Is it possible that, because so many words are running from one’s fingertips and brain, there are none left to invest in flights of imagination?
I have beamed into my blog regularly over the last week or so and have simply not been able to find anything to say. Thank God says Mr Underhill! I have also NOT been working on my book project. In the weeks leading up to and following the Melbourne Writers Festival I was incredibly hyped. I’m disappointed now to find that I have fallen off my perch. Instead I am sitting on the old newspapers lining the bottom of my cage, surrounded by shredded paper and bits of crud, and looking up forlornly.
Of course a lot has been happening that has absorbed my creative juices but shouldn’t I be able to keep on writing creatively? All the bloody experts seem to think so but perhaps one has to follow one’s own light. Or perhaps one’s own light is a particularly dim and lazy one and needs a couple of new double-A batteries inserted up its jacksy?
Yes the double issue of the magazine took an inhuman amount of effort to get out the door. It even has a couple of good stories in it, especially the one about a 70-year-old woman in Queensland who teaches craft classes to troubled school girls for absolutely nothing. They all call this gorgeous old cancer survivor ‘Nana’ and she bakes them cakes once a semester because some of them have never seen home made baked goods before. Ha! They could be my kids.
And I have been to some wonderful social events where people have passed on their books about Nashville for the trip which is four sleeps away, where I have completed two laps of The Tan (Botanical Gardens) and discussed everything from childlessness to ideal 40th birthday parties and where I have discussed sex over Hong Kong style roast duck at Pacific House in Toorak Road (thanks for that one Mr H!).
And – ding ding - I have devised my 40th and sent out early invites. It’s been keeping me up at night – sad but true – but I think a weekend in a drug lord’s palace sounds like a pretty good idea.
And I have heard reports on my divine goddaughter’s 5th birthday party which I couldn’t attend in the flesh.
And I have finished a couple of books, one being ‘Harry, Revised’ by the chap whose class I attended at MWF. Did I say he linked to my blog from his? (See http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2008/09/travels-recap.html for proof.)
Plus I have been having loads of fun working on a travel piece on Melbourne for a new UK website (thanks to many helping hands giving me tips) and, of course, I have been working on my Austin wardrobe. Okay, and trying to tee up a few interviews along the way.
Yes, when I think of it, it’s all pretty engrossing and creative. It’s even kept me away from my newly arrived October issue of Architectural Digest which, may I say, is the ‘inside the homes of the world’s top architects’ issue … one of my faves.
If I can miss that I must have been busy.
So perhaps I will have to take the writing thing at my own pace, fully aware that, when I return, I need to start being disciplined, perhaps even callously mean about the whole thing. Author Pat Barker tells her family not to knock on her office door when she’s writing unless an “ambulance is involved”. And she’s got at least 12 books to her name since 1982 and one of them won a Booker.
Of course, did I mention I might be going to Zambia two weeks after I get back from Nashville, New Orleans, Austin? Don’t ask.
I have beamed into my blog regularly over the last week or so and have simply not been able to find anything to say. Thank God says Mr Underhill! I have also NOT been working on my book project. In the weeks leading up to and following the Melbourne Writers Festival I was incredibly hyped. I’m disappointed now to find that I have fallen off my perch. Instead I am sitting on the old newspapers lining the bottom of my cage, surrounded by shredded paper and bits of crud, and looking up forlornly.
Of course a lot has been happening that has absorbed my creative juices but shouldn’t I be able to keep on writing creatively? All the bloody experts seem to think so but perhaps one has to follow one’s own light. Or perhaps one’s own light is a particularly dim and lazy one and needs a couple of new double-A batteries inserted up its jacksy?
Yes the double issue of the magazine took an inhuman amount of effort to get out the door. It even has a couple of good stories in it, especially the one about a 70-year-old woman in Queensland who teaches craft classes to troubled school girls for absolutely nothing. They all call this gorgeous old cancer survivor ‘Nana’ and she bakes them cakes once a semester because some of them have never seen home made baked goods before. Ha! They could be my kids.
And I have been to some wonderful social events where people have passed on their books about Nashville for the trip which is four sleeps away, where I have completed two laps of The Tan (Botanical Gardens) and discussed everything from childlessness to ideal 40th birthday parties and where I have discussed sex over Hong Kong style roast duck at Pacific House in Toorak Road (thanks for that one Mr H!).
And – ding ding - I have devised my 40th and sent out early invites. It’s been keeping me up at night – sad but true – but I think a weekend in a drug lord’s palace sounds like a pretty good idea.
And I have heard reports on my divine goddaughter’s 5th birthday party which I couldn’t attend in the flesh.
And I have finished a couple of books, one being ‘Harry, Revised’ by the chap whose class I attended at MWF. Did I say he linked to my blog from his? (See http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/2008/09/travels-recap.html for proof.)
Plus I have been having loads of fun working on a travel piece on Melbourne for a new UK website (thanks to many helping hands giving me tips) and, of course, I have been working on my Austin wardrobe. Okay, and trying to tee up a few interviews along the way.
Yes, when I think of it, it’s all pretty engrossing and creative. It’s even kept me away from my newly arrived October issue of Architectural Digest which, may I say, is the ‘inside the homes of the world’s top architects’ issue … one of my faves.
If I can miss that I must have been busy.
So perhaps I will have to take the writing thing at my own pace, fully aware that, when I return, I need to start being disciplined, perhaps even callously mean about the whole thing. Author Pat Barker tells her family not to knock on her office door when she’s writing unless an “ambulance is involved”. And she’s got at least 12 books to her name since 1982 and one of them won a Booker.
Of course, did I mention I might be going to Zambia two weeks after I get back from Nashville, New Orleans, Austin? Don’t ask.
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