No, that’s not an error message. That’s the state of affairs for August.
No submissions. No new stories started. No new stories finished. No old stories finished. A couple of ideas for new stories happened and very brief notes were made. One pointillism piece finished.
Here’s the answer to the question you didn’t ask.
Two cups of emotional fatigue. Splashes of mental health that resembled a dropped trifle. Combined with work demands surrounding the HSC and Major Works. Stir and bake in a tepid oven for ages.
It was about the middle of the month when I pulled the pin on everything and simply stopped worrying about producing work and let the ground remain fallow. The idea of a fallow time is something I want to think about in the new few months.
That’s a wrap on August.
Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia) For Sale $70AUD inc postage in Australia $85AUD inc postage for overseas
Each month there are expectations, and each month there is reality. Somewhere between those extremes is a box of doughnuts that turned up unexpectedly because your daughter has a friend whose mum works for Krispy Kreme, and you don’t refuse the offer of free doughnuts.
I am aiming at producing more work month by month but sometimes it is akin to aiming for the toilet bowl and missing, despite all precautions and preparations leaving a mess to clean up, yet persistance is key. Keep thinking, keep making notes, keep writing paragraphs.
There might be strange things afoot at the Circle K but they will be “Most excellent.”
I completed a new pointillism piece
Arum – Pointillism Felt pen on A4 paper $40AUD + postage
Made 4 short story submissions. I missed a few deadlines for a number of reasons, particularly time and lack of prepared material. I have sorted a couple of stories for completion some time in August but there’s always that issue of balancing time with school marking and Major Work readings, plus it’s the busy time of year for dance and Physical culture comps for my girls. That’s always the way. Sometimes is it working inbetween the gaps.
Poem Illustration. One of my favourite things I completed this month was an illustration for Dr Willo Drummond’s poem, Sail, from her debut collection Moon Wrasse. I heard her speak at an In Conversation event with WestWords, and she read this poem and commented on hopefully one day finding an animator to produce it. I am no animator but my brain said, “Oh, shiny new thing,” and so I set about composing a series of images based on my reading. I messaged Dr Willo and asked about the inspiration behind the poem which allowed me to refine a couple of the images. The poem is reproduced with the permission of the author.
I read two books (a new addition to the EOM Wrap):
This is not a how-to-write book. This is a how-to-understand-the writing-game-and-make-it-work-for-you book. Peter’s collection of essays from his blog posts is mind expanding as you grapple with the notion that you ARE a writer AND a business. Treat them with all due respect.
A cracker of a debut crime novel. Dive in, enjoy the read, experience the wilderness of Tasmania as four missing school girls are thought to have been abducted by The Hungry Man. Fantastic popcorn for the brain. A great beach read or tucked up by the heater under a blanket.
Wait until it’s dark. Step out the back door and turn on the light. See how far the light travels across the backyard. It reaches the garden shed and the lemon tree and the trampoline. This is the measure of where you feel safe because of what you can see. See that the snails have climbed up the fence because rain is coming. Wait for the possum with its baby to scurry across the top of the fence. Prophets know how to read the signs.
Boundaries are not unlike this.
The night is a curtain, drawn to limit your view. You know what lies in the shadows behind the lemon tree and the trampoline: leftover bricks and roofing tiles and stacks of black plastic pots. The garden shed is a mausoleum of lawnmowers and garden tools, sundry odds and sods, bags of potting mix and stakes for the tomatoes you’ve been meaning to plant each season.
Perception is not unlike this.
Stand against the west wall of the house when the sun sets and feel the heat baked into the bricks sear your back as your face cools in the evening air. Stand there again in the morning as the sun begins to rise and absorb the coldness into your back as your face warms.
Shame is not unlike this.
Seek out where the swallows roost in the underground car park at the shops. Their movements remind you of how the carpark looks during the busiest shopping hours. The lorikeets wait until dusk to settle in the tree outside the TAB. These are the parentheses of our days.
Uncertainty is not unlike this.
The shadow you carry through the valley is the same shadow you carry to the mountain top.Let the shadow’s long fingers collect the cobwebs from the cornice in the ceiling and make fairy floss from it. The shadow will offer it to you. You eat it.
Disappointment is not unlike this.
Go into the garden and look for ladybugs. You will find a stick insect instead. Watch the bees in the flowers. Listen to them.
Expectation is not unlike this.
The lemon tree will produce fruit whether you tend to it or not and one day you will make friends with the weight of fear.
when you read the instructions, “Open Other End,” on the box of Pizza Shapes, you know for certain you will flip the box over but won’t trust yourself to follow your heart. create a playlist for your wake and make mixtapes to give to people now. teach yourself macrame and after you’re done tying yourself in knots realise you made something beautiful. water the plants when you are thirsty. write the grocery list and make it a hymn to the mundane. eat your meal with a candle (the good ones, the smelly ones you saved for special occasions) for no other reason than to see how far light travels in the dark. read Macbeth then Hamlet and be certain you don’t know the way forward. read TheTempest and The Road as the antidote. sort through the sock drawer and throw out the old pairs and the holey ones. make pairs of mismatched socks. go skinny dipping and experience baptism in the ordinary act of bathing. read the doctor’s letter and pretend it is a breakup letter to the illness ravaging your body and not a statement of irrefutable facts. go to Macca’s and order the burger you have never tried (the Filet-o-Fish) and know that this is what disappoint will taste like in the drive-thru. know that breadcrumbs are for cooking, not leaving a trail. learn why the rod and staff were the shepherd’s tools. wield them and master them for, and over, yourself. sit in the valley and sit on the mountain top and know both are places of vision. one is a mirror and the other is a lens. perspective will tell you which one to choose and let you change the way you see yourself.
Greetings from the desk of The Drum and Page. At the beginning of each year, I choose a word to help give me focus to the coming year.
In 2021, it was Limitless/Breakthrough.
For a COVID year, there was little breakthrough and a lot of limitations, yet it was a year to keep thinking what it means to be a writer and an artist.
Last year, 2022, the word was Relentless.
For many reasons, 2022 was relentless, particularly on a personal front, yet my focus was on moving in a direction where my writing was developing. This resulted in three publications: The School Magazine for The Diving Tower (November), winning the WestWords Living Stories Prize in July for We Three Kings, and winning the Blacktown Mayoral Creative Writing Prize in December for Cutting Through.
I was also a member of the WestWords Academy which was a fantastic time to network and gain further understanding into the writing and publishing world.
What does this next year hold? In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. Proverbs 16:9
I had this verse running through my head over the last few days and while I can plan and prepare, no one knows where the wind comes from or where it is going to so you make sure you adjust the beach towel wrapped around your neck, pretending it is a cape, and stand facing the wind so the cape billows out behind you, and you strike an appropriate superhero pose.
I know I want to maintain, and build on, the momentum I gained from last year. Therefore, my word/s for 2023 is:
To determine what this will look like for me, I have to examine my practices and my focus on where I want to expend my creative energy. Hence, for me, my words mean clearing the decks of older projects by either removing them from my work lists, or leaving them for another time. It also means dropping those things that look shiny and interesting but don’t advance where I want to go. For example, I’d been thinking for some time about a Red Bubble/Etsy store to sell my art, but that’s a whole business side of things that I don’t have time for. My art is personal expression and peace. If someone offers to buy a piece or wants a commission, that’s fantastic. My business focus is on writing and the craft of writing.
This year, a year of pursuing, and a year of pursuit, means finding the ‘thing’ – whether that is a story, art, reading, that fills me up and allows me to develop. I am hoping time spent with the projects that give me a sense of fullness will replenish me. There is always something to write, an idea to let compost, a paragraph to edit, a character to let loose in the lolly aisle at the supermarket with $100 to spend and see what they return with.
Long pieces of work have long gestation periods and long blocks of time for writing and editing. This may mean a less visible year, yet I will still be pursuing my writing goals and aims.
I have a couple of new desk buddies/guardians/motivators courtesy of Christmas to help me along the way.
Success is fleeting and unpredictable. Last year’s wins and publications were succour in a time of distress and stress. Success this year will look very different, and I am willing to change the criteria of ‘success’ to allow me to pursue my writing goals.
Think I need to invest a good pair of running shoes to make it through this year.
It was a word chosen to keep my focus on writing and submitting. On that scale, it has been successful. I have written, I have submitted, I have received rejections. I have had a story sold to appear later in the year in The School Magazine. I have been accepted to a local writers’ Academy where we meet monthly to discuss the business and practical aspects of writing. And the year is only half done.
In saying that, it has also been a year of relentlessness in other ways. The best way of describing it would be “Unexpected items in the bagging area.” It has taken its toll mentally and emotionally.
This afternoon, I took stock of where I was at with some old projects, added in potential new stories and lined them up in my notebook. I need lists; it keeps me accountable.
This is how I choose to define progress in the year of relentless: I am continuing to write and work on new projects, submitting when I can, and looking for new opportunities to get help, wisdom, knowledge and advice. If you don’t ask, you don’t receive.
I am curious to see what happens in the remainder of the year, and when I look back over 2022, what lessons will I have learned? And that is, perhaps, the more important part of this creative journey.
If my desk was named like an English pub, it would be The Drum and Page. My writing collaborator, Jodi, calls her place, The Dog And Book. Therefore I am renaming my work space like an English pub even though I live in Australia. It simply sounds better. What would your creative space be called?
I digress but this initial tangent leads me to my WORD OF THE YEAR.
Each year I choose a word to help guide and direct me. They are written on a Post It Note and stuck to the wall above my desk. Last year I had two words: “limitless” and “breakthrough.” I found success in these two words in the release of my chapbook, Mount Pleasant, in February, and winning a local writing competition about the middle of the year. I kept writing and drawing, sifting through the what was to see what would be.
This year, the word is RELENTLESS.
It will take a year to explore the nuances of this word and what it means for me. And that will be an awfully grand adventure.
It’s a word to apply to my creative life through writing and drawing, and will have application to the spiritual, emotional/mental, and physical aspects of my life. I don’t know what the final outcome will be at the end of 2022. I may have made no progress other than developing my creative practice. I may have opportunities to explore because I asked about a collaboration, or I put in an application for a writing mentorship, or I submitted work for publication and only received rejections. I don’t know. But I will be relentless in my pursuit of this creative life.
Grace and peace be upon you all from the desk of The Drum and Page.
What do you do when you get to the end of the toilet roll?
A year is a toilet roll, and as this calendar year comes to an end, we tend to reflect on success, failures, the times that fell through as easy as a loose stool; the events we bit down hard on and pushed; the thoughts we had amounting to nothing more than sound and fury, signifying nothing.
This laboured metaphor for the end of the year is fitting as this time of year is awash with Best Of lists, retrospective summaries, highlight reels and statistics. The interim period of December 1 until Christmas Eve is like looking at the roll of toilet paper on the holder and wondering how much is left and how long it will last, and if you’ll get through.
We mark our seasons and cycles in different ways. I am not one to successfully mark transitions and the ascension of seasons and new beginnings. I try to. I set out projects and works I’d like to complete but I am useless at developing plans and goals. Creating positive habits is hard.
I do know what I have, and have not, achieved this year. In the wash up of this year I can point to many reasons why I have not succeeded, some personal, some professional, some within my control and some out of my control. And all of these have had their impact in my growth as a writer and a creative.
What Am I Pleased With This Year?
I released my chapbook, Mount Pleasant, in January of this year.
These make me feel quite chuffed and are impetus for future growth next year. I have ideas, thoughts, hastily scribbled plans, fluid deadlines that need to be made fixed, unfinished projects to either abandon or complete.
And yet, there is fear.
Fear I can’t finish the projects I want to. Fear of what will happen outside of my control that can derail my progress. Fear of being average and beige and wasting my time. Fear is the largest obstacle I need to overcome.
Creativity is a discipline: spiritual, emotional, mental, physical. You train yourself like an athlete or musician to overcome fear. And when one cycle ends, you think about the incremental progress you have made, and how you have changed, developed, adapted, improved throughout the cycle.
So, what do you do when you get to the end of the toilet roll? You dispose of the waste, put a new roll on, and start anew.
Ira Glass discusses the gap between where we are with our creativity, and where we’d like to be.
And this is where I am at.
I have a vision of the type of writer I want to be and I am trying to make it a reality.
Above my desk are a series of Post It notes, categorised under different headings. There are Post It notes for published pieces, Works in Progress, Ideas and Rough Concepts, Writing Competitions and Opportunities, and then a random miscellany of captured moments.
I am trying to bridge the gap. I am taking off Post It notes when I have abandoned a Work in Progress, trimming the hedge, so to speak, because I want to focus on the work I have at hand. I do not want to be distracted by too many ideas, or to spend time pursuing an opportunity that will not benefit me. I am being deliberately picky. I want to focus on writing well in order to bridge that gap.
It feels presumptuous, and arrogant, to say that I have a goal as a writer: I want to be on the Miles Franklin short list. The Miles Franklin award is prestigious writing award in Australia, and it is one I aspire to. Even to be on the long list would be an achievement. To win it would be the culmination of years of hard work.
I’ve set myself a bar on the other side of the creative gap. Time to get to work; to write the words that will build the bridge across that gap so I can leap over that bar.
Due to the nature of my job as a high school English teacher there are certain times of the year when the time to create is very limited.
This is one of those times.
July to September is very busy, and time to focus on large projects or develop new ideas is very limited. Therefore I call this my fallow season.
I leave projects and ideas on hold, waiting for the next break to pick them up again. I can do little things like drawing but writing projects wait.
It is frustrating for a number of reasons. If I have built momentum on a project I have to let it slow down. If I want to spend time developing a new project it can only be done in small parcels of time if I have the mental strength to do so. It is frustrating because I am not where I want to be as a writer. There are other factors in the background that also hinder progress, and each time I think I have found a new pattern or way of creating, the parameters shift and I have to restart.
So this is me, waiting out the season but watching over the fields.
Do you really want an answer to the question, ”Who are you?”
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.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 