Category: Scribblings

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momentous events my novel-in-progress

Smiling – while sick

Hip hip hooray, it’s my birthday today!

It’s 4.30am. The house is dark and quiet and I’m sitting at the dining table at my computer. I am happy.

I am also sick. I’m guessing that, by the way my body feels, I have a case of pretty much full-blown flu. The tissues keep being moved from their original box on my right, to the bin on my left, getting soggy on the way and making my nose red and more sore in the journey (Note to self: Hubby needs to buy a couple of boxes of Aloe Vera ones today. Maybe a couple of hundred boxes.) My throat is sore, and I think I’m coughing at a rate of twice per minute. Less now that I’m sitting upright, and closer to our very-warm fireplace. But my back and the muscles in my diaphragm are aching in sympathy with each cough. And don’t get me started on the head uncomfy-ness!

But I am happy. Because I set myself a deadline, and today was it. Today, I turn 41. And I desperately wanted to be able to say “I finished my first book at the age of 40”. Finishing it today, or at any other point in the future, would have been too late. Because I can no longer say “I am 40”.

But that’s okay. I made my deadline – weeks ago, actually! In fact, I’m most-of-the-way through editing it, as well! Stoked!!!

So, on a practical note, I’ve updated my ‘About’ page. I’ve also added another short story to my ‘Short stories’ page, for anyone who’s interested.

And have a happy day, dear reader – I know that I’m planning to!

— KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune my novel-in-progress Reading teaching

Keeping it at bay…

The laryngitis, that is. Well, so far. But I’m teaching for the rest of the week, so let’s just see how that goes, huh? I find that the constant swapping from speaking to singing voice (that’s an integral part of classroom music teaching in a Primary school) is such a strain on it; far more than it ever was in a High school. But maybe that’s just me.

But anyway, on to yesterday. So I edited the first 12 chapters of my book – now the first 11 chapters. And I was pretty happy with that. 30 chapters to go.

I also found some research that I was doing over 10 years ago. For my first ever historical novel. And there’s HEAPS of it – five folders full, in fact! So I’ve been thinking that I might start that piece again. See how it goes, you know? So I read it all through, and that inspired me to continue the research last night. Head back to original sources, back to the Latin versions, etc etc etc. Supremely interesting stuff!

So the plan for today is: not lose my voice. Edit 10 more chapters. And maybe dig some more into the history of Autun. Because I can 🙂

Have a great day, reader!

— KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune family anecdotes my novel-in-progress teaching

On the relationship between libraries, teaching, and vocal nodules

I’ve been teaching ever since I can remember. Well, not when I was 4, or 5, or thereabouts. Of course. But since my early teens, I’ve been earning money teaching. Back then, it was teaching violin to children who’d just started learning, and whose parents wanted private lessons. It was easy enough – I knew how to play, and passed this knowledge on. At 21, I got formal qualifications in the field, and went on to teach kids as young as four, to students older than me, in subjects that varied from English and Music to Drama, Geography, Christian Studies, History, Dance – and there was also a Sex. Ed. semester long unit in the late 1990’s – to a class of Year Ten boys!

My younger brother commented once, “You’re such a born teacher!” He’d been staying with Hubby and I, and all of us were in our late twenties. I’d just finished teaching a private violin student, and was helping her to count out change from the money she’d paid me. Rather than just giving her the money (4 or 5 coins), I had asked her to count it as I put the coins, one by one, into her hand. My brother watched this, laughed and shook his head, and made the comment – which has stuck with me ever since. I realised that, ‘Yes, I am. Teaching is something that I love doing. Imparting knowledge, helping children develop skills, watch them develop attitudes – hopefully positive ones! That’s what I love.’

Back in 2010, I decided to qualify myself as a Librarian. So that, when my children were old enough to go to school, I could return to full-time work as a Teacher Librarian.

Life didn’t work out quite like that. I’m back at work, on a 7-day fortnight, in a permanent teaching role. And my kids are all at school. Those Library qualifications, earned last December, are just that. Qualifications. At the moment.

But the good thing is that I’m only working a 7-day fortnight. Which means that, every Monday for a while now, I’ve been able to volunteer in a Library for a few hours. And I love it!!! In fact, I would love to be heading there this morning. That’s what I was planning to do. And I was planning to blog this afternoon about it.

But again, life intervened. This morning, it was in the form of that annoying nodule on my vocal cords which sometimes decides to make its presence known. I developed it about six years ago, when I lost my voice for over three months. It was pretty bad. Speech therapy worked wonders though – however, at certain points in time, when I’m sick, it must feel neglected or something, and so it flares up. And that’s what has happened today.

I know that if I don’t rest it, it’ll get angrier and angrier, and I’ll lose my voice for longer than just a few days. So, unfortunately, home is the only place I’ll be at today. Home, and quiet. No Library time for me. And that makes me sad. But it can’t be helped.

On the upside though, I guess, I’ll be able to get stuck into that children’s book that I finished some weeks back. The one that I’ve been procrastinating editing. Because all the advice that I’ve read says: ‘leave it for a month’; ‘wait, let it rest’; ‘return to it with fresh eyes’. Or maybe it’s just because I’m scared. I don’t want to edit it! I’ve never edited a full work of mine before… because I’ve never written a full work before! But today’s lack-of-voice provides a perfect opportunity, so I’d best not waste it.

Hold me to it, dear reader! And have a great day yourself!

— KRidwyn

Categories
Random thoughts Scribblings

On the benefits of membership in a local writers group

Writing is a solo sport. “Sport?” I hear you laugh. Yes, I argue. It requires discipline. Improvement of skills. Goal setting and achievement reaching. And, let’s face it, the noun ‘sport’ is just so much stronger than the noun ‘activity’. And it’s my blog, so I get to say what nouns get used. And today, I want to use the noun ‘sport’. So there.

But that’s not the point. The point is, that it’s a SOLO sport. One done by individuals, not teams. And as such, this sport that writers practice, is – by its very nature – a lonely one. And that’s okay. We understand that.

But it’s not good to be alone. To grow, to develop, to improve, we need community. Others. To help us, to hone our skills, to give us instantaneous feedback, constructive criticism, to inspire and encourage and tell us straight when we’ve completely screwed something up and need to give up and start over.

And that’s where a local writers group comes in. For me, at least.

There are a dozen regular members in the group I’m a member of. Writers of fantasy, of bush ballads and other poetry, of romance. writers of biographies and autobiographies. Writers of history. Radio script writers. And me.

This morning, our challenge was to rewrite a short event (read ‘news clip’) into a much longer, more sensational piece (read ‘feature article’). This was fun. The 34 year old Berlin-born burglar of guitars, amps and other music equipment from a Philadelphian storage locker back in March, became a far more sinister figure in my retelling of the news event. He morphed into a Nazi-background, revenge-seeking criminal mastermind, intent on world domination through his dealings in Weapons of Mass Destruction. And that was just mine! Others’ entries ranged from watermelon-wielding elephants to boganvillea intent on injuring their owners. What lively discussions ensued!

And that’s my point. Writing is lonely. And I find it essential, if I’m aiming to improve in this sport that I’ve chosen, to un-loneli-fy myself. To be a part of a vibrant writing community which so inspires me every fortnight.

I love it. Am I the only one, I wonder?

Anyway, have a great day, dear reader! 🙂

— KRidwyn

 

Categories
my novel-in-progress Random thoughts

I’m stuck

My main character has been kidnapped by another character. Which is fine… it was unexpected, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The trouble is, it’s turning out far more difficult than I had thought to get her rescued.

This is *hard* writing.

I know it will be good, when it’s done, but at the moment, it’s hard.

(And the chocolate that’s sitting there, in my fridge, isn’t helping. Just in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, I *need* to get her rescued. That’s all there is to it.

Thought you might like to know.

Have a great day, dear readers! Here’s wishing you an easy rescue from every difficult situation you manage to find yourself in today! 🙂

Categories
Scribblings

More ‘thoughts’ on writing

So it was over a week ago (yes, I just checked; time goes by S.L.O.W.L.Y when you’re *this* sleep deprived due to sick children) that I posted about my ‘practising climaxes and endings’ idea by writing short stories, and posting them here. I also apologised that the site wasn’t working properly, and the the ‘short stories’ page (tab #2, at the top) wasn’t working.

Well, it still isn’t. Which is a little annoying.

Be that as it may, I have just discovered the website WritingFloor – which is a community of writers based in New York. Submit stuff, and get responses to your questions.

So I have.

Check it out – and I’d love to hear what you think! The direct link is: http://www.writingfloor.com/users/kridwyn/god-of-the-future

Have a lovely day, dear readers! 🙂

— KRidwyn

Categories
Scribblings

Some thoughts on writing

So for today’s post, I thought I might share with you what I’ve been thinking regarding the whole ‘writing’ bit.

I’ve decided that I’m hopeless at writing endings. Even climaxes prior to endings.

My reasoning for this: I start a story, get somewhere around the middle-ish bit, and then stop. And then I think, “Hey, I can do this, let’s try again” and so I start another story, get somewhere around the middle-ish bit, and then stop. And then I think, “Oh no! It happened again! But I can do this, I know I can!” So again, I start another story, get somewhere around – you guessed it! – the middle-ish bit, and then – you guessed it again! – I stop.

Now it occurred to me fairly recently that no matter how many times I repeat this process, I am not actually achieving what I’m setting out to achieve, which is the whole ‘improving my writing of endings’ bit. I’m not even improving the ‘improving my writing of the climaxes prior to the endings’ bit.

Solution? Write shorter stories. Get to the endings quicker. That’s solution number 1.

Solution number 2? Write the ending first. And being the intensely crazy person that I am, ‘write the ending first’ means ‘write the final sentence’ first. And then the second final sentence. And then the sentence prior to that, then the next one, and the next, and so on.

Now, I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. Maybe it’s an old, established technique, maybe I’ve just made up a new one, I don’t know. But I tried it, and it seemed to work for me! The finished story, Adam, is currently sitting on the ‘Short Stories’ page that you can see on the top bar of this website, next to ‘Home”. But don’t bother – the linking part of the site doesn’t work yet, so if you try clicking on that page you’ll just get that extremely annoying error message. But it’s there, ‘published’, and waiting for the site to work properly so you can read it if you’d like.

So anyway, that’s how I wrote Adam. It’s 1431 words, which is about 8000 fewer words than I normally am up to when I get to that ‘middle-ish’ bit that I was talking about, earlier. And it’s finished! And I’m kinda happy with it. Well, that it got finished. Admittedly, I didn’t use the ‘go back one sentence’ technique the *whole* way through – after a paragraph or so, I went to the beginning and ‘chunked’ out what I wanted to happen, and then I worked out exactly how FEW words I had for each chunk, and then wrote from there, filling in the bits in between the chunks last. And it got finished! Which was, for me, quite a major achievement.

So yes, it’s over on that new page. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, when you’re able to actually read it, dear reader! (And my own personal feedback on the story? Find more synonyms for the verb ‘shudder’!)

Categories
Scribblings

Wednesday’s words #2

This #2 post follows A from post #1 last week, which is here.

 

A.

“No!” Her voice was nearly a yell, that yell he hated so much, especially when she used it on the kids. “No, it’s not good enough. Just not good enough, Peter! You knew how exhausted I’d be when I got back – it’s not fair that I now have to pick all this up, as well!”

Her anger dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. She collapsed onto the nearest chair, squashing one child’s cardboard-and-sticky-tape creation in the process. She sighed, knowing that what she’d just done would instigate yet another scene, this time with child number 2 instead of her husband. She just felt so drained! So exhausted! So near the end of her tether with life, with the universe, with everything. She closed her eyes to the mess around her and just breathed.

Her husband looked down at her apologetically. “I’m sorry, Sassy. They’ve just been playing, that’s all. Here. You sit for a bit, and I’ll make you a cuppa, shall I?” He moved off in the direction of the kitchen, touching her head lightly as he went.

*****

B.

“No!” Her voice was nearly a yell, that yell he hated so much, especially when she used it on the kids. “No, it’s not good enough. Just not good enough, Peter! You knew how exhausted I’d be when I got back – it’s not fair that I now have to pick all this up, as well!”

“How dare you?” he yelled straight back at her. “I’ve been working seven days a week, dawn til dusk, and this is the way you treat me when I look after the kids for you all morning, on my first ever morning off?!! No way, Sassy! No frickin’ way!!!”
“You want to treat me like shit? I’ll treat you like shit straight back!”

He stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him in his anger.

*****

C.

“No!” Her voice was nearly a yell, that yell he hated so much, especially when she used it on the kids. “No, it’s not good enough. Just not good enough, Peter! You knew how exhausted I’d be when I got back – it’s not fair that I now have to pick all this up, as well!”

“Well, sorry!” he drawled, the sarcasm so thick you could cut it with a knife.

“I just won’t ever look after the kids again, shall I?” he said, on his way out of the door. “Fine with me…”

*****

Vote below, or tweet me @KRidwyn, or Facebook me. Should I continue with A or B or C?

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random scribblings Scribblings

Wednesday’s words

A.

Sassy was incredulous. “I leave the house for two hours and this is what happens? Really?!! I didn’t realise this much damage was even possible!!” she exploded.
“Calm down, Sassy,” said her husband. “The kids have to have some sort of an outlet, you know. It’s hard on them, being cooped up inside with all this rain…”

She cut him off mid-breath.

“No!” Her voice was nearly a yell, that yell he hated so much, especially when she used it on the kids. “No, it’s not good enough. Just not good enough, Peter! You knew how exhausted I’d be when I got back – it’s not fair that I now have to pick all this up, as well!”

*****

B.

Sassy was incredulous. “I leave the house for two hours and this is what happens? Really?!! I didn’t realise this much damage was even possible!!” she exploded.
The red that splattered the walls wasn’t obvious on the carpet, due to the mess.

*****

C.

Sassy was incredulous. “I leave the house for two hours and this is what happens? Really?!! I didn’t realise this much damage was even possible!!” she exploded.
“Calm down, Sassy,” said her husband. “The kids have to have some sort of an outlet, you know. It’s hard on them, being cooped up inside with all this rain…”

She cut him off mid-breath.

The red that splattered the walls wasn’t even obvious on the carpet, due to the mess.

*****

Vote below, or tweet me @KRidwyn, or Facebook me. Should I continue with A or B or C?

 

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random scribblings Scribblings teaching

Wednesday’s words

So I thought I might try something new – just do some random scribbling every Wednesday. Playing with words. Playing with the feelings that words create. And not worrying if they form sentences, or rhyme, or make a whole lot of sense. Just cos!!! So here goes…

 

Whoops.

I knew it the instant I’d done it, that I’d overdone it this time. Strained my voice just that *little* too much. I could physically *feel* my throat start its aching. And it’s the type of ache in the throat where you just know. Know exactly what’s coming next. Know because you’ve been there before.

Ache. Soreness. Discomfort. The beginnings of pain.

Loss. The temptation to whisper, knowing that whispering will just make matters worse.

Knowing that it will prolong the recovery time.

Knowing, and feeling helpless.

Powerless.

Useless.

I like to think that I have a large, intense personality, barely contained within my small physical frame. The surprising amount of volume that I can muster, from said physical frame, forms a huge part of this personality. the kind of volume that has been developed with decades of singing, decades of teaching.

My volume, and my ability to use it when needed, gives me confidence. Strength.

The ability to communicate, to have input into the lives of those around me just by opening my mouth, gives me… well… power.

Without it, I feel less.

Inadequate. Stripped.

Defenseless.

 

Moral of story: STOP!!!!!

Next time, preferably, *before* you get to that ‘whoops’ moment, Ceridwyn!!!