Ending and Beginning

The view from my future house

Today was an ending and a beginning for me. As I mentioned earlier this month,  I had signed up for a 30 day writing marathon. It was called Writing Yourself Alive (WYA). Initially I wasn't sure what to expect. Was it going to help me get unblocked? Would it be a quality program or was it just an Internet money grab? Would I stick with it? Would I get any credible feedback on my submissions? Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. The timing was right as we are in the midst of one of the hottest summers on record here in Queensland and who wants to go outside anyway? May as well hole up inside and write. 

So that is what I have been doing. Writing. Writing, and more writing. I wrote in the morning. I wrote in the afternoon. I wrote at night. I wrote at the kitchen table, on the sofa or at my desk. I thought about my neglected blog but did not think all that much about my neglected chores. I "dug deeper" and responded to "prompts" and shared my work with other writers in the "writer's lounge".  I made new cyber-friends. I read their work. They read mine. I laughed and cried and spilled my guts and deepest darkest secrets and fears on our "members only" Facebook page and the course website sharing space. It was easy. It was hard. It was therapeutic. It was magical. It was nourishing. It was more than I hoped it would be. It was a joy.

So, now what? Well, that's where the beginning part comes in. Apparently it takes 28 days to cement a new habit. It worked. With 30 consecutive days of daily devotion to my writing under my belt, I feel ready to tackle the big job. The job I have been procrastinating, putting off, half-assed attempting, three steps forwarding and two steps backwarding for so long. I am dedicating the next year to my book. I am giving myself a deadline. By March 1, 2017, I will have a completed manuscript. Sooner if I can. Call me crazy, call me a wishful thinker, call me whatever you like, just don't call me when I am in process!

I have set my intention. Our final prompt for the program was to write a letter to ourselves from the future, five years from now. A written image board of sorts. I will share my letter here with you all, with the universe, and for the record. 

Cue...2021.

Hey Deb!

Yo! Over here! It’s me – 2021! You made it kiddo! Look here! Yeah, that’s you sitting at that table. That’s you at a book signing. I just went outside the shop and there is a line-up half way down the block. Not bad for a first effort, I must say. I told you all along, you just needed to believe it yourself. You had a story to share and all these women here Deb, they relate. They saw something of themselves in your story and it gives them hope. That WYA group was a genuine catalyst. I knew you would figure out a way to do this. To tell your story without hurting anyone. I always said, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Didn’t I? Didn’t I?

Okay, okay, I will lay off the I told you so’s. But seriously Deb, it was you who did it. Sure, I nudged you along a little. I hovered out here, five years down the road and you started to image me. The picture became clearer and clearer with each chapter you completed. You started to see the finish line, your photo on the dust jacket, the book signings, the interviews. And how about those residuals? Ya gotta love those deposits from your publisher every month. Oh, and check this out Deb. This morning’s New York Times. You made it! Number 3 and climbing. Why, I bet you will hit number one by the end of the month.

And look here. Your book club gals are reading your book this month. They are so proud of you Deb. They knew you could do it. Let me tell you something on the down low Deb. Shhhh! Lean in. I am not supposed to go beyond today, but between you and me, next month you are going to surprise them all with tickets to come to Australia for an all- expense paid trip to help celebrate your success. They are never going to forget this Deb. You are going to have such an awesome time hosting them at your new house – that waterfront home you have always dreamed of is finally a reality. I see at least two more books emerging from that place Deb. I love the way you positioned your desk to take in that panoramic ocean view and the way you can hear the waves crashing on the boulders down below the cliffside when you throw open the floor to ceiling sliders. I love how stoked you get when you write during the full moon. You are so inspired by the moonlight reflecting on the waves.

Oh, and get this – you and Emma are working on a screenplay of the book. Her film studies have really paid off. While you two are busy doing that, Steve is creating the most awesome one of a kind tables in the studio behind the house. He is in his element creating “furniture as art” and you are at the top of your creative game. It’s just how you always imagined it Deb. You are doing what you love with the people you love around you. Does it get any freaking better? I don’t think so darlin…I don’t think so.

Cheers and see you in 5,

2021 xoxo

This just happened this morning, two days after writing this blog entry. I just had to share it, since it will be a part of the book. I don't want to give too much away at this point as a book sometimes has a mind of it's own, but I will address the magic and importance of "intuition" and "subliminal messaging" that we all have access to but often ignore. I set out on my walk this morning as usual and I normally take one of two routes, but felt powerfully drawn to take a street I rarely walk down. I just listened to my gut and went with it. I always reckon these things happen for a reason. I got about 20 metres down the road and happened to glance down at my feet and there was a small pale blue sticker - the number 5, laying on the pavement. There was nothing else around it. Just this lone number sticker. I walked by it initially, before realizing it was a message meant for me. I spun around and walked back and took this photo. See you in 5. Indeed.

Writing Myself Alive

Where I wish I could be writing. The Red Cottage on Mabel Lake

Figured I might hop on my blog here today and let my loyal readers know why they are not seeing much from me these days. I have joined a 30 day Writing Marathon to kick start my creative juices and get over some writer's block that has taken hold lately.

The good news is, I am really enjoying the process and the program is really getting me deeper into my passion which you all know is the written word. The program requires accountability and writing exercises that are stretching me in different directions and just generally making me commit more time to my novel.  Today, one of the prompts was to summarize your creative path and growth to date.  I will share what I wrote with you and perhaps a few other snippets  as I move through the marathon. Most of you are aware of most of this already, but others may not know me as intimately. I give you Day 11.

Dig Deeper…Day 10…recall your artistic growth/path 

Colouring. It all started with colouring. Brightly coloured construction paper and fat Crayolas in Kindergarten. These brought me joy. This was followed by the primitive musical instruments that we would clang together like an untrained chaotic orchestra. But the teacher would really up the creative ante when she would say, OK, today boys and girls, I would like you to write a poem." That was the real music to my ears. Rhyming words. Roses are red, violets are blue, pass me a pencil, I’ll parlez-vous. For a shy, dreamy little girl, poetry was my Nirvana. There was something about the focused searching for the right words, the rhyming words that would still convey the context of the story being told in the poem that truly could engage me for hours. 

Later on it was word puzzles. I couldn’t wait for the Saturday paper to land on the front porch so I could grab the giant Word Find and then when I got a little older, it was the weekend Crossword. It was a great brain workout that didn’t seem like work to me. It also helped earn me A’s in spelling. In seventh grade, I summoned up the courage to submit one of my poems to the annual school yearbook for publication, not knowing if it would actually end up making it into the Poetry Section. I wasn’t even sure if I really wanted it to appear, as it was an angst filled sonnet of pre-teen heartbreak. When it did get printed for the whole school to see, I realized the incredible light it shone on my already shaky vulnerability and I was embarrassed and regretted sharing something so personal. It was the end of my poetry career, publicly anyway. 

I continued to write poems and love letters and journals for years. Years later when I was not accepted into one of Canada’s top Journalism schools, it was my skill as a letter writer and journal writer that helped me turn that “decline” letter to an “accepted” letter after refusing to accept their decline decision. I called the chairman of the department and begged for a face to face interview. An appointment was made and I pleaded my case and convinced them that I would show them what a great reporter I could be even though I had never worked on my high school paper. (that was pretty much a prerequisite for entry at the time) What I had done, was set off to see the world after high school and I had what could only be defined as “street smarts” and had recorded my adventures in journals. I was accepted as a “mature student” at 24. 

It was there, in my years at Ryerson’s Journalism school that I developed another love. Photography. It was part of the curriculum to be able to wield a camera. so I turned my focus to photojournalism. I could already write. This was exciting and new. I wanted to turn it into a career, but as fate would have it, I ended up taking a job in PR after graduation and I wrote advertising copy and public relations materials and put the silly notion of becoming a photojournalist or reporter behind me. There were few jobs in my field at the time and they went to the superstars of the program, not me. 

Over the next decade I made the mistake of working for money versus doing what I loved. I got married, had a child, stayed at home and went back to colouring with my toddler.  And decorating my house. I was bored. I went back to school to get some accreditation for my decorating and studied at night for 3 years. I started my own interior decorating business and it worked for me for another decade until I got fed up with the design world. I still enjoyed the field, but didn’t want to work for other people any longer. I missed writing. I knew I had to return to my passions. I read a quote – I forget who said it, but it was simply…“If you want to be a writer, start writing.” 

I launched my blog shortly after I read that. I had no idea what I wanted to write about, but I stopped worrying about all that and just started writing again. Since 2009 I have kept my blog going. It is not a money earner and I don’t care about that. It is simply a place for me to write. A place that I go to hone my skills, pour my heart out, rant, rave and ponder. Sometimes I even write poetry. I do whatever the hell I feel like doing there and it has been a wonderful tool for examining my life, commenting on the world, expressing my creativity and simply stringing words together to form some meaning to myself and others. It is something I do for the sheer love of doing it. And that has been enough until now. Joining this 30 day marathon is my next step. Not sure where it is leading, but I am enjoying the ride.