Elizabeth Gilbert

Click here to listen to an interesting TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love (has anyone read this by the way? I haven't done, and don't know too much about it, but must admit I'm more inclined to after listening to her talk.) She speaks about nurturing creativity, delving back through layers of history to make some interesting discoveries about the source and form of creative inspiration.

National Short Story Day

I've just realised how long it's been since I last wrote. But this may have something to do with 3 children having had chicken pox....or my husband being away regularly with work and me feeling like I have alot to deal with...or something like that!

Anyway, I'm really, really excited that I seem to be one step closer to setting up my website, Women's Writing Wheel. I have 12 writing guinea pigs (myself included) and, if I manage to sort out the remaining glitches, should be ready to roll at the start of January.

On another note, I see that it is National Short Story Day on December 21st. To be honest, I never even knew this existed, but I'm very pleased that it does. Click here to visit the website. It provides information on nationwide events taking place, aswell as an opportunity to read or listen to some of the best short stories, old and new.

Speaking of short stories, I've been enjoying listening (belatedly) to the five shortlisted entries for Radio 4's National Short Story Award. If you get that golden half hour after dinner when you can sit with your feet up, a cuppa and some chocolate (yeah, right!), have a click here to listen. Although I'm far more accustomed to reading short stories than listening to them, this makes an interesting change and really brings the whole 'storytelling' element alive.

Haikus

I am typing this blog with one finger as I have a wee babe (almost three weeks old) in the crook of my left arm. I wonder how many blogs I shall post in this manner?!

Inevitably, I have found virtually no time to write recently, save the occasional blog here or on my other blog. I've also managed a few rushed lines here and there in my diary (yup, can't quite let the longhand diary go...there's nothing quite like picking up a pen and scribbling away, and it's been going since I was nine.) I am snatching moments here and there to sort out Women's Writing Wheel, but what I could do with is hours rather than minutes so I could just get it launched. I'm longing to do so.

Perhaps, in these days of major time restrictions, I should invest more in haikus. I adore the art of the haiku. Although it's traditional form has been bastardized to suit Western tastes, this Japanese poetry form is best known for containing three lines with 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. It encapsulates an image; a thought; an idea and is perfect for that time when you have a pencil and scrap of paper to hand and are suddenly compelled to capture and immortalize a moment. My husband and I have filled an entire notebook with our haikus, ranging from the poignant (well, pognant for us, anyway) to the downright silly. But they are all memories.

So, in celebration of the haiku, here is one for the here and now:

Damp, muggy August

We lift our heads to the rains

Dig our roots deeper.

 

We are a family of five!

It feels like no time ago at all that my boyfriend (now husband) and I were laughing in that half-jokey half-serious way about one day having children. And suddenly we were married. Then a new little person followed swiftly on. And then another....and now, as of six days ago, we are a family of five. FIVE!!! Incredible.

We have had a little boy after two girls and I think it's going to take some time getting used to the novel sensation of saying him and his and boy and son and dealing with all his different bits and bobs. I am incredibly happy and feel so lucky - he is now safely with us, with ten little fingers and ten little toes and a pair of lungs on him to bring the Taj Mahal down.

I remember when I had my first baby, I suddenly had all this enforced but very welcome time when my little one embarked on her marathon feeding sessions. I think I read a book a week during those weeks and months. Wow, how different it's going to be this time round. When I settle down for a feed, I pull out My Cleaner by Maggie Gee (fantastic read by the way, highly recommended) but then a few seconds later, the girls are having a tiff, or one of them falls over, or wants me to read a story....or something along those lines. And that is absolutely FINE and normal and the last thing in the world I want to do is neglect them, it's more a case of a knee-jerk reaction, associating feeding with reading as the blueprint of the memory is still there.

I wish somebody could genetically engineer an extra arm or two for a new mother (especially a writing-obsessed mother), then I could reach over to the keyboard and tippety-tap away with one nimble finger whilst I use another arm to feed and another to draw my girls in and give them as many hugs as I can.

Every writer is a reader

This past week has been a non-writing week. I've just been too tired. Instead, it's been a reading week. I've finished Julia Gregson's 'East of the sun', set in 1920's India and charting the experiences of a group of young colonials. I picked it up cheaply from the library and it's not normally the type of book I'd read as it's definitely verging on trashy. However, it's perfect for my addled, sleep-deprived brain. Also, I have to give credit where credit's due and say that she's managed to create some memorable (if not somewhat irritating) characters - the type that I'm still thinking about now that the book's finished.

Ah, to create real, enduring characters - surely an aspiration for every writer.

Still no sign of the baby. Still hanging in there. My due date's tomorrow.

Grabbing precious moments

This is a waiting game. My third little person is due in four days but s/he could come any time now and I'm feeling so twingey I keep half-expecting to go into labour any minute.

This may well be quite a strange time to launch a new blog and a new creative writing website for women...but in a way perhaps the timing couldn't be better. There's a part of me, you see, that's taking myself by the shoulders and saying quite firmly that yes, your time is going to be limited (even more than normal, if that's possible!), but you musn't stop writing, or at least LIVING writing in some way. Because this is a passion. And it's wrong to turn our backs on our passions.

So, what am I doing with my writing at the moment (between trying to keep two energetic little girls entertained, get some rest, avoiding the sun's sweat-inducing rays and having false alarm contractions...). Well, I am writing a few press releases for a friend's travel company, going through the backpages of my beloved Mslexia magazine (this is the only magazine I subscribe to and every third month, it kerplunks through my letter box like the most delicious rare treat) and noting down all the new publications out there that take submissions and that I ought to be writing stories for (hmmm...). What else? I'm trying to find the time to finish (or properly start, if I'm being honest) a story for the same magazine - the theme is 'Departures' and when I was stuck in Hong Kong for 6 nights back in April as a result of the ash cloud, I was hit by a bolt of pure lightning inspiration for a short story. I should have written it there and then because this bolt of creative fervour has waned somewhat back in the London suburbs...however, I am determined to complete this story one way or the other before Mslexia's deadline in mid-Sept or so. I still have time.