mythconception

So I’m sitting here, writing yet another prologue to my book.

Which naturally means I’m procrastinating ridiculously by returning to this poor, neglected blog of mine and spilling out yet more of the ever-tumbling crazy that I never seem to run out of.

Today, I’ve gone AWOL from my original story and stared writing something random about England in 1415. Which somehow morphed into France in 1415.

What the frak this has to do with anything I don’t know, but I feel like anytime I write something that actually sounds good, I’m happy to take what I can get.

And it does sound good, today. Well, goodish. Amazingly.

And for the record, did you know how many hours you can spend on Google looking up info on weapons from the 1400’s? Seriously. Do it and see if you leave your computer after anything less than 2 hours.

As it stands now,  the Christmas wish I’ve had since I was three – an Oscar – has now been dumped in favour of a long bow and a catapult that has the potential to launch giant flaming fireballs.

Which I will then use to threaten my way to an Oscar.

I know. The brilliance is OVERWHELMING. Kneel, minions.

As for the book, the more I think about it, the more I think my main character and I are locked in a kind of war of attrition: each trying to wear each other down with potential plotlines. Sometimes it’s like she knows best, sometimes I do.

It’s kind of like having a thumb war with myself. In my head. If that makes sense.

I have an idea, I dump it, pick it up again five years later, suddenly decide it’s shiny, slap it into a random scene I’m tossing around that day, then do it all over again. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s blessed me with the lesson of knowing the value of not throwing stuff out : as long as I’ve got it, I can always go back to it. The other thing I’ve been really blessed with is great encouragement, and when I need it, opportunity.

If I need stuff read, constructively critiqued, brutalised with a red pen – whatever – I have people who are willing to do that.

So essentially, I have it good. Great, even. I write what I love, I’m supported in that, and I am in full control of 100% of the content. I don’t care that I don’t get paid for it – I am so lucky to have the opportunity to do something I’m passionate about, and come hell or high water, what I create is mine, and stays mine.

To be honest, this is something I don’t think I’ve valued as much in the past as I have learned to over the last ten months or so. (more…)

Verklempt (adj) — choked with emotion (German verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way; stuck)

Happy (adj) — 1. Feeling or showing pleasure or contentments; 2. Having a sense of confidence or satisfaction with a person, arrangement or situation.

Verklappy (adj) — the feeling of simultaneously wanting to comfort eat your body weight in chocolate out of misery, start a bareknuckle fight in a biker bar, and spontaneously re-enact the entire opening sequence of The Sound of Music out of sheer joy at the fact you are alive to enjoy this particular moment in the grand expanse of human history.

So it’s the long weekend. The last day of the Anzac Day/Easter Weekend to be exact, and I’m sitting here at the computer in our house in the country. It’s just after 8pm, after the kind of day you wish all Autumn days were like. The sun shone and the air was crisp in the morning before heating up; a day of really blues skies dotted with wisps of white cloud, where you feel like you really can see every inch of the far reaching countryside of gold plains, hills, houses and trees. The landscape is all red roofs that sit interspersed with leafy dark greens; everything is intermittently punctuated by scarlet, orange and canary yellow bursts of deciduous colour.  Every now and then, at the last half hour of twilight when the sky turns this deep, indigo-fringed lavender colour, there’ll be these giant square patches of fire roaring in the distance, where stubble is being burnt off for the winter in preparation for a new crop to be sown later. Scorching orange squares of heat that contrast wildly against the cold that descends so quickly here at night. Now, of course, it’s dark. You go outside and you’d swear you could see every star in the cosmos. Here everything is clear, quiet…serene. The day has disappeared like a drawn veil to the west and you can’t help staring up at the sky. One that makes you swear  you’re looking out at the universe as it truly is.
My dad is watching tv. My mum is boiling the jug as we prepare to drink our third or fourth round of tea for the day.
And all I have is this double thought.
That this is home, and that everything fits.

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Image Source: http://onemustnottelllies.tumblr.com/

I am a new day rising
I’m a brand new sky
to hang the stars upon tonight
Times Like These
Foo Fighters

A wise man once said that we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. If this then is true, and we are all in the gutter, then you are more than one of the few who looked up. You are, rather, one of the yet fewer still who looked at the stars with a determined heart to become one of them. A desire to be the very best at the thing you loved. And you were.

So thankyou.

For the rarity of your passion. For every wild and helter-skelter second you shared with us on the road to that place. For the laughs and goosebump-inducing moves that you pulled. For never saving anything less than your absolute best for want a better audience. For having the courage to do what you needed to do for yourself in the end. You are the firework that never faded. The Edge that will never dull. And we are the people who will always be grateful.