About four hours from me writing this post, I'll be on a plane to America. Not only will I be heading to Tin House's Summer Writing Workshop to learn from the tremendous Jenny Offill, but I'll be generally travelling and exploring the country - Seattle to Portland, then New Orleans, New York, Boston before coming back home to Brisbane.
I've been planning the trip since February, but oddly it hasn't really felt real yet. Not even today, with my travel wallet full, my bags packed, and a touch hungover after a wonderful leaving party/picnic yesterday, has the trip settled in the snow globe of my head. Well, I suppose it'll have to today.
This year is going lightning fast. It's pretty nuts to think we're already checking out at the halfway point. By all accounts, it feels like we're over the hump that, for whatever reason, sat fat and angry at the start of this year. Things seem to be lightening up.
But looking ahead, I'm spending a lot of June tidying things up ready to spend July in America. It's my first time in the country, so I'm tentatively excited for it. Well, maybe a little more than tentatively. Maybe very excited. But nervous too. I've talked before about the fact that I'm a root layer more than a nomad, and this isn't a great big move, but in some ways it feels like it. It's four weeks in another country, bouncing state to state, and that's not always a form I do well in.
I hope I get a taste for it. I'd love to be more inclined that way. To find some traveller blood in me. Shake off this home body.
I'm a huge fan of Mad Men, so starting on the final run of episodes has a real bitter sweet feel to it. That said, the eighth episode of the season (that really felt like a new season opener, even if it's still technically season 7) played the marvelous song Is That All There Is? three times, which is a pretty rare feat for Mad Men.
As a result though, I've pretty much played the song on repeat for the last two weeks, hence the name of this post and, well, look it may or not be on several different writing playlists now.
In real life news - May's gotten a bit explosive - my mum's moving interstate which is very exciting for her, but also something that makes me a little sad as the opportunity for me to just drop in twice a week has more or less been shot. My sister's back in town though, and I'll be seeing more and more of my little brother. It's strange, given I had such constant relationships with family growing up to have what now is almost a kaleidoscope of relationships - changing shape and form and colour, to and from and back again.
Ah well. Fuel for writing, right?
On that note, I've set myself a few big writing goals this month from finalising the short story collection to getting out a new draft of my manuscript. I've written a ton of short fiction not a part of the collection over the last few weeks, so to redirect my focus again should hopefully be a good thing.
Just lastly, I'm thrilled to say that I will have a short story in the final Sleepers Almanac too, which is super exciting, so stay tuned for news on that too.
How about you though? What have you got set for May?
I had all these plans for the Easter break, but between seeing family and friends, I accidentally mainlined a season of Nashville. It's super trashy, but in the best possible way and I am basically obsessed. Plus the music is to die for. You're lucky this month the mixtape isn't just the soundtrack of the series. I got away with just two songs - Sam Palladio and Claire Bowen singing If I Didn't Know Better and Connie Britton and Charles Esten's No One Will Ever Love You. Both are pretty remarkable / my jam.
March slipped through my fingers a bit. I spent most of it down the rabbit hole writing a new draft of a young adult manuscript, and between that and the day job, the rest of my life and obligations took a bit of a back step. I've been catching up on that this week - seeing people and scheduling posts, watching movies for The Oscars Project.
As a result, I haven't written anything seriously since the end of last month, but that's changing. I've fallen back in love with a few short stories so am hoping to get those out into the ether this week before plunging into another longer process.
It's been nice for the little break, even if I have filled it up with Nashville.
I've never really believed in guilty pleasures. If you enjoy something, enjoy it! There's nothing to be ashamed of in liking something. Well, unless it's less than savoury, I suppose, but I've recently outted myself as a pretty huge One Direction fan. I can't help it! Their music is catchy and they're pretty charming or whatever.
This mixtape sums up my February feels pretty well, and I hope will set off a better March. February always feels like such a strange month, with less days and the weird, stagnant weather - whether that be Brisbane's heat or the freeze in many other parts of the world. It just doesn't seem to move as fast as anyone would like, I suppose. But then, that feels like this part of the year in general.
GrooveShark didn't have the Washington song unfortunately, so I've popped the YouTube link in below.
1. I've been keeping to one of my unofficial new year's resolutions of seeing a lot more of friends. It's made me a lot more responsible in time management which is something I hope I can keep up. Plus it totally reminds me of all the ways I love my friends.
2. I hit almost all of my writing goals in January too. I submit to nine different things - six short stories and three projects / EOI's. I'm hopeful about a few of them, but I'm trying to not dwell too much on work that's in that limbo when put with a publisher or journal and instead propel forwards with work.
3. On that note, I wrote very little on longer length projects in January. I wrote a lot more in the way of short fiction and short non-fiction pieces which I think is a good way to start the year. Being able to finish and submit work within a few weeks as opposed to, y'know, the forever and a half it takes with novels, has been a really good feeling. It's also helped me capture some of that momentum.
4. My sister's also moved back to Queensland. Her new place is only a half hour from me which is a really nice feeling. I know they say you don't know what you've got til it's gone, but I really think you don't know what you've been missing until you get it back.
5. Totally unrelated: Triple J's Hottest 100 was a bit of a dud list this year. That said, it also introduced me to the wonderful Thelma Plum. Unfortunately, she wasn't on Grooveshark, but I've included her in my Feb mixtape anyway because she's straight up great. Check out How Much Does Your Love Cost below.
So my January wasn't too crazy-eventful. It actually feels like one of the few times I've actually eased into a year. February's already looking busier. I'm back to work on one of the novels, and my QLA fellowship is set to kick off (!!!) Digital Writers Festival's on, and there are some great book launches and events happening around Brisbane which I'll be heading towards, including Yarn and Riverbend Poetry Series.
How about you? What do you have planned for February?
My boss
always tells us at work that events and projects should be like a duck on
water, an easy glide to the eye, but with the quick and hard pace of legs
below. Last year, I spent a lot of time paddling, and a lot of time treading
water.
This year
(even though we’re only a few days into it!), it already feels like I’m
starting to move. I made huge progress at my Katharine Susannah Prichard
Writers Centre residency at the start of December, and have managed to keep a
firm momentum with my writing since. I’ve fallen back in love with short
fiction, and have some really exciting new projects on the horizon.
The biggest
news – and something that will certainly be looming over me this year – is that
I am a recipient of a Queensland Literary Fellowship in 2015. I’m totally
thrilled, of course, and it’s super exciting to have both this sort of
recognition, but also to have a panel of people put their hat in the ring for
me to develop work.
So all in
all, I feel good about 2015. I feel good about what’s ahead, and what’s in
store. My legs will still be working hard of course, but hopefully I’ll get to
glide a little further.
I have been jamming HARD to Taylor Swift's new album '1989' over the last week or so, so you should probably count yourself lucky it isn't just that album under the guise of a mixtape. Blank Space is by far my favourite song on the album though, so that one won out for this guy.
I spent the most of October really trying to hit a deadline and wrote some 30,000 words over the course of the month - a pretty mean feat if I do say so myself. It's made it stressful, successful and straight up exhausting all at once, and has capped itself with a pretty nasty cold - meaning I didn't quite meet the deadline I'd worked so hard for. It's left me a bit of an unhappy mix of disappointed and frustrated. I've been sickness-inclined most of my life and it often feels like something that hinders me on a path to wilder ambitions when the reality of it is I probably get sick from the pressure I put on myself to constantly achieve.
So many people have told me I'm not a good relaxer, and the reality of it is that I find it very difficult to just chill. I even turn recreation into something I can check off a list - catch up on this show, go for a walk, read this book - as if the only way I can feel good is ultimately to feel like I've accomplished something. It's probably not the best state of mind.
On a much lighter note, my life's been all family this month. We finally laid my grandfather's ashes to rest, my brother went and came home from a school exchange to Japan and my sister's back in town. It's been a pretty nice feeling and forced me out of my own head for a while and into the chaos of family life. It doesn't look set to stop in November either, so it may be a different story by the end of next month.
How about you though? How was your October? What have you got planned for November?
The last two months have been pretty crazy. I didn't get around to making a mixtape for August unfortunately, so a lot of these songs I've been listening to for a little while now. August and September were both good months, scaffolded by festivals and events and my birthday (!) and good friends birthdays (!!!) I also moved out of my home and back into my dad's temporarily which has been, on the whole, a really positive thing for me right now.
Looking ahead to October, it's not looking any less busy. I'll be in Newcastle later this week for National Young Writers Festival and teaching Toolkit for Writers at Queensland Writers Centre commencing the next week. On top of that, I finished the first draft of a collection yesterday (!) and am working on a new one for the whole of October. I've got the new-project buzz at the moment, so I'm feeling pretty inspired and pretty excited, but I know it'll fade before the month's out, so I'm trying to get as much done as possible while I'm still this stoked on the project.
How about you? What do you have planned for October?
(Haha, I meant to post this yesterday, but had a fail, soooo, Tuesday night mixtape?)
It was such a cold July. It probably doesn't help that I did things that made that a more realised thing - garage sales and gardening and long rides on the Brisbane ferry. I'm not exactly built for winter - a natural teeth chatterer, so I'm excited to see spring unwinding in force over the last couple of days.
Brisbane seemed to recover from winter pretty quickly too. I mean, it always does. Brisbane's typically ten months summer, two winter (with spring and autumn lasting days between), but this year as a whole seems to be slipping right by me. Like time is something at the corner of my eye and never really in front of it. It's a strange sensation, but not an entirely bad one.
I can't say that August will be much better. It's a monster of a month, between exciting new QWC projects, festival season and moving house somewhere in the middle of it all, I'm trying to prepare myself by sleeping more and giving myself time out when I can. So far, it's working. So far.
What about you though? What do you have planned for August?
So, June was a bit of a hot mess. Not exactly bad, but a little more crammed than I expected, with the always pleasant scaffolding of sickness and that desperate scramble to catch up on work, both day job related and writing related. That said, it's not exactly like July's shaping up much better. There's a lot looming, and in kind of exciting news, I'll be talking myself hoarse between teaching Writing 101 at QWC starting this Wednesday, Blogging & Author Platforms at Sunnybank Hills Library on Saturday, and speaking on a LadyFest Panel on Women in the Arts next week. So all in all, a bit crazy!
On top of that, I'm moving in August and am starting to prepare myself for it. I've spoken before about being a bit of a root-layer, and this is one of the first times I've really been excited to move. Not just due to the one terrible housemate, but because it feels a bit like a new chapter, or growing up or some mix of both. Probably both.
Anyway, have a mixtape full of my jams over the last month, and, hey, what do you have planned for July?
June is National Young Writers' Month in Australia , and I've been floundering around with a few of my writing goals lately, so it makes for a great opportunity to get back on track. In prep, I FINALLY bought a new desk (my old one's legs gave months ago), and have set up a workspace that hopefully means less procrastination, less interruptions and more writing. SO, goals for the month are:
1. Finish putting Lost Girls together, the mosaic novel.
I feel like I've been working on Lost Girls forever. It's a novel of interwoven short stories with recurring characters, places and themes. I'd been on track with it at the start of the year, with only three stories left to finish to complete it, but my engine lost steam on it and I ended up dabbling in other things. I'm hoping to finish drafting one of the stories today (!) which'll put me in good stead to draft the other two and then put the sucker together by the end of the month.
2. Finish drafting Homebodies, the screenplay.
I've been messing around with this one for a while. It's a feature-length indie film screenplay about two sisters reunited when the older one's life falls apart. I've got a strong outline for it at this point and character bible's for the main cast, but I'd love to actually get a draft done this month.
3. Finish plotting The Belt, the graphic novel.
I'm a little looser with this one, but it's an idea I've had since highschool. Space military! Inter-planet politics! Aliens! Warfare! It's also always been a graphic novel in my head which, y'know, I have plenty of experience reading, but not a whole lot putting together. I'm not quite ambitious enough to want the whole thing done by the end of the month (hahahaha), but I really want to get it plotted out and the character bibles written and character designs drafted.
So pretty big tasks! I'm aiming to write for at least two hours a day, every day throughout the month (which I more-or-less do now). If I stick to this, hopefully I'll get shit done. To try and keep me on track too, I'm going to be posting updates every Monday, so you can expect to see that too.
Ah, April. You were a rainy, pendulum of a month. All in all, it was pretty great. I went to Melbourne! Was published in an anthology!! Did two readings of my work!!! Finished watching The Sopranos!!!! I mean. It was pretty great, and a nice change from the very emotional and difficult month of March. Anyway, have a mixtape. I've been feeling a bit head-bangy the last few days, so enjoy a bit of that in this mix in the form of The White Stripes and a little more chill with The Staves. Hope you like it.
March has been such a weird month for me, scaffolded by family tragedies and traumas. It's not that it hasn't had its upsides. I've finished editing my manuscript, been shortlist for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction and had a piece published and another one teed up for publication. It's pretty exciting professionally, it's just a shame that the balance has been so off this month.
Anyway, have a mixtape! It's full of my fave jams from this month, so I hope you enjoy them too.
February's been such a mixed month for me, scaffolded by incredible highs and tragic lows. I said a final goodbye to my grandmother, got an awesome performance review, had a new short story published and took care of my sister as she received some bad news. None of this has been romantic, haha, but it's still nice to get swept up in the fever of Valentines anyway, a distraction from a tumultuous month. So this monthlie is horribly romantic for y'all - the saga of a relationship told through some of my favourite songs of the moment and ever. Enjoy!
I've always really loved making mixtapes for people. The process of selection, teasing a story out with songs that rhythmically fit and lyrically expand on the themes of the last. It's a lot of fun. Instead of just leaving them in my itunes or burning them for friends, I figured it'd be a cool thing to upload to 8tracks and start posting them here. So here's the first, ripe for April. Enjoy!
