Rest and busy

on taking time to be, speeding up, and slowing down

NOTE: this newsletter was started just after Easter, but has taken me until now to complete it…potentially an indication of time.

Autumn leaves on my persimmon tree

Thank you my dear Musers for your readership and encouragement in your comments and feedback. By the simple act of subscribing to my newsletter, you encourage me to keep going, literally the words any writer (or creative) ever needs to hear.

On the walk from Lyonville to Trentham and back

I spent Easter away with my family. It was wonderful for so many reasons. One of my sons is going through the deep sadness with a breakup and it was good to be able to give him time to be with us and to rest as much as he needed. Watching my sons hang out together gives me so much joy. The thing I always wish for since they were small was that they would be good mates to each other. They revert to their pattern of being silly, playing chess and Machi Koro. We stayed in the cutest cottage in Lyonville, which I declared as I walked into the house, this is exactly the kind of house I would have if I was to have a holiday house.

The cutest house in Lyonville

My youngest suggested that I was drawn to it as it wasn’t dissimilar to our house pre-renovation with something different to look at in each corner. There is a great walk from Lyonville to Trentham which we did between and during the rain and we cranked up the wood fires and lay about reading, eating and enjoying each other’s company. Of course, there was still an Easter egg hunt. It was the best holiday we’ve had in a while.

It was a good reminder to take time to just be. It’s so easy to get caught up in life that it rushes by.

We met our eldest half way between Bendigo and Melbourne on ANZAC day to go for a walk and have lunch. It’s incredible how many places there are to go walking halfway between our homes. I suspect there’ll be plenty more of these meetups.

Walk at Black Hill Reserve

It was a sparkling day that reminded me of how bloody important it is to spend time in nature.

Writing stuff

Since my days increased at my paid job life, I’ve been rising very early to write, working, then on Fridays writing all day. I realised I could take forever to finish the first and ugly draft of my new manuscript so I set a tight deadline to get it done. The end of May now looms.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a light bulb moment with my current work in progress about its structure. I spent the next writing session moving everything around to make a Frankenstein draft so that I could then write forth. It’s working so much better now and I’m getting around 1000 words a day written. I have a note on my screen saying First draft = ugly words to remind me not to be too fussy with them at this stage, but instead to just get them down.

Here’s a little something for those who love numbers and those who wonder how to set a deadline to finish a WIP

• 45,462 current words in WIP

• 33 days until my self imposed deadline

• 45,000 words to finish WIP (approximately 90,000 words to work with for Draft 2)

• 14 work days between here and deadline at 1000 words a day on work days = 14,000 words

• 9 days writing retreat time planned with about 3000 words a day = 27,000 words

• 2 Friday writing days at 3000 words a day = 6,000 words

• 14,000+27,000+6000 = 47,000 words

Boom.

Which hopefully will get me over the line.

Those who read my last newsletter will have perhaps felt my annoyance at losing a writing day to work, but it has actually helped in a way. I’m much more ruthless about spending time on things that are not essential at the moment. However, it does come at a cost. I am definitely more tired than I was before when I was crowing about what I had called The Perfect Balance of the 3-days a week work to 2 days writing.

Things I’ve read and loved

• Dinner with the Schnabels by Toni Jordan. This is Toni at her best. Smart, witty and hilarious. I’ve got her new one Prettier if she smiled lined up to read soon.

• Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I’ve read book 1 and 2, number 3 to go. Both good. They’re translations from Japanese and are set around a cafe has a seat that can take the person back in time to speak to someone who was in the cafe. There are a bunch of rules that include how you can’t change the future etc. They’re a light read and I can’t remember who recommended them, but thanks if it was you!

• Pure Colour by Sheila Heti. This was recommended by Rachel Yoder at her talk with Kate Mildenhall about Rachel’s book Nightbitch (that book that made me rage…still a hard recommend).

• Jillian Hess’s post on Beatrix Potter

• Kat Lewis’s generous post about redrafting. In fact, if you are looking for great newsletters about the craft of writing, Craft with Kat is great.

• Margaret Atwood’s newsletter In the Writing Burrow. If you haven’t found her newsletter yet, I encourage you to follow her. She’s sharp wit.

Other things

I used to come up agains summer ending, but over the last couple of years, I have begun to embrace it. The joy of autumn is that I pull my knitting back out. I’ve just finished a beanie that I love and am knitting a scarf for one of my son’s girlfriend. Ah, the joy of finding the yarn and casting on! The jury is out on whether to pompom the beanie or not.

The Alaska beanie sans pompom

I’ve also done the garden transformation from pulling out the sunflowers (heads saved for the seeds for next summer), taking roses out of pots, thrown seeds down and planting a strawberry and herby border. I love walking through fragrant gardens and look forward to watching this grow.

Til next time, Musers

x Meg