My collaborative writing partner, Jodi Cleghorn (with whom I wrote Post Marked: Piper’s Reach) has just released a new collaboration with Claire Jansen.
She explains the process here.
Let me give you the blurb.
Three days before Christmas Amber lands in Australia to celebrate the festive season with Ben. But he’s not expecting her or the news she brings. Her presence sends radial fractures into Ben’s life and those close to him, from his sister to his lover and beyond.
Told across a single day, through the eyes of five characters, ’24’, delves into the complexities of the relationships closest to our hearts.
This is not a long read, 12 episodes of approximately 500 words each, criss-crossing between blogs. What hooked me was the multiple narrative points of view telling different aspects of the story, but more than that, in such a concise word limit and narrative time frame, the characters are wonderfully fleshed out.
I can see the possibilities of this being developed further into a longer short story, even a collaborative novel. Dare I say it, a TV miniseries.
This is a great read and well worth your time with a cup of tea or coffee and your favourite biscuit.
The first instalment of your reading journey starts here with “24” – 06:00.
Posted in Creativity, Odds and Sods on Board
Tagged 24, Claire Jansen, collaboration, creativity, digital, experimental, fiction, flash fiction, Friday flash, jodi cleghorn, writers, writing
Today marks the end of the rather intense Chaotic Marking and Editing month for work: Trial HSC marking and 6 Major Works for my Extension 2 students. I can, if I want to, break the writing drought. And there’s a couple of lessons to share.
Firstly, returning to projects after the drought. I said a few weeks back I would be absent, and for the most part I was. My works in progress were put on hold and I can now return to them.
But not yet. Why?
Because I am absolutely knackered mentally, emotionally and physically. Today is a day of rest. Well, sort of. Washing done, biscuits made with Miss #2, couch time watching footy with Miss #1 and a gig to play tonight.
The adage, often said in all caps and repeated as a mantra, YOU MUST WRITE EVERY DAY, is in my mind, piffley twaddle. It would be ideal to write every day but the caveat is that every person is different, their schedules are different and you work out when and how you fit writing, or any creative activity, into your schedule.
During this last month, I gave myself permission not to write because I knew when the time was done I could return to it. It has been a writing drought. However, while washing up last night I had another idea for a poem to include in my verse novel, The Broken Chord. I found my notebook, scribbled the idea and returned to washing up. This is still writing.
Secondly, the month of Chaotic Marking and Editing abated, I began to reflect on the work of my students. I posted this to Facebook and I’ll reproduce it here.
As I prepare for my Extension 2 English students to hand in their Major Works on Friday, I have a new credo as a teacher. And it comes (with a slight adaptation) from Doctor Who.
Great men (and women) are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.
To completely misappropriate the quote and apply it to teaching, I am very proud of the work my students have produced. I am proud because they took on a challenge some of them were unsure they could tackle, and they have known what it is to work hard. And succeed.
As a teacher, I get to light the flame in my students. I want to instil in them a love of learning, not just my subject.
Sometimes that flame is encouragement, words of praise and congratulations.
Sometimes it’s telling the student the hard truth.
Sometimes it’s confronting their attitude, beliefs, values, and sometimes it’s supporting them.
Sometimes it’s asking them how they are, acknowledging their presence, saying hello as they enter the classroom and wishing them a good day as they leave.
To light the flame is to wish my students the very best in their endeavours and to do things better than I ever could.
I hope I never run out of matches.
I still need some rest before I tackle my WIP. No rush. It is knowing your creative cycle and how to ride it. It will take a little while to break the drought and gain momentum in my writing but that is fine.
How do you break the creative drought?
Posted in Creativity, The Writer's Life
Tagged creativity, fiction, just because of thoughtfulness, life in general, slice of life, writers, writing, writing tips
I like seeing what people are doing with their creativity. Sites like This Is Colossal are a constant inspiration for what people can do. I love watching my mates Deane and Gary post their photos on Facebook, and through my twitter feed I see some very creative ideas.
I’ve seen cartoons drawn on Post It Notes, drawings scribbled on plastic lunch bags, bird cages suspended above a narrow laneway, umbrellas suspended in a similar way like a hundred invisible Mary Poppins.
And it’s brilliant. And so very cool.
So when I came across next earth is now on tumblr, I was intrigued. And even more surprised when I found out it was a writing friend, Daniel Ritter. I only made the connection when I saw it linked via his Facebook page. So I asked him about it.
In Daniel’s words, “(It’s) sort of an alternate reality experiment. Approaching it as if the photo/narrator is experiencing delusions that aliens or some other unknown agency has taken over the world, but he’s the only one that has noticed.
So far, this has been random, pants, discovery, stack-on-the-weirdness approach. Names have been named, rules have been established, so, it could be developed.”
They fill their zoos with us. Their zoos overcrowd with halfbreed children. They refuse to euthanize. They install …buttons under our feet. We do the dirty work, step by step. They’re absolved of murder.
You make something creative by experimenting, and Daniel has done this so well, playfully taking a foray into an idea and seeing where is goes.
And this is what makes creativity so very cool.
Follow next earth is now on tumblr
See what Daniel is up to on twitter @ReginaldGolding
And go have a sticky beak at his blog, Grounded Stories
Posted in Creativity, The Writer's Life
Tagged creativity, Daniel Ritter, experimental, fiction, micro-fiction, next earth is now, Reginald Golding, sketches, tumblr, writers, writing
Another set of #micropoetry gleaned from my twitter stream, collected here for your reading pleasure and deconstruction.
I like writing them because they are often quick, spur of the moment ideas, thrown down on my Ipad and sent out into the nebulous ether of the interwebz.
It’s a form of disposable creativity, like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs behind for others to follow my example. Later this year I will be relaunching posts on creativity and why I think EVERYONE should be creative.
I hope something like this inspires you to do something creative.
Cameras For Eyes
The camera downloads
Our memories
Stored in another brain
So we can promptly
Forget
And cannot prove
We ever existed
Boredom
Bored, he watched sands
Trickle through the waist
Of the egg timer. Paused
Between starting anew
And waiting for it to finish
Making It Better
But a Band Aid makes
everything better, he cries
offering up the token.
I’m sorry, says his father
But Nanna has died
Musical Mayhem
In her hands
A wooden spoon
and metal mixing bowl
struck together
a ringing, pleasing tone
striking again
she discovers music
Burning Bridges
He flicked the switch
Burned the bridge
Op’ed a gaping chasm
Then offered tools
To build a better bridge
Than the one before
I Give You My Heart
I handed over my heart
To my beloved
In the most convenient package
A plastic bag
Grabbed from the pile
Behind the kitchen door
The Journey
The journey
Of a thousand miles
Begins not
With the first step
But in firstly
Packing a pair
Of clean undies
Do you have a favourite, or if you were to rewrite one, how would you do it?
Posted in Ars Poetica
Tagged creativity, experimental, fiction, just because of thoughtfulness, micro-fiction, microfiction, micropoetry, poetry, reflection, slice of life, writers, writing
What am I working on?
It’s a very good question. About 2 years ago I mapped out a 3 year plan of writing projects. It was overly ambitious and I have not fulfilled anywhere near what I had in mind. One project is completed, my collaborative epistolary novel, Post Marked: Piper’s Reach. It is ready to send out to agents and publishers.
Every thing else is languishing and waiting. Some ideas I have abandoned, others I have modified. And I’m ok with that.
In the meantime I am pursuing a couple of smaller projects as I’ve mentioned before.
What happens on Facebook from time to time is writers tag each other to see what each other is up to. It looks like this:
“I was tagged in 77 for 7 by Person X.
Go to page 77 (or page 7 if you’re not up to 77) of your current work in progress. Starting on the 7th line, share the next 7 lines, then tag 7 more people.
The challenge will be finding 7 author friends that haven’t been tagged.”
I am working on a novella at the moment. Here is the working logline or summary:
When Jack meets Takashi at a bird breeding convention; Jack is displaying his birds while Takashi paints them, they form an unlikely friendship and begin to come to terms with their experience of World War 2 that shaped their lives, discovering that the very things that trap them are the things that give them the most freedom.
Scrolling through to page 7, and line 7, here is the following 7 lines (I made it 8 as it was a complete paragraph). Please note it is a draft only and any errors, grammatically or linguistically, are purely intentional.
The old man selected another brush, dipped it in the ink and continued his study of a bird in flight, transforming the caged bird into a bird beyond the confines. As the brush moved across the lightness of the page it appeared as if it opened the darkness beneath and bled into the contrasting whiteness. Yet the image appeared with a life and breath of its own; the finch alighting onto the imagined tree’s limb. The bird’s wing arched out behind it to capture the air and slow its descent. Its translucent feathers of black ink let the white of the paper bleed through, suspended in the descent as its claws were held infinitesimally away from touching the branch.
I am aiming to have this novella completed by the end of the year. I am also working on a verse novel, a modified idea I originally had for a YA novel. I will share some of it in a few weeks’ time. I also aim to have a draft completed of the verse novel completed by the end of the year. Will see how I go.
Go and be creative.
Posted in Creativity, The Writer's Life
Tagged creativity, excerpt, fiction, novella, sample, writers, writing
Another collated exhibition of #micropoetry I have posted to twitter and also posted here.
Plans are afoot for later in the year to publish a book of micropoetry. Anyone interested?
Footfalls and Shadows
My shadow hides
The path’s pitfalls
Hollows and
Stones to trip
Because I walk
Not into the sun
But away from it
Light A Match
our words fell
like leaves in autumn
and drifted into piles
the colour faded
the moisture evaporated
waiting for conflagration
Animal Playground
Some pigeons peck
At scraps in the playground
While others engage
In elaborate courtship rituals
Just like students
Television Conversations
The television speaks
As a third participant talking
Over, under, through.
An unsolvable knot
Of miscommunication
Until the remote is found
Checkout Manga
In between customers
She draws manga
On the back of receipts
Slips them into groceries
And wonders if Godzilla
Eats breakfast cereal
A Windowed Existence
the existence of life
prelude to dying
narrows its vision
as death draws
the curtains
against the limited view
remaining through
the window
The Truest Hero
The truest hero
is seldom seen
in cape nor undies
on the outside
But in those
whose daily
actions make
the stranger
a welcome guest
Any particular poem take your fancy?
In my brokenness
I am made beautiful
You collected
the broken pieces
Sealed fleshly wounds
With golden scars
I wear as triumph
This poem was inspired by the Japanese art form of kintsukuroi
I see creativity as an act of creation and as an act of repair. Sometimes it is in the act of creating that a person finds wholeness by putting their emotional and mental trauma and experiences into a work of art. It may be a difficult and draining but it can also be a catharsis, a release, a giving away of the issues and experiences held onto like removing a splinter from under the skin.
Sometimes we need to understand we are broken so we can be repaired and made beautiful again. Creativity is the medium through which it can happen.
What can you make beautiful again?
Posted in Ars Poetica, Creativity
Tagged art, creativity, experimental, fiction, metaphor, microfiction, micropoetry, poetry, slice of life, writers, writing
On Friday my Year 8 class were set the task of writing haiku.
The English approximation of a beautiful Japanese art form is known to most, if not all, primary school children. They learn it is a poem of 17 syllables broken into 3 lines (5, 7, 5) and it is about nature (or something…).
It is taught because it is easy and accessible for students. It gives definite boundaries and restrictions, confinements for words and their interplay of meaning.
But writing great haiku is difficult.
I told my students I wanted them to experiment and play with language. I encouraged them to enjoy the process, to have fun with language. And so I had a go at writing a couple myself.
Summer Haiku
A dance of barefoot (awkward) steps
Crossing the neighbour’s front lawn
Picking bindis out
Watermelon seeds
Spat for distance from the steps
You always beat me
Winter Haiku
Watching our breath
Condense in the morning air
Pretending we smoke
Are they any good? Probably not.
Why is random creativity important?
It can be done quickly and in spare moments, disposable as an empty soft drink container or laboured over and agonised and deliberated for each and every syllable.
This is why creativity is important.
Posted in Ars Poetica, The Writer's Life
Tagged creativity, experimental, fiction, haiku, microfiction, micropoetry, poetry, slice of life, writers, writing, writing tips
I am an English teacher and drummer/percussionist with an interest in literary pursuits, creative endeavours, rhythmic permutations, theological amplifications and comedic outbursts.
Here you will find my creative detritus: articles on living a creative life and writing explorations.
And other ideas I have snaffled from the papers stuck on the fridge door.
Twitter: @RevHappiness
Instagram: @handwrittenpages
My collaborative epistolary novel, "Post Marked: Piper's Reach," written with Jodi Cleghorn (@JodiCleghorn) out now via Vine Leaves Press.
Come and browse through the library; there is no need to be silent.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 