One of the highlights of the year for me is receiving "the Christmas letter" from my distant friends and family, so I can keep up with what's happened in their lives. But, if you're like me with no kids or grandkids to share, the Christmas letter tends to be pretty much the same every year.
So in 2016, I decided to set myself a challenge - tell the story of my year in Haiku. For those that don't remember, Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry with 3 lines and a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. It generally involves nature, and a sharp contrast/unexpected statement in the last line. Here's some of the Haiku that made it into the letter, which was posted this week. Fingers crossed the family don't think I've lost my marbles. About the Christmas season in general: Hot sticky weather Westfield carparks overfilled Frustrations explode About my furkids: Naughty puppy digs Old dog relaxes in shade How soon is dinner? As I said in the letter: there is no plan for Hubby and I to give up our day jobs in 2017 to write poetry. It sounds so simple. yet it isn't. (Read: I'm not very good at it) Do you like haiku? Does anyone want to comment, using haiku? I'd love to see them. Winter has been and gone - how did that happen?
This is one of my favourite winter photos - it was 4 degrees with an apparent temp of -1, and I was wearing Queensland winter running gear (shorts and a T-shirt) in South Australia where the wind blows straight off Antarctica (or so it seemed). Everyone was asking "Aren't you cold?" Yes, I was. It's amazing how fast you can run with the threat of hypothermia as your incentive. Sorry I haven't been around much these last few weeks. There's a long story as to why but you all know I love to write short, so here goes: 1. New day job 2. On top of existing day job 3. New computer (gulp) 4. Travel for new day job 5. New gym routine (Ok its not a NEW gym routine, its ROUTINE use of the gym) 6. RWA Conference - spectacular as always but squeezed in between all of the above - so not as much time at conference as previous years. Things are starting to settle down a bit now in this "new normal" and I'm getting better at prioritising my time (aka I'm getting up earlier). Should see me round here more often as a result. We've had some spectacular skies as winter takes us in its grip and gives us a reason to rug up. Not that its been that cold. We moved from our traditional Queenslander, designed to catch the breeze in summer to a lowest brick, and I'm pretty sure I'll never be bone-crunchingly cold again. This new house is just so warm.
Here's some gorgeous sunset clouds, with just a promise of a cold night, taken a few days ago. I'm a regular blood donor, and this week is National Blood Donor Week. Today was my 66th donation and so I'm almost to 2/3 of my goal of 100 donations in my life time. Where else do you get a medical check, the ability to lie down for an hour and read a book ( The Diabolical Miss Hyde by Viola Carr ), then be fed.
The blood service is also correct in that the Chocolate Chunk Cookie by the Byron Bay Cookie Company is the Best. Biscuit. Ever. And they are only available at the donor centres. Rather than sharing a photo of me in the chair, needles or any blood, I thought I'd share a photo from this morning. I walked across Southbank Parklands to the city and for a second, had the bougainvillaea covered arbour all to myself. It was magic. Hey everyone
I finally bit the bullet and started an Instagram page . Head on over and follow me if you want pictures of nature, black dogs and the occasional family member. Disappointment is the gap that occurs when reality doesn't meet your expectations. Recently we went to the mountains - we wanted cold weather, we wanted to sit around a roaring fire drinking hot chocolate. First up we did our prep work and we had our ducks (firewood) all in a row. The hot chocolate and marshmallows were on standby. Our manuscripts and red pens were ready to go. Everyone had a picture in their mind how it would be. (Here's mine above) Then... this happened. We went to load the timber into the fireplace, and look what we found.(Scroll back up and you will see the note in behind the glass.)
Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It reminded me of the submission process for manuscripts - and no-one explains this well to beginner writers. You can do the work, you can do your homework about what lines the publisher is interested in, you can write the best book you can write, and when you submit, it isn't what the publisher is looking for. Or what that person, at that publisher, on that day is looking for, to quote my favourite editor of all time. It doesn't make it a bad book. It just means it isn't the book for them. It's ok to be disappointed, so long as you get back up, review that manuscript and send it out to someone else. Of course, our disappointment over the fireplace was short lived. It wasn't that cold, I had a sensational hand-knit scarf keeping my neck warm and we still had hot chocolate. However we're hopeful the repairs will be done by the next time we visit. Did you know that every year:
2nd January is Science Fiction Day 3rd March is World Book Day 18th of April is Columnist's Day 1st September is Write a Letter Day 7th September is Buy a Book Day 15th November is I love to Write Day 21st December is Short Story Day I often wonder how it is that people know these things. Well, Days of the Year is the key. This website chronicles the weird and wacky celebrations of anything and everything. Like the fact that today is World Garlic Day. Procrastinators beware... I can't believe its April already. Easter has come and gone and I can honestly say this year I did not overdose on chocolate. Far from it. Instead I filled my weekend away at the farm with walking and fresh air. Oh, and editing. It was great.
We decided, with this monster storm looming, to come back to town early. avoiding the caravan/campertrailer exodus that always follows a big storm. Good decision, as it was a cracker of a storm. Hope you had a great Easter. Recently I watched a really interesting TED talk about Procrastination that talked about the results driven Captain (steering my ship) and his not very helpful (and unwanted) offsider, the fun monkey.
The talk gave me a couple of lightbulb moments: 1. This is me... Although on reflection my fun monkey is more of a 10% fun, 90% other things that need doing (like weeding gardens and dusting skirting boards), but despite the best efforts of the Captain, sometimes the fun monkey steers my ship. 2. The difference between procrastinators that do get stuff done and those that don't is a deadline. And again, this is me... In all parts of my life, not just writing. I need more deadlines/timelines. 3. Listening to a TED talk during what could have been writing time - who was in charge there? Probably the fun monkey. Anyway, if you're not supposed to be writing, or working or whatever, and you'd got a free 15 minutes, here's the link to the talk: Tim Urban: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator Enjoy! I have lived in Brisbane my entire life and have never seen a koala in the wild, until we went walking last Sunday.
We know we're slow, but we're only now (23 months in) exploring all the local parks and wildlife corridors around our new house. We blame our teenage dog - our downtime went into training and spending time with her. So last Sunday, we took the dogs to the park in the morning and snuck out in the afternoon to explore Vickerman's Track, in a wildlife corridor about 2km from our house.. Apologies for the quality of the image - we didn't want to get too close and the light was fading. Isn't it gorgeous? |
Fiona Greene AuthorWhen you set out on a journey and night falls, that's when you will discover the stars." Archives
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