Rebecca Addison's Blog, page 2

A ratbag diagnosis

We were in a big hardware store sometime in early January, standing in front of a shelf of solar lights as we talked about which ones would look best in our native garden. It was hot outside and almost as hot in, the fans doing little to move the heavy air around the warehouse.

“Argh,” I groaned, as I plucked my shirt away from my back. “It’s so hot in here. Are you hot?”

My husband shrugged, and I narrowed my eyes at him. He looked as refreshed as when he’d gotten dressed that morning. He wasn’t even sweating.

“It’s warm,” he agreed when he saw my face. “But it’s not that hot.”

By now my chest was heaving as I tried to suck in enough air to stifle that panicked I’m drowning feeling I’d been experiencing on and off for the past couple of weeks. I pressed my hand to my heart and felt it racing.

“Can we hurry?” I asked. “I can’t breathe in here.”

We pulled a set of lights off the shelf and made our way to the checkout as quickly as we could, only my default walking pace – purposeful and annoyingly fast for anyone shopping with me – was decidedly slow.

“Are you okay?” my husband asked as we climbed into the car and he cranked the AC, directing the vent towards my face.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think I need to get my iron levels checked.”

But, I didn’t get my iron levels checked, not for another two months. It was the school holidays, and we had a lot going on. We lost a dear friend to cancer, we went away, our son had a severe anaphylactic reaction while at a remote camping ground and had to be taken to a country hospital via ambulance, our daughter started high school.

In February, our son brought home one of those miserable viruses – the ones that go from person to person, blocking up noses, and inflaming ears, and making heads pound. When it was my turn, it took me a long time to get over it. I’d wake up each day expecting to feel at least a little bit better, but it was exactly the same as the day before. I had no energy; all I wanted to do was lie in bed. Even walking to the other end of the house felt like an enormous effort.

Then there was the heat. The hottest summer on record, days and days of stifling temperatures, wearing wet clothing, spraying each other with water, tossing and turning all night. Everyone was hot, but I was suffering. I felt like I had weights around my ankles every time I walked. I couldn’t think properly. My feet were ridiculously hot and heavy. We joked that they were “hot bricks” and I’d press them to my husband’s back at night, sighing in relief when they touched his cool skin. And that breathing thing was back with a vengeance.

But I still didn’t go to the doctor. Because I had changed to a vegetarian diet a few months earlier, I assumed I was low in iron. I started iron tablets, then B12 tablets, and was convinced that it would solve whatever was wrong with me. Besides, what was I going to say? Ummm…. the heat is making me really hot? I’d had enough experience with cynical doctors over the years to have more than a small measure of performance anxiety when it came to demonstrating my symptoms. Besides, it would go away – right?

Then about a month ago, I was walking up the small incline to collect my son from school and by the time I got to the top I had to hold onto the fence for a minute to catch my breath. My head swam, and I lost my peripheral vision for a few seconds before everything came back into focus. That’s weird, I thought. Better see if I can get those iron levels checked. As it happened, the doctor had an appointment that afternoon. I picked up my son and went to the clinic, where I informed my GP that I was breathless and I needed some blood taken. Job done.

Only, the doctor didn’t like the sound of my symptoms. He’d noticed the way I could barely speak to him because I was puffing like I’d run up a flight of stairs.

“Do you ever feel your heart beating? Like palpitations?” he asked as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

“I guess so,” I replied. “Sometimes it races. Or kind of flutters? But I’ve had that before when I was anemic and needed a blood transfusion. So I’m sure it’s just that.”

He wasn’t convinced.

“Let’s do an ECG. Just to make sure,” he said. “We’ll do the bloods as well.”

“Ok,” I said, thinking to myself, Oh, great. How much will this cost? What a waste of time.

Over the next two days I had my blood taken, and I did the ECG, and then it was the weekend, and we had relatives to stay. I spent that weekend either sitting or lying down. Washing the dishes had me bent over, eyes squeezed shut, chest heaving as I tried to get enough air into my lungs. I couldn’t think of the word ‘petition’ one day and had to stop mid-sentence, eventually having to describe it so that my husband could give me the word I was looking for. I remember him looking at me for a second too long after that happened because I don’t forget words. I’m a writer; I’ve had a lifelong love affair with the things. But it was easy to brush it off and forget about it. Life was busy, after all, and I was still tired from that virus. After one particularly bad day, I did was most people do, I started googling. I read about iron infusions, convinced that my levels were so low I’d have to spend a boring day in the hospital with a needle in my arm. Maybe I’d need another blood transfusion. That wasn’t so bad last time, I remembered. In fact, I’d felt pretty great afterward.

Tuesday arrived, and I went back to the clinic to get my results. I saw a new doctor, and he was very concerned at the way I was breathing. He put one of those oxygen/heart clips onto my finger and saw that my resting heart rate was 108. I started prattling on about my iron levels, and he patiently waited for me to finish.

“Well, the thing is,” he said, “your bloods look great. Iron is right in the middle.”

Oh.

“I’d like you to go and get a CT with contrast of your lungs. Today. Here’s the referral. Can you call me to let me know when you’re getting it done? I’ll ring you this afternoon with the results.”

I had the first small tickle of fear in my belly then. I’d only ever heard that trace of urgency in a doctor’s voice once before, and that was when my then three year old had to have an MRI of his brain. I promised to go straight to the radiology place and numbly went to pay. While I was at the counter, a call came in, and I heard my name. The receptionist said it was the cardiologist who had reviewed my ECG, and he wanted to speak to the GP, so I should wait. They talked for a long time. That’s when I knew.

There was an abnormality on my ECG, and the cardiologist strongly urged me to get the CT with contrast urgently. I gathered my papers and stepped out into torrential rain. Unable to run to the car, I shuffled down the path as quickly as I could, my hair dripping and my mind racing.

It was all systems go from that day on. ED admissions, Holter monitor, a cardiologist appointment that had me bundled into the car with an oxygen tank in the back, bound for a hospital an hour away. Admission to acute care, then acute cardiac, more CT’s with contrast, chest x-rays, too many blood tests to count. I had gone from being a busy mum with a million things to do at once, from working with an editor on my latest book – to being in a room with three old men, stripped of my privacy, unable to walk to the toilet without first ringing for a nurse to accompany me.

Check out this video of my monitor when I stood up next to the bed. It felt like going from resting to the end of a workout in the space of 20 seconds accompanied by a massive adrenaline rush (the bad kind, not the ‘high’ kind).

Every time I stood up, my heart monitor set off every alarm in the ward, and I had nurses calling out to see if I was okay. I had to sit to shower, to brush my teeth, because the combination of standing and moving my arms was too exhausting. I learned to sleep with beeping monitors and lights in the room, with the sound of my roommates snoring and farting in their sleep, with the laughter of nurses and the whine of IV trolleys being wheeled along the linoleum floor. I had a low-grade fever; I had a serious BP crash; I fasted for 40 hours waiting to find out if I needed heart surgery. I spent long frightened hours thinking about my life expectancy, about cancer, about heart disease. I thought about that movie Beaches and tried in vain to remember the heart condition that killed that lovely lady with the long brown hair. I learned to be on the receiving end of help in the form of childcare, meals, gifts, company – something that I’ve never been good at. I wrote down passwords and life insurance information; I tried and failed, to think of what I could write down for my children in case I didn’t come home.

And then finally, the diagnosis everyone had suspected but couldn’t confirm until everything else was eliminated. POTS or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. A miscommunication between the auto nervous system and the heart. Coupled with my very low blood pressure and low blood volume, it was no wonder my heart was working overtime trying to pump the blood that was pooling in my legs and abdomen north to my heart and brain. My cardiologist called it a “ratbag diagnosis”. As a doctor, he likes to fix things. POTS can be managed, but it’s a chronic illness. He expressed his regret at not being able to order a procedure that would cure me. When he was ready to discharge me, he let me know gently that the medication I was taking would help, but I wouldn’t be the way I was before.

I’ve been home for two days. I still haven’t tackled the dreadlock situation on the back of my head because brushing my hair remains too tiring. I’ve walked a bit. I’ve spent a lot of time sitting. Yesterday, I wanted to pick my son up from school and ended up sitting on a sofa in the office because I couldn’t cope with standing for 5 minutes before the bell rang. I couldn’t make it to the car, so my husband had to drive down and pick me up from the entrance. I realised I need a mobility card for my car, and a wheelchair for longer trips out, at least for now.

I’ll be wearing compression stockings to my waist, even in summer. I need to drink at least 3L of water a day and eat a high salt diet and wear a medic alert bracelet and monitor my heart rate and blood pressure. And then there’s the medication I’ll be taking, even though I hate taking drugs, and have devoted years of my life to natural medicine and nutritional healing, and not taking drugs. It’s a lot to get my head around.

I’ve been lucky in life in that I’ve never had my choices drastically limited until now. All of the things I knew I’d probably never do (run a marathon, become a cross fit junkie, do a major overnight hike) were still possibilities. There’s a big difference between choosing not to do something and not being able to. I wonder what my life is going to be like now. How the family will have to adapt and what concessions they’ll have to make. I think about the medication that makes me woozy and wonder about my writing, my memory, my clear thinking, quick brain, and wonder if accessing creativity will be like wading through mud now, instead of gliding through water.

This is all new. As it turns out, it’s kind of new for my cardiac team, too. When I wasn’t being referred to as “bed 21”, the nurses called me, “the young one”. They deal with veteran smokers with clogged arteries. They don’t see women in their thirties with strange symptoms very often, and certainly not ones with anatomically perfect hearts.

So there you go. If there’s one thing you should take away from my story is that if you feel something – do something. I don’t know if it would have made a difference in my case or not, but it definitely would have if my diagnosis were something more serious, like aortic dissection (which was on the cards for a while). My reluctance to see a doctor was a little bit know-it-all and a little bit denial. There are enough health issues in my family already, in the back of my mind I think I was unwilling to add to the list. From now on, though, I am on the list. On the top of the list!

And I realise now, it’s the way it should have been all along.

Reading Challenge

Do you take part in the Goodreads reading challenge? Last year I set myself the target of 100 books and missed my goal by 21. This year I’m a little more realistic – 52 books in 52 weeks. I’m choosing carefully this year; I want to read widely and expose myself to some new authors, particularly writers from places other than the USA, UK, or Australia. Right now I’m reading 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster and I’m really loving it. It’s a whopper at 866 pages (which I wish counted for two books on my challenge!). If you have any suggestions for me, comment below. I’m always after my next big book love.

Just because I’m not allowed to shop, it doesn’t mean you can’t

 

And hey, Amazon execs, if you’re reading this, how about opening up 99c sales to the Australian Amazon page?

I’m doing it

Two years ago, I was a person who had not written a full length book. The idea of it felt pretty silly – a whole book? No way. Children’s books I could do, they were what I knew and they were safe. No sex scenes in a children’s book. Nothing too controversial. You won’t find anything in a book for a nine year old that will offend your mother in law. Besides, what would my idea be, if I did decide to write one? So many chapters to fill in. No, that wasn’t for me. The whole idea was way too daunting.

But here I am, having released two books myself in the past two years, and two more written and squirreled away. I made a Facebook page and an IG account, and this website, and ALL of that seemed daunting at the time. In fact, every single step of this journey has felt uncomfortable but here’s the thing:

I’m doing it.

I actually am. I entered a writer’s residency competition. I sent manuscripts to publishers. I promoted my books even though self-promotion gives me hives. I learned how to read a bad review and survive (stop reading them). I slowed down, removed any time pressure, and my writing improved as a result – which for me was an achievement, because I’ve always been a manic fast-finisher.

This year my writing is taking me overseas and who knows where else. I’m earning a bit of cash and I feel really good about my latest WIP.

None of this would have happened if I didn’t move past the (at times extreme) uncomfortable feelings and give this thing a go. Trying something new is not easy; being vulnerable and sharing your ideas with other people is not easy either. Maybe that means it’s the good stuff though – that stretch and slightly nauseating fear – I think perhaps that means whatever is on the other side is going to be valuable.

Is there something you secretly want to try but you’ve been putting it off? Can I make a small suggestion?

Read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic for courage and then go out there and just do it.

What’s the worst thing that could happen? Actually, what’s the best thing?

Once more unto the breach…

Today is going to be hot. If you’re reading this from somewhere in the northern hemisphere where you’re knee deep in snow, you might be thinking, oh, how lovely. No, no, no. Today is heatwave hot, which is like each room of your house has been transformed into a sauna only you’re not sitting in a towel with your eyes closed and the promise of a cool shower and a swim at the end of it, you’re wearing clothes and making food for little people, and generally trying to live out a normal day – in a sauna.

We have no air conditioning and around February every year we look at each other and say something to the effect of, We are never doing that again. We are definitely getting air conditioning before next summer. (We say the same thing about a wood burner every August).

On days like this I shut up the house and have fans blowing, but there’s only so much you can do when the temperature is approaching forty degrees. My saviour is the shopping mall with its lovely cool interior, movie theatre, and food places. That’s where I go when it’s too hot.

Only, I’m not buying anything new this year. And the mall is FULL of temptations. I realised I needed a plan.

I’m not a huge shopper, but I have some red zones that tempt me more than others. I figured if I could identify my red zones, I could avoid them, or at least be more conscious when I went into them.

Here are some of mine:

Oh, Priceline. How many times have I walked in to pick up a script or grab a bottle of vitamins and then found myself at the counter with a basket full of skincare products and makeup? This shop is temptation itself. AVOID.

Yes. Aldi. The trickery of this place – you go in thinking you’re doing your groceries, and you walk out with a blender, some yoga gear, and a set of patio furniture. No more, Aldi. No more.

Emotions and memories go crazy in this store. Remember that time we backpacked in India? Oh look! It has a little NZ embroidered on the side! Everything is so travelly and exciting, and then there are all of those things we need. Warm things, good quality merino things, children’s things. Does anything feel better than buying something you know will keep your kid warm? I see the game you’re playing, Macpac. I shall be on my guard from now on.

Today it’s me (and that lovely air conditioning) vs the mall and I intend to win.

Do you have red zones for spending?

So I’m actually doing this

Within minutes of my posting yesterday’s post about my year of buying nothing new, my sister emailed me asking, “What about undies??”

Indeed.

You can always trust a sister to ask a question like that. It got the wheels turning.

What about the winter pyjamas I know I’ll need in five month’s time? What if something wears out and we really need it?

Surely we’re not buying second hand undies??

If we’re going to really do this, it looks like we need to get serious and think about how it’s going to work.

First stop: Underwear Drawer

Are you like me, in that you think you don’t have enough underwear every time you walk past a lingerie store brandishing sale signs? Do you ever buy underwear that’s in the wrong size because it was pretty and/or cheap? Yeah…. erm, me neither.

So, it turns out that my underwear drawer is fully stocked. You can breathe easy, Sis. No greying thrift store undies required.

But seriously, what do we do when the inevitable happens, you know, when my husband’s boxers get holes in them? How do I feel about him buying second hand undies? (surprisingly, not as bad as me doing it). Am I going to be sewing boxers out of old t-shirts?

Stay tuned, folks.

(Thanks to Sir Thriftalot for the pic.)

 

 

The reason I’ve been banned from ebay

I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom surrounded by shirts, dresses, and pants. Behind me the doors of my wardrobe are flung wide, revealing a rail full of empty hangers. No, I haven’t been overcome by indecision while getting ready for a big night out. I’m not feeling excited or filled with anticipation. In fact, all that I have ahead of me this evening is a cup of tea and an episode of Suits. Like so many Westerners in the past two years, I’ve succumbed to a new craze: minimalism. What am I doing sitting knee deep in clothing? I’m konmari-ing my closet, of course.

Does this pair of blue pants with white dots bring me joy? That’s what I’ve been asking myself as I hold them in my lap. Seriously. That’s what Marie Kondo teaches us; the only items we should own are those that bring us happiness. And I kind of love that concept, only I can’t work out if I love my pants or not. I bought them second hand online, my favourite way to shop. I like designer clothing, but I don’t have the budget to pay retail. And, I like the thrill of the hunt. I picture myself wearing the pants and realise that I can only think of a couple of times I’ve put them on. One of the times, I answered the door to someone collecting something I had sold online (it goes both ways, see) and she’d looked embarrassed for a second before saying, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you out of bed.” In other words, the designer blue pants with the white dots look like pyjamas. They go in the bag with the other joyless things, destined for the op shop.

What is this need I have to reduce the amount of stuff in my home? It feels almost feverish, like an itch I have to scratch. Is it a response to the overwhelming amount of marketing I’m exposed to daily, even when I try to switch off? Is it consumerism, and my participation in it?

Or am I just having a midlife crisis in preparation for my fortieth birthday in a couple of year’s time?

I don’t know.

But I want to figure it out. I want to reconcile my love of fashion with my concern about the labour conditions of the workers who make my clothing, and my worry over the environmental impact of so much buying. In a world where I can buy a shirt for just $5 there has to be a consequence down the line for the people making it, the people who are least able speak up.

This year I want to challenge myself. I’ve done the organising and the giving away. Everything that is left in my closest is something I love. Now I want to see if I can live with those items for twelve months without purchasing anything new.

It doesn’t sound that radical, does it? After all, our parents and grandparents probably went a year without buying new clothing without batting an eye. Intellectually, I know I can do it. Emotionally, I think it’ll be hard.

We live in an age of fast fashion. In terms of clothing, we no longer have a winter and a summer season, or even a four season year. We have a 52 season year – new looks coming at us weekly, new styles that we must have or we’re out of date. It’s a trap, of course. And I think most of us know it’s a trap. But we still buy.

So, follow me on my journey towards fashion abstinence, if you will. See how this fashion addict survives without her biannual clear out + shopfest. I can’t promise it’ll be pretty, or even upbeat all of the time. I do promise to stick to my rules, and should I slip up, I will fess up.

Here are my rules:

No new clothing, shoes, accessories at all. 

If clothing absolutely has to be bought – and there are strict criteria here, it has to be for function (work attire, warmth, etc.) – then it will be second hand.

In addition, we’re committed to abstaining from any new consumerable purchases. We’ll make it, upcycle it, or go without.

What about you… could you go a year without buying anything new? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

 

Self-publishing and all of the other stuff

A writer’s life: tea, notebooks, ipad, laptop… Lego left by someone, someone else’s homework, annoying ticking clock removed from wall.

It’s been an entire year since my first novel, Still Waters was released into the big, wide world. What a learning experience! Back then, I didn’t know anything about this book selling business. I had only signed up to Instagram and Twitter a few weeks before, and I was basically scared out of my mind.

Fast forward a year, and I’m beginning to come to grips with what self-publishing really involves. I’m not just talking about writing, oh no, I’m talking about all of the other stuff. If you’re a new writer, or you’re contemplating self-publishing, or even if you’re just curious about what it’s all about, then this post is for you. Now, there are plenty of articles about self-publishing online, and they will no doubt be more informative than this one. This is just my experience as someone who started knowing literally nothing at all and who now kind-of knows a few things.

Ok. So you’ve written a book. Now what? You have a couple of options. You can go the traditional route, which means trying to find an agent to take on your book, or you can submit your manuscript to publishers who offer “pitch days” for unpublished authors… or you can self-publish.  First off, when I say book, I mean an edited, proofread manuscript, that is the appropriate length for the genre and has been read by at least three other people who do not love you and are willing to be honest. A first draft should never be submitted anywhere, including to any self-publishing websites. The traditional route can take months and it’s very, very tough to be picked up by a publisher. Like lottery tough. So, like many writers (including myself), you might decide to have a go at doing it all yourself.

A lot of people freak out when they think of all of the things that need to happen to make a book ready for publication. There’s editing, proofreading, formatting for both ebooks and paperbacks, cover design, marketing, website.. you get the idea. You can pay people to do all of this for you easily enough. But if you want to do it yourself, you absolutely can.

This is how I did it:

Still Waters and The ‘Ohana Tree were read by a small group of beta readers who then offered me their feedback. I like to do this once I’ve polished up my first draft and have made any changes I think need to be made. Once the manuscript is as good as I think I can make it, I run it through Grammarly. This is an add-on to Word (and a website) that scans your writing for errors – not just spelling and grammar, but tense, passive voice, things like that.

Once that’s all done, I send it out to a couple of people who are proof reading for me. I have been extremely lucky to have a couple of friends with eagle eyes who are willing to proof read. The ‘Ohana Tree also went out to a Hawaiian reader (who happened to be an English teacher – bonus!) and he checked the cultural elements of the novel, as well as proof reading it. I didn’t actually ask him to proofread.. he just did it because his teacher’s brain couldn’t help it. Awesome for me. I found my Hawaiian reader through a Hawaiian community page online – I basically posted an ad in a forum and he emailed me.

The covers have all been designed at home using Photoshop and Shutterstock for images. There are free photo websites out there, too, and I have used Unsplash a couple of times (the cover for Still Waters is a modified free photo). I purchase fonts from dafont.com (because there is nothing worse than a recognisably generic font for your title – Comic Sans, anyone?). The dimensions for ebooks and paperbacks are all available online.

Formatting is a complete pig, I’m not going to lie. I’ve done it twice and I hated it both times.. and I used to format documents for a job! Guidelines are again available on the relevant websites (Kindle Direct Publishing, Smashwords, etc.) but it’s time consuming and can be soul destroying. For my next book, I am seriously considering paying someone to do it for me.

Ok.. so now you have your book ready. You’ve created accounts on Kindle Direct and the others if you want to (more on that later..) what else do you have to do?

A lot, as it turns out. You will need a social media presence, ideally months before release day. You need a fan base to sell your book to. So that means Facebook page, IG account, Twitter, a well designed website. You will also need a Goodreads author account. I’m rubbish at networking, but I make myself read and post in author FB groups, GR groups and generally try to participate where I can. You have to do this, because no one likes a person who only turns up to promote their book. You’ve got to build relationships with other writers and especially with the reading community.

Now.. let’s fast forward and pretend you have your book for sale online. You’re running promotions through book blogs, Facebook, Goodreads, and if you’re selling exclusively with Amazon’s Kindle Direct, then you can also do countdown deals and free book offers (these are only available if you are only selling through Amazon. I don’t love that I’m not selling on ibooks and Smashwords at the moment – but the benefits of the KDP select or exclusive program outweigh the negatives).

Now that everything is ticking along, you might even like to write another book. And you should. But here’s the all of the other stuff part of the post. These are the things I had no idea would become a part of my life when I hit that publish button one year ago.

Blasty

Blasty is a website that will scan Google for illegal, downloadable copies of your book. You can then ‘blast’ them, essentially removing them from the web. Yesterday I was alerted to the fact that I had 403 blasts to look at. 4-0- freaking-3. I have to go through each one, make sure they are actually offering my book for free, then submit a blast. And that was only for Still Waters. I’m currently under 200, but I have at least an hour of that to fit in this week.

Photos

You will need to make promo photos with text overlays, FB cover photos, take and edit IG photos. This is a daily job. Social media waits for no one.

Interesting, on topic news and links

Facebook, Twitter.. they all need to be fed. Coming up with things to post takes time, as does replying to comments and keeping up that networking / participation I mentioned earlier.

Offering and sending freebies

Reviews are the single most important factor for someone who wants to self-publish. And they can be the hardest to get. We all dream of a well known book blogger raving about our book to the world and then suddenly we’re selling thousands of copies overnight (a la Colleen Hoover), but the reality is that most readers what to read books by authors they know. They don’t want to spend money on a book they might not enjoy. The answer to this is to offer free copies to book bloggers, bookstagrammers (that’s a thing), and readers who are likely to promote your work. You can do this by buying a book blog tour on various marketing websites, by buying a social media promo package, by paying for Netgalley, or by finding these people and emailing them, introducing yourself and offering a free book. Bookstagrammers will want a paperback because it photographs better so you will have to factor in getting your book sent to your reviewers, as well as paying for a copy of the book to be printed. I have a spreadsheet with a list of people I’ve emailed. It’s a long, long, list. You might get a reply every 50 emails you send. You might pay almost $200 for a term on Netgalley and receive zero reviews back for the free books you gave to readers who requested them (did that sound bitter?). You might also send paperbacks across the globe and the person who wanted it never gets around to reading it, let alone reviewing or photographing it. This is all normal and should be expected.. but it can be hard to stomach.

Websites and blogs

Lastly, there is this – your blog or your website. This is where people go if they Google you. Make sure the information is easy to find and your book links are front and centre. Don’t be afraid to reveal a little about yourself. I completed a 30 Days of Confessions challenge a while ago and it was fun, and it gained me some new readers. Your blog is somewhere where you can let your guard down a bit, and even have a rant if you want to (just keep it polite – this is the storefront of your business, after all).

With all that being said, the most important thing is that you find time to write. You must make that the priority, otherwise – what is the point? So now it’s time for me to follow my own advice. I’m about 8K shy of a completed first draft so that’s all from me. The manuscript I have called “New Thing” for months because I cannot for the life of me think of a title is waiting to be (one day soon please God) finished.

 

From little things, big things grow.

I love to grow things almost as much as I love to write things. I realised recently that these two passions of mine aren’t actually all that different.

As any gardener knows, there is no point planting anything if the soil is rubbish. The soil is the medium, the stuff from which the plants draw their sustenance. If it’s dry, devoid of nutrients, unable to retain life-giving water, then the plants will have to fight too hard to live, and they will lose. So too – if the soil is thick and sticky, laden with water, the plants will not thrive.

Even if the soil has been carefully prepared, the foundations laid for success, there is timing to contend with. Plants have temperaments, just like books – they want to be positioned where they can thrive. They have preferences for sunlight and shade, heat and cold, the right balance of nutrients to allow them to grow. Forcing a plant to reside where it cannot live is only going to result in a battle between nature and human. In my experience, nature always wins. As she should.

Writing is a different type of growth. We’ve heard before that ideas are like seeds but what I’m interested in is what happens before the seed even touches the earth. Like a garden’s soil, writing depends on what you put in before you begin. Like all art, writing is birthed in the internal, but heavily influenced and shaped by the external. The idea may be mine (or is it?), but I believe that what I’m feeding my brain and my soul will have a huge impact on whether that idea will flourish or die; become full or flowers, or a leafy vine. It’s not necessarily bad. It might take the work in a different direction, something unexpected, but just as good. Let me explain.

As a writer, I am constantly reading. I don’t trust any writer who doesn’t read. I read three, sometimes four books per week and I try to steer my tastes in different directions so that I’m exposed to as many styles as possible. But when I’m writing, I’m more careful about what I read. The words, the images, the descriptions that are filtering into my subconscious will influence my work. Just as I think carefully about getting the soil just right, the position perfect for a new plant – I make sure to prepare the foundation for my writing with discipline and care. I want to be sure that I’m putting the good stuff in, so that the good stuff is free to come out. So.. I read good books. Beautiful books. I don’t watch crap TV. I make sure I spend time outside every day, no matter how I’m feeling or how busy I am. The time will come soon enough for The Bachelor reruns and easy romance reads (like when I’m editing!) but for now, when the work is new – a shoot just popping its head above the soil – I must protect my interior world.

Just like plants, timing is everything with books. You can’t fight a book; they will not grow if they don’t want to or if they feel you haven’t made enough room in your life for them. They will turn your back on you in an instant if they’ve been brought to life at the wrong time, in the wrong circumstances, when no care has been taken to prepare the growing medium.

There is no greater agony than trying to force a book into the world that truly does not want to live.

Now if you’ll excuse me.. I have some seeds to plant. Some seedlings to check. Some chickens to visit. And some words to write.

 

Sultana Cake

It’s no mystery that the Internet is swamped with two types of people. Firstly, you have the super happy and excited. The blessed and the folk who love where they live. Those with amazeballs. I know I sound cynical, but I promise that I have nothing against these very happy people. I’ve been known to be happy myself more often than not. If you’re having an awesome day, more power to you. The second type I see all the time are the angry. The ones who are mad about the US Election, the weather, their asshole of a boss, and the guy who stole their carpark right out from under their nose. And, look. I get that, too. I do.

What I think we could see more of from bloggers, public figures, even from celebrities, is sadness. Because we all feel it sometimes, don’t we? It doesn’t make us weak, or boring, or unworthy of a reader’s time. It makes us normal human beings.

This afternoon I felt sad. Just a lingering, achy, hollow feeling that sat in the centre of my chest. I thought I’d tell you about it.

The last time my Nana and I talked was in April of 2013. It wasn’t a good conversation. We were sitting in her room at the resthome hospital – me stunned at how much she had deteriorated since my move to Australia, her frustrated and teary at her inability to tell me the things she wanted to say. I saw her again after that, but by the time that visit came and went, she was unable to say more than a few words. During a heartbreaking ten minutes, she tried to manipulate her frozen mouth into forming words, eventually managing to communicate that she thought the collar on my top was pretty. On that visit, I helped her drink a lukewarm cup of tea through a straw and broke off tiny pieces of cake for her, then pushed them into her mouth.

The thing you have to know about my Nana is that she was a notorious Chatty Cathy, a born storyteller. When she was on a roll, she barely drew a breath. Not being the most confident or articulate of people when it comes to the spoken word, I would sit enthralled whenever she spoke. As a child and as an adult. I loved hearing her voice, it didn’t matter to me that I had heard the story many times before. So to see her unable to say something simple, knowing that she probably had so much more to say – well, it broke me a little.

Today I was thinking about that last time I saw her. About the tea and the cake. She must have made me hundreds of cups of tea over the years, and I have been lucky enough to enjoy her homemade baking over and over again. I wanted to tell her that my daughter also loves to bake. I wished that she could bake something and take it to her, or that they could bake together. I wanted to be seven again, sitting at Nana’s table eating a piece of her sultana cake with a warm tea in a china cup.

But I couldn’t have that. And it made me sad.

I didn’t feel like baking. It was raining and cold, and I had been out all day helping at school and then shopping for food. I wanted to shut the door on my sadness and hide in my bedroom, electric blanket on, and book in hand. But when I started to unpack the groceries, I saw that I had bought a big bag of sultanas without even realising it. And I thought again about the cake.

That last time I really spoke to Nana, my family was staying in her house. Her things were still there: her hairbrush on the top of her dresser, hastily scribbled shopping lists on the backs of envelopes, toiletries in the bathroom. It looked like she had popped out to the shops or the gardening centre. She knew we were staying there and it made her happy. She wanted people in the house, hated the thought of it empty and cold. On that very last visit she held my hand and asked me to do something. She wanted me to go to her bookshelves and take the books I loved home with me. She wanted me to have some of her poetry books and her especially her handwritten cook books. Not because she was sentimental – because she was not – but because she thought the recipes might be useful.

Today I looked through her handwritten recipes, each with the name of the person who gave it to her neatly written alongside the title. I looked through newspaper cut outs from the 1950s, and ached ever harder at the sight of her loopy handwriting, so familiar from the birthday cards she sent me every year. I found the recipe. Sultana Cake: Doris.

I made Doris’s Sultana Cake. I made it in an old pottery bowl and beat the batter with a wooden spoon until my arm hurt. I had to convert all the ¾ pounds into grams and guess at her idea of a “moderate oven”. I thought about her the whole time I did it. It was delicious; it smelled just how I remembered.

Thank you, Nana. This one is for you.