Writing update – running out of time!

Just a quick update this week – but I’m still blogging, no ball-dropping this early into my new commitment!

The main reason for the rushed blog post is that I’m writing like a demon trying to finish my submission for Rebuilding Tomorrow before submissions close at the end of January. I’ve been working on and off on this story concept since, argh, October? – but at a glacial speed that’s been typical of my 2019 writing output.

At the start of January, with less than a month left before the deadline, I finally started pushing myself to work harder on finishing this story, even though I still wasn’t really feeling excited about writing (not just writing this, but writing anything). And as usually happens, once I started actually pushing through the hard bedrock, I finally began striking gold – gleams of understanding where the story was going, nuggets of actually solid characterisation and theme, the stuff I have to find to get excited about a story.

Which is all just another way of saying, if I want to write I can’t wait for inspiration to strike. I have to write my way to inspiration.

So, having achieved inspiration with all of two weeks to get the job done, right now I’m as focused as my wandering mind can be on getting this story actually drafted, edited, beta read, further edited, and submitted in the next… eight days (meep).

Just as well my ADHD brain responds best to high-stress situations, right…?

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A view from Hirta island in the St Kilda archipelago

Think you know St Kilda? Well…

This week my story research led me on a quest to find out about the mysterious Saint Kilda, origin of the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda, only to discover that no such saint ever existed.

The Australian St Kilda, it turns out, is named after a ship, the Lady of St Kilda. This ship, in turn, was named after an archipelago in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. And the Scottish archipelago was named after… a mistake.

Continue reading “Think you know St Kilda? Well…”

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A distant thunderstorm looming over a quiet ocean

New Year’s thoughts 2020

It’s that time of year when people are taking stock – of the year (and decade) that has been, and of their goals for the year (and decade) to come.

I am singularly bad at both of these.

It’s hard enough for my butterfly brain to retain enough detail and sense of time for me to confidently tell you what I did yesterday, let alone in the last year. And I’ve come to mistrust personal goals, because when I’m excited by a shiny new hobby or technique I set myself dozens of them and then achieve few to none as my interest wanes or moves on.

Often I let the turning of the new year go by without even trying. But this year, for whatever reason, it feels important. So here goes: three significant events from 2019, and three aspirations for 2020.

Continue reading “New Year’s thoughts 2020”

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