A Woman of my Word

By the looks of things I haven’t written on this blog since March, so I should probably give you a little update on what I’ve been doing since then.

I think by the end of February I had lost almost all motivation to do anything. I find once I lose motivation it’s really hard to try and get it back. Then the procrastination starts and in my case that means watching tv in bulk. I have a friend who downloads full seasons for me and I will spend a day or two watching nothing but.

Also things for me are getting a little depressing as I’ve been out of work since I got home in December. It is now almost the end of May and I still haven’t found anything workwise. I’m starting to get desperate. I really wanted to do something different. I want to get out of settling for shit jobs. I don’t want to do hospitality anymore. So I’ve been looking at admin jobs but I don’t think my resume is doing me any favours. As I’ve spent the past 5 years, at least, working to travel it kind of looks like all I can do is menial jobs.

The other thing I am a little depressed about is that at the end of this year it will be 10 years since I graduated from University and I’ve done nothing with my degree. I do plan to write a post about my university experience so I won’t get into it here but it’s suffice to say that I’m a little disappointed by my lack of experience in this area.

Anyway, so what have I been up to these past few months writing wise?

At the end of March I was taken on board a new online magazine. I answered an ad on Gumtree to be a contributor for the Home Journal. It is an Australian home and lifestyle magazine headed by Dani Wales from The Block. If you have no idea who she is and you don’t watch The Block that’s fine, neither do I. The “magazine” is actually a blog but the situation has been an interesting learning experience in how to deal with changes in deadlines and miscommunication. I’m not exactly pleased I’ve been tarred with the ‘craft and fashion’ brush but I do want my writing to be versatile so it’s a good experience in how to be adaptable until I find my niche. You can check out my contribution HERE.

I also worked on an article for Tasmanian Life magazine. The piece is about the veteran car club that runs in Tasmania. This piece was taken on after I pitched a few ideas to the editor, and was a learning experience in what not to do. Turns out editors are very busy people and not particularly helpful so my top tip here is to not give them extra work despite what they’ve said to you. I was told to send through a draft, she would give me advice and make suggestions then I would have a week to fix it up, so that is what I did. Top tip number two: Never send a draft. Always make sure it is the best work you can produce. I ended up getting an e-mail back saying my piece could not be used. I wrote back explaining that I had done what she’d told me to and supplied evidence. She apologised but still couldn’t use my piece.

A couple of weeks later something must have fallen through because she asked to see it again. I sent the exact same piece thinking that maybe she had time to offer some guidance. Nope, she wanted to publish it! A few weeks after that she e-mailed the heavily edited version that would be going to print. Now I should have been excited that something I wrote was going to be published but I was actually disappointed. It was not at all my best work and I didn’t get the opportunity to work with the editor to fix whatever was wrong with it. If I had just got some suggestions I could have produced something more suitable. It also felt like a consolation prize. I have learnt a lot from this experience so I will know better for next time.

Other than writing I have been doing a bit of reading about writing over the past few months. I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird which is a lovely book about the writing process and gives some handy hints on ways to approach it. Sometimes the amount of writing you need to do becomes overwhelming but this book tells you how to break it down to smaller, more manageable stages.

The other book was Natalie Goldberg’s Writing down the Bones. I found this book really useful and ended up taking notes from it. It’s encouraging and gives practical suggestions on how to approach writing. The author is also a writing teacher so the book is littered with suggestions for exercises and she talks about her own personal experience.

I have just finished reading Stephan King’s On Writing. This one is interesting because he is very opinionated in what he considers good writing. He mentions some books by title that he openly despises and he is not a fan of the personal essay. He does make some interesting suggestions but these are things he has learnt from his own experiences and may not work for everyone.

The overall message from each book is to just write. If you want to be a writer you have to write. Write through the pain, write even when you don’t feel like it then keep writing some more, there is no other way around it. And when you are not writing you should be reading.

On that note I will leave you there. I will try to keep this blog more regular in future. I am not short on ideas for it and as I’m unemployed I have all the time in the world I just lack motivation and that is what needs to change.

Til next time, keep writing…

I love receiving mail. I love going to the mail box and opening the lid in anticipation but then there is the bout of disappointment when there is either nothing there for me or it’s only a bill.

I love writing letters just as much as I love receiving them. I actually think this is why I now love to write. I have always written letter. I would write thank you letter to my grandparents after receiving birthday or Christmas presents and I had a pen friend I used to write to, though now we have grown up and there are modern technological advances such as facebook for us to keep in touch.

Nothing beats writing an actual letter. For mean it means I have taken the time for a particular person. It means that they are important enough for me to make an effort. It means that I am a member of a civilized society where a simple act of putting pen to paper is highly regarded. It also probably means I am a little old fashioned.

I like the feeling of a pen (and I’m just as happy with a sewing needle) in my hand. I like to pour my heart out on the page and I am brave enough to send it off for someone to read it. I do have many ex boyfriends that probably hate the fact that I loved writing letters so much.

I like to receive a well-written and well thought out reply. Unfortunately the mere act of writing a simple letter has fallen by the wayside and with all the technology people don’t know how to do this anymore. A letter is actually a written conversation. You answer the questions asked and respond with your own anecdotes to whatever has been said. It is a two way act that both participants have to actually participate in for it to be successful.

10 years ago I went on my first international trip and I worked at a summer camp in America for 3 months. It was not my first time away from home but it was the greatest distance I had been away from home. My most regular and reliable correspondent was my Nan. She would tell me family gossip and about her cat and what her and Pop had been up to with their social club. She would send me newspaper clippings of events that were taking place at home. She was my contact with the outside world.

I still write to her whenever I’m away because I know she’ll reply. I know she will take the time to sit down with a cup of tea and she’ll tell me something, anything about her day. The fact that there is someone in this world that will actually take the time for me means the world to me. I think that is why I love letters so much. Because it doesn’t matter where I am I am not forgotten. Perhaps that is why I want to write, so I will not be forgotten.

I have nothing to pass on to the next generation, no family heirlooms or unpaid debt. I have no evidence of my existence, no children, husband or house. I do have thoughts and words and opinions and advice. I do have a love of history and a need to record what I see and do. I want to contribute to this world but no desire to leave my mark in any grand way. I feel no need to save the world one starving country at a time but I would like to make a difference even if it is only to one person at a time.

I think the trick to writing a letter is to write the kind of letter you would like to receive. I would like to meet a person who doesn’t like to receive a letter. Isn’t it nice to get something personal in the mail other than a bill or a catalogue? Isn’t it nice to open your inbox and have something that is not a notification or work related?

I will keep writing letters and e-mails because it is important for me to do so. It is my way of putting a little effort into maintaining my relationships and letting these people know they are important to me. It is a sad state we have come to that the simple act of picking up a pen and putting it to paper has fallen by the way side and been replace with more convenient means of communication. For all the convenience though, how often do you write a personal letter or e-mail?

I haven’t really been keeping up to date with this blog recently. I’ve had a lot of ideas for it. I’m not going to say I haven’t had time but the honest truth is that I haven’t made the time. I’ve been distracted by other things. I’m not going to say I’ve been busy. I don’t like the word ‘busy.’ It implies a kind of self-importance that is in conflict with my values. I’ve been distracted with pitching article ideas and writing in order to get myself out there a bit more.

I have taken the leap into the unknown and I have been a little productive by trying to create work for myself. I’ve been working on a short story which I plan to enter into a competition. I’ve also pitched ideas to a few different magazines. The thing with this is that you can’t suggest something without actually going through with it.

I pitched a few ideas to a Tasmanian magazine and got some interest so now I’m working on an article there. I also accidently pitched my favourite magazine. The magazine I hold in such high regard that it would be a dream to write for. You are probably wondering how I accidently wrote a pitch?

I kind of just started writing and it just happened is the simple answer. I noticed that there was a different name signing off the letter from the editor. It was a familiar name so it took a few months for me to click that the editor had actually changed. After a bit of a google search to find out what happened I thought I would write to the new editor and tell her that I liked the new layout, I love the magazine and ask if the contribution procedure had changed and if they still took unsolicited articles.

I didn’t stop there. I kept writing. I did a google search of how to write the perfect pitch and pitched an idea I’ve had in mind for a while. HERE are the suggestions I followed.

I didn’t think, I just wrote. I didn’t worry that I was writing to the editor of my favourite magazine and I was just some nobody who wants to write but has yet to be published. It was just an enquiry and you don’t get anything if you don’t ask for it. I had done my research. I knew who she was and how she got the editor position and I’m also very familiar with the content of the magazine and I almost study the writing style and google the other writers. I had also spent the first part of the e-mail praising her efforts without being an obvious suck hole.

I mentioned my lack of experience but the letter itself is an example that I can string a few words together. Then I presented my idea with confidence, “I believe I have something to contribute” and then “I would like to write about my opinion and experience for [a specific section].” I gave an example which suggested the angle I wished to take that I just outright asked, “…would you be interested in a piece on this topic? I would be happy to write it.”

I offered to send her examples of my work and singed off with a respectful thank you and a prompt to reply and just hoped for the best without any expectations. I don’t want the stress of expectations. I’m sure she is a busy woman. I’m sure she gets letters like mine every day. I’m sure her magazine only wants professional writers and may not want to take a chance on someone with almost zero experience. But I had to take a chance.

I felt that I had to start throwing things out into the universe just to see what would come back. There is no point in walking this path if I’m not prepared for the rejection that is involved. I saw it as a practice run. Why not start being rejected from the top then it will just get easier as I work my way down. What I wasn’t expecting was a reply.

A few days later I got a reply to say that she and the editorial coordinator would be interested to see some samples of my work. I was more scared than excited. I have just created an opportunity for myself and I now have to go through with it. This past week I have been franticly working on the piece I suggested and I need to put together a small package of the best examples to send to them.

There you have it. Opportunity doesn’t always knock, sometimes you just have to put yourself out there and see what happens. I do enjoy a happy accident though. Please let me know if you have any further suggestions for pitching ideas. I would be interested to hear about your experience.

I am currently working on a short story I plan to submit to a competition. It is a work in progress and I can’t progress through this work without an honest opinion. So I have a friend that dabbles a bit in editing to help me out. I need someone to look over it not just for grammatical errors but to also to point out things that I may not have seen.

Anyway, she was talking to me about it the other night. In her opinion the story is structurally sound but is missing a little colour. She also mentioned that I switch between tenses. I use past tense and simple tense and it can be a little distracting. At this point she had actually lost me. Simple tense? What the hell is that? I didn’t ask because, well, I didn’t want to look simple.

The great thing with writing is that it is usually a process of trial and error. You just keep at it. You chip away and you find out what you need to know, when you need to know it. Turns out there are more tenses than I ever thought there was. Here I am thinking there are only three; past, present, and future. No! There are 12!

English is my first language but I don’t claim to know everything about it. I don’t know the correct words for thing. Sometimes I like to just make them up. I will add a sound effect to a conversation rather than actually describe what had happened. Writing is a little different to talking. The main difference is that you don’t necessarily need to speak coherently. I learnt a long time ago that no one really listens to what I’m saying much less understands me. If you want to be read, on the other hand, writing coherently is essential.

So I consulted Google for the answers. I found a few explanations but nothing that I actually understood. I am a visual learner. I need a few examples. So I buried my pride and actually just asked my friend what she meant. She kind of just laughed at me but didn’t really answer my question. We have a habit of wandering off topic so it was back to Google.

I found a handy little table which I will share with you HERE. I’m still trying to translate it in a way that makes sense to me.

Anyway after filling my head with all this new information I read back over my story. The only place I can see that I’ve switched tense is in the dialogue. But that would be normal wouldn’t it? The reader knows the events took place in the past. With dialogue you are including the reader in that precise moment.

I now have so many different versions of this story that I don’t even know which one I even like. Some are so far removed from the original first draft that I think I may have lost a little of the initial intention. It is only a short story but every word has to count. Everything has to lead to something. There needs to be a point to it. I’m even looking at each sentence individually and considering what it adds to the story and if the answer is nothing than I cut it.

It amuses me that one small comment about my use or misuse of tense has sent me into a spiral of conflicting thoughts and ideas. I am confused and grateful that I’m not writing a novel.

I will just keep chipping away at it. I don’t even entertain the idea of winning the competition. I just want to finish something so I can enter it. I just want to be in the competition, but I want it to be the very best work that I am capable of at this present moment. Then I will have something to look back on to show how far I’ve progressed.

When you start out you don’t need to know everything up front. You don’t need to know how each convention works. You find out the information when you need it then you use it. You just keep at it. So maybe in the past I was a bit simple, and at the moment I feel overwhelmed but it will only get easier in the future.

Sure there may be 12 tenses and I didn’t realise.  Let me know your thoughts and experiences of confussing tense.