back gently. I frowned at him, but then he kicked a little too hard and all hell broke loose. I yelled 'Move!' loud enough to get through his iPod and make half the carriage look up from their mobile phones/books/newspapers. He moved.
What I'm not telling you, is that as I yelled 'move', I also kicked him back. Not hard (I'm probably lying here, I had a lot of anger and i think it was pretty hard) but still, I physically assaulted a fellow public transport sufferer.
So not like me.
I am normally the soul of 'excuse me please'. I have manners my mother would be proud of.
Not this week.
I kinda hoped my birthday would yank me out of it, after all, I have an alter ago affectionately known by family and friends as 'the birthday monster'. I love birthdays - everyone coming over, the presents, the cake (perhaps a little too much) singing happy birthday etc etc.
It's not just my birthday, I get almost as excited at other people's. Notice the 'almost'.
So I tried. I really really tried to get into it, even going to the extreme lengths of singing happy birthday to myself along with everyone else.
And having all those people I loved there helped - for a little while.
But much too soon I reverted to cranky, annoyed, crying at the drop of a hat and generally being a pain in the ass. I miss my dog. I'm angry that she's gone and nothing makes it feel better.

I mean you know you're bad news when Zac (see below) comes to visit and spends the entire time watching the wall to escape you.

In good news, even my narky state of mind couldn't detract from the fact that i got some of the cutest presents a girl could wish for. Look at this (thanks Mel, she's beautiful!) :

and this (I haven't taken it off, Freya):

I have the best friends in the world. I hope they forgive me.

So if you see me on the street, seriously, walk the other way. I've got a bee in my bonnet and I'm not adverse to kicking total strangers.

In Dog Heaven

2007-08-25T22:50:00.000+10:00

In dog heaven there are wide expanses of green green grass where you can run circles in joyous abandon.
There are trees covered in sniffs to paw over
There are plates of fresh cooked chicken and slices of corned beef from Dad.
There is no vet.
There are pillows to lie on, tissues to chew and patches of sun to sleep the afternoon away in.
In dog heaven, nobody asks you to come or sit or tells you you're a bad dog.
Instead, God is pulls you up onto his lap to give you a scratch behind the ear, or on your belly, or wherever you feel like it most.
There's all kinds of chocolate that's not bad for you.
There are no fleas.
In dog heaven, the roads aren't paved with gold, they're paved with those squeaky toys you love so much, like Henry, and Froggy and Monte.
There are lots of other dogs to play with, and you'll feel like a puppy again.
Sometimes it rains, so you can run through the mud but mostly it's like a fresh spring morning.
You'll love it. And one day when I get up there too, you 'll be wagging to see me and show me around.

There better be all these things and more, Mookie. There better be every little thing your heart desires or ...
or what?
or i think my heart will break.

It was the best of times and it was the best of times...

2007-08-13T20:08:00.000+10:00

I've just spent five days in Sydney at the Romance Writers of Australia yearly conference and it was an absolute blast. I adore Sydney. Beautiful weather, a city surrounded by either water or park, and Jenny Crusie and Anne Stuart as your personal writing mentors for the weekend . How can you go wrong?

Well there's the $10 they charge you just to stand on the airport train station platform (not including ticket!), and perhaps the way everything seems to cost twice as much as it does here, but other than that, it's a beautiful beautiful town.

Statistics gathered from the conference include

Number of times that I...

Downed a bucked-sized cocktail in the bar: 2

Spilled something on my top: 6

Chewed on complimentary mentos while listening to speakers : 0 (hard to believe, isn't it?)

Bought a book: 7

Told my husband I'd won a book in a raffle: 7

Turned to the person next to me while Jenny Crusie was teaching and said 'that's pure gold' :5

Had writing epiphanies :4

Won a raffle/door prize : 0 (you'd think that would be humanly impossible considering the number of tickets I bought)

Spotted the Sydney Harbour Bridge: 4

Found a fabulous Cafe/Foodstore: 1 (thanks Gusto in Paddington!)

Whined about the fact that my pants don't fit: 25

Ate the donut anyway: 2

--000---

One of the highlights of the entire trip was watching amazing writer and fabulous friend, Melanie Scott, win the prestigious and much coveted Emerald Award. I think I was more nervous than she was on the night, but I guess when you've weathered being a double Golden Heart finalist, you can do anything. And what was really hilarious and kind of touching was that she was so surprised to win that she hadn't even prepared a speech, and sat in a total daze for fifteen minutes afterwards. Which was lucky for me, because she didn't notice that I'd totally scoffed her flourless chocolate cake.

And then there's Keri - who hit the extended NYT Bestseller list AGAIN with the wonderful Embraced by Darkness.

There's nothing better than a friend's success. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Two Banana Coladas Later...

2007-07-30T12:56:00.000+10:00

... and I was sitting by the pool with my alphasmart (I **so** wish I could say that all the time), letting my latest manuscript suck.

'Letting it suck' is the only rule I have to have when writing first draft because otherwise the nasty little perfectionist goblin will eat up every idea I have. And he really is a nasty goblin. He says things like 'oh come on, i've read a scene like that three billion times before, can we please do something original?' whereas if i smack him down, i write the scene i've read three billion times before, but halfway through something unexpected and original happens and suddenly I'm having fun. This book is looking like it's going to be written using the patchwork quilt method of writing. Bits of scenes coming through strong, but nothing even slightly linear - so it will be a case of putting it all together at the end and seeing what i've got. You can't fight the process. But i still try. Why oh why do i still try?

I only have three days of fluffy cocktail enduced writing to go before I have to come home, though, so I have to make the most of it. Yesterday I fed an elephant bananas (wow, what a smooth topic change) one at a time. She lifted her beautiful long truck and gently curled it over the banana in my hand. Okay, so I ended up with a sizable glob of elephant snot on my hand, but it was worth it. I kept running back and buying more bananas (they say it's a donation for the elephants they are rehabilitating, but I say it's a donation to the restaurant and bar they appear to be building. Hmph.) until there were no bananas left and the elephant was looking at me with disappointment in those big honey coloured eyes. By God can they eat!!

Travel Tips for your Romantic Thai Holiday

2007-07-26T14:59:00.000+10:00

Tip 1: That red thing is not a capsicum. So when you say to your chef husband 'hey, is that a capsicum?' and he says 'yes', only to add 'I hope' when he sees the steam coming out of your ears, try not to blame him for the gallon of iced water and gastrointestinal distress.

Tip 2: That elephant you are riding does not have a ladder. So when you attempt to dismount, take care not to trip over your own feet and land sprawled on the gravel with your skirt around your ears.

Tip 3: If you bought travel sickness pills, please remember to take them before journeying in the back of a ramshackle red van over hills are around countless hair pin bends. Really. Nobody wants to see you turn a not so delicate shade of green and stumble around like a drunkard.

Tip 4: Try not to take a wrong turn looking for Baskin Robbins and end up in the red light district.

Tip 5: Do not try and ascertain what the 'Chopstick Treatment' listed on the menu handed to you in said red light district, entails.

Tip 6: THAT RED THING IS NOT A CAPSICUM!!!

Satay luck

2007-07-21T11:57:00.000+10:00

What are the odds of rocking up to Singapore in the middle of two fabulous festivals? Not only is it 'Singapore's on Sale' (I'm calling that a festival, afterall, shopping is a national past time here) - but it's the also the Singapore **Food** Festival.
Did they know I was coming or something?
And O-M-G can these people cook.
Last night we totally lucked upon some sort of Satay cookoff where they'd turned a street into impromptu satay stalls. The street was lined with charcoal fired BBQs, red lanterns and a haze of satay fuelled smoke hanging in the 97% humidity.
Not to mention every type of satay you can imagine. Well, that's not quite true , there was prawn, lamb, chicken, beef and that's about it. But what more do you need? Put together with the homemade rice cake, cucumber, onion, pineapple - TJ and I were in satay heaven. We left there smelling of charcoal smoke with very full bellies.
I love this city!

We haven't tried the fried carrot cake yet - but it's only day 2.

Bunny of the Day

2007-07-16T13:20:00.000+10:00

What's a baby rabbit called? I wasn't sure, so if anyone knows, the bunny is all ears to find out.
She fits in your hand and her name is Sooty -not that she's particularly sooty, so not sure how that came about.
But she's the new addition to my sister's household. That is, until Aunty Robyn comes over and steals her away for being too cute for words.
It's her own fault, really. She's got it coming.

So I've finished work at my last place of lucre. It was fun, but oh- my-God the commute was a killer. On the upside, traveling by train everyday is perfect for plotting - if you can zone out the guy in the seat next to you sniffing something up from his knees .
Not always possible.
And on another upside, I think I've done more reading in the past three months than I did in the whole year before it. Some excellent, excellent stuff that I'll post to the left sometime soon.

The book is coming along nicely. On the home stretch of the revision of the revision of the revision. No scene left untouched, no phrase safe from my wickedly sharp delete button.
Ha! I am the revision QUEEN!

Retract previous happy dancing

2007-06-10T12:22:00.000+10:00

Ha! Apparently the book that I thought was FINITO is not as finito as previously presumed.
lol
People have read the masterpiece, and found some not-so-masterpiece like qualities like plot holes, loose ends and other various items needing urgent attention.
So the happy dancing and fun process of sending the MS off to the agent of choice is currently in a state of stasis.
As am I.

Oh my. Will somebody please rename this blog 'Procrastinating Up a Storm' because it's been oh, say TWO WEEKS since I got all this lovely feedback and I could only bear to look at the manuscript yesterday morning. And even then it was with the trepidation of someone sitting on an outdoor dunny seat knowing there's a nest of red-back spiders living in the corner.

Not that I've been sitting around with my finger in my ear - I started a new MS in a Don't Look Down draft and who wants to go back to a rewrite when there's a magic new world waiting for you?

But that's okay. I know once I get back into it, it'll only take a week or so and it will be all the stronger for it, and leaving it these couple of weeks means I'm coming back lots fresher and objectively.

So, I've pencilled in some Snoopy Dancing for later in the week, but for this afternoon, I'll just procrastinate a little more writing the new one.

Happy Dancing!

2007-05-08T20:53:00.000+10:00

I've been a little absent lately - but it's only because I've been using every available second to finishe my current WIP.

And now it's done!

I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’ve learned so much writing this book. I know I say this with every book, but really – SO MUCH.

Firstly, I started out trying to give my characters some ‘complex conflicts’ rather than a complex plot - a la the Nadia Cornier and Simone Elkeles theory from their workshop at the 2006 RWA conference.

I really love this way of thinking about a book – that if you just set your characters up with complex conflicts they can’t resolve, the plot considerations seem to take care of themselves.

Somehow, of course, in the midst of all those conflicts, I’ve managed to end up with Plotty McPlot anyway, but I’m sure I can balance it out. If I haven’t already.

Secondly – I bought in a few more characters than I’m used to dealing with and that put me on a great learning curve. In my first couple of books, I kept my cast of characters small, because I really couldn’t deal with too much more than that. But this time I’ve got sisters, step brothers, friends, parents of friends all mingling together.
Honestly I’m so immersed in this book that I can no longer see it clearly – so time to put it aside for a few days and play with something else.
Now there’s a sentence that brings a smile to my face – SOMETHING ELSE!

It’s back to that magical time at the start of a novel when anything is possible, everything glitters, and this is going to be the best story I’ve ever written. Sound familiar?

For me it means lots of lazing around, sleeping and napping. Because that’s where I can find that twilight place between awake and asleep where my most creative ideas come from. In fact the idea for THE YEAR MY MAGIC BROKE came on a warm spring day when I kicked back in my car at lunchtime with the sun shining through the windows and half fell asleep. Half fell asleep and dreamed of a girl who discovered her magical powers by a hot guy’s life (and subsequently turning him into a cat).

Mmmm starting a new book. It's better than chocolate.

They're just a pair of socks.

2007-04-20T21:34:00.000+10:00

They were just a pair of socks, but they were handmade from the softest angora wool with fine straggly white hairs all over, and they were a pretty purply- grey that you wouldn’t normally associate with a man's sock.

They sat in my sock drawer, third one down, valiantly swimming their way to the surface amid the sports socks and tired old printed socks. They were determined. Determined and three times the size of any other pair of socks in the drawer. They begged to be worn.

But no matter how cold my toes were, or how long I’d looked in vain for my left slipper, I could never bring myself to put them on. Even though part of my crazy mind remembered how I thought I'd love to wear them, how I envisaged wearing them all through the winter, knowing it would make me feel closer to him.

Or something.

Winter went, spring, summer and another autumn and still they never made it out of my drawer. In fact, I could barely look at them, much less pick them up.

That is until tonight when that nasty little voice in my head said that if I didn’t start wearing them soon, I should throw them out. THROW THEM OUT?? Then of course I had to put them on because no way Jose were they getting thrown out.

So I put them on.

And promptly started crying when a hundred and one forgotten pictures of Big Al sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee balanced on the arm rest, and these very same angora socks bunching around his ankles flicked across my mind like a slide show I couldn’t turn off, and I realized these tears are the very reason I left those socks in the drawer for so long. Smart girl.

Because even after a year and a bit these tears are hot and hurtful, sticking in my throat and making me remember. The tears tell me I was stupid to think I was so much better for the past few months. They tell me that I'm kidding myself, that they are just under the surface waiting to jump out whenever a little angora fluffiness comes my way.

Stupid socks. I sit at the computer and look at old photos and new photos and get sadder and sadder, crying quietly so TJ won't hear me from watching the equally sad Richmond football game in the next room.

Then i get up to go and check on the lemon delicious pudding, and whaddaya know the socks make me glide like an ice skater across our polished floor boards, something my dad, with his ice hockey past, would've greatly approved of.

That made me smile and suddenly everything was more than ok.

My brain confuses me.

What is it about grief that only tears can make it better? Whether it's one year or five or twenty, you just have to cry when the tears are there. If I cry, like a good soaking rain, everything appears a little bit brighter and cleaner.

Maybe I'm a lot better than I thought.

Rest in peace Big Al. I miss you like crazy.

Hey, you've got a stick up your ass!

2007-04-16T19:34:00.000+10:00

Okay, I’m packing up this little caravan and I’m running away with the muppet circus.

This will all make sense when I tell you that last night, as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, we went to see Puppet Up - Uncensored with Brian Henson and crew. To make it even funnier, the venue was the Princess Theatre which is about as close as you can get in real life to the plush muppet theatre of the 1970s show.

We walked in to see a plain black stage with a tiny camera trained on the puppeteers and big-ass flat screen TVs on each of the stage.

So you have the choice to watch only the puppets, if you look at the TV, or how the whole thing works if you watch the stage directly.

Then the host, Patrick, asks for some audience input – e.g. “give me a place” and the audience scream out suggestions until something sounds like fun, e.g. “star trek convention”.

Patrick tells the actors to ‘Puppet Up’ and the troupe pick up their puppets and swing into action giving us an hilarious Star Trek send up with their own muppet flavour. And because it was an over 18 audience, they could say what they wanted, when they wanted, which took the muppets right out of being kids entertainment into something far more mischievous.

Like when one muppet looks at the other and says “Hey, you’ve got a stick up your ass.”

Hilarious, way cute, smart and just a heap of fun. I sat there like a little kid with a wrapt expression on my face for the entire two hour show. This is the first time I’ve been to a show and had serious job envy. How cool would it be to work with that kind of creative energy every day? You could literally feel it in their interactions and the fun they had together. What a cool bunch of people.

Of course it was only as I was lying in bed, four hours after the show finished that I thought of some good suggestions to yell out.

Typical.

Golden Days

2007-03-27T22:23:00.000+10:00

Sending out gallons of cyber champagne to Melanie who rocketed her way into the finals of the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart competition with not one manuscript - but two!

This isn't a little three chapter competition either - it's the whole MS. There's no hiding there. If you've got a sagging middle, a black moment that's more a pale puce colour or a few things that just don't quite gel - it's preeety unlikely you'll make it to the finals. After all, they get over 1000 entries every year.

So congratulations you clever thing, and wishing you everything good for your trip to Dallas in July :)

Breakfast Fiend Mark I

2007-03-18T17:59:00.000+11:00

I am one of Melbourne's biggest breakfast fiends, I'm sure of it.
I've been obsessed by the whole breakfast out thing for about five years now. Every Sunday, sometimes Saturday, and even during the week if someone is crazy enough to give me the day off.

I'm ashamed to say it all started with McDonalds and a particularly tasty Sausage and Egg McMuffin, but it has progressed a LOOOOONG way from there and totally with the help and inspiration of Jamie Wodetzki of The Breakfast Blog .

This guy ROCKS at the whole breakfast thing, and TJ and I have been shamelessly following his lead when it comes to all things of breakfasty goodness.

Without him we would never have found:

Mart 130
The Green Grocer
or
Replete Providore

All places where I've spent many mornings noodling on my alphasmart while my coffee goes cold.

And we certainly would never have stumbled over Balzari, where this morning I had a pesto and egg dish made that almost made me cry with the way something so simple was made with such panache. I'm sure those herbed tomatoes were picked off a vine in the chef's backyard on his way to work, they were so tasty and fresh.

Coffee = strong and yum
service = friendly and professional
ambiance = mellow

And the mellowness was exactly what I needed after being chief mocktail maker for my lovely niece's 16th birthday party.

SisterL and I came up with our own concoctions of mocktails called The Pink Tutu, the Sunset and the Cococobana that after

crushing the ice
sugaring the rim
chopping the mint
blending the raspberries
adding the passionfruit
whizzing it all together; and
placing the sweet plastic monkey on the rim

the kids gulped down in one swallow and held their plastic martini glasses for a refill. Ha! I needed something stronger than fruit juice by midnight, I can tell you.

There were sixty-five fifteen and sixteen year-olds running amok and dancing like there was no tomorrow. They had an absolute ball and my only regret was that adults weren't allowed to join in. I mean, come on, anyone who knows me even slightly knows I'm 100% capable of being in the thick of this:

Which is perhaps the heart of the problem and the reason for the rule. After all, fifteen year olds who spend 4 nights a week in dance class look a lot different dancing while foam is being sprayed all over them to a thirty-five year old with a jumbo sized muffin top and jeans that don't quite do up.

But I would've given it a red hot go.

So I had to content myself with adding to said muffin top by dipping a few marshmallows in this:

Which I can tell you was both extremely messy and totally yummy.

It was a fun night that left me wishing I was sixteen again :)

Which probably explains why I love writing about being sixteen! The universe certainly has a way of making sure you're in the right place, sometimes.

Peace, love and fruity sweet mocktails.

Rob

LOVING the revision

2007-03-09T18:45:00.000+11:00

I thought I was being sarcastic with the 'loving the revision' title because it's so often a hair pulling, ARRGH kind of process.

In fact, even a week ago, I was feeling jacked off with the process, as my revision page count climbed oh-so-slowly and it was feeling like the same story with a few words changed around.

That's not my idea of a good revision.

But I've gotta say, it's all turned around (which it invariable does) and now I really am *loving the revision* of my current YA. Scenes have moved from the back of the novel to the middle, from the middle to garbage bin and new scenes have wiggled their way in. That's exciting!

It's taking shape, it's finally taking shape. And it's such a freaking relief.

I'm well over half way through, and aiming for being three-quarters by the end of this week. Or maybe even the end of today. LOL, yeah right.

But it's a process.

First, I surround myself with the pictures that make the story come alive for me like the one to your left.

Then I crank up my music compilation for this manuscript which is a mix of stuff by Pink and take it word by word, page by page and scene by scene.

Scenes have moved from the end to the start and from the middle to the end, some scenes are just GONE and new ones have taken their place.

And it's so satisfying. And the more surprises I find about the characters in the pages, the more satisfying I find it.

First draft is both fun and torture. Fun because the words flow and you write as fast as you can and don't look back, and torture because the pages you end up with seldom resemble the shiny goodness of the original idea. But in revision it can become whatever I want it to be and finally I get to try and fix the problems that got me down after I reread my first draft.

Now, if only I could come up with a way to make it a bit faster :)
Oh, that's right - BUM IN CHAIR.

I've heard it works like a charm.

Calling Thailand!

2007-03-09T16:28:00.000+11:00

Nothing makes me ignore my bank balance faster than one of those glossy little holiday brochures with page after page using words like 'resort' 'spa' and 'located on a private peninsular'. And if there's any mention of FREE BREAKFAST I've got my cheque book out before you can say 'banana waffles'.

So when TJ and I realised we were coming up on a big anniversary - we thought 'what the heck - let's go!'. I mean really, who needs money anyway, right? Paying the rent is grossly overrated.

We're thinking Thailand, because it's beautiful, close to home, the food is freaking AMAZING and it's where we spent our first honeymoon all those years ago. That time, feeling young and adventurous, we took the train up to the Golden Triangle and did the whole jungle and hot-tail- up-the Mekong River thing. This time, ten years later, it's Southern Thailand and places like this:

AGGGH! That just looks so amazingly beautiful that I can't imagine not spending ten days of my life wondering how the heck that palm tree got all the way over there and if I could possibly rouse myself off my deck chair to swim over and check it out. It's called the Evason Six Senses Resort. What the? I thought I only had five senses! You mean if i come stay at your resort I get an extra one? How cool is that? What would the extra sense be? Psychic ability to know which deck chair will have me in the shade all day? Handy.

Then, of course, the pesky bank balance rears it's ugly head and I realise what we can afford is probably something more like this:

Where the only extra sense you get is the second coming of the dodgy PadThai you had at the hotel restaurant the night before.

Whichever way it goes, there will be swimming, eating, sleeping and a resumption of my love affair with green curry. Here's hoping I can resist having it for breakfast.

Hit Me With Your Java Stick

2007-02-28T19:11:00.000+11:00

I'm sitting in a cafe called Degraves Espresso with my Alphasmart and a coffee.

Interpretation: everything is very right with the world.

Not that everything even approximated right about an hour ago when I got into my car only to realise I'd left the window wound down all night, so that the rain I'd thought was so romantic tinkering on the roof had now thoroughly wet the seat and my best skirt. It's always fun going to a new job looking like you've had a nasty accident.

But wet skirt or no, Degraves Espresso is a little haven of bright and cosy, with its cherry red theatre seats and cluttered benches. Outside, the light is the cool grey of winter, but stupidly it's so humid (even at 7am) that I'm wishing the quaint theater seats were made of anything but leather.

I could look out of the window of this cafe all day. The short, old street is crowded with black umbrellas and the smell of freshly baked waffles and roasting coffee. It's almost enough to make me forget that I'm one of the office workers, that shuffle past with their umbrellas and briefcases.

Crap! How the heck did I become one of them?

It appears the only question left to answer is exactly *what* kind of shuffling office worker I am to become. All the options look decidedly bland when compared to writing another scene of my latest MS. God, I promised myself I wouldn't whine about it and LOOK at me.

Anyway, later buddies. I get another jave hit in before I sit behind that desk...

Kissing Sin

2007-02-09T15:07:00.000+11:00

It's official -- Keri Arthur rocks :)

Her latest blockbuster book Kissing Sin was released the other day and as you can read on her blog, it has rocketed itself to N0. 18 on the NYT bestsellers list (see it up there after 18th Feb).

And really, this kind of success couldn't happen to a more deserving, hardworking and all around fabbo person who's generous with her time and knowledge.

I remember once, about three weeks after I'd joined our critique group. I was thinking of giving up (!) because I I had no clue how to write, no clue how to find a clue and everyone else seemed so effortlessly talented. I know if we hadn't had this small conversation, I'd still be floundering around at some wanky writers centre pretending I wasn't devouring romance novels fast enough to deforest the Amazon.

Me: "Thanks for everything, I'm not coming back to the group. I guess it just didn't work out."

Keri: "Don't be an idiot. You're coming along and you're bringing work and I don't want to hear another word about this."
or something along those lines along with a promise to show me her first manuscript to make me feel better.

I still smile when I think about it today because it was exactly what I needed to hear.

I feel constantly blessed to be on the other end of her unique blend of encouragement and no-nonsense attitude toward the writing life.

I'll stop now, because if she happens to be reading this she'll give me a hit on the head next time she sees me. But three cheers for you, Ms Kez, and may this success be followed by many more.

What? You want me to make money? OUTRAGEOUS!

2007-02-06T19:13:00.000+11:00

Last September with a few tears but a lot more barn dancing jubilation, I left my job of five years.

I had to leave. I was bored, burned out and run down to the point where I started actually hoping I’d get sick so I wouldn’t have to plant my butt on that dusty pink chair. There came a point where not even the lure of the secret stash of managerial TimTams couldn’t get me excited. And frankly that's unnatural and sad.

So without anything in mind except sleeping, I told hubby I was resigning and taking a four weeks break. It kind of turned into a four month break, but I swear I wasn’t eeeeeking it out. Really.

Uhuh.

Have I mentioned that I adore not having a dayjob? That every day is just filled with this awesome fun of doing exactly what I want (writing and reading and going to movies) and that I’m the happiest I think I've ever been. Like ever?

I literally wake up in the morning bubbling with excitement to make this huge list of all the fun stuff I want to do like 'write ten pages, buy herbs and plant in window boxes, make banana cake, take dog for walk' etc. Now that's my kind of to-do list!

Well it’s good - and for a person who used to stress about money I’m surprisingly happy to doodle along on the smell of an oily rag if it means I don’t have to 9to5 my life away. Die-hard shopping and eating-out habits have been changed, people - CHANGED!

So it’s been a four wonderful months, but ***sadly*** it’s drawing to a close. Back to the office for me.

WAAAAAHHHH!

Wings clipped, suit on, and tram ticket purchased. But at least money will be deposited into the oily rag bank account. That’s something to be thankful for.

So in an effort to cheer myself up, these are some things I love about going back to the day job.

…um
good printers
errrr…
interaction with exciting people who stimulate my imagination by their sheer stupidity
…yeah, that!
lunch time
help me out here....
chain drinking coffee
biscuits (God give me strength to stay away from the bicci tin or at least bad navigational skills so I never find it)

ok, I’ve exhausted it.

But I find I can’t quite let go of my new found freedom. I’m contracting, which means I can build in little days of heaven here and there where I practice on that full time writer gig.

Bring on that gig and SOON.

Rob

And a big shout out to Melanie for taking a huge step in that direction by signing with a totally awesome agent :) You rock.

The Year My Magic Broke REVISION

11,250 / 49,250
(22.8%)

Devil's Delight

4,569 / 90,000
(5.1%)

Yes I would LOVE to make Fairy Floss

2007-02-01T23:49:00.000+11:00

You know you’re doing something right when an eight-year-old says to you “Aunty Robyn, you’re like a kid in a grown ups body.”

For me, feeling like an kid in an adult's body is standard fare ; I’ve always been young at heart, always ready for a laugh and often felt so full of joy I thought it would bubble over. I skipped a lot, jumped a lot, regularly rode the trolley down supermarket aisles like a bob cart. But lately it's felt like happiness and finding joy is something I have to choose rather than just experience.

Like tonight when my niece asked me to make fairy floss with her. Maybe two years ago the answer would have been ‘hell yes!’, because let’s face it – making fairy floss sounds like a hoot. But instead I paused, thinking it might get messy. Huh? Since when have I been afraid of a little mess? I'm the original mess maker. I kicked myself, picked her up and spun her around and said said ‘absolutely’.

But the pause made me pause. And while I was on my walk around the river tonight, I realized I’ve been gradually losing my inner girl. Even the walk itself was proof - my inner girl was the type who'd skip and run for the joy of it and would never think of walking like there was some freaky pole up her ass just because it might help her shed a few pounds.

It was a beautiful night, one of those rare twilights where fiery orange hues meet flawless blue sky and the moon shed a pearly glow across the water. The crappy pic from my mobile below doesn't do it any justice. Something inside me started feeling sick that I was racing around the walking path without taking it in. What would my girl do?

She’d stop.

She’d stare and the beauty before her in awe and she’d let all the other joggers and health-nuts pass her by.

And then she’d look around and see there was a magnificent swing set just over to the right and it was calling her name.

So I stopped jogging and got on that swing. I was a little bit rusty but it came back really fast. The wind whipped through my hair and it seemed like I could see for miles across the treetops. I swung until it got dark and that pearly moon, suspended in the sky like a Christmas bauble, got brighter and brighter. When I finally slowed down, I heard a whisper from my inner girl - "I'm glad you're listening," she said.

Robyn

REVISION of YA 48/190 = 25%

Plotting my way out of a paper bag

2007-02-01T09:45:00.000+11:00

If you look over at my word-count-widget thing on the right - things are looking grim. In fact, it's looking like I couldn't string a thousand words together to save myself. It's looking like I refused to get out of bed and instead spent all of January reading novel after novel instead of writing my own (me? read in bed all day? NEVER!).

But no! That little 3654 word count is all character development and plot -- yes, PLOT because this month I've been working with First Draft in Thirty Days by Karen Wiesner. Now, as the author admits, the title is misleading. What you're aiming for is a heavily detailed outline in 30 days rather than a first draft. But that's fine by me. I never wanted a first draft anyway, just a direction and a road map. Or so I keep telling myself.

It goes like this:
Days 1-6: Preliminary outlines and sketches
Days 7-13: Research
Days 14-15: Story evolution (ideas for beginning, middle, end)
Days 16-24: Formatted outline
Days 25-28: Evaluating the strength of the outline
Days 29-30: Revising outline - and on Day 30, you're to put this outline "on a shelf for at least two weeks to several months". I guess while you let it all sink in. That makes sense, because I'll always put a draft away for a month or so and always find everything is clearer when I go back to it.

But of course, I didn't really end up with a heavily detailed outline either because by Day 15 my my muse went and hid under a rock and no amount of timtams could coax her out. "You're making it boring!" she said, followed by "I just want to write it!".

She started making me dream about the story at 1am and waking me up so I could get my trusty torch pen out to write it all down.So of course I listened to her (she's normally quite sage) and started working on a synopsis based on what I've got. You can take the girl out of the Pantzer, but you can't take the Pantzer out of the girl. Apparently.

But, the good news is that I have a rough frame work rather than flying blind into the mist which always freaks me out and makes me write too fast so that I can figure out what the book is about. The other news is that I learned that I'm not ready and maybe never will be ready for a detailed plot way of working. I'm somewhere in between Plotting and Pantzing.

So,

Writing Theory No. 1 - no one else can teach you what your process is (even a kick ass book like First Draft in Thirty Days), you have to do that work and it takes a LONG TIME. But hey, what's a few years when you're going to be writing for the rest of your life? Exactly.

And Writing Theory No.2 - finding that process, which unfortunately changes over time, is some of the most important work a writer can do. And you have to be gentle with yourself, and just take it on the chin and move on when something doesn't work out. Easier said than done.

In other news, I've finally run out of the 1kg bag (I'm probably exaggerating, but it just seemed to last and last) of Daim I bought at Ikea a month or so back. Now, there are many things to be thankful about Ikea for: my wardrobes, the beautiful kitchen I built with hubby and maybe even the pull out keyboard that makes my old kitchen table such a great desk. But since I've found these little chocolate covered almond toffees, so slim you can crunch them in one bite - I couldn't give a rat's ass about the furniture. JUST GIVE ME THE CHOCOLATE!!

Robyn

Starting right now...

2007-01-30T21:25:00.000+11:00

Can I just say that if writing a blog is as much fun as creating the template (with the help of http://psyc.horm.org) then I am TOTALLY IN.

So, the aim is to keep track of my writing progress and generally just amuse myself.
Shouldn't be too hard, I'm notoriously easy to entertain. Seriously, just make some bodily function type noises and you'll have me laughing for hours.

Robyn