Sunday Stills

1. Now Autumn has properly arrived we've been enjoying many fires. The kids love looking for kindling in the garden and we all love staring at the flames.
2. Pink blossoms in the park.
3. Sprocket, reflective
4. Poppet. Being 'super' again. She no longer wants to get on a swing the normal way - but instead wants to be a superhero!
5. Reflections on the verandah window. I love the high autumn skies and the wonderful clear light.
6. My parents came up to see us on the weekend. It was a wonderful end to a dreary week spent mainly in bed with gastro. Cross-fingers we're better now!
7. My beautiful mama at the station just before they caught the train home.
8. The kids were devastated they couldn't get the train back to the city with Nana and Grandpa!

Joining with the wonderful Em at The Beetleshack for Sunday stills.

14/52

1. My Sprocket: a happy yell playing on the sports oval. What could be better than a vast expanse of grass to run around and play with sticks on? Look at the sheer joy!
2. My Poppet: "I'm super-poppet!"

Joining with the lovely Jodi of Che and Fidel for a portrait of the kids once a week in 2013.

In Her Head

I've started off my new work in process, Overly Caffeinated Werewolves (Are not Pretty), and it's brilliant fun.  I'm only 3,000 words in and already there have been four dragons,  two werewolves and a dead body. Overload? I don't know - a lot of fun whatever.
But... I'm struggling with 'the voice.' To really get inside my narrators head and have a good roll around.
As with Dragons' Nests & Firebirds, the previous novel in the series, I'm writing in first person past tense, which worked really well in the last book as Nell's voice wasn't that much of a stretch for me. I didn't have to work too hard (okay, at all, really) to see things through her eyes. She loves details and I could describe all the beautiful things and places at glorious length and her 'tone' was easy. Mia is different. Mia's tone does not come easily to me.
O, but I wish it did.
She's sharp, fast, organised, hardworking, sharp-shooting and fiercely protective and getting her voice right is so hard. My natural tone is... flowery. Her tone is... not.
So I'm wondering, should I  change into third person which is time consuming if it means re-writing a whole novel, but at this early stage not too bad. I've done it before at 30,000 words and it was quite an interesting, if long, exercise, or try to stretch myself to continue trying to write in Mia's voice?
Decisions, decisions.
If I ever get Mia's voice right, I think it could be very effective. However, seeing things through her eyes would mean I'd have to leave out a lot of stuff I really want in, because she just won't see them. Also, I'd need to get a lot more technical about coffee than I suspect my brain can take in.
If I write in third person I can get in a lot more of my delicious detail. But then there's the option of head-jumping. Writing from a lot of different perspectives would be interesting...
But then, it would be nice to get to the end of the series and have the five sisters each have one book to 'speak' in. The different voices would complement each other so well and as a whole it would be so satisfying!
Okay, playtime. I'm off to juggle some words around and see how it all falls out...
I feel coffee may be called for. I suspect by the end of the month the werewolves will not be the only ones who are overly caffeinated!

Clutzes of the World Unite - We Have Nothing to Lose (But Our Fine China)!

I got an email at work recently asking for clutzy volunteers to take part in a study into dyspraxia. And I went 'huh?' So yes, I'm a clutz, but I didn't know it had an official, medical name.
So I put my hand up to take part in the study and was interested as I went down the screening questions to see how many applied. Trouble parking a car and telling left from right. Yep. No good at dancing or team sports? Yep. Lose things all the time? Yep. Bad handwriting. Poor spatial awareness. Yep. Yep. Easily distracted and majorly disorganised. Yep. Yep.
And seriously, nowadays it rarely bothers me. I avoid the stuff I'm bad at and concentrate on the stuff I'm good at. So netball, ballroom dancing and zumba aren't going to happen - I can enjoy swimming, yoga and walks in the country. So I'm disorganised? I read books about creative mess and that makes me laugh. We live in the country so parking isn't an issue and thankfully computers have meant I rarely need to worry about my handwriting..
As a kid however...
As a kid it was different.
Primary school was sheer and unadulterated torture.
I had appalling handwriting, maths made no sense to me, I was always first out in team sports, games of tag and poison ball and as for recess pursuits of skipping and elastics...well let's not go there, I certainly didn't. Instead I opted out and started reading. I read through lunchtime and recess, walking too and from school and through class parties. My wonderful teacher in grade five and six let me skip the daily rounders game and the humiliation of being picked last Every. Single. Day and go straight up to the library.
I hate the thought of other kids stumbling through school, always out of time and out of step and being yelled at for it. Hey, it's not like we do it on purpose. Just the thought of my kids going to school makes me want to sweep them up and take them far, far away. Preferably to somewhere that hasn't heard of team sports. However, there's no sign my kids share my dyspraxia - quite the reverse. My Sprocket has superior co-ordination and great reflexes. I'm actually counting down the days till he's old enough for Little Athletics and soccer to soak up some of his energy.
Dyspraxia is common. About 10% of the population have a mild form and about 2% have a more serious form. It's 4 times more common in males than females and is known as a cousin to ADHD (with which it has a close association), dyslexia and the autism spectrum. Daniel Radcliff of Harry Potter fame is the most well known person with dyspraxia, but Coleridge and Chesterton are believed to have suffered from it.
Do I think something so common as being a clutz should be a medical condition? I really don't know. Did it cause me years of misery. Yep. Until I was in year 11 and 12 and I could gratefully dump P.E and maths I really did think I was stupid. Does the thought of dyspraxia causing other kids years of misery make my heart contract? Yep.
A few years back I did a diploma of primary teaching. And one of my units was Physical Education.  And, as expected, I was the worst in the whole cohort and got many pitying glances as I tried to skip-rope and balance and all the rest. But... our teacher really, really worked at getting my cohort to think about engaging kids like me in P.E. In not making it torture. In using different methods to pick a team, in doing activities that are fun for everyone, not just the normally-co-ordinated. Oddly, P.E was my best subject, as I worked so hard to come up with lessons that all kids could enjoy, a lot based on creative dance and yoga classes I'd taken and assisted with. (You know, the kind of dancing you don't need to keep in time or remember steps for!) Knowing that teacher training is changing, that teachers are being trained in anti-sadist tendencies, makes me a whole heap more optimistic for the future happiness of kids with dyspraxia.
So, clutzes of the world unite! I'm off to yoga tonight, you're welcome to come and I'll try very hard not to bump into you!

My Kind of Camping...

It's April 1st today. Easter Monday. April Fools day. My prizes go to Australian Geographic and Google for April Fools day pranks.
And... wait for it, it's also the starting date for Camp Nano, which is like NaNoWriMo, where you write a novel (or 50,000 words) in the month of November, but you can chose the word count you want to aim for and you don't need to write a novel - you can write a script or short stories or whatever. Everyone is also allotted 'virtual cabins' and cabin mates to help keep you accountable and to try to raise some campfire cheer.
Anyway, I've chosen to work on a novel and aim to complete the first 50,000 words by the end of April. I'm not entirely sure I'll manage it, but I love the thought of trying it. The idea of being completely immersed in my delicious and highly caffeinated story for 30 days? Mmmm. Yes please. Happy shivers.
So the kids and I gathered kindling and I lit the fire today and we watched if for most of the evening - and may I say it was a very well lit fire and a beautiferous blaze. My beloved and I drank spiced tea (in the vain hope the ginger would settle our tummies - the tea was delicious, our tummies are still tumultuous) in front of the fire and outside the stars appeared in a high Autumn sky.
Now, with the kids asleep and the fire died down, cosy in bed in my fav flannel jammies,  all warm and fuffly from the dryer, it's time for me to open a new document and begin writing my brand new and sparkling (but not in a vampy way) novel!
Seriously, forget pit toilets miles away and no hot-water, this is my kind of camping!