What I Learned from Week One

... of the Finding Your Way Home course.

We are asked to journal about this.

One thing I have learned is that having a special spot for writing, as we are invited to find, doesn't work for me. Writing happens wherever I am. Often that is at the computer. Often it is somewhere else with iPad — anywhere else, from bedroom to dining-room to park to chiropractor's waiting room.

I have also learned that I am definitely now one who writes on to a screen instead of with paper and pen. Who woulda thought it, a few years ago? It's just a preference, but a surprising one. I can't bring myself to go back to a paper notebook, even for the sake of this course, even as an exercise. Not that we have been asked to; it's not a requirement. But it seems kinda assumed, probably unconsciously. I'm sure I am still in the minority among 'creative' writers.

And I have not so much learned as confirmed that working on poetry takes precedence over pretty much anything else, including 'mindful writing'. Sometimes — often — I write my 'small stones' in verse, but I still give precedence to other poems which are not doing double duty as exercises in mindfulness.

Though, I suppose, all poems require a degree of mindfulness....

Earrings (back story to a poem)

Some time after Andrew died, I found a frustrated little journal entry in one of his notebooks, wondering how he was going to manage to get $30 to buy me some earrings.

I remembered a time when he complained about not having access to money. By then he was so physically incapacitated that he couldn't go out without me, and although his Alzheimer's was mild, I had taken over the financial management. He had been making some potentially disastrous financial decisions until I did, getting us into situations I had to rescue us from.

I tried to reassure him that it was still our money, and if there was anything he needed or wanted, I'd get it for him. But he just became evasive when I asked what he needed money for. Pretty dumb of me! It was coming up to Christmas, and of course he wanted to surprise me. Instead, that year I bought Christmas presents we could enjoy together, with his agreement. Food. DVDs. I guess he decided to settle for that, as he couldn't figure out a way around his dilemma.

I wonder, had I admired some earrings somewhere while in his company? Had he seen some online or in a local shop that he fancied for me? He had very good taste, and bought me some lovely jewellery over the years, albeit suited to our modest budget. The brief journal entry was specific about the price, but didn't describe the earrings at all.

There came a time when I wanted some earrings to go with a particular bracelet and pendant. I chose some zircon studs, a little under $30, and told myself they were my present from Andrew, just a bit late.

During our life together, from when we were courting, he loved to present me with big bunches of red roses. After he became incapacitated, he would sometimes say to me when I went shopping, "Buy yourself some roses." Which I did, as a gift from him. He was happy enough, in that circumstance, to know it was our money, and to delegate the task to me. I guess that was because there was no surprise involved.

Occasionally I still buy myself roses, remembering how he liked to give them to me. Recently I came across some sweet little earrings carved in the shape of red roses. They were affordable. I had a fantasy that he had nudged me in that direction, to notice them. Of course I bought them. Again, I told myself they were from him. Now I always have that gift of red roses.

Another journal entry expressed his readiness to go on to the next life and see his father and brother again. He asked God to look after me when he was gone.

***

These things are all strands in my poem, Love's Winter, which doesn't explain them. The poem felt complete as it is, albeit a trifle mysterious. When I tried to add more clarity, it became clunky.

Some readers who are aware of my widowhood have understood what the poem is about. Others have, naturally enough, interpreted it differently. That doesn't matter in terms of the poem, but some also read it (correctly) as autobiographical and attach their suppositions to me and, by association, to Andrew.

Perhaps that doesn't really matter either. But it's unfair, although unintentionally, so I thought a bit of back story wouldn't go astray.

The "Nonce" Poetic Form

I just discovered, via this excellent article by Jeanette Ostermeyer, that this is a name given to self-created forms — that is, where there is some regularity or pattern of metre, rhyme, syllables, whatever.  The specific form is created because it seems to fit the needs of the particular poem. Sometimes, we're told, one of these may take on, be used widely by other poets, and acquire its own name.

The term can also apply to variations on traditional forms, such as rhyming sestinas and unrhymed odes. (I have also come across 10-line sonnets.)

I think maybe we all do a lot of this without even regarding it as anything special. I, for instance, like my stanzas to be the same length even in free verse — whatever length, or variable pattern of lengths, happens to suit the poem. I'm not sure that's sufficient to constitute a new form, however.

One of my widely-published early poems, The Day We Lost the Volkswagen, has a pattern all its own (as far as I know) because it just seemed to need it. It's basically a rhyming ballad (abab quatrains) with an extra line added per verse, and the extra lines rhyme with each other — in a four-verse poem, the last lines of verses 1 and 2 rhyme with each other, and the last lines of 3 and 4 have a different rhyme with each other. (It's a lot more complicated to describe than to read!) I've never used the form again, though. I never felt any need.

(Funny — I once read it to a group of writing students by way of example of something or other, and one who had been listening with an expression of rapt delight, said afterwards, "And not a rhyme in it!"

"Excuse me," I said, "It has a complex scheme of full rhymes."

But I decided to take it as a compliment. I guess that for her the rhymes were unintrusive and the language just seemed natural. That's gotta be good.)

Recently, members of the dVerse online poetic community were invited to create a new form. Because I like to play with a non-traditional or "free" version of the ghazal, and because I also like playing with American sentences, which Allen Ginsberg invented as a Western style of haiku, I combined them both. You're welcome to read the result.

I found that the sentences went neatly into 3-line verses, and the whole had some of the features I like in a ghazal. I called it Ghazal-type 17-3 — which I think a clumsy name, but I hoped it would suggest that there might in future be other, different ghazal-type poems. (Because of my departures from the strict form of the traditional ghazal, I think it's more accurate to say "ghazal-type".)

But I haven't used it again. And I haven't made up any other ghazal-type forms. I make poems in whatever way seems right at that moment, then go on to the next moment.

Ostermeyer, whose article focuses on metrics, alludes to Peter Davison's book, Breathing Room, in which, she says,

"... nearly all the poems conform to twenty-five lines cast in seven tercets and a closing quatrain. These lines are set in a flexible pattern ..."

Perhaps it would be fun to create a form (or even adopt an existing one) and then stick with it for a whole book.

Moving the Magickal Memoir

or, Confronted by Truth-Telling. 

I've taken down the "Living a Magickal Life" blog and merged it with "Cronewyze", my witchy blog. It felt too intimate to share in its own right, boldy exposed as it was. Details here.

My Writing Process – Blog Tour

Step one: Acknowledge the person and site that involved you in the blog tour.

That's the wonderful — and busy! — Canadian poet, Pearl Pirie, whom I met online years ago when we both responded to a month of poetry challenges at John Hewett’s site, then known as Writer’s Resource Centre and now an extremely useful archive. Pearl's own blog tour astounded me just now, when I read about all of her activities! (And that's just the literary ones.)

Step two: Answer the 4 questions below about your writing process:

1) What am I working on? 

There are two collaborative poetry collections. The main one is a year-long collaboration with three other poets, Aussies Jennie Fraine and Helen Patrice, and Brit Michele Brenton. It's a renshi, a Japanese form consisting of a series of linked poems. As we write them, we're posting them on a blog, "Poems by the Followers", and our intention is to turn them into a book. I am already enthralled by the way this is developing. Some of the last lines can be quite a challenge for the next person to take as a starting point!

The other is also a collaboration with Helen and Jennie. In 2013 we all did a series of moon poems spanning a lunar month. We recently decided to choose the best to combine in a book: Three Cycles of the Moon. It has been compiled. Currently we're looking at ways to self-publish it as a e-book, and are seeking the right cover illustration.

I'm also working on a memoir about the experience of widowhood (my husband died in September 2012). That too is taking the form of a blog at present: The Widowhood Chronicles. Again, the plan is to turn it into a book, perhaps covering the first two years, which people say is the usual period of readjustment. 

I have poems on this subject as well, naturally, and have created a chapbook covering the first six months, which I am getting ready to submit to a publisher.

And I’m putting together a chapbook of poems I wrote (some in collaboration with others) for a somonka challenge issued by Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides. A somonka is a pair of tanka, one responding to the other. One by American Bruce Niedt and me was runner-up in the competition and has been published in a recent issue of Writer’s Digest Magazine.

I have a memoir about the spiritual/magickal aspects of my life, again in blog form so far, but I find it hideously confronting to put that intimately personal stuff out there. (I’ll tell you about my sex life, my financial situation, my politics, but….) So I am discontinuing that blog and will be writing the stuff somewhat more privately until I think it’s ready to become a book.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre? 

Only by being mine, in my voice and style. There's no huge, dramatic difference otherwise. I haven't reinvented the chapbook or the memoir.  And I write all kinds of poetry; I love to explore. 

The renshi project is unashamedly based on a similar book by four Hawaiian women poets, No Choice but to Follow. (It's available in Kindle and paperback. Helen picked up a copy of the paperback on a trip to Hawaii and asked for collaborators for a similar project. I read the book while visiting her, and now own the Kindle edition.) Our imitation is meant as flattery, so our collection is likely to resemble more than it differs from theirs — except in some details, e.g. in our case three of us are Australians and one British, and we are not sponsored by a literary magazine as they were.

3) Why do I write what I do? 

Poetry's a vocation, the thing I can't not do. It began when I was a small child. I hope and trust it won't stop until I die. It sustains me. It is my comfort in sorrow and my companion in joy. Although I am on a low income, it makes me feel rich. 

I began the widowhood memoir simply as a blog, for emotional release, and in the hope it might be helpful to others. People found it beautiful and begged me to publish.

People have been asking for years that I write a memoir about my esoteric experiences. I can see that it might have value to seekers, and hope to slant it that way. Though I find it so difficult in practice, I’m not averse to the idea in principle. I think there must be lots of past lifetimes of needing to keep that knowledge secret, so perhaps I need to clear some blocks.

4) How does your writing process work? 

Poetry starts with a line or two in my head. That might turn out to be at the beginning or end, or somewhere in the middle. It might even end up being discarded — but it's important to write it down asap, or else I might lose the whole iceberg of which it's the tip. 

In recent years I have sometimes also written poems to prompts. They can trigger ideas and memories that might otherwise have lain dormant all my life.

I used to write by hand in notebooks I could carry with me everywhere. Nowadays I compose straight onto computer, and love to take my trusty iPad mini with me for writing as well as reading. (I uploaded the free Pages app.) I still carry a tiny notebook and a pen too, “just in case”. (In case of what? I haven’t yet specified that to myself.)

When I was the mother of young children (long ago), if I couldn't get straight to pen and paper when inspiration struck, I’d memorise the line or lines in my head and hold them there until I could. These days I trust my unconscious more, and allow things to percolate unattended if necessary. They’re there when I arrive at the page. Or the idea is, and it finds its words. Mind you, I try not to leave it too long before arriving at the page, or they can fade away and be lost.

A friend recently said she thought  my poems just flowed out spontaneously, without a lot of revision. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted. I do a great deal of tweaking and polishing at the point of creation. I do also come back to them after time has elapsed, and re-examine them.  I have been known to scrap things and do complete rewrites in other forms, styles, whatever. But it’s supposed to be good if one’s art appears effortless, so I decided to take my friend’s remark as a compliment — even while acquainting her with the facts! I thought she seemed a mite disappointed that her theory was wrong.

I do a lot of revising and editing of the prose, too.  

In prose, it is usually the idea that comes first and then I find the words — except for prose poetry, which I write occasionally; and unless I am journalling, which is a dump straight on to the page (and may or may not need a lot of cleaning up afterwards if I decide to make it public).

Trained by being a mum, and then by Natalie Goldberg, who suggested writing in cafés, I don’t need perfect peace and quiet in order to write. This is very useful!

Trained by poetry communities which issue prompts, and perhaps also by decades of experience, I can now toss off a creditable first draft quite quickly. Participation in these groups requires that the drafts go up on my blog straight away. I do come back later — sometimes a lot later — to revise and if necessary make changes, but most people see the first draft and probably don’t revisit. This is perhaps a good reason for submitting “finished” poems to literary magazines and anthologies (usually online nowadays) and for creating chapbooks.

Step 3: Who’s Next?  

I was asked to choose three other bloggers to whom to pass on the torch. At first I couldn’t find anyone who didn’t feel they were too busy. Then two people agreed: American poet and social media (content and design) professional Delaina Miller, and Aussie poet/muso/digital artist Phillip Barker (aka Soma).

If anyone else would like to jump in, please do! Email me for details.


(Cross-posted to my website)

Focusing on Joy — with Startling Effects

Strange things happen when you do one of Satya Robyn's courses! They are quite low-key in the way they're presented — one reason I like them; I so hate gung-ho. They are gentle, seemingly undemanding. The daily emails are wise in a down-to-earth kind of way, with beautiful quotations and illustrations. They are easy to digest, non-threatening. Yet the effects are profound.

The one I am doing this month is about joy. We are encouraged to examine it in various ways, which include noticing what gets in the way of it. Simple practices are suggested. I am only doing two: writing a daily 'small stone' about something that gives me joy if only for a moment, and going for a walk in nature each day. The latter is not difficult where I live, but it's nice to do it mindfully, paying attention.

I think the bits of writing I'm doing are nothing earth-shattering. They are not great literature, and reveal no unusual insights. I post them to my blog and facebook writer's page anyway, but I have been wondering why I bother.

Then yesterday, sitting in the writers' group I have been facilitating with great pleasure for the last seven years, it dawned on me that I have come to the end of that. This is momentous; it has been a huge part of my life. I said nothing, came home and thought about it — only briefly before I noticed how alive the idea of moving on made me feel. I'm ready to embrace the unknown. 

It's not that there's anything wrong with the group; it's great! It's just that my time as facilitator has completed itself. Even good things come to an end. It's not a disaster in any way. Several possible replacements for me are showing up, and I expect to remain friends with people in the group. I am also looking forward to more time for my own writing, and to having freedom from the responsibilities my role has involved. They weren't arduous, in fact were enjoyable, but they were a tie. It seems I'm lightening up. I talk about my decision, and my friends say, 'Well, you sound very happy about it.'

I don't quite know how Satya's course helped precipitate this. Perhaps just by having me pay attention to joy, to how it operates in my life. I suspect the decision has been percolating away subconsciously for some time; the course didn't cause it. But, in heightening my awareness, it did enable me to become conscious of what shape joy might take for me now.

Is This the End of Year Doldrums?

I'm engaged in a month of writing about joy — supposedly. It's a course I'm doing, and so far the daily emails seem to be all about an absence of joy and how to compensate for that. Which is right on target really, as although I still take pleasure in life, true joy is hard to find nowadays.

I'm circling back through the stages of grief, and the depressed stage is here again. I know I'm lucky it's only mild, but even that sucks.

It seems to me the writing suffers for it. I do my 'small stone' dutifully each day, mindfully looking outside myself. It works up to a point, to take me out of myself, but I think the writing lacks verve. 

I even share my blog posts on facebook each day, because I set up a writer's page. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I may have lost rather than gained readers by it, as not everyone on my friends list has subscribed to the page. (On the other hand, maybe the ones who didn't weren't reading my literary endeavours anyway.) In any case, I think the writing this month is pretty banal. I also think my 'poem a day' last month was fairly ordinary to boot. Why would anyone want to keep reading this stuff, I ask myself. I'm grateful that people do, but I wonder how long they can be bothered.

I think it must be time to stop with the prompts and things, and do some serious revision instead. I always promise myself this and then fail to tackle it. I have a chapbook that's been languishing for a year! And so many more possibilities.

I just gave some opinions on a friend's poems for a potential book. She writes wonderfully — but I thought some of this lot weren't up to standard. Maybe it's just my general lack of enthusiasm for anything at the moment. But I was reminded of something Mal Morgan said to me years ago about one of my poems: 'It's not telling me anything new.' Does it matter how well written something is if it doesn't strike the reader as new and fresh? Opinions we can comfortably agree with are for Facebook status updates, not poems. 

Well, it's not wrong to inspire a reader to agreement, but hopefully as an 'Ah!' of delighted recognition, not as something they might easily have said themselves.

Hard to know, perhaps, what readers might consider 'ho-hum'. I guess one way is to keep posting and see what comments I get. 

I think I'm due for a holiday, and luckily I'm getting one fairly soon. Then — new year resolution — no more daily writing for a while, and no more subject prompts either. I might do some form prompts. I like playing around with form. But mostly, time to really revise at last.

I am also wondering about the wisdom of having transferred my writer's journal here to my personal blog. Seemed sensible to reduce the ridiculous number of blogs I keep. But now I am thinking, here is more blah that people won't really care to read, so why am I inflicting it on them? A lot of the time — like now — it's really just me talking to me about what's going on with my writing. Ah well, they can always stop reading, I guess. They're free to choose.

Meanwhile, yes, I think I'm in some kind of doldrums all right.

Importing My Writer's Journal Here

I've been keeping a writer's journal, full of writing exercises (i.e. results thereof) and the occasional reflection on process and/or report on progress. Not, perhaps, of much interest to anyone else, but I've regarded it as semi-public just in case. It was always intended mainly for my own reference. For instance, a lot of writing exercises throw up material which could be useful in those memoirs I'm so slowly creating.

But I have this ridiculous number of blogs, so have decided to merge it with this one, and have labelled all its posts accordingly, as 'writer's journal' and many also as 'writing exercises'. This will enable you to avoid them if you think they'll bore you — or look at them if you wish.

Writer's Journal: Dithering

l always do this. When it's journalling with pen and paper, I get into an awful tizz about what notebook and which pen, and whether to number the pages. I make one decision, then I change it, then I change it back....

Now it's the same with writing and blogging the memoir (or is it autobiography?). I decided to close the memoir blog and move everything to my personal blog. I think it felt too 'out there' to have a blog called 'Living a Psychic Life' and to contemplate recounting some of my more - er -esoteric experiences. I announced the change at both blogs, and delayed taking down the memoir one so as to give readers a chance to catch up with what was happening.

Then my best friend said she wanted more 'juice' in these stories, so I thought, 'OK, darn it, go for broke.' I reinstated the memoir blog, re-titling it, 'Living a Magickal Life'. I also realised I'd have to be writing longer posts. There's a widespread theory that long blog posts don't work. There's also recent research which suggests that's a fallacy. But anyway, I gave the blog a new layout where people see only a paragraph of each post and can click if they want to read the lot.

I felt pleased with myself. Then Best Friend casually added, 'I'd save the juicier ones for the book.' Oh yes — book. My goodness, that's making it startlingly real! It occurred to me she was right, for commercial reasons. If I want to sell a book, no good giving everything away for free in a blog first.

So now what do I do? Change things back? (But I LIKE my new blog layout and title.) Keep the new one, but just post selected excerpts? (I'll look like a fool. I announced I was going to let it all hang out.) Make a new announcement, explaining the new situation? (Ye gods, how many chop-and-change announcements in quick succession can my readers stand?)

Oh, I could dither for days now!

Writer's Journal: Scared of Being Weird

I left the Life Writing group. It was a long way to drive, and doing it weekly was costing too much in time and petrol.

And there was another reason. I was about to get into the really weird stuff about my psychic life, things that I usually don't talk about at all. If I say these things, my mind assures me, people will be convinced I'm a total nutter. They'll stop taking seriously anything I say.

Well, I have nearly finished a long chapter about dragons. People imagine dragons to be non-existent. How can I possibly put it out there that not only do they exist, some hang around with me? That they can travel inter-dimensionally (like fairies)? That the ones I know live on a far planet in another dimension, close to a planet where angels live? That I myself originated there (long, long ago) and was once a dragon? 

Preposterous! Madness, or merely fiction? That might be the kindest reaction I would get. Yet if I don't include this stuff, what a cop-out. That would be a memoir that merely scratched the surface — albeit that surface is already out of the ordinary. Interested people have been asking for years that I write this memoir. Having finally committed to do it, I think I must be truthful. So I'll write it, and then worry about how it might be received.

The next question is whether to blog it now or keep it private until I have a whole book. But I am posting this — albeit to a blog which is not read by many, has hardly any followers and receives no comments. To post anything at all, anywhere at all, is daring. 

Writer's Journal: Points of note about yesterday

1) I wrote a memoir piece about the ending of my marriage to Bill. Later I realised that I wrote it on our wedding anniversary!

2) At the Life Writing group, I started to read my above-mentioned piece on the iPad then realised I'd saved the wrong version, the one from which I had not shaved 200 words to bring it to the length required.

'It's all right,' I said, 'I've got it on my blog.' This involved getting out and switching on my portable modem.

'Would you like to go on to the next person while I get myself set up?' I said.

'No, that's all right,' they assured me. 'We'll wait. We're not putting pressure on you.' They sat back and waited attentively, calm and smiling.

What a delicious relief! How relaxing! I am used to a writing group where time is at a premium, and some people have the concept of 'wasting' it if it is not utilised with great purpose and efficiency. Admittedly, that group is full of serious writers and includes critiquing of people's work, which the Life Writing group is not and does not. Even so — how relaxing! what delicious relief!

Writer's Journal: Making Public

A post from my Personal Journal (which is a private blog). It seems relevant here too.

I re-read some posts here [Personal Journal] which, at the time of writing, felt private, and I realise there is no need to keep them secret. I shift them to my Widowhood Chronicles.

It's good to write them at first as private, though — I'm more inclined to let it all hang out when I do that, and I note that this makes for better writing.

They could, of course, stay private. It's up to me.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Gobble Light

Exercise from U3A group

Gobble

Light

Bursting

Chase

Maze

Deception

 Hungry

I was so hungry, I thought I could gobble the light that came bursting through the trees, piercing the darkness. I felt as if I could chase it through the maze and finally swallow it whole. It was like a golden ball, that I thought would slide down my throat and warm me from the inside. What deception we inflict on ourselves! I must have been delirious, after so many days wandering there, lost, cold and starving.  

Writer's Journal: Life Writing Group

I love this group!

It meets at Kingscliff Library, under the auspices of U3A (University of the Third Age in case anyone doesn't know, which gives oldies — er, senior citizens — the opportunity to get together and learn or teach all manner of subjects).

There are about 17 people in the group, I'm told, but usually only about 8 turn up, which is a nice number for a group. Each week we are given a letter of the alphabet (not in consecutive order) with examples of what it might stand for, and we choose a topic beginning with that letter to write on for the following week. We are allowed up to 1500 words.

We don't make copies; we just listen well as each person reads out what they've written. We are encouraged to bring photos too, if relevant. I haven't so far, but I probably will at some point.

After each piece is read out, we have a little discussion of it. We can ask for feedback, but so far I'm the only one who has. The first time I read, they praised my writing. I said, 'So it held the interest?' and they all assured me it did. That was it — and it was all that I needed. Mind you, today was only my second time there, but I have the feeling that what I've seen is typical. Except for me, the people in this group don't see themselves as writers; they just want to write their life stories for their families. Nevertheless they all write very well.

People turn up a little earlier than the starting time, or sometimes a little later. We have a bit of chit-chat as people arrive, of the 'Hello, how are you, what have you been up to?' kind. Then the group leader says, 'I think everyone who's coming is here. Shall we start?' Immediately everyone happily stops their conversations, and we go around the room taking it in turns to read. The leader picks who will start and in what direction we'll go around. It's all very polite and gentle.

The discussion of each piece consists of how it makes us feel — 'That sounds lovely', 'What an amazing experience' and so on — and what someone I know calls 'self-referential' — 'When I was there ...', 'Oh, my brother-in-law's family came from that area', 'That reminds me of ...'

No-one keeps time or asks us to please move along. The discussion is relaxed, and finds its natural end, then the next person begins to read. This doesn't steal time from other activities; we meet for two hours, and today we finished ten minutes early.

After we've all read and each piece has been discussed, we have a writing exercise. A box is passed around, containing words on slips of paper. We each take one, then we read them out. The exercise is to write a piece containing all the words, and if possible have it make some kind of sense. Then we all read out in turn what we've written. It raises laughter and admiration. Today our lone man set himself an extra challenge: to use the words in alphabetical order. He did a very good job of it!

They're nice people, down to earth and friendly. My memoir now has the working title, A Psychic Life. Last week I wrote about giving myself a migraine by an effort of will when I was a litte girl. This week I wrote about about my second husband Bill's very sudden and dramatic psychic awakening when he was 49. Everyone is very accepting of this way-out stuff. They are interested and ask intelligent questions. No-one's judgmental; they take it at face value that the experiences I recount are real, even if unusual. They are equally interested in all the other material that people bring and share. I'm just one of the mob.

I love this group!

Writer's Journal (exercise): House Call

Exercise from U3A group:

House call 

Simple

Lavatory

Comfortable

Reach

Chewing

Usherette 

Dentures

When the urgent message came through on the cinema phone for a house call, I wasn't surprised. The lights were out of course, but as usherette I had my torch. The doctor had told me where he'd be sitting, so that I could find him. Dolly King was due to have her baby any minute, he said. I'd just got comfortable up the back, to sneak a look at the movie myself, so I wasn't best pleased, but I stopped chewing on my gum, tucked it into my cheek so it wouldn't glue my dentures shut, and got up to look for  him discreetly. Not in his seat! Oh darn,must have gone  to the lavatory. But no, that was too simple. After I trundled up there and knocked on the door of the Men's, there was no response. How on earth was I going to find out where  he'd got to, let alone reach him in time? There was really only one thing to do. So that's how I found myself at Dolly's place at 10pm, delivering a baby for the first time in my life. Never did find out where the doc had got off to.

Writer's Journal: Suddenly I'm Poeming Again.

(After Andrew's death I dried right up for a while.) The e-course (Journalling Our Way Home) must have something to do with it — the discipline of journalling, the attempt to focus inside myself for making small stones — even though the poems are on personal issues. I have been doing a bit of a Buddhist thing, of observing my own thoughts and feelings, my own process. Also my new hobby of going out and photographing flowers may well have helped. But basically I think it's the journalling. And the new one-line haiku group, which intrigued me enough that I have been able to contribute a couple of entries. I think it is that writing begets writing. Needless to say, I'm glad of it.

Writer's Journal (exercise): The Sophistication of Pottsville

(write about your locality as a character)

Pottsville was a lazy sort of character when we first met. Even a bit dowdy, or at least casual. And friendly, definitely friendly. Laid-back, I suppose you'd say.

Eight years later, my goodness, we're getting quite posh and up to the minute. Smart new duds, at least where they show, though maybe underneath there are still some old and worn items.

And busier, not so lazy or laid back any more. Still friendly, but with less time to pas in idle chat. And somehow has more of a sense of self-importance now.

Was a bit hasty with the face-lifting, I think. Not all of it works.

Writer's Journal (exercise): The Road Home

It’ll be wet today, and I’ll take the long way back as I took the long way here. This means roadworks and going slow, but I don’t want to slide around the hills and bends of Clothiers Creek Road in this wet. Hopefully it won’t be pelting down as it was on the way over. The road home is one I’ve driven so often in my 20 years in the Caldera that it’s very familiar. Now that I do all the driving, I know it well. I like the bit where I approach Murwillumbah, and know that home is close, especially on days like this, or late afternoons/early evenings as it will be by the time I get there. Evenings to be all cosy inside, with hot food and armchairs, TV and hugs. The road home is good because it ends in home. The road out is good too because it takes one out. Both are great.

This became a cut-up poem posted at my poetry blog, The Passionate Crone. 

Been and gone and done it

— and then I undid it again.

I brought across my writer's journal and my 'Cronewyze' blog. The merges were easy enough, although the comments didn't come as promised.

Then I had to put labels on the posts to indicate overall content, and adjust some other tags which had become vague, being out of context. It all started to look kinda messy.

And although I decided that my visuals in other places didn't really matter much, the specific links and things did. Bringing them all over here would have resulted in far too much clutter!

Instead I am seeking to integrate my other blogs via links at the top of the left side bar. And, under the tabs at the top of this blog, you'll now find more details of my witchy and healing backgrounds.

Writer's Journal (exercise): Friday Night Drinks

Friday night I rush home after a long day in Pottsville. I usually have appointments before WordsFlow, and go shopping on the way home. So I don’t feel like cooking. It’s usually BBQ chook, instant mash and frozen peas, with a bit of fake gravy out of a packet. And wine. A bottle of cheap red on the way home, shiraz or sometimes merlot. Andrew isn’t allowed to drink, being diabetic. Even when he has just a smidgeon, it’s bad for him, and his blood sugar shows it. But he likes Zero Coke or Lemon, Lime & Bitters.

I don’t really like the taste of wine any more, I just like the effect. I’m a really cheap drunk these days, and two glasses is more than enough, small gasses moreover.

Sometimes I hanker for a good Scotch, which is way out of reach financially now, but if I had one I think I mightn’t like it after all. My tastes have changed so much.

And all those liqueurs I used to love — would they seem heavy or sickly now?

I can’t afford to drink too much anyway, when I have someone to take care of. And there is me to take care of as well. So a couple of small glasses of red with dinner do me very nicely on a Friday night ... and a Saturday night ... and a Sunday night. I finish the bottle all week, and next Friday I get me another.