Category: Writing

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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

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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

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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

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my novel-in-progress Random thoughts Reading teaching Work Writing

Looking forward

I’m looking forward to these school holidays. I haven’t had a break since first accepting this job, back in mid-November. So I’m ready for a break. And it’s a decent one. Two weeks.
I’m looking forward to writing again, more regularly and less haphazardly than I’ve been able to this year. I’m looking forward to gardening, to making a dent in my TBR pile, to spend time with my cherubs and with my husband and walking on the beach, praising my God.

I’m needing this break. Man alive, but I’m ready.

Roll on school holidays!

And have a great day, dear Reader 🙂

– KRidwyn

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Life my novel-in-progress Scribblings Writing

… and the new word is: FOCUS

Hello again, dear Reader 🙂

If you’ve visited recently, you’d have noticed that my last 26 posts were alphabetical, in order to meet the requirements of the #AtoZchallenge, where bloggers post daily using sequential letters of the alphabet, every day in April except Sundays.

Well, I failed that challenge in my time zone. I was fine up until ‘p’, but then school holidays finished and work got crazy-busy… and it wasn’t until late last night I realised that today was May 1st. And the challenge deadline was over!

Hence a massive amount of blog posting this morning. Q through to Z, and before April finished worldwide. So I *can* kinda still say that ‘I made it’… but not really.

Oh well.

My new thought is: focus. It’s what I need to do. I gave myself a deadline of Mother’s Day to finish Book 5 in my children’s adventure fantasy series – and I believe that’s less than two weeks away. 13 days, 21 chapters. I can do this…

If I focus!

So it’s back to weekly blogposts, and hopefully this time next Monday I’ll be closer to finishing JUSTINE BROWNING AND THE MEDDLING MERMAN than I am right now 🙂

See you next week, dear Reader! And have a lovely one until then!

— KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges random scribblings Scribblings Writing

W is for ‘wavelet’

I was writing a short story one day a year or so ago, and I needed the word for one of those small waves that washes into shore. You know, the ones that squealing toddlers get lifted over, that little children run backwards from, that bring the flotsam and jetsam of an uncaring world to deposit on the beach?

“Wave” was too big. Too much power for what I wanted. So I made up ‘wavelet’. Or so I thought…

Wasn’t I surprised to find it in my dictionary, the following day!

Wavelet. Noun. A small wave, a ripple.

Exactly what I had wanted! Don’t you just love the English language?

I do.

Have a great day, dear Reader!

— KRidwyn

PS If you’re interested in the story I was writing, sorry. It was about a woman’s murder at the hands of her drunk ex. It was a pretty intense story. Far too ‘dark’ for this blog. *shrugs shoulders*

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges More about me random scribblings Random thoughts Scribblings Writing

U is for ‘unknown’

Jan 1, 2016, saw me decide I needed to ‘practise’ my writing. I realised that I’d never get anywhere if I just started a story, get stuck, get frustrated, start another story, and repeat the same process.

Mentally, I compared this to my chess game. Okay in the opening, wobbly in the middle, and pretty woeful at the ending. I decided practise was in order. Practise of ‘end-game’ stuff; then recourse to the middle, and finish at the beginning.

“Smiling nervously at each, they started walking into an uncertain future.”

So: I worked out the final sentence (above) and worked backwards. Ended up with a 1500 word short Sci-Fi story about two teenagers crash-landing their spaceship onto an unknown planet.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I related this story to the members at Beerwah Writers Group. Inspired, they used my final sentence, and produced their own stories. I joined them, and ended up with a 500 word story about a Greek God who’d been cast out from Mount Olympus. Prophemius, I called him. God of the Future… except his powers were stripped from him, meaning he couldn’t see the future anymore.

I wrestle, regularly, with the fact I can’t see the future. I want to know what will happen before it does, so I can prepare for it. Part of my control-freak-ishness, probably. (Yeh, I know. Not a word.)

But I always come back to the fact that it’s good I don’t know. I’m glad, deep down, that I’m in the same boat as everyone else. That the future – for all of us – is an unknown. I like that. We’re all on the same playing field, as it were.

And there’s so much freedom in that!

Have a lovely day, dear Reader!

— KRidwyn

 

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Random thoughts Writing

T is for ‘tepefy’

‘Tepefy’ is a verb, which means ‘to make or become tepid or lukewarm’.

And it’s a transitive verb, which means it can’t exist by itself but needs a noun to complete the action, just like ‘kick’ (the ball), ‘paint’ (the portrait) or ‘clean’ (the kitchen – ha!). So you’d ‘tepefy’ the bathwater on a frozen winter’s morning.

And its related noun is ‘tepefaction’. Which makes sense, when you think about it.

We need this word in more regular use in everyday life, don’t we.

Yes? Because the word ‘warm’, which seems to have replaced it, both as the transitive verb and as its related noun, seems too simple. Too quick, too easy.

Yes?

Any takers? Anyone out there agree with me? Yes? Anyone? Going… going…

gone.

Ergo, the disappearance of so many words…

Here’s to your day, dear Reader.

— KRidwyn

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#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Reading Writing

R is for ‘rainband’

Yes, that’s the correct word. No, not ‘rainbow’, but ‘rainband’.

So what is it? I hear you ask.

[Great question! she replies, grinning widely.]

According to my Macquarie Dictionary, a rainband (noun) is a dark band in the solar spectrum, due to water-vapour in the atmosphere.

Huh!

Ten minutes ago, I never knew this word existed. But sitting here at my messy desk, dictionary on my lap and curiosity in my mind, I’ve just discovered that something I’m sure I’ve seen many times in my life before, boasts its very own name.

Well, that makes sense. Most things are named, aren’t they? That’s how we can communicate about them. It reminds me that the Eskimos have many words (apparently!) describing ice and snow – as opposed to the two I would commonly use.

It’s a pretty cool feeling, discovering words. I wonder if I could somehow be influential into making them more popular. Or would my usage of these words I’d newly discovered just be taken as bragging? Would I be seen to be preening with my new-found knowledge?

And does that even matter?

Only one way to find out, I guess…

Have a great day, dear Reader! And look out for a rainbands 🙂

— KRidwyn

[Image of rainband courtesy Wikipedia, retrieved 1 May, 2017]

Categories
#AtoZchallenge Blogging challenges Christianity More about me my novel-in-progress Work Writing

J is for ‘job’

The regular reader of this blog may remember that I started a new job this year.

Head of Middle School at Caloundra Christian College.

I have well over one hundred 11 to 14 year olds to be responsible for. That’s a lot of hormones!

It’s been fun. So far, I’ve laughed and cried, exulted and been furious, enjoyed every second and wanted to tear my hair out with frustration. And that’s just before Morning Tea each day! Just kidding.

It’s been a wild ride, and I’m loving it. As a Christian, I *do* feel ‘called’ to the position, and I also feel as though I’m making a difference in the lives of the majority of the children in my care. And that gives me such a feeling of satisfaction!

But it’s also been far busier than I’d expected. So much so, that my writing has fallen seriously by the wayside. I knew it would – but not quite to this extent. No matter. This #AtoZchallenge is helping me get back some writing mojo – and when April finishes, I have JUSTINE BROWNING AND THE MEDDLING MERMAN to complete. Hopefully by Mother’s Day, which is the challenge I’ve set myself.

But school starts back next week after the two week Easter break, so it’ll be interesting to see if things go to plan…

Anyway, have a great day, dear Reader, and hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with ‘K’ !

— KRidwyn