me, myself and I

Writing is more than words. Most people know this right? Well maybe not, because at the end of the day you either open a book to the first page, get swept away and buy it or put it back on the shelf. No harm done. Except to the author who slaved for weeks, hours, months and days on writing the very prose you just so casually disregarded.

It’s nothing personal. After all it comes down to taste and style. For this very reason I’m nervous. It’s hard enough to write, but it’s even harder still to get your head around the fact that the baby you are nurturing may one day, turn out to not be readable or in fact very good.

I have my own writing style, as does every aspiring writer/author, but I’m not arrogant enough to assume that this is the way people would like to read. So with this in mind I have been doing some research.

For a Chic lit style book you might ask? Yes, even though I have ‘experience’ in the world of men and women as well as dating and relationships including the embarrassing and hilarious situations you can often find yourself in, it still needs research.

I can’t stop thinking about the first page, I’ve written about nine chapters over the years (this needs to be 12 by the time I’m done) but it all comes back to the first page. I’ve written and re-written it a hundred times.

In thinking about this first page, the main thing I always come back to is tense. I have always related to and loved books which are written in the present tense and told via first person. When I open a book and the character jumps off the page and starts talking to me like a mate I’ve met for coffee. That’s when the true fun begins. Not when I’m reading about how the character has willowy size 4 figure, long ash blonde shoulder length hair, a cupid bows mouth and eyes which are a stunning aquamarine. That is more likely to make me think, who do I know like that? And do I really want to know more about them?

If it feels like someone you know or would love to know and who is or has been in the same situation as you, that’s when my interest is piqued. So this is what I’ve tried to do with the lead character in my book. Lisbeth. I have been writing Lissy’s voice for years but its only now as I ponder tense and read and re-read my favourite books that I realise the only way to tell her story is via first person.

While some of the stories and situations she finds herself in are inspired by real life and imagined events, it is very much a work of fiction. So it’s with this in mind I’m starting to re-write many sections of the book.

It’s a torturous but rewarding process as I start to hear her voice become stronger, more eloquent and relatable with every change I make.

Hopefully by the time I’m done, when someone opens the first page they won’t be able to stop themselves from turning to the next and the next.

But just in case, the next time a book on a shelf catches your eye and you skim to the front page, give it another 30 seconds and perhaps even turn to the second page. Someone’s heart and soul has been poured into that and you may just find yourself or someone you know hidden amongst the words.

Xx

J

introducing the big red..

So while life might be indeed slower watching the jacarandas bloom and fall and kookaburras mock all who pass, I don’t want to turn grey before my time.

With this in mind I decided to go for my first Gympie local run. No big deal you may say but for the runners out there, it’s daunting. You have a regular beat; a circuit you follow that is familiar as the back of your hand. It has markers where you know you need to push yourself and others where you can go easy if you’ve overdone it lately.

Trying out a new run circuit for size is always dicey. It can affect your pace, momentum and focus and I must admit I was more than a bit nervous to try out the new route I had plotted. A quick little 5km run not far from home. Bordering some bush but not so much so that I’d be fighting snakes or bushrangers for my patch of the path.

I went with mum in the car to check it out beforehand as I plotted it. It seemed easy enough, at the time that is.

I’m an evening runner through and through, but as I didn’t know the area I thought a morning run would be ok for the first start. Not the best of ideas really especially considering animals are most active in the morning.

Did I mention Gympie is in a valley? So it has quite a few hills. Change that it has A LOT of hills.

So I started off on my run, struggling up the hill on our street and then careened down under. Gathering speed and turning up my volume I started to get into the swing of things. I dodged some of the branches on the paths and then crossed over a park where a session of boot camp was getting underway. I surreptitiously decreased the volume on my head set to listen in on the session, to see if the trainer was as hard core as those in Brisbane. I heard him shout out “that woman is running faster than all of you combined, get going you lazy lot”. I must admit it spurred me on. Until I saw the hill ahead.

I’m sure this hill wasn’t in the circuit when I did the pre-run lap with mum. Surely I wouldn’t have signed off on having such a thigh burner in my route? What to do? All eyes from the boot camp were still on me and I felt the obligation to perform, perform, perform. I didn’t want to turn around and just amble in a different direction, I also didn’t want to puff out midway up like the non-energiser bunny and fall flat on my face in front of everyone.

So I kept persevering. But step by step, my run got slower, I’m sure those girls in the park where now going miles faster than my snail pace. I sneaked a glance back at them all. The trainer had his hands on his hips and was staring in my direction. Shit. Double shit.

How do I get myself into these situations? Suddenly I started to feel my spare key start to slip from the spot on my hip down my leg. As I worried about catching the key without stopping and losing momentum I didn’t notice the big red roo to my left on the footpath. In fact I didn’t see him until we were less than a metre a part. Face to Face.

He was stained a dusty red, double my height and standing on his tail and back legs. He had no plans to relinquish his part of the path which was home to a tree with some kind of nut which he was maliciously munching on while eying me up, his next human victim.

He was what many would class as a ‘boxer’ type kangaroo and let out a scream. The roo stood firm and I thought what mum would say when she got a call from an ambulance saying I’d come off second best to a kangaroo who had ripped me from chin to toe. At the same time I fell off the side and onto my knees.

My scream no doubt attracted the attention of the boot campers who would have looked up to see a fully grown woman on her hands and in knees, as if in mock worship in front of a big red kangaroo. The roo looked at me like I had rocks in my head and bounded away.

I recovered my senses and struggled up the hill with a bruised knee and ego. While I’m the first to admit I’m hard of hearing, there was no missing the voice on breeze which reached me; “Silly city girl.”

My country camouflage had officially been blown. Apparently country folk don’t scream at roos on a regular basis especially when they are terrified of being torn a new one.

You’d think after that experience I’d be plotting a new run route or better yet a route to the nearest treadmill, but no I’m off to do the same route today, later this afternoon.

I’m ready to go toe to tail with the roo again, to prove once and for all I can be more country than city, at least for a quick 5km run that is. Watch out Gympie, a new road runner with a Rambo attitude will be out on a street near you soon.

Xx

J

country currency..

It’s safe to say that my first week as a lady of luxury in the country has been a bit of a blur. I’m still finding myself getting lost amongst the jacarandas and paddocks, I’ve only just discovered the main drag of town and caught glimpses of hidden gems scattered about town I intend to explore.

Some of these gems I’ve yet to discover include a traditional fudge shop (purely for research purposes only), one of the oldest butchers in the area which is decked out like they used to be in yesteryear, the old valley rattler steam engine and some ramshackle buildings that look like they have more character then big kev himself.

It’s only been a taste of country so far, but what I’ve sampled has been more than enough to whet my appetite for country living. Of course I’m not really 'country’, my parents don’t own chickens (the neighbours do so perhaps I get brownie points for this) nor do they own cows, more than one dog or even an acre of land. But somehow it still feels country.

The houses near where we live are close together, suburbia like. While we back onto bushland, it’s by no means ‘country living’. You won’t see me fetching eggs with my wellies on and a broad brimmed akubra, milking the cows or feeding the pigs any time soon. Despite that, kangaroos, galahs, cockatoos, magpies, wallabies, possums, rabbits and bandicoots all make their presence known in some form or another.

The whole town itself has a bit of an undefinable air to me. It’s hard to explain. My mother was born in its borders, my grandmother was also born and raised here as was her mother. Some of our relatives still live in the area as well, having previously run dairy farms.

The Queenslander my nanna’s mother used to live in still exists and it’s not far from where we are now. She used to live right by the railway tracks and had to lift up the traffic beam every time the train was nearby to stop sulky traffic and eventually later, cars.

As a former gold rush and pioneering town, Gympie is a name that’s most likely to elicit more smirks then smiles. When I told friends in the UK that this was where my parents were moving to after calling the Gold Coast home for two decades, they unoriginally asked ‘is that where the gimps live?’

I don’t blame them, it’s an unusual name of a town nestled in the midst of the Mary Valley. A town bypassed on the way to coastal holidays. Quickly forgotten and little more than a Hungry Jacks or Red Rooster fix or toilet stop for most.

But for me it’s now home and I’m still trying to figure it out. I, like most are used to rudeness and impolite folk. I’ve written a post on it previously and I’m sure it won’t be the last, being one of my biggest pet peeves.  But in Gympie, it’s a different story.  I have been stopped several times by the sheer friendliness of everyone in the local centre while doing food shopping and getting odds and ends.

Smiling seems to be the currency of the country. I can’t go anywhere in town or around without someone asking me how I am, how I know people, what my name is and what I do for a living. For someone used to rudeness, it leaves you a bit overwhelmed. Slightly shell shocked even,  with the realisation that the concept of personal space is not something that’s widely indulged up here.

As a result of being around all these steadfast smilers, I’ve found I'm starting to turn into one as well. God forbid. I’ve caught myself walking and smiling like a silly git over nothing other than a smile or nod between strangers.

Just the other day while walking the dog, I came across a spritely, crinkly old fella in his akubra leaning against a ute that was more road then roadworthy, looking every inch the rough Australian larrikin. He couldn’t have been a day under 80 and as I approached he took off his threadbare hat and gave me a ‘morning’ and smile for free.

I hadn’t done anything to deserve it apart from crossing his path and he could have just as sooner turned his head and kept within his own personal space.

Instead his one act made me pass on another five smiles that morning to dog owners, fellow walkers and runners alike in turn making me feel like some kind of smile beneficiary, dolling them out left, right and centre.

Maybe it’s all the free time on my hands that made me notice all these exchanges, perhaps all the eucalypt in the air has made me go soft or perhaps I’m just seeing far too much good in what is very much a random act between strangers.

All the same you can’t deny there is a different currency in use in the country, whether you live in town or on the land, or are just passing through and best of all, it’s free.

Xx

J

Steam trains ahead..

Pics of the weekend...


1) a sneak peak at my life size bday cake - a massive cupcake :)

2) one of the gorgeous jacaranda trees in the area

3) night's mackerel sky

4) warning old fashioned steam trains ahead :)

Introducing the world's biggest bookworm..

Me. Yes I have and always will be the world's biggest book nerd and since I've started this self-imposed, navel gazing, book writing sabbatical it's made me think a lot about the kind of book I want to write.

I'm no Ghandi, I certainly haven't travelled to India, Indonesia and Italy (well Italy yes but only for the cultural experiences, not gelati scoffing, wine guzzling and perving, honest) so I can't write about becoming enlightened, nor can I write about helping to change the world through world peace or joining an action group in Africa to build housing for starving children. I've never climbed a mountain higher than my driveway, cycled through Antarctica or somewhere cold and I've certainly never shaved my head for a cure or done anything outrageous apart from a select couple of tattoos and piercings in discreet and hidden places.

No the one thing I can write about, the topic I do know a lot about is men and specifically relationships. Not the secrets to them, but the misfortunes and most importantly the laugh out loud cringe moments when you realise what you never thought would ever happen, is happening and its happening to you.

Boys. Men. Sex. Love. It’s the perennial topic, I know it’s been done to death but I've always found it them to be the topics everyone wants to talk about. When you've had a few wines, you don't want to talk about that guy who cured cancer (which should definitely be applauded) instead you want to talk about the guy who you shagged recently who has a nose picking problem. Fact.

Just recently I was watching a documentary where an international counsellor was talking how she was responsible for assessing the mental health of female refugees who'd escaped an African nation awash with civil war. These women had experienced rape, murder and all kinds of atrocities first hand. Naturally when she went to speak with them individually she was prepared for tales that would make most shake in their boots. Instead, the one thing most of the girls wanted to talk about was love or guys they had met in a refugee camp and how their lives were torn upside down by it.

Even in the midst of all that grief and despair, there is a very human part of us that just seems to come back to one thing: boy + girl.

Many have a complete disregard for so called 'chick lit' books, fluff and nonsense, but at the end of the day I'd rather read about a girl who I can relate to rather than a girl who lives a dream life or achieves some far flung global peace prize act. Everyone has the obligatory books on their book shelves that make them look smart and educated. The ones which are cultural and speak volumes about the owner as being one of those 'creative types'.

But what about the books you always reach for? For me, the books that always have stayed with me and are the ones I go to recommend to others or re-read are those who have made me laugh out loud or cry with laughter. Just thinking about some chapters in Danny Wallace's Yes Man or Jessica Adam's Single White Email make me start to smirk and smother a giggle. And if I'm completely honest, while they didn't change my life in any profound way, they certainly made me smile and laugh and for that I'm grateful.

So as I use this blog to procrastinate about the book I'm trying to write, why I'm writing it and how it will be written I hope for three things really;

A) to finish it
B) for at least one person to read it
And C) for it to make someone laugh.

If I can do all that, then and only then will I consider it an accomplishment:)
x
J

Ps. attached are a few pics of books I've come across in the local book exchange. Classic country western books that are traded like comics by fully grown men. Awesome.

It is also home to rows and rows of corset ripping mills and boons. It seems mills and boons are doing a roaring trade in gympie :P I've never actually read one so perhaps my next challenge should be to read one and see once and for all what all the fuss is about.. til next time ....

rows and rows of mills and boons..

country and western comic anyone?

Just give me a home amongst the windmills

some random local sights I came across today which made me feel like tipping my hat and uttering a yee ha

X
J

Pics of the day..

The George Clooney of dogs: Gorgeous as ever, our black lab never fails to keep me company when faced with a keyboard and a blank computer screen..

And glimpses of a gympie sunset, they grow them beautiful up here..