Five Sentence Fiction: Enchanted

I am joining in with Lillie McFerrin's Five Sentence Fiction this week and the word for inspiration is 'Enchanted'.  Pop over to Lillie's blog to see the other people who are writing and join in!








Amelia grabbed the tatty calico bag and raced out the door, flinging it behind her, shouting abstract words that were not strung together, something about shops, milk and breadrolls, to the kids as they sat at the long wooden table eating their muesli.  She hadn't washed her face, done her hair or thought about what she was wearing, she had just fallen into the closest clothes to her bedside when her youngest tapped her on the shoulder at 7.30.  Feeling pleased with herself at the bulging bag of pumpkin seeded rye bagels, she walked against the oncoming tide of train users. Amelia allowed herself to look up to the eyes of the fragrant suited young man, swallowed his smile and sucked in his aroma. She walked through the tide of fragrance, the smell of freedom and she was lost.


xx Meg

Write on Wednesday: Small Expectations

This week's Write on Wednesday exercise is about "Small Expectations": imagining myself as tiny as my thumb, where would I live, what would I do?   Pop over to Ink Paper Pen if you would like to join in with the Write on Wednesday exercise this week.  The link on it will be open until the end of Friday.  















I stretched out my curled up body from of the warmth of my home.  The sweet smell of the surrounding nectar was calling me as was the birdsong.  It must be morning time.  That rumble in my tummy was becoming tremulous and threatening to rock me out of my rather precarious home. I needed food now.  I crawled out of my gum nut, shaking off the old seeds, grabbing what I could to pop them in my mouth.  They were hard to chew, and made me thirsty, but kept the hunger away for a while.  I saw a drop of dew on a nearby leaf and sucked it up to quench my thirsty while I looked around for my friends.


"Sssoo, ssweety, you're awake again?" It was Silver, the slippery tiger snake, startling me as he stared at me with his hungry eyes.  I stood very tall.  I felt very tall now as I was as tall as the largest gum leaf on my tree but still I picked up my pronged stick that lay near my gum nut and held out in front of me with all my might.


"What do you want, Silver?" I shouted using my loudest, fiercest voice. 


"He's mine, Silver, lay off, ha haaa haaa" In swooped my friend, Cassandra the Kookaburra, "Hungry, Gerry? Let's go grab some tucker! Jump on."  


I jumped on her back and clutched at a any feathers I could so that I didn't fall off as she took off, swooping here and there, up and down, in and out of the trees, down into the grass, over the billabong.  My legs flew out behind me as my body bounced along.  I loved flying with Cassie.  I wanted wings like Cassandra so that I could go wherever I wanted, escape from the Silver and Rascal the red-back spider.   Oh, to glide through the air, up to the top of the trees, out the end of the earth and back again, to the stars and the moon, out the best of the nectar, the sweetest pieces of food, to find other friends to play with, oh, I wanted to fly so badly.


I stretched my arms out to feel what it felt like to fly, flapping them just like Cassandra did.  Cassandra's body kept moving away from me, I was flying!  I was in the air and flying!  I flapped harder and harder but I was going down, down to the ground, to the thick, thick grass, where Silver's friends lived.  


"Help, HELP, HELP! CASSANDRA!!!"


I felt a whoosh beneath me as the beige and blue feathers came from behind me and collected me just before I landed.


"Why did you let go Gerry?"  She called as she made for the nearest tree to land, clearly shaken. 


"I'm sorry, Cassi, I'm sorry. I just want to be like you."  I buried my face in her back and cried as she carried me to safety. 


"You're safe now Gerry." Cassi soothed, "You don't need to be like me, you are your own self and that self is wonderful."  Cassi wrapped her wings around me as we perched up high in the trees overlooking the grasslands, safe.


xx Meg

Write on Wednesday: A letter to the Smile

Dear You,


Thank you for smiling back to me today.  Your smile turned my day around.  I know it wasn't much to you, but to me it meant everything.  I don't know your name and you don't know mine, I guess we never will.


I was sitting there, waiting, waiting for nothing, nothing in particular.  The weight of the world had become such a burden that I could stand no longer.  I could barely lift my back from a stoop.  The air felt thick, the world was grey.  


I had been looking at my shoes.  My shoes were worn, red once, now kind of pink and brown with the stitching undone.  The water from the rain had saturated them and my toes were cold and wet, but I could no longer feel them, but I knew where they were, where they always had been, gnarled and twisted.


The wind howled right through me, even through my treasured coat, you know the one.  The one that I am always wearing.  The brown one with all the badges on it.  I got those badges from someone I love, my grandson.  Those badges mean more to me than anything I have.  


I know that you know me because I see you every day.  Usually you rush right past, too busy to look, too embarrassed to look.  You are running for the train, or rushing home to the warmth of the house and a cooked dinner.  


Today you looked.  I saw a connection in your eye, I know you wanted to say something.  That's OK.  It's not your fault.  A smile was grand.  It warmed my heart and fed my soul.  You opened the channel.  We might speak one day. Even hello would be great, but if we don't, you smiled.  


Thank you.

This was from The Write on Wednesday Spark: Dear...

This week's writing exercise is to write a letter. Write an open letter or write to someone more specific. Write a letter between two fictional characters or write a letter into a fictional piece you are already working on. Think  about how differently you write depending upon who you are writing to. Your content in an open letter may differ to content in a private letter.

Wherever the prompt takes you. Keep your post on the short side: up to 500 words OR a 5 minute stream of consciousness exercise. Link your finished piece to the list and begin popping by the other links. Oh, and enjoy!


The linky will be open each week from Monday to Friday. If you are playing the game, try to visit the other linkers, at least three of four would be nice. Encourage, critique and support your fellow writers.


Pop over to Ink Paper Pen to find other bloggers who have posted on this or join in!

Writing Exercise: Said!

My ten year old came home yesterday jumping with excitement about the literary exercise that his class had been given.  They had been given 10 minutes as a class to come up with 100+ words to replace "said".  He put the challenge stick out there for hubby and I to beat it or even come close in only 10 minutes.  He didn't take into account that they worked in pairs and each pair only came up with about 30 words!

No Pressure!

Well,  it is incredible how the brain freezes in these moments with the ticking of the timer, the scratching of my hubby's pencil, yet in the end we managed to come up with 95 words to replace said (he had 45 and I had 40 - tell me why I'm writing and he is not?).  It is a great exercise and one I will repeat over and over (and I am keeping my hubby's words!).

Her Father's Daughter by Alice Pung

Alice, you have kept me awake into the wee hours of the night.  You have managed to put together yet another brilliant book, a memoir, a story of you and your father.  You are truly a brilliant writer.

Her Father's Daughter is a more serious book than her first book, Unpolished Gem, yet Alice's fragrant Australian, Cambodian, Chinese flavour flows so well with humour, dry wit and at many moments, the utter truth of the story that she carried me along this incredibly personal journey of her family.

Her Father's Daughter begins with Alice stepping off the bus in China, in the town that her family have come from, before Braybook, in Western Melbourne and before fleeing Cambodia.  She is wanting to understand her  roots, her father more.  Alice doesn't find what she expected in China, but when she returns and spends more time with her father, talking with him, listening to the stories, to the difficult stories of living the Black Bandits and having to flee death and persecution from the Pol Pot ("Political Potential") regime.  This part of the story is written in his voice and hers, allowing us to gain insight into what she thinks her father may have been thinking during during her time during university and beyond. This helps give some perspective to Kuan, her father, through his stories and those of his friends.

Alice tells the terrible story of the Year Zero so well, giving me so much understanding into the tragic unfolding of the events before and after 17 August 1975 when life as all in Phnom Penm knew it was to change forever.  She writes it in an incredibly respectful way that show the pain and loss the Cambodians went through as she follows the story of her father and his extended family from before Year Zero until they escaped to the refugee camp on the border of Thailand.

Many of those who made it out vowed that they would never set foot in that country again.  After reading what the people were put through, I can understand more clearly the trauma that they would have felt.   This story gives so much insight into the plight of so many people whose lives are suddenly turned upside down, and how this affects them forever.

Thank you again Alice for a brilliant, brilliant, brilliantly told story that was well worth being told.  10 / 10.

Kuan, thank you for sharing your story.

No need to rush things...

So, finally, as the first month comes to a roaring finish ("Already" I hear myself scream as I suddenly realise that I have a bill due TODAY that I forgot because today should be tomorrow, not today. How did that happen?), I have settled on my goals for the year.  I don't like to rush things.

 "Only Fools Rush In"

So, if you can bear with me, here they are, my goals, as I said in my previous post (mostly) SMART goals, laid out bare (some are quite boring mind you):

1. Write a review of each book I read (in a timely manner, not like the "Why Weren't We Told" by Henry Reynolds, which is staring at me, waiting for me to say something.  I think that it said so much to me that I am finding it difficult to review.  I just need to do it and stop putting it off).

2. Read 2 books per month (so far I have accomplished this.  Let's see if I can keep it up when it is not summer holidays)

3. Lower the migraines from over 15 days per month to less than 5 days per month.  This will take a lot of work on lifestyle, relaxation and drug management, good dedicated work, hopefully.

4. Shrink the waistline to 80cm or less (I had to have a "lose weight" one).

5. Fix up the bathroom and kitchen.  The tiles are falling off and we need some cupboards that have doors on them so I can stop looking at everything all the time.

6. Write at the library or cafe (ie not in the house) twice a week.  After 6 months of doing at home, I think that I now need to break it up a little. Out might be good.

7. Finish Dip of Project Management.  Once the kids go back to school, I might be able to think again, much higher chances of getting this done.

8. Exercise (ie cardio for 30 min) 3 times a week (yep, there it is again...)

9. Start a writer's group weekend retreat (perhaps quarterly) with some other likely characters.  There have been some murmurings with a friend from my Wednesday monthly group, so there is one, we may roll along and collect a couple more.

10. Spend some time in the garden every week.  It needs me, I need it.  We are co-dependants.

11. Start volunteering 1/2 day every week.  I have found a great group who work with Asylum Seekers and really need volunteers and am 2/3 through their training now.  Yippee!

12. Give some time back to me, by writing myself & things I want to do into the family calendar...we'll see how that goes...!

Twelve things, twelve months, how tidy is that?

Oh, one more to mess things up,

13. Get more organised, be more organised, put systems in place so that I am not covered in paper and surprised by late bills or other nasties... (Surely that is a given with yearly goals if you are not suffering from OCD).


Tra la la la... Here we go, into February!

The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt

This is the first book that was selected for my book club this year, and when I first heard the title, my first feeling was of relaxation.  I was imagining a time of women sitting around exchanging ideas, being free of the shackles of men, dancing, rejoicing, reading books under the shade of a tree...and no mention of men.  In some ways, I was rewarded with this.  When my oldest son (12yrs) saw the title, he shuddered saying, "Urgh, I could think of nothing worse."  Well, there you go, I live in a house full of men, I would delight in it, I think.

This book is the follows Mia, the poet, and her ramblings (in a great way) as she tries to mend her shattered heart and mind.  She is coming to terms with her husband,  Boris, making the decision to have a "Pause" after 30 odd years.  A lovely young French woman aptly takes on the name in Mia's voice as "Pause", we learn nothing more of her.  Mia has been thrown so far from her place of comfort that she has a moment of temporary insanity whilst Boris takes up with the Pause.    To recover after her time in the hospital, Mia seeks shelter amongst women, her mother, her sister, teaching poetry to young teenage girls and doing book club with elderly women.  Through these interactions Mia begins to find her strength again as she reflects on her relationship and the damage that the Pause has had on her.  Her daughter Daisy desperately tries to pull her parents back together, like so many children of broken relationships do.  Siri deals with this reality so well.

In the elderly women (The Swans), Mia finds an unusual, yet lovely surprise in Abagail as secrets unfold in the most unusual ways.  Mia also finds herself in the midst of a  teenage whirlwind with a bad smell.  She uses what she knows best to work through this - writing.  It proves to be a very useful tool.

I loved the cross generational relationships in this book and how they are so important to each other, the wisdom, the youth, the reminders to each other and they can help each other.  Siri reminds us how important it is to have these cross generational relationships.

For a book titled "The Summer Without Men" I wasn't expecting so much referencing to the men in her life and other's lives.  Early on I found it distracting.  On reflection, however, this was the reality of Mia's life, Boris had been such an important part of her life, she could not live a summer with mentioning him, thinking of him every day.

The book itself is a great read and a short read.  Siri has Mia writing to the reader in a lyrical prose, best read quickly in longer sittings rather than little grabs.  I am looking forward to a re-read as I think that this book actually warrants it, and I now know that I will set aside the time to read it in large chunks than the little moments at bedtime that I did.

Man

The inspiration for this came from my lovely husband, who I do love with all of his crash banging around!  Love to know what you think. Cheers, Meg

Man
Big Hands
Squashing things,
Clumsy Fingers,
Breaking Glasses,
Chipping Plates,
Smashing Bottles,
Crash Bang

Man
Strong and bolshy,
Moving with thump and thud
Door shutting,
Pictures rattling,
Chair scraping
Like fingernails on a blackboard
Books chucked down
Bending covers and pages
Crash Bang

Man
A rough, loving kiss
Tightly hugging,
Bruising ribs with love
Slapping thigh with laughter,
Hand being held,
'Don't squeeze so hard'
Massaging,
Therapy.
Crash Bang

Man
Toilet seat flung
Whack
Toilet seat down
Whack
Crash Bang

Man
Made of giant
All delicates hiding
From big fingers and hands
Fragile old tea-cup found
Now balancing precariously
Between two fat sausages
With saucer waiting below
Quietly, patiently, not breathing
Lest the Man giant
Be broken from this
Gentle spell, for now.

Great Expectations and All That Nonsense

I usually begin each year with my set of goals for each of the areas in my life: health, learning, house, fitness, travel, and so forth, yet last year, I didn't.  I had no goals.  I began the year goal-free and survived.  I got through, I didn't necessarily kick huge successes, yet I didn't "fail" or fall in a heap.  I did feel at some stages, however, that I was floundering. There was no post out there for me.  I had to keep putting goal posts out there.

In the wash up I have taken a long time to "debrief" myself and my year as I have trawled through my diary, picking out the important bits, the quotes, the unfinished business (yes, I am still a paper-leather-bound-diary-no-ipod girl).  It has felt like an important thing to do after what has seemed like a really hard year.  A year that saw me grieving people, freedom, loss of innocence of my children as they get slightly older and more bolshy, loss of our tightly knit family unit that we had experienced the year before, accepting increase in pain (migraines, back and jaw) after a year of being relatively well managed (we travelled in the outback and bush for 9 months - read "freedom").  That being said, great things have happened along the way.  I got myself some great part-time work along the way after being out of the workforce for over a decade, I studied and completed a diploma (I have a history of never finishing courses for many reasons, none of which being that I didn't want to finish), I made the decision to spend more time writing, just writing (YAY!) and I was really happy to see my kids settle back in to schooling life after a nomadic year.

So, I have been debriefing, and realising that I actually need to set myself goals for the year otherwise I have a tendency to drift with the breeze and go with really short term goals.  I get frustrated with myself and that then filters through to my little family.

I am taking my time with this goal setting.  I no longer feel the pressure that I used to of the date 1 January.  For me now it is more about "Where am I now, and where do I want/need to be in a year's time?"

I have broken it up into the different areas of my life:

And as I am visual/colour person, I see each of these areas in different colours, and circles.  I have to pop them in circles and then write what I want/need to be in this year in these areas.  It is helping me to get some focus in this crazy world where my needs sometimes seem to be the last ones on the agenda.

So, from here, I have been trying to make some SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic time bound) so that I am not either setting myself up for failure or not putting any challenge out there.  I think so often we put goals out there at this time of year that are unrealistic like, "I am going to deal with every piece of paper as soon as it comes into the house.  No piece of paper is going to lie on any bench." (yes, this was one of my goals one year), and then 3 months in, the bits of paper start to accumulate, a bit of self flagellation goes on, then give up...have set oneself  up for failure.    Probably more realistic for me would be to decide to set up a system to deal with the bits of paper.  I also think that it would unrealistic for me to set the goal of getting a book published this year, but I have to seriously look at how I can put the challenge stick out there for myself so that I don't get mushy and do nothing.  Goals are great for pushing me along, getting me out of my comfort zone.

I love the idea of getting to the end of the year and looking back at the goals with a smile and feeling like I have kicked some goals and grown within myself.

Watch this space as I continue to refine...

What are your goals, do you make goals, how do you go about it?  Cheers, Meg

The Versatile Blogger Award

As the new year dawned and I was preoccupied with my boys in sun and sand, Tiffany from My Peculiar Journey kindly gave me The Versatile Blogger Award for this blog.  I am humbled.  

The Rules for excepting the illustrious Versatile Blogger Award are as follows:

Thank the person who nominated you. Tell 7 things about yourself, so that your readers may learn more about you, and nominate 15 other newly discovered bloggers, then let them know you nominated them.

Here are 7 things about myself

1. I love silence.
2. I like to figure stuff out myself before looking at the instructions, instructions are for when things haven't worked out.
3. I play the flute.
4. I read until I fall asleep - every night (and drive my husband insane).
5. I am at peace when I am in the garden with my fingers in the dirt, I love to grow vegetables and local indigenous plants and write about them.
6. I love to create things from scratch
7. I am a naturally messy person, I have to work continuously at being tidy.

And most importantly nominate 15 other newly discovered bloggers.

For the moment I have chosen 13 blogs for various reasons (some are well into their blogging life and I really enjoy what they offer to me and I am sure to many, many others and have not yet received the award, others are fairly new, but I really like what I think that they have to offer) and will choose the other 2 as I find them (if I do).

The last one on the list has stated recently she may not be back this year.  I think that she really deserves the award anyway due to the wonderful blog that she has done and I wish her the best.

1. Hanner Cymraes...means half Welsh woman, 

2. The Hipster Files

3. Merry Wanderer of the Night

4. A Writer's Life

5. Anecdotal Anna

6. Soul Wings

7. The Rhythm Method

8. Fleur McDonald

9. Quilt of Dragonflies

10. Madmother

11. Too Askew

12. FUSION: Fabric, Paper, Stitch

13. eclectique

Thanks again Tiffany for thinking of my little blog this award :)