A peek into my processes*:

(Kinda-part 1 here). With thanks to James for this fun tag.

What am I working on at the moment? I work as a social media and marketing manager and also as an English tutor and workshop instructor, so commercial and editorial-style writing is part of my daily life. The real dream, however, is fiction. So when people ask me about my words, it’s stories that I think of. After I completed my Master of Arts last year (and finished up a work placement of two years just a month later), I fell into a period that felt a lot like creative paralysis. I was frozen. It wasn’t even that I had things to say but didn’t know how to say them; I was truly empty. Ideas weren’t floating in, and words weren’t flowing out.

That season lasted more than six months, and I found it terrifying. Finally I had been set free to do the thing I cared about – and it felt as if the thing no longer cared about me. I’d talked about writing since I was a kid. I didn’t know myself without that dream, without that work happening on the sidelines. And I couldn’t really do anything other than hold on and hope that whatever I’d lost would somehow return to me.

This year has been more about inching back towards that fragile creativity. I’m certainly not at the place where, as a teenager, I thought all writers lived: a flurry of words pouring out in a feverish rush, pen at the ready for ideas to strike out of nowhere. (Gosh I miss those days. The feeling of it all, I mean, not the rubbish I wrote). Rather, there’s a sort of steadiness to where I'm at with words, along with a slight sense of frustration at the constant pull between work, family, community, and creativity.

So what am I actually working on? I’m working on a screenplay treatment for a friend who works in the independent film industry. I’m in the very tentative early stages of a new story that I think is going to be novel length. And there’s a little short story that’s been simmering for two years but is close to being done. I’m writing lots of thoughts about what I’m reading lately, too, and there’s a novel first draft sitting on the backburner while I work out how to take it from A to, if not Z, then at least B, C, or D.

How does my work differ from others in my genre? My last few published pieces have been for children, some other recent stories have been a little speculative, while still another is a piece of adult fiction that is bit (a lot) autobiographical. So I’m no longer quite sure what my genre is. But my heart is with young adult fiction, always and forever.

Something that I find myself exploring, often not realising it until the work is finished, is the idea of otherness. Being other is often viewed with some awkwardness or perhaps even shame. We tend to blame ourselves for our otherness, thinking that “If I was more [whatever],” then maybe I’d belong. But otherness can have great value. It’s healthy to be able to step back from the crowd occasionally. It generates a sense of wonder. It allows us to form our own opinions. And it builds compassion within us for those who may not learn, work, look, speak, or live like ‘everyone else’ does. What’s more, I suspect most of the great men and women of history could be counted as quite “other” in one way or many. The jury’s still out on whether otherness actually turns you into a genius (or a sociopath, for the unfortunate few), but I definitely think it can help.

Of course, there’s nothing unique about exploring the other within literature. One could argue that all literature is about otherness, to some degree. So how does my work differ from others in my genre? I guess one way is that my stories tend to be light on the romance side of things. I enjoy romance, but show me friendships, too. Show me families, show me communities, show me diverse relationships that go beyond high school sweethearts. As I read or write young adult characters, I can’t help thinking that the all-consuming crush that’s occupying the character’s heart and mind might not be there in a couple of years or even a couple of months. But I hope the best friend will still be around, and I’m more interested in his or her feelings about the main character than I am in the feelings of Bad-Boy-With-A-Heart-of-Gold McSpunkypants.

Why do I write or create what I do? It recently occurred to me that I might not actually like writing. It’s really hard work. I’ve never been the sort to be able to churn out thousands of words a day, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that whirlwind frenzy of feverish inspiration and had words just fall from my fingertips. Instead, I slog and yank and tug and grimace and fight to get the words out of me and onto a page, and I’m even not sure why I do it. I only know that words are incredibly important to me, and this is the thing I want to do, even when I’m not quite certain what it’s all for.

How does my writing/creative process work? I love boundaries and feel like my creativity thrives under them. Briefs and deadlines and word limits are great. When they are in place, the scope of possibility narrows to something within my vision and, instead of being overwhelmed by the vast expanses of whatever that stretch out before me, I can look just a little way ahead and start to think. I like having themes or content requirements or specific prerequisites imposed upon me. They don’t feel like an imposition; they feel like a starting point. And when such limitations don’t exist, if I’m left with something formless, I have to impose the limitations on myself so I don’t shrivel up or drown under the weight of all that could be.

So my process begins with examining my creative boundaries or inventing some for myself. I’m a fan of pulling out a notebook and scribbling down anything relevant on an open double page spread, then examining the work for links and ideas and a proper starting place. If I can’t start at the beginning of the story, I’ll start with a scene that I know that I know, a moment that’s real for me, that reveals my characters, that might even be an instrumental moment in the story. It doesn’t matter where it comes chronologically; I can write away from it or up to it later on. The important thing is to start.

A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to the idea of the writing sprints, and, quite seriously, they've really changed how I write. Now, when I have a project to complete, I set a timer for 15 mins and write fast and furiously just for that fifteen. I don’t pause to look up words, to self-edit, to ponder the decisions I’m making for my characters. I just write. If I’m unsure of a word or a direction to take something, I can fill in that space with nothing words. (I have written BLAH BLAH SOMETHING HERE more times than I could say). After the fifteen minutes is up, of course there’s time to go back and tweak things or check the outline to see if the story is on track, but it’s amazing how many words one can spout when the timer is going. And it’s inspiring to just hit reset and go for another round. I can’t tell you how much easier it is to write in four fifteen-minute bursts than it is to write for an hour.

The primary advantage to this is that words get onto paper. Then there’s the fact that I don’t waste time self-censoring or overthinking my writing decisions. Finally, it’s a way to write even when I think I don’t have time for writing. One of my projects lately is being written in ten-minute snatches, just a few days a week. You can’t do a lot in ten minutes, but you can do something, and it keeps the story (and the hope) alive.

*not a double entendre. 

So... that's a little peek into my creative process. Now I'm going to invite two writerly ladies, Jodie and Katie, to answer these questions for themselves. I'm looking forward to hearing more about what makes your wild mind bloom!

Rock pools and sketches and notebooks, oh my.

As a kid, I loved to read books that were about people making books. There were two in particular that I read a lot, one in comic-strip style about the building of a picture book from start to finish, and another about the actual manual work of collating and binding a book of your own. I borrowed these books from the local public library so often that I’m sure a little part of me felt that the librarian should just take pity on me and give them to me for keeps. 

These days we’d say that reading books about writing, illustrating, and making books is kind of meta, but childhood me had no such word for it. I only knew that these books provided a peek into a process that was like drawing aside a magical curtain and opening up the world beyond, like lifting the lid of an upright piano and seeing the intricate innards of the instrument, like peering past the surface of the water to the microcosmic life of the rockpool beneath. Looking at the processes behind books was mesmerising.

I still feel the same sense of fascination with these backstage tours. I have a small but serious collection of books that each explore someone else's creative processes. One of my favourites is about the writer andillustrator Eric Carle; it has a giant fold-out page that shows the step-by-step process Carle uses to create his trademark collages. Another book shows pages from EH Shepard’s childhood sketchbook, with annotations in a scratchy, childish hand. I can’t really explain their fascination for me; I only know that processes are delicious. Show me your first drafts, your sketchbooks, your outlines, and I’m a little bit in awe.

For that reason, it’s been fun to follow the trail of bloggers passing along the Blog Tour Award and talking about their creative processes. (And gosh, reading about how people write is so much easier and more fun than actually writing.) I was nominated to take part in the fun by James Cooper, chief editor of the author.docx blog and lecturer at Tabor College in Adelaide (you can read his answers here). I took several units under James when I was studying my BA, and loved them all. In fact, James’s recommendation introduced me to Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer, one of the best books about books I’ve ever read.

The idea of the blog tour is to answer a series of questions about my own creative processes, and to nominate up to four other bloggers to do the same. I was supposed to post my answers today, but I have a busy house full of local and interstate guests so I’ll be back with my answers tomorrow.

In the meantime, though, I have a question for you: are you a process person? What processes inspire you with a desire to create, do, or become?

The day of wreckening.

I would say I'm sorry for the terrible pun up there in the post title, only I'm not. Bad puns make the world a better place. So, too, do bad art projects.

I say 'bad' not because there is some inherent morality attached to the Wreck This Journal project I've been doing with my students, but because discussions of art are so often about good art versus bad art, about achievement versus failure. The 'good' or 'bad' of art is generally a question of quality or aesthetic value, and it finds its meaning in the finished work of the piece. Of course, in reality, the meaning is also ascribed to (or taken away from) the art mostly by its observers and critics. It has meaning and value to the artist who lovingly (or angrily or frustratedly or carelessly) laboured over it, but it gains its social and artistic value primarily from others.

For nearly two years, my students and I have been working on wrecking our own journals. It's not something we do every week or have a fixed timeframe for working on; we pull them out if the more typical school business of English and history are done, or if we need an injection of randomness in our day. Using Keri Smith's Wreck This Journal as a guide, we'll flip to a page and then follow its (sometimes bizarre or vaguely uncomfortable) instructions in our own tacky exercise books. Sometimes we come across a page we've already done, and we challenge each other to complete the same exercise again, but differently.

I think I've mentioned before that the kids were wary of the journal-wrecking approach when we first started. I heard a lot of "Am I really allowed to do this?" followed by, "But what if it looks lame?" These days, they are wrecking pros. They will smear glue all over a page without a second thought. They will substitute an "ugly" piece of paper when the "pretty" ones are all gone. They will scribble madly over something already completed. And each time we add another half-dozen pages to our books, we look at the fat, awkward, warped shape of the volume with satisfaction.

The coolest part of the Wreck This Journal project is that the emphasis falls more heavily on process than on results. There are very few realms of life in which this happens. Results are what we find important, and we tailor our processes in order to achieve optimal results. It doesn't work like that with Wreck This Journal -- the creative play is the end goal; perfection is off-limits -- and if the result is something that makes us wrinkle our nose, we shrug and move along. Working to achieve something is healthy and good. But sometimes it is just as healthy to play and make for the joy of playing and making, entirely divorcing the process from the results.

Which could be kind of a metaphor for childhood or something, if only I wasn't too hungry to really sit down and think it through.

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Conversations:

• Asea -- yes! That's the copy of Winter Book that you sent me! I figured that this cold season was the perfect time to pull it out again. I love revisiting books seasonally :)
• Emily Dempster -- your life sounds so full and happy right now! I'm delighting with you in all the cool stuff that's going on!

System reboot.

Last week I was able to take leave from both my jobs. With uni being done and no work at all for seven days solid, I was on the most holidayish holiday I’ve had in ages -- certainly, in 2014 so far. I was ridiculously excited by this prospect. My week was going to be awesome! Illuminating! Life-altering!

I had grand visions of doing all these amazing things: completely reorganising my walk-in closet, working out for hours every day, reading stacks of books, making art, writing stories, replying to the five hundred letters I owe people, hanging out with my little brother and being the world’s best sister, doing up a new menu plan and shopping for lots of fresh food. I was also going to be charming, snappily-dressed, witty, entertaining, and super-holy. You know, it’s never too late to try and be your best self all in one week, right?

But then… I didn’t really do much. Of anything. For starters, most of the time I felt like I was dying, which is my body’s really kind way of processing stress and anxiety. I struggle to catch the thoughts in order to stop them from taking root because my anxiety seems to bypass my conscious brain and instead just keeps my body constantly on the edge of fight-or-flight mode. So that was exhausting. I barely read a word. I did take six bags of books to the op shop, but that wasn’t so much satisfying as it was a slap in the face to my own humanness and a sudden existential tailspin into questions about mortality and the unenduring nature of pretty much everything ever. (I had visions of myself surrounded by a crumbling tower of old books, so make of that what you will). I watched a lot of German television and developed an unhealthy obsession with the all-too-cute cast, lurking their work anywhere it was to be found online. I wrote in my journal, but mostly it felt like me self-indulgently regurgitating all the messy thoughts I hadn’t had time to process towards the end of the semester. I thought too much about how to change things that can never change. I attempted to address all the questions of the universe, as well as some of the seemingly unfair issues of human existence. (Like, why do some people get to be pretty and others don’t? Why do some people get to be pretty and good at sports and musically-talented and with a winning personality? [See aforementioned German actors] How come it’s impossible to connect with certain people no matter how much time you invest in them?) The end result is that I felt just as confused after all my writing and processing as I did before it, and the whole week had this unsettled, dissatisfying hue over it.

This is the part where you should be laughing. I sure would be if it weren’t all so pathetic.

What you know -- and what I should’ve considered -- is that you can’t rewrite a life in a week. You can’t do everything you’ve put off for five years in five days. You can’t reboot just like that. I wailed at my BFF about this via text, slamming her with all my failed aspirations and intentions and confessing to her the extent of my ineffectiveness: “Why can’t I get obsessed with actual important things?” She is wise and sensible, and replied by saying, “You don’t have to turn on the Christianity when all of life is grounded in it.”

Her words -- always good -- reminded me that, when you live a life devoted to something (or Someone), there doesn’t get to be any distinction between secular and sacred. If you’re married everything you do is as a husband or wife, not just the husbandly/wifely things. You don’t turn it on or off. All things are permitted, but not all things are beneficial. It’s okay sometimes to rest, to think, to wait hopefully and expectantly for the sun to rise and burn away the last remnants of fog.

We live in a world that values achievement over just about everything else. There is no glory in quietly being. But sometimes that’s exactly what we need to do.

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Conversations:

• Asea -- everything you said about HTTYD2: YES. A thousand times. And I'm sorry you had such a rough day the day you posted. Here's an across-the-sea hug from me.
• Jasmine Ruigrok -- David Crowder is great; you really need to give him a listen! I loved your rundown of your day. It made me miss getting to sing with my siblings.
• Joy -- feel free to email me anytime! And your blog party sounds like a lot of fun. I'm going to pop by for a visit!

A sudden flash of Sehnsucht:

When I was a child, moments of wonder, moments when I truly felt down to my deepest self that life was a grand fairytale and I was living in its pages, were not uncommon.

I remember clearly one day when such a moment occurred. It was the middle of winter, and even the air felt grey. My sisters and brother and I had gathered at the edge of our lot for some kind of crazy game, and as we stood looking out across the paddock, the winter breeze came up and swept across the field. The vast crop of tall lucerne was transformed into a wild, rippling sea of vivid green. The shimmering sea swiffled and quivered and rose and fell with each gust of wind and our response was to rush into it, as though we could ride the waves. Even then, as a much younger person, I felt that here was something wonderful, something beyond the realm of the every day. There was an ache in the back of my throat, and a sudden urgency to experience the moment entirely, fully, with my whole self. Then came the startling question: how much more of myself can I give if I am here, living the moment already?

I think children are better at finding those moments than the rest of us. I’m not sure whether it’s a gifted ability that we lose with age, or simply that the crushing weight of the momentary so bears us down in adulthood that there is little time to consider anything else. I only know that when those moments come to me now, they are startling and unexpectedly lovely. They hurt, and they heal.

I will be reading something wonderful and living and true, and the beautiful sentences will take hold of me so that for a second it is hard to breathe from the wonder and the goodness. Or my tiny niece will bury her perfect round head right in the baby-sized hollow where my neck and shoulder meet, and nestle there. Another time, such a moment will arrive through a piece of music. A composer somewhere in the ages of human history, a person I have never met, will have taken notes and movement and dynamics to transform a shapeless cloud of feeling or memory into a note- picture that is visible and recognisable to me. Or I will be sitting on a faded rug under the crisp light of an autumnal Queensland sun, and the people I love most are gathered around me, and for the merest instant I see my life as if from a distance. I see it for the movie that I get to watch as I live it. I am struck with a thunderclap of sudden, complete knowledge of how good things are even in the brief upsets, how golden the hills are between the valleys of challenge and confusion and small heartbreaks.

I suspect that, as children, we often keep these instances of everyday illumination tight within ourselves. I know that if I thought about them at all then, it was with the vanity of childhood, the sort of conceit which believes that no one else could possibly have felt like this, ever. We don’t consider these things to be universal. We think they are ours alone, and sometimes that realisation is like a hug or a glad secret, but at other times it makes us lonely. What a happy wonder, then, to discover that others have felt these things, too – that, even more than this, people have recorded them, spoken of them, and thrown their experience into the vast pool of relating that reminds us that we are humans together in our human-ness.

L.M. Montgomery called such moments ”the flash”, and she put the flash into words in the experiences of her semi-autobiographical heroine, Emily of New Moon.

It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside – but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the enchanting realm beyond – only a glimpse – and heard a note of unearthly music. This moment came rarely – went swiftly, leaving her breathless with the inexpressible delight of it. She could never recall it – never summon it – never pretend it; but the wonder of it stayed with her for days. 

C.S. Lewis spoke of a similar experience – or, rather, a similar feeling – but a feeling for which he felt there was no true English word. Instead he settled upon the German word, Sehnsucht, which can be translated as a yearning, a craving, or a sense of missing something incredibly deeply. Lewis called this Sehnsucht an “inconsolable longing” for a thing we cannot identify. For him, too, it visited through unexpected clashes of beauty, calling it:

…that unnameable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World's End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves.

I fumble for my own right word to describe this sensation. The search is fruitless, but I find something akin to it: inspiration. And inspiration is not the right word or even almost the right word, but it is a cousin feeling. For inspiration is a gift and a beauty in and of itself, but it is not satisfied to simply be. It wants to move, and it will not be content until it goes somewhere, until it works itself out in some kind of art or response or worship. Sehnsucht afflicts us with the same irreconcilable tension. We experience these brief moments when suddenly the ridiculous constraints of time and gravity and history open up for the merest slit and we get to see past it all into something beyond, something that – even though it is unfamiliar – we recognise, and we long for. And there is a collision of satisfaction and longing. As with inspiration, my heart is full, yet it is hungry.

And I suppose that such moments shouldn’t surprise me. If, as C.S. Lewis says, we are souls who have bodies rather than bodies who have souls, then my soul is the realest reality, the most real part of my self. Should I wonder, then, that sometimes the lacy veil of the temporal lifts and, just for a second, I get a glimpse of the eternal? I should not.

Neither should I be troubled by the irreconcilability of it. We are hemmed in on all sides by finiteness, but these bodies we wear, like the clothes of our souls, will one day be outgrown. And once we’re free from their constraints, once we’re out in the broad infinity, everything will be turned loose to find its reconciliation. The flash, Sehnsucht, inspiration – these will all make sense in the Someday.

For now, though, I watch. And if I am set on fire just for a moment by a thrilling and unexpected glimpse of what Annie Dillard calls ‘the corner where eternity clips time’, then so much the better. It helps me to remember that this life is not all there is. I thank the God of infinity for that.

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Conversations:

• I am loving all your comments and reblogs and c. on the giveaway! You've still got ten days to enter so be sure to at least get up in there. I mean, BOOKS, you know?
• Asea -- I approve of your methodology in singlehandedly disproving my remarks about commenting etc. Nice work! Oh and I worked out why I'm ahead in Hawkeye -- I've been buying the individual issues (digitally) rather than the collections. So individual issues are up to #18, but the compilations haven't got that far yet. I'm beyond keen for #19. Where is #19? I need #19!
• Katie -- isn't it crazy that LiveJournal and commenting and even long emails feel like part of the old media? It takes serious, disciplined intent to continue to cultivation real engagement in others' worlds and even in social media. It's something I want to commit to doing more because I think it's important and it would be a shame to lose the wonderful community generated by the early days of blogging and LiveJournalling.
• Mama Essy -- and well glad I am that Jess was here.
• Meaghan -- aw get out with you.
• Milliebotreads -- thanks for your awesome comment! I agree with you; I think so much of the makeup of social media lately is about the cursory glance or the brief engagement. There is not as much time inherently built into the task of perusal and reply. As we keep finding shorter and shorter ways of granting our approval or disapproval, it's inevitable that we will cling to those shortcuts instead of going about things in a more time-sucking manner.  

(If this post seems familiar, it's because I shared a snippet from it in 2012.)

10/100 (a letter to childhood dreams of grandeur)

Dear little starry-eyed former self,

It hurts, a little, to break this to you, but I'm going to serve it to you straight: you grow up to be quite ordinary. Certainly you care about things a lot. You feel things a lot. You think things a lot. But you are not particularly original, particularly smart, particularly brave, particularly endearing, or particularly funny. The realisation of this hurts, sometimes. I mean, it hurts the eleven-year-old you still stuck inside the thirty-something me. Because, while gravity has taken its toll on the outside, gravitas hasn't entirely consumed the interior. The fraction of me that is you keeps hoping that when I grow up, I'll be amazing.

To be honest, dreamy younger Danielle, there will be a lot of people smarter and more gifted than you. Very rarely, in a little spark of something halfway between Sehnsucht and illumination, you'll feel as though you are able to look at things for what they really are, and the realisation will cause your heart to beat quicker and your whole world will have an instant of greater, richer clarity. But mostly those moments will ride on the words and wisdom of other smarter people who have similiar experiences on a more regular basis.

There are people in this world who don't just see things for what they are; they see things for what they were, once, and what they could be in the future. Occasionally, you will feel as though you have a good idea. But there are people in this world who not only have good ideas but are able to articulate them so fiercely and so beautifully that they empower others to take hold of these good ideas and run with them until they are no longer ideas at all but clear, living actualities. There are people who will look at what goes on in the world and be able to tie it into the vast narrative of human history, recognising patterns and deviations, the ebb and flow of humanity's mark on the world.

There are people who are good at what they do, and people who are truly brilliant at what they do, and then there are people who are brilliant at what they do yet somehow also possess the voice, and the charisma, and the rare configuration of beautiful facial symmetry that makes people sit up and take notice. These people are able to talk about what's important to them without their features scrunching up into an ugly cry, who look endearing and purposeful even when squinting into the sun.

But this letter isn't to those people. It's to you. You'll grow up, little you, and you won't be especially amazing. If I could slip back through time and let you know that, I don't think I would. Because if you can't have dreams of grandeur as a child, then when can you? It's important that you think big thoughts, hopeful thoughts, foolish thoughts, before the cynicism of the world slaps them out of you.

If I did end up face to face to with you, though, and you asked me whether you'd be brilliant like all those other people? I'd tell you to stop looking at them if all it means is comparison.

But if you are looking so that you can cheer for them, honour them, learn from them, and imitate their goodness, then by all means, go. Know this, however: you won't be a genius, but you can have a go at doing ordinary well. You won't. Not always. But you can try. And if time and again you come up against limitations (even if the primary one is simply that you're too darn scared), then that's okay. Start again tomorrow. If it's possible to do something so earthbound as eating or drinking and yet make it for the glory of God, then it's possible to work extraordinarily hard at your ordinary life.

Chin up, little heart. Normal people still dream.

Why I still think blogging is important (even though I'm kind of terrible at it):

Recently I've been dipping into the archives of Pink Ronnie's lovely blog. It's composed by the mother of a gaggle of little boys and is such a beautiful, gentle record of one woman's life. I've been especially struck by the little excerpts from her personal journals. Her voice comes through in these snippets so clearly, yet there is also a refreshing sense of contemplation and self-examination.

Ronnie's words remind me of why I love blogging and how good it can really be. I think, back in the day when blogging first moved from the domain of geeks to the domain of anyone, there was some cheesy sheepiness associated with blogging. There was this idea that blogging was a play medium, not a legitimate form of written expression and certainly nothing approaching literary expression. I still hear people discuss blogging as though it is a craft for fourteen-year-olds talking only about high school and who they're crushing on this week.

If blogging ever was merely this (chalk me up as a skeptic), it's certainly moved beyond that place. In the western world, almost everyone communicates online to some degree. The proliferation of facebook, twitter, and email mean that (for good or ill) lots of people articulate their thoughts in a written context on many different occasions any day. Blogging, which was once considered the obnoxious upstart, the death of thoughtful self-expression, can now almost be thought of as long-form writing.

Now, though, amidst the myriad of snippet-like thought-bubbles we leave behind us like a little trail on the internet, blogging has almost been left behind. Blogging is no longer the illegitimate lovechild of the journaller and the journalist; rather, it's the elderly gentleman in the room who doesn't even realise how unintentionally hipster he's being. My analogy's all wrong, of course; it sounds like I think blogging is outdated -- and I absolutely don't. But what I mean is that blogging represents a slower pace, a deliberateness, an intentional deceleration that is starting to feel vaguely peripheral or old-school. I haven't researched it, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the rate of new blogs being created has dropped somewhat over the last few years. Why spend half an hour composing a blog post that receives three comments when you can spend half a minute composing a facebook status that receives thirty likes?

But that's the very reason I think blogging is still important. I don't mean a reverse of what CS Lewis calls "chronological snobbery" -- that because something is older, it must be better; I mean blogging is good because slowing down and considering is both healthy and helpful. We are too lazy -- I am too lazy -- to slow down. Perhaps that sounds contradictory. But we are used to biting off information and spitting it out in tiny chunks. There is no chewing or digesting; there is no waiting for our food to settle between courses.

Composing blogs and reading the long-form blogs of others is the long Sunday brunch in our little world punctuated by the drive-through meals that are twitter, tumblr, and facebook. None of these are wrong, neither are any of them inherently better, but blogging is important simply because it offers something that these other shorter forms do not.

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I've mixed the metaphors and gotten a wee bit excited. You'd never guess I'd been sitting on this post for a week. But I just have a lot of feelings about blogging, you know?

Still wrecking these journals:

Sometimes biting the bullet means doing the thing to 70% of standard because if you waited till you had the time and energy to do it to 100%, well it would never happen at all. I'm talking about the dodgy pictures here, taken in haste and in low light. But this could also be a metaphor for the very idea that the Wreck This Journal project fosters. Sometimes the quest for perfection (in creativity, in art, in craft, in relationships, in work, in life) can be so powerful that it completely paralyses the doer. Waiting until ability and passion reach full capacity before beginning is like the perfect recipe for unachievement, for non-doing.

I think that's the intrigue of Wreck This Journal. By blatantly ignoring perfection, you're set free to start. Right now. With anything. Free from expectations.

I'm still working on the Wreck This Journal project with my eleven-year-old students, and if possible we are having even more fun than before. Originally, we'd flip open to a random page and do whatever the instructions told us to, but we found that this method was kind of conducive to cheating. If one of the kids came to an instruction that didn't seem appealing, they'd discard it. Now we're going at it again, one page at a time, in order -- and that way we're forced to do even the pages that weird us out ("Chew the page? WHAT."). I love seeing the kids' incredulous faces when I read out the latest instruction: "Really?" Last week found us tying string around the spines of our books and swinging them through the air and into walls. There was complete disbelief followed quickly by giggles -- which pretty sums up the whole project. Plus, it's a fresh way to try new things and save precious pieces of ephemera like birthday gift wrap, picture book illustrations, and treasures scavenged from outside.

Like falling off a (b)log.

I just complained to my mother -- whose dining table I am sitting at right now -- that it feels like so long since I've blogged that I've actually forgotten how to do it. She replied, "I'm sure it's just like falling off a log." Thank you, Mum, for your oh-so-convenient post title inspiration.

It's the Christmas end of the year; the warm end, the sunny end, the end that is packed full with plans and dates and shopping and hopes for tying up all the loose threads of the dreams that were anticipated at the beginning of the year and now stand won, lost, fulfilled, or forgotten. Last week at the grocery store, I bought peaches. Today, I bought apricots. Stonefruit packing the shelves and Jingle Bells playing over the radio: just another sign of approaching Christmas.

Last night, we sat among twinkle lights and sailor's knots and, if we were artists of some kind, tried to embody the hope of what Christmas means by exploring it in some form of creation. If we were the recipients of that art, we tried to lay hold of what the artist was doing, what the artist in all of us is doing whenever we try to look past the dirty glass of the temporal and see the lasting thing that is hidden just beyond it. I was privileged to have some of my short fiction read publicly for the first time ever and, contrary to expectations, I didn't die of awkwardness while I sat there and listened. Rather, I felt the honour of seeing words I had chewed over, crossed and uncrossed, come to life in another person's voice and inflection and lovely enthusiasm. It was pretty special.

One of my little students enlisted my help to write out his Christmas list a few weeks ago. He didn't need my help determining what should go on the list; he just needed some pointers on how each item was spelt. He had all the big guns up there -- the latest branded toys I can't remember the names of, a Wii (or whatever the newest version of a Wii is), stuff like that -- and when he felt happy with the list, he pushed it forward on the table and left it there as a sort of offering for all of us to approve. I had already moved on to something else and was marking the work of another student. The little guy glanced at my hand moving over the page, and snatched his list back. "What are those pens called that are actually pencils and they click the lead out?" he asked, looking at the one in my hand. "Pacers," I said. He licked his bottom lip and picked up his pencil again. "How do you spell pacer?"

Another student was filling time while her sister had a piano lesson. From across the room, she interrupted a song to ask, "How do you draw a major?"
"Like, C major or A major? Like in music?" I asked.
"No!" she said.
"Like, in the army?" I offered. "A general or a captain or a major?"
"No," she said, getting frustrated. "Like, away in a major."
"Oh, that. Right. Yeah, that's called a manger."
"Okay. Can you show me how to draw one?"

My novel ate me.

Nanowrimo is proving to be an exhilarating, terrifying ride. Whenever I'm called upon to explain the project, there's an inevitable question that follows: "And... is this fun for you?" I find myself pausing before I answer -- a lot. Trying to formulate a response to this question has had me asking myself, "Is this fun? Is any of it fun?"

I've come to the conclusion that, for me at least, there's only a very tiny aspect of the writing life that is just pure, delirious, unadulterated fun. It's those moments when the story has a firm hold on you and the present world ceases to exist while you are sucked down into a vortex of words and people and places that have somehow blossomed into life, apparently on their own. Those moments, when you are just dragged along for the ride, are the most fun.

Mostly though, for me, it's like trying to catch a cloud and keep it in your hand. There is this nebulous, vague, but seemingly important idea or picture or feeling I am trying to lay hold of, and every word I write is either chipping away at the rock that comes between me and the idea, or putting a clear line around it, waiting for each little fragment of the drawing to join up and turn this transparent whisp of condensation into a clear shape, an outline I can recognise and understand. Proving my point entirely, in this paragraph alone I have stumbled into a thousand metaphors in my attempt to make things clear -- and still I've failed.

What I'm trying to say is that, mostly, writing kind of hurts a little bit. There are rarely times when it doesn't feel like very hard work. I write with my stomach clenched and a frown line between my eyebrows. I write slowly, methodically, imperfectly -- none of which sounds like the definition of fun. And when the slow, methodical, imperfect work is done, I must go over it all again, seeing if I can make the imperfect just a little more perfect, the unclear just slightly more clear. I bump up against my own failings again and again, which also is rather not fun, and I see just how not-good I am at forming words into pictures, of making the untrue appear true.

But for some reason, I still want to do it, and this is the weirdest thing of all about writing. In trying to find something to compare it to, the only example I've latched onto is that of exercise. Exercise is horrible. If you're not born possessing the sporty gene, then it's just something that you have to drive yourself to do whether you feel like it or not. You have to wear ugly shoes, and you know you will get sweaty, and you might get a stitch or an ache in that part of your leg where it feels like there's a split between two bones that shouldn't be there. You do it anyway, though, because you know you must, and a part of you hates it the whole time.

But another part of you comes alive, and starts thinking thoughts in rhythm to the beat of your feet against the ground, or in time to the revolution of the wheels whirring underneath you. And you get sweaty and sticky and there's a hard, sharp stitch that the hateful part of you considers might be the beginnings of a heart attack. But the other part of you revels in the humidity and the knife-edge of the breaths going into your lungs, and that part of you tells you to do just five minutes more, and then another five minutes more. And then you are done, and the only part of you making any sense is the part of you that feels most alive now, and you can almost think that you're actually getting healthier with each hard-drawn breath you take, and you feel lighter than you did before you started, even though there's an odd click in your ankle that you suspect wasn't there before. And you know that tomorrow night, when you are tired and you just want to sit and watch tv, you are going to hate the thought of exercise all over again, but that tiny alive part of you will nag at you until you start moving again, and once more you will feel happy and alive and like this horrible horrible thing is what you were actually meant to be doing all along.

I think writing is a little bit like that -- for me, at least. It hurts and makes me ache but it's a good ache, the sort of ache that stays with me into the next day and reminds me that I have flexed a muscle that was made to be moved, that is all the healthier for having been stretched.

All of which, of course, I did not intend to say when I sat down to compose this post. I was going to write, instead, about the hazy sunset my mother and I drove out to shoot last night, and to give you a little sampling of the pictures. I was going to tell you how the nano novel is consuming much of my writing time, and is using up nearly all of my meagre store of words. I was going to say that I have no words left to give to such paltry pursuits as blogging.

But look! My own blog makes a mockery of me. I suppose that's as it should be.

NaNo is a go-go:

I think the face I am pulling here, in this delightfully-grainy webcam photo, is a look of cautious optimism -- either that, or concern for my mental welfare. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Last year, I bemoaned the fact that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) falls ridiculously, cruelly, in November -- almost the worst month possible for such an undertaking, for those of us in the southern hemisphere at least. I mean, there's just so much happening, including (or sometimes especially) the end of semester finals and all the joy that comes with that.

This year, however, I'm already done with uni (thank you, bizarre trimester system) and although everything else is still happening, that is one sizable chunk of stress delight which I don't need to think about. I only made this realisation about two weeks ago, and the lightbulb moment brought with it glowing feelings of enthusiasm and a little madness. I could do NaNo this year. I could actually do it.

So I'm going to. And by "do it", I mean "attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days." I know the frenzy is part of it, and I'd really really love to reach that ridiculous finish line, but at the same time I'm excited just to be giving it a go, regardless of the consequences. I've waited years for this! Who else is joining in?

Of course, I feel ridiculously under-prepared. Friends I know have been outlining for weeks (months!) now, and many have their majestic plots all neatly laid out and ready for the prose work to begin. I have a half-baked idea that has been growing in urgency and interest for me, but which still has no clear ending, even though the characters are starting to make themselves known. This isn't my ideal scenario. I'd love to have a fabulous plot outline drawn up, with names and faces and character sketches of all the major players. As it is, however, I just keep getting more and more odd little ideas and filing them away mentally. I take comfort from the fact that NaNo founder Chris Baty seems to have taken the same approach as me every year he's actually participated. Somehow, out of his personal madness and lack-of-plan, novels have emerged.

That's my goal, too. Just a novel. Not a great novel or even a good one, but in the true spirit of Ann Lamott, I just want to have another really trashy first draft under my belt, written in the haze and frenzy of one busy month. It'll be a good kick-start to the writing system during these Summer holidays, when I'd like to get lots of words flowing.

What am I planning to write? Well, it's a buddy story with biblical allusions, and it's set in dystopian Brisbane -- which is frozen, no less. Also, there are aliens, because, well, because.

Yes, please go ahead and laugh. I am.

And while I may be laughing, I'm also super, super looking forward to this. I might just be a little bit in love with my main characters already. Onward!

Wreck This Journal Redux

I haven't written much here about my teaching work, a one-day-a-week job trying to infuse some English and history into the lives of four local tweens and teens. Since there's only so much reading and writing three non-bookish guys can handle, I try to stick to about four hours of formalised schoolwork, and then some more relaxed projects -- or even a trip to the skate park.

For ten-year-old F though, my lone bookish girl buddy, no amount of work is too much. So I've been sharing with her my copy of Wreck This Journal (introduced here and here) and we've used it as a launching pad to create our own wrecked journals in cheap, endearing composition books. It's a non-compulsory part of the school experience, so at first F was the only one to really take the bait. "Wreck a journal?" she said, her eyes huge and gleaming. But when we flipped open to a random page and attempted to follow its instructions ("Give this page to a friend. Ask them to do something destructive to it. Don't watch"), the boys were intrigued -- and more than willing to assist us in our destruction. Although only one of the boys has succumbed to the temptation and insisted on his own journal, it's become a process that the others are actively interested in. They actually fight to pick a page from the source book and challenge us to obey whatever it says.

One of the best parts of all is the fact that there are no rules, which means we have to scour our imaginations for our own creative interpretation of the instructions. When I brought along a recent copy of Frankie to cut up and use in collages, F was aghast. "I can't cut up your beautiful magazine!" she said, "That'll ruin it!" I assured her that this was exactly the idea. Even cooler, the fact that we aren't striving for a certain standard of perfection means that no page is "right" or "wrong". If this was a worldview, it'd be dangerous. In learning to boldly try new things with paper and paint, however, it's just fun and a grand challenge.

[Brilliance of brilliance: the folks at Penguin have released a teacher's guide for exploring Wreck This Journal. You can find the downloadable pdf at author Keri Smith's blog.]

Edit: boo! The pictures are all pixely! I don't know how to fix this, but if you click on the images, you can see them in all their hi-res glory.

Sehnsucht:

It can come from anywhere -- out of the blue -- though I suspect it appears more when you're actively looking for it. Today, it was in the words of Annie Dillard, whose lovely sentences made my stomach muscles hurt from the not-breathing. Other times it will be something else -- a picture of one niece's impossibly-long eyelashes resting on the curve of her cheek, or the moment when my other niece buries her tiny round head right in the baby-sized hollow where my neck and shoulder meet. Or hearing a piece of music that takes an emotion I have felt, or that I have known others to have felt, and pulls a tune from that emotion, taking a shapeless cloud of feeling and forming it into a note-picture that is visible, recognisable. Or I will be sitting in the sun with people I love and for the merest instant I see my life from a distance. I see it for the story that it is, for the movie that I get to watch as I live it, and I realise how good things are even in the brief upsets, how golden the moments are between the challenges and the small heartbreaks.

LM Montgomery's Emily (of New Moon) talked of this thing she called The Flash. CS Lewis borrowed a word from the Germans, Sehnsucht. And I wonder if they were both speaking of the same experience. When I think of Emily's "flash", I think of how, occasionally, we have these brief moments when suddenly the ridiculous constraints of time and gravity and history open up for the merest slit and we get to see past it all into something beyond, something that -- even though it's unfamiliar -- we seem to recognise. And Sehnsucht, well it can be translated as a yearning or a craving, even an intense missing -- whether or not we know what it is that we miss. For me, it's a great and irreconcilable clash of satisfaction and longing. In one moment it heals and hurts. My heart is full, yet hungry.

In a way, it reminds me of inspiration. Inspiration is a gift and a beauty in and of itself, but it is not satisfied to simply be. It wants to move, and it will not be happy until it goes somewhere, until it works itself out in some kind of art. And when I say that Sehnsucht -- that longing for a far-off country we know but can't quite pinpoint -- is irreconcilable, I only mean that in the sense that we are hemmed in on all sides by finiteness. Once we're freed from those constraints, once we're out in the broad infinity, everything is turned loose to find its reconciliation. It will all make sense in the Someday. 

For now, though, we watch. And if we are startled by a thrilling and unexpected glimpse of what Annie Dillard calls 'the corner where eternity clips time', so much the better -- because then we remember. This life is not all there is. To steal the words of another: we were meant to live for so much more.

* * * * * 

Conversations:

Carla and Alastair -- YAY first and beloved commenter! I love you, and I love that you love me in spite of my overthinkyness. And no, while I might feel shy leading up to a visit if it's ages since I've seen you, I could never be shy with you in real life. You are almost family!

Meaghan -- random fact #14: I learnt any awesomeness from you.

Charis -- thank you for persisting with commenting even though the internet is convinced you are a cyborg. Please don't terminate me. Is it weird that I am sort of happy that there is another person out there like me whose special talent is nervousness? I feel your pain and yet I love that I've got a buddy in this odd affliction! Ooh, I love quippy and fast humour, too (THE WEST WING!) and I hate watching others' awkwardness in real life. I can only handle it if I know it's made up. 

Andrea -- you should know by now I like quirky, conventionally daggy things, right? :D

Sarah -- aw, it's tough when you have big assignments all due at once! I hope you come through it unscathed! And I still haven't posted your questions and my answers, but it's on my bloggy to-do list :)

livingintheshadowlands -- if Atticus Finch was a living, breathing, non-fictional man, I might even propose to him.

Laura Elizabeth -- YAY you actually get this! Somehow, talking about what you'll be given after a grandparent passes away seems so morbid and -- yes -- mercenary, but in actuality it turns out to be quite natural and even funny :D. PS. I loved seeing Avengers with you yesterday. It feels like ages ago already, though, because it's been a really busy 24 hours. Boo to time passing too fast!

Jess Axelby -- so if we ever get a little hangout together again, Office marathon y/y?

Elizabeth in Alaska -- thank you, dear friend! x

[lately] a spot of colour II:

I couldn't resist sharing a few more snaps from our visit to GoMA's Look Now, See Forever exhibit by Yayoi Kusama. I know nothing about art criticism or art history, but these works were just a joy to behold, full of exuberance, life, and colour. I love the fact that they are the works of an older artist, someone who, in spite of her age, has never forgotten how to look at life from a different angle.

Look Now, See Forever is on for just six more days, until the 11th of March.
If you can't get there, this link will take you to an interactive online catalogue.
Enjoy!

Marching on:

There are so many possible and overused puns to be created about March, and -- aren't you proud of me? -- I resisted them all except for that teeny and probably not too cheesy one right there in my post title. I'm excited about March, for a bunch of reasons. It signals the beginning of Autumn. It contains my sister Lauren's birthday. And there are a heap of fun, creative things happening throughout this month, too.

Today my teeny little group of writer-friends (newly christened The Fig Tree Writers) handed in a grant proposal to our local arts council in pursuit of funding for a two-day screenwriting workshop with super-cool wordsman (and lecturer and published author and scriptwriter) Dr. Venero Armanno. My role in pulling together the proposal has been fairly minor compared to the work of the other ladies, but it's been exciting to see the process evolve and be behind-the-scenes on the chasing around, the gathering of potential attendees, the flurry of emails back and forth, and the meetings. Now to sit back and wait -- a few months! -- before we find out if our grant's been approved. Here's hoping!

What else? I'm taking part in the #marchphotoaday challenge, curated by the lovely photographer-lady fatmumslim, who came up with the list of prompts. I joined #janphotoaday too late to really get involved, and loved #febphotoaday a LOT, so I was excited to get a new month's worth of fun photography challenges. The idea is to take a picture each day, inspired by that date's photo prompt (see up there?). How you interpret that prompt is completely up to you -- and getting to see the different ways everyone does that is one of the fun parts of the project.

I'll be posting my pictures to instagram (my handle there is ohdeardanielle) where it's easy to follow everyone's progress by visiting the #marchphotoaday hashtag. However, you can engage in this project in whatever format you want. If you don't have an iPhone or iPod touch, take pictures with your digital camera (and post them to your blog!). It would also be a great way to reacquaint yourself with a film camera you haven't played with in a while. There are so many fun ways to do this.

Another March happening I'm excited about is the March of Books over at YLCF.org. I'm singing that same old song when I tell you that I really, really like books. It only follows, then, that an entire month dedicated to all things bookish has to be a lot of fun. Throughout the month, YLCF team writers will be posting book reviews and book-related talk (I've got three posts lined up). There's also an opportunity for you to be involved (and maybe make more blogging friends at the same time) by posting reviews to your own blog, and sharing in blog link-ups throughout the month. There are some cool book giveaways, too -- and who doesn't love free books? So do join us for that little bookity bloggity adventure.

Of course, all that just serves to remind me that I am yet to do anything very concrete with my little March of the Penguins project. I've read the first book in my epic journey, and once I was done, I started dreaming about doing a video post to review it. Then I got scared off that idea, and I stopped altogether. Silly. March would be prime time for me to reignite the Penguin book review extravanganza flame -- especially since I get double the pun value. Originally the joke was on the Penguins bit, but with it being March now, my project title packs a double-pun punch -- or maybe it just kills two (flightless) birds with one stone?

Okay I'll stop now, but before I go: what is the one best book you read over Summer (or Winter, if you're in that part of the world)? To make it even pickier, no re-reads allowed. It has to be a first-time read.

* * * * *

Conversations:

Laura Elizabeth -- oh, that is a fabulous name! Can you please adopt a newborn baby tomorrow and name it Autumn? Thank you. Also, I agree with your reasons for liking Autumn and Spring, and that's probably why they both vie for position as my favourite season.

Carla & Alastair -- Carla, you know so much more about plants than me. I had no idea what it was called! You're right; it would make an AMAZING wedding bouquet. Also, I hadn't actually put "polar bear" and "groom" together in my head, so when you said that, I started imagining a polar bear in a suit, and... it was quite handsome.

Joy -- happy Autumn to you, too! As I was saying to Laura above, Autumn and Spring fight for favourites with me. Whichever one is coming the soonest usually gets to be my favourite :).

Hannah -- you do write the cheeriest little blog comments! Thank you for being a sweetie. xx

Lauren -- <3

Elizabeth -- :D

Un -- she's so "photonogenic" ;)

Katie -- isn't it a lovely chair? It was my Mum's gift to my Dad for Christmas. I'm a tad envious.

Meaghan -- ha! If I started to turn brown and crinkly like an Autumn leaf, I'll take a picture of myself and post it here :D.

Rebecca Simon -- and as if to spite us, Summer's just turned up the heat over the last few days, vindictive little season that it is!

[lately] a spot of colour:

The obliteration room is part of Yayoi Kusama's Look Now, See Forever exhibit at GoMA. It began with the installation of a white living space, consisting of dining and lounge areas, and furnished with the necessities and commodities of everyday life -- chairs, tables, bookshelves, a cd player, potted plants, and a piano.

The obliteration room 2011 revisits the popular interactive children’s project developed by Yayoi Kusama for the Queensland Art Gallery's ‘APT 2002: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’. In this reworked and enlarged installation, an Australian domestic environment is recreated in the gallery space, complete with locally sourced furniture and ornamentation, all of which has been painted completely white. While this may suggest an everyday topography drained of all colour and specificity, it also functions as a blank canvas to be invigorated — or, in Kusama’s vocabulary, ‘obliterated’ — through the application, to every available surface, of brightly coloured stickers in the shape of dots. [source]

Visitors to the obliteration room are handed a sheet of sticky circles and invited to stick them somewhere -- anywhere -- in the room. The result is a constantly-changing installation which slowly builds from a blank and somewhat empty environment into one which is crazy and full of character, developed not by one artist but by thousands. Everyone gets to take part!

In my ideal world, all public art installations would be like this -- interactive, joyful, and relatable to everyone, from children to adults. Of course, that's incredibly limiting, since one of the primary values of artistic expression is its power to be individual. Art need not be significant to everyone in order to be art. But that only makes it more cool to stumble into works like this, ones which are so accessible and so much fun.

You can see the obliteration room at GoMA until the 11th of March.

* * * * *

Conversations:

Carla -- thanks for loving me in spite of my randomness! And I will love you even though you called them "rock poos" instead of "rock pools" :D.

Mothercare -- it was really a lovely day. So many amazing things to look at, and the best people to look at them with :).

Un -- hee!

Lauren -- the fawn was my favourite part! And yes, I still want to jump into the pictures!