Category: Writing

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Random thoughts teaching Work Writing

in which I contemplate the joy that is Beerwah Writers’ Group

Back before I was working full time, I joined my local writers’ group. It was fantastic, the fortnightly face-to-face interaction with people who shared my passion for word-smithing.

But the constraints of my current day job meant that I haven’t been able to attend a meeting since January of 2017 – and even though some meetings fell on school holidays, at no point was there a meeting I could attend, due to family commitments, being away, or meeting cancellations.

That is, until the meeting just gone. Friday 13th. I walked in, surprising many people, and it was as if I’d never left. It was fantastic!

I love that idea – that I could be part of a supportive group of writers who, in spite of my 18 month absence, are just as continually supportive of me and my writing as ever before 🙂

I look forward to the next time a meeting aligns with a school holiday – because such a wonderful group of people are a joy to be with.

Here’s wishing a close support network for you too this week, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn

Categories
#blogjune Blogging challenges Christianity Reading Writing

Sipping from the saucer #27

I work at a Christian school. The pastor of the church which established our school has a saying: “The LORD has blessed me so much, my cup is overflowing (taken from Psalm 23) and I’m sipping from the saucer.”

I like the visual, so I’m using it here, in this month-long blogging challenge focusing on the blessings God has poured out on me.

And now, blessing #27: the books Mum ordered for my birthday – which arrived in time for her to bring when she came to stay on Monday just gone 🙂

I’m partway through WRITING WITHOUT RULES by Jeff Somers – laughing my way through, more accurately. It’s a great read, and I’m learning about the writing craft at the same time, so a twofer and I like that 🙂

And what with the holidays officially starting this afternoon, and my (meant to be) being on minimal movement in an upright position… having a second brand new book to look forward to is a wonderful thing!

Here’s wishing you a blessed day too, dear Reader!

— KRidwyn

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Writing

#AtoZchallenge Day 18 – my most fun ‘R’ tongue-twister

Well, this one took me a while to create – and much hilarity was had by all those who could hear me puzzle it out! I wonder what *you* think of my attempt…

Rough Wal Wulf and gruff Rolf Wuff roof

… and yes, I was thinking that it’d be good to have a brilliant final word or phrase, but the best I could come up with is ‘wine refineries’ – which added a vowel sound that I didn’t have anywhere else 🙁

Do you have any suggestions, perhaps?

And have a great day, dear Reader 🙂

— KRidwyn

[The #AtoZchallenge is a daily blogging challenge which has been running for quite a few years now, with hundreds of participants worldwide. Blogging happens each day in April except Sundays, and on each letter of the alphabet, starting at A and finishing with Z.]

Categories
momentous events Random thoughts Writing

A boat has arrived

So it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to enjoy my morning routine – up soon after 4; get to the gym; leave by 5.15 to get to my favourite writing place by 5.45 then home soon after six.

So it was beautiful this morning to reclaim my routine, and – although the first gym workout in a while left me aching more than I’d like – I arrived at my writing place happy with myself and the world, eager to write for the first time in what felt like literally months.

Only to discover: I wasn’t alone. My view of the creek was not what it had been. A yacht had arrived and had moored itself smack bang into the middle of my writing view.

(Yeah, okay. In this photo it looks tiny. But in real life it looked much bigger. For real. And I was Not Happy.)

What an intrusion! A defiant attestation of the proximity of human habitation – when I wanted to see God’s creation and it only!

True, I see the hypocrisy in my annoyance and frustration. How dare I complain when I’ve been busily driving myself here, and happily inserting my own human-ness with all its noise and pollution and disturbance for months now… suddenly to be upset at the presence of another?! Shame on me!

But it still saddened me. Selfish, I know. Silly too. To be upset by the inevitable.

Dumb, even, to be surprised by it. To have not realised that it would happen one day… and seeing the rate of sub-division development close by recently, it was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

But saddened anyway. I wonder if that’s how God felt when Adam made an axe and chopped down a tree for the first time ever? I wonder if he sighed and thought, ‘Well, there goes the neighbourhood.’

Or if He saw it as an opportunity for something else. Something different. I don’t know what, yet… but I guess I should remain open to the opportunity for finding out.

Change doesn’t have to be bad, I guess.

So with that thought in mind, we should probably head into this week. Here’s wishing you a great one, dear Reader!

– KRidwyn

Categories
Random thoughts Writing

Writing view

I’m so proud of how well my garden’s growing. There’s a low windowsill in my bedroom on which I sit and write, admiring and being inspired by, my view.

This is it as I pen this post.

It makes me smile. I’m a very blessed girl 🙂

Here’s hoping you have a blessed week too, dear Reader!

KRidwyn

Categories
Life Random thoughts teaching Writing

Sucking out the marrow

I’ve only got one life, and I intend to live it! I want, like Henry David Thoreau famously said, to “suck out all the marrow of life” – to get every last drop out that I can. Selfish? Perhaps. But that’s how I feel.

So I started a brand-new job this year, working full time for the first time since 2007, and still being a wife, a mum to three, a housekeeper, ‘chief cook and bottle-washer’ – and don’t forget the endless piles of laundry that just never seem to wash themselves…

It’s been tough.

Four months before starting the new job, Hubby convinced me to take out an 18-month gym membership, and so I didn’t want to neglect that either – waste of money, an’ all that.

Plus, as a Christian, I believe it’s important to have a ‘quiet time’ at the beginning of each day, where I can still my thoughts, read God’s Word, and spend some time talking to (with?) him.

But it’s been hard trying to fit everything in!

At the beginning, I tried keeping my ‘normal’ schedule – which included staying up in the evening to welcome Hubby home after his night meetings. But combining that with early morning gym sessions meant that I *really* wasn’t getting enough sleep, so I had to can that idea, and head to bed as early as I could each night.

Now, my routine has settled down fairly well, and it’s one that I’m pretty happy with.

I regularly wake up at 4:08 AM, and I’m in the car heading to the gym before 4:15 AM. I pray as I drive to and from; and read my Bible in between sets or while I’m on the treadmill. I leave the gym at 5:15, and drive to my morning ‘happy place’ where I sit, breathe, watch the view, and write. By the time I get home at 6AM, I have been able to ‘tick off’ exercise, some writing, and my quiet time.

And that morning routine leaves the rest of my day to spend with the people in my family, or at my job, where I can give of myself non-stop, knowing the ‘bases are covered’ so to speak.

It’s pretty exhausting.

But I love how, at the beginning of each day, I can spend time with my God, spend time with myself, and feel relaxed and replenished and happy.

Right now, for example, I’m writing in my ‘happy place’. A hundred metres ahead of me, a kingfisher just dived into the creek, chasing his breakfast. The ripples fan out over the reflection of the clouds from the sky above.

A mullet leaps elsewhere in the creek. He gets incredible height on the jump – close to a metre above the water, by my reckoning.

It’s going to be another warm day.

This is the way I choose to live my life. Yes, it’s busy – but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Every minute is precious; and I don’t want to waste even one of them.

How about you, dear Reader? Do you have a routine you love?

And here’s praying that you have a brilliant week this week!

– KRidwyn

Categories
teaching Technology Work Writing

Why I love twitter

GenreCon finished yesterday. For those of you who aren’t Brisbane-based writers, GenreCon is *the* place to be if you’re a writer in South East Queensland. It’s a weekend choc-full of inspiration and lessons to learn; speakers and publishers, authors and agents and illustrators… I’m guessing.
I’ve never been. Sad; I know.

Unfortunately, the day job has always intervened; this year, again, no exception. I accept it; the fact that I am too busy in Term Four to attend doesn’t worry me much any more. Getting to GenreCon is about as likely as doing #NaNoWriMo… I won’t say ‘never’ but it’s pretty unlikely, truth be told.

So whenever I’ve seen news about GenreCon, I’ve skimmed over it. Then tragedy hit. A couple of random unrelated items I’d seen, clicked. One of my all-time fave authors tweeted about a newspaper headline I had just read. Then she posted a photo of her cuddling a koala.

What the? She’s here in Australia? Next thing I discover, she’s a keynote speaker at GenreCon. As in, the convention that is literally just down the road (okay, lots of kilometres, but it’s still the same road) from me – and I’m not there!!!

Sigh. Delilah S. Dawson is the reason I’m still writing.

She’s amazing.

I wish I could meet her; tell her in person how much of an effect one of her blogposts had on me.

Alas. Not to be. Not any time soon, anyway.

Which is exactly the reason why Twitter is my absolute favourite social network.

No, I couldn’t be at GenreCon in person. Yes, I missed out on an incredible opportunity… but that’s not to say I couldn’t attend; because I follow tweeps who were there.

And that’s almost the same kind of thing. I was able to follow what she said in her keynotes – because writers I follow tweeted about it.

 

 

 

 

And if that’s not a good enough reason to love twitter, I don’t know what is.

Have a great week, dear Reader!

-KRidwyn

Categories
Writing

Maybe one day…

So it’s November 6th and some of my writer friends are well into #NaNoWriMo – the ‘National Novel Writing Month’ challenge that’s become popular over the last few several years. I have nothing but respect for them. If it were me attempting the challenge, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in the space of 30 days, then by now, six days in, I’d be about 500 words in and nursing a mountain of guilt.

50,000 words, in 30 days, is 1,666 words per day. Not do-able for me, I’m afraid, not with the new(ish) full time job, the husband and three kidlets, the household, and everything that goes along with those commitments.

I caught a tweet just yesterday from @paperfury, who replied to a follower that she managed to write 90,000 words in three days.

Now THAT’S insanely awesome – especially considering that she’s also on twitter. Like, ALL THE TIME.

She explained later that she writes for something like eight hours a day. Wouldn’t that be wonderful! [I think?]

Anyway, back to #NaNo. No, I’m not, and have never, attempted it. But that’s not saying that I shan’t, at some point in time in the future.

Perhaps when I get good enough to stop being a pantser, and be a plotter like @Frainstorm – check this out, below!

 

Anyway, just some random writerly-type thoughts for the beginning of the new week.

Have a great week, dear Reader!
— KRidwyn

Categories
teaching Writing

Amused…

Who was it that said ‘pride goeth before a fall’? Not that this is the same, entirely, but I guess it’s similar. No sooner than I published that post about ‘swimming, not sinking’, I was inundated with busy-ness. [Yes, I realise that I spelled that word incorrectly. It was intentional.]

Kinda have to smile, really. I was so excited about life returning to ‘normal’ – and then my parents disappeared overseas, leaving me to house-sit; dozens of Japanese and Chinese students – and teachers – arrived at school; chess tournaments were competed in and children won trophies; Year 6 students Stepped Up for a Middle School experience; two staff accompanied me on a three-day conference; and the list goes on…

all of which meant that I haven’t blogged in three weeks, but it feels more like three years.

Sigh.

On the upside, there’s one week left until school holidays. And I’m spending that week with a couple dozen Year 9 students on camp. Currently writing this on the bus – cramped because I cannot BELIEVE how little leg room there is on this thing! I can understand why my folks were bemoaning their flight-from-England, if this is all the space they had. I’ve been on this bus for less than two hours and already I’m feeling claustrophobic.

So Year 9 camp should be fun – perhaps – and there may even be time to write a little. At least there’s no meals to cook, no house to clean, no cherubs to look after. I hope. Although more than two dozen 13 and 14 year-olds may not be preferable to my own three…

I’ll let you know!

Have a wonderful week, dear Reader!

— KRidwyn

Categories
my novel-in-progress teaching Work Writing

Swimming, not sinking

2017 has been quite an interesting year so far. I scored my dream job, which started officially mid-January, and have been hard at it since, working long hours and seeing welcome developments in the culture I’m attempting to establish.

I’m loving it. It’s keeping me extremely busy… so busy, I’ve let my writing slide shockingly. Initially, I thought I’d be able to have things sorted by Easter. Nope. Then, I hoped, by the mid-year holidays. Nah – not a chance.

But I can see how unrealistic my initial expectations were, and am no longer bemoaning my lack of time. I’ve laid off the guilt, been kind to myself, and am far happier knowing that I’ll be more comfortable once I’ve seen the full year cycle.

Having said that though, I quite surprised myself last week. Driving home on Thursday, with a remarkable ‘urgent work to complete’ quota of zero, my mind turned again not the long-awaiting WIP, and I realised that there was only housework and cherub-looking after standing between us! It was a lovely moment. 

Acknowledging that the period of sinking-almost-drowning which I’ve been living, is maybe ending. That I’m swimming, and that perhaps my head is managing to stay above water for longer and longer…

I sure am hoping so!

I love how life works in seasons. How there may be seasons of discomfort, of hardship, of pain, but likewise there will also be seasons of joy, of peace, of love.

God is good. I truly believe that.

Have a lovely week, dear Reader!

-KRidwyn