Inspired by… THAT?

So the grody thing in todays exotic photo is a dishevelled black satin sash that I took with me to Conference on a whim. It was lurking in between two dance costumes and I turned a blind eye and let it creep in.

It found its way into writing class one morning. Who knew an ugly sash could be such fun?

First step was to list its characteristics… that was fairly simple. Black, satin, creased, long enough to use as a belt, well-used, ugly (oh yeah, we didn’t shy away from hurting its feelings), double-sided… the list when on. One writer even spotted a tiny hole that the rest of us missed.

The next step was to write a negative story (flash fiction style) using the sash as inspiration… Just for fun, I joined in. Here is mine…

A Date With Death

It was meant to be the perfect date.

Her dress swirled around her ankles in a froth of chiffon, caught at the waist with a sash of black satin.

It took one.

One drunk driver.

Shattered journey, severed arm.

A black sash that could not stop the bleeding.

He was gone. She was alone.

Her date now, with death.

The final step was to write another story, this time a positive one, using the same departure point. You guessed it – the ugly sash.

Untitled

My toes sink into soft carpet. I inch forward, blinded by a sash so tight, I can feel every eyelash. Stacey snorts behind me, giggling. “Don’t peep!” she choaks out between chuckles, “It’s a suprise!”

My arms wave like a double-minded windsock. My hand hits a wall of warmth. A wave of familiar scent washes over me, stirring memories like leaves in a gust.

A different chuckle, deeper now. Time turns sticky as I tear off the sash…

HE IS HOME!

The point? There were four of us and an ugly sash in writing class that day. The good-for-nothing sash was the inspiration for no less than eight stories. All of them very different, all with good potential.

So who agrees with me… for a true writer, inspiration is EVERYWHERE!

Come in and have some cake…

It’s my birthday!

So please come in and help yourself to some cake…

(sorry guys, I know it’s pink and purple… I like it 🙂 )

… and a cuppa of something nice….

… or maybe you prefer something with bubbles?

So pull up a chair and make yourself at home.

I’d love nothing more than to spend some time catching up on this happy day. 🙂

Walking on aeroplane wings and other preposterous ideas

So I’m in an aeroplane. We are thousands of feet above mother earth. I look out the window and read this little gem printed on the wing…

‘Do not walk outside this area’

Oh really? Why ever not? I’m so glad they put that out there, because you know – I was just about to head out to stretch my legs…

After I recovered from a severe laughing fit, I got to thinking. That’s pretty much what we writers do all the time. It’s craziness to get out of an aeroplane and walk on the wing. Its also craziness to spend hours, days, months, years! at the keyboard, producing hundreds of pages that we hope – yes, HOPE! not know, hope – will snag the right persons attention. And yet we do. Because it’s what we’re built for. We do it because we hope our words will make a difference inside someone along the way.

It’s a good thing to hope for!

So I say to you (and me) today:

Walk outside this area!

Run

Fly

Soar

WRITE!

Disclaimer: I’m sure some of you, my tech boff buddies, will feel the urge to enlighten me as to why they print that daft sentiment in that particularly daft place. I’m begging you to leave me wallowing in my ignorance this time. You’ve got to agree, it’s just so much funnier this way.

2620 posts and counting… seriously people?

I’ve just got back from a whirlwind trip to Dubai (to teach dance workshops) & Qatar (to catch up with family). Yes, me! Can you believe it. This home girl who has never been off African soil. If you don’t count the boat trip with my granny when I was 15 where we sailed from Durban, into international waters for a few hours, then to Cape Town.

It was fabulous and I was spoiled thoroughly in every way. I even rode a camel… (Thanks Kirsty!) His name was Shadeen and he was a true camel gentleman. In fact, the whole experience was a little reminiscent of pony rides for big people.

As for the rest of it, don’t get me started – you’d be snoring or crying with boredom by the end of my story. 🙂 I landed home last Wednesday at 8:30pm, smack into organising my 5yo’s party on Friday for 22 kidlets and a ladies tea for about 100 on Saturday. Though I had some seriously motivated and organised ladies sorting that in my absence, all I really had to do was show up with food for my table and not forget my steps. So I’ve been a teensy bit busy.

Not as busy as you lot though. According to my inbox, I have 2620 blog posts to catch up on! Seriously people? That is going to take me the next 3 months! I’m thinking this is what most agents feel like on a regular day. *makes a mental note to stop harrassing agents who haven’t responded in 24 hours*

I will pop in and see what you’ve all been up to… but until I get to you… Tell me your news!

Bubbles and Rock

When things get tough, do you ever eyeball yourself firmly in the mirror and give yourself a pep talk? I know I do. I just make sure nobody is watching first.

I’ve come to realize though, that my motivational eyeballings – even the very best ones, are a little bit like wrapping myself in a bubble. For a while I can float along, feeling cushioned from the bite of an anorexic bank account, safely tucked away from bickering kids and in firm denial of my hungry petrol tank.

There’s just one problem with a self-motivated-pep-talk-bubble. It just takes one sharp object, one tiny prick and its pops. I can tell you from experience that when you’re floating in a bubble that bursts, there’s only one way to go and it ain’t up. You feel the teeth of your bank account when you can’t buy the bottle your kid needs for school to make your Mom’s day pressy, when you have to say no to your teenager’s social life because you can’t afford the petrol for the extra trip.

It doesn’t take a sledgehammer to pop a bubble.

Yet somehow, when God speaks, there are no bubbles involved. His Words come with a standard issue of solid rock under your feet and the guts to face life unflinching. No matter what. One word from Him, and I’m on solid ground, light years away from the quicksand of doubt.

I think I know who I’d rather be listening to…

Hebrews 6:19 sums it up beautifully. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” NIV

Things aren’t what they seem…

If you had peeped into my bedroom this morning at 8, you would have thought – look at that lazy thing, tucked up under the duvet doing nothing. You would have, in fact, been dead wrong. Oh yes – to a casual observer it would seem that I was lying very snug and still, but what you would never have guessed is that my mind was rolling Chapter 6 around, figuring out the best way forward for my characters.

I’ve realized my eldest kiddo employs the same strategy in the mornings before school. She’ll eat breakfast, then have a five minute lie-in under the duvet. This used to drive me insane. I’d resist the urge – oh alright, I didn’t really try – to yell at her to get moving you’re going to be late! Then one morning, the lights went on. She began rolling her eyes up, the way she does when she’s thinking, quietly counting on her fingers… I listened really carefully. She was not singing the latest Adele song, she was in fact going through what waited for her that day. She was planning – not dozing. Outside? Dozing. Inside? Planning! Wow.

Turns out whoever said that you can’t judge a book by its cover, was telling truth.

This got me thinking. What about life? Has your life ever looked like someone took a giant blender through the middle of it and laughed at the chaos? I know mine has. If you look on the surface, there is every reason to stop the train and demand a refund. But! In those times of trouble, you have no idea what is being established inside of you through the very things you would choose to avoid.

I have a sneaky feeling that if we choose to live by what we see with our eyes, if we let the externals dictate to us – we’ll live lives that fall far short of what we’ve been created for…

I couldn’t agree more… well said Heather!

Creature of the Night

I’ve always been an owl not a fowl, but with my kids on holiday – my nocturnal tendencies are getting out of hand.

My days are filled with wipe this, feed that, mop this, carry that, tidy this, cook that, find this, pick up that, pick up that again, all to the tune of non-stop noise in whatever you call stereo from 3 directions. This is punctuated by an eternal barking round performed for no extra charge, by All The Dogs In The Neighbourhood. It’s all thoroughly spectacular.

Come bedtime – the kids bedtime, not mine – my head volunteers to pop just to let all the noise out. Heck, so what if we lose the brain in the process? Apparently not too much going on in there anyhow!

Yet one by one, the niggles and giggles turn into gentle snores… and something utterly miraculous descends on my home. I’m whispering, can you tell? A lovely blanket of quiet. Not a harsh post-nuclear-explosion-type-silence, but quiet. Threaded through with the hum of the fridge, the determined ticking of a clock whose hands are stuck on 6:30 but keeps ticking anyway, the subliminal whine of the neglected tv.

In the midst of all this glorious quiet, my brain peeps out and whispers is it safe to come out now? Words line up and preen, hoping for some exercise. Quite frankly – who would actually WANT to go sleep through this?

Not me.

So I stay up way too late.

I revel in the peace.

How delicious it is to think an entire thought through to its conclusion without being interupted. HA! The joy of writing, not just sentences – but entire paragraphs! Bring it on.

Real headspace! Aaah! What bliss.

I know tomorrow I’ll pay the price of little zzzz’s with a brain that turns over and tucks the duvet closer when I need it. Truth is – find this, wipe that – doesn’t really need that much brain power.

So, no… I’m not turning Twilight and growing fangs, not rehearsing for a Rocky Horror remake.

I’m just grabbing the pockets of peace. Filling them with careful words and creeping forward a baby step at a time.

I’d love to hear from you. How do you manage school holidays?

Writers – ever wonder what your brain looks like?

In glorious technicolour… ta-da!

Yip. That’s your brain.

You think I’m kidding? Well I’m not. It goes like this…

My bag died a slow, nasty death. It started with the handle slowly detaching itself, first one side, then the other. After that, it suffered a chronic zip failure and it was pretty much downhill from there. So I did what every self-respecting mom would do. I borrowed my teenagers funky blue bag. All was great until she had a movie date with friends, and spoke the dreaded words, “Mom, I need my bag.” Drat.

I tucked my purse deep into my armpit, carried my phone and went bag shopping. Now you must understand my history. The last five bags that I have owned have been identical. Black, practical and identical. I go to the same fleamarket, find the same lady (she calls herself ‘The Bag Lady’) buy an identical bag and life goes on without a wobble.

But this time I didn’t. This gaudy multi-colour mess snagged me from the moment I laid eyes on it. Sure I looked at every other bag in the shop, but this one kept singing my name. So I just did it. Bought it. Left the shop, transferred my purse from my armpit to my screamingly bright new bag, ran to the car giggling like a pre-schooler.

It sat smugly on the seat next to me all the way home. Half of me was delighted at the change, half of me a little shell-shocked and my brain hung stranded between the two, frantically wondering why the attraction was so strong.

Then I clicked. This bag is just like us. You see the black… it is strong and deliberate. It gives the bag form and stability, makes it functional and practical. But then… in between all the black you have those crazy colours! That is a writers brain for you… right there. Half of it, analytical and structured – plot / pacing / world-building… all those things that have to line up and be correct for the work to make sense. The other half? Has to fly free and unfettered to find those intruiging storylines, characters that hook the heart of our readers… emotions and exquisite word weaving.

So there you go. Your brain. Well – sort of. 🙂

At least I know why I bought this crazy bag and why it makes me happy everytime I look at it.

Dancing kittens

Or should that be… dancing AND kittens.

My writing has had to wait a bit this week for two good reasons. Technically four.

We’ve added 3 kittens to our household. I know… 3! Eek! But the equation is simple maths – 3 kids = 3 cats. It’s the only way it’s ever going to work. We intended getting 2 (for the older girls) but they went and fell in love with the 2 gingers. The little grey splodge in the middle stole my heart. Hmmmm. Problem. So we decided to take all 3 and in hindsight, it was the best thing to do. The older girls are very possessive and the littlest would have been miserable. Now they are all happy. Mom included.

Reason 2 is Shekinah, my dance group. We’ve been involved in a Bouquet of Dance over this week. So instead of weaving words, I’ve been sewing ribbons, which you can see here. Last two shows today, then I can hopefully find normal life… and get back to the world inside my head which I’m so fond of.

What have you been up to?