I could get everything done on time, if life would just back off!

Sometimes it feels like life is conspiring against me! I make all of these plans about what to do with my time and how to achieve my goals then in the blink of an eye everything changes. I tell myself that I will make my blog a weekly thing and make a post every Sunday. I assure myself that even though the day job is full time I will devote my time off to preparing my first WIP for publication. Then life comes along with its own ideas and seemingly urgent or unavoidable obligations.

Last week it was a family dinner that went into super dooper overtime, how do I turn my Pookiebear away when she wants to talk all night. I am still appalled that it took me until Thursday to get the blog post done...Sunday is the day, every Sunday! At least I got some editing and re-writing done, not as much as I wanted but some.

This week it is my birthday and my closest, oldest friend has driven to Mount Isa to spend the weekend with me. I will admit I kind of knew going into this week that getting anything other then work and seeing my friend would be hard, I didn't plan on losing most of Sunday to sleep and recovery.

It was meant to be a quiet night playing my favourite board game, scattergories turned into a boisterous evening with laughter and more then a few too many extra beverages. At one stage a debate about whether true carbonara is made with egg or cream turned into a tipsy kitchen adventure for Mr Saunders and one of our guests. Mr Saunders is confident his creamless carbonara won the night!

The Bestie will be leaving tomorrow and I go back to the day job for another week, I intend to have a quiet week working on the WIP in all of my down time, which will not be very much at all. The plans for dinner with a friend is already in place and I have an idea about having coffee on Sunday. I guess it is up to life to decide what exactly I will get done this week. The way I see it I’m already winning because this week is starting with my blog being posted on time. 

Can a trip to the hairdresser's really improve our story telling?

I got a fabulous haircut this week, it is short and funky, low maintenance, a brilliant colour and took close to three hours at the hairdressers! luckily I own a smart phone, I played a couple of games, read a couple of chapters of Ari Harper's awesome book, Witchling. And spent a huge chunk of time people watching.

Nothing is better for the development of characters then seeing how everyday folk interact with the world and people around them. I believe you can not write what you do not know. But not all knowledge comes from personal experience, for instance, I am not an angry person but through dealing with, and observing those of the aggravated persuasion I am familiar enough with the concept to develop a character that is motivated by choler.

It is the little nuances of personality types that help build a believable character and if we pay attention while out in the big bad real world we can easily bring those lilliputian details into the worlds we create.

We can discover the driving force behind some common personality traits and layer a more complex rational into our stories just by being attentive. Take for instance a dishevelled woman in a hair salon making demands and repeatedly changing her mind. Reiterating to the stylist the exact colour her hair must be and accusing staff of forgetting her eyebrow wax more than once.

At first glance she appears rude and prickly, but the reality is more likely to be she has not been pampered before, a trip to the hairdresser is a huge event, not just something she does once every six weeks.

For me a haircut is a minor inconvenience, a huge chunk of my day once every month and a half to ensure my grey roots aren't seen. If it wasn't for watching other people in the salon I would never stop to think about the other reasons for spending time at the hairdresser's. A day spent getting your hair done could be a cure to the boredom of being a trophy wife, treating yourself for long over due pampering, getting ready for a special night or (as it is in my case) vanity to hide the little tell tale signs of age.

The list could of course go on, these are just the things I saw this week while getting my own hair done. To bring this back to how it can affect character building, the motive for being there changes the way a person interacts with the world around them, but if known it also changes the way others treat that person. A dishevelled yet demanding woman can go from having eyes rolled behind her back to being treated like a queen, just because her stylist pays attention realises how special the next few hours are for her client.

The challenge a writer faces is not only developing characters that are driven by their various motives but introducing the reader to a complex and realistic personality, one that keeps them engaged in the story and on the edge of their seat waiting to see how each character's tale will end. Conscientiously paying attention to the world around us should be a skill we strive to develop every time we leave our house, our story telling will thank us, our characters will thank us and most importantly our readers will thank us.

Does Tomorrow ever really come?

If procrastination was an Olympic event I would be the next Ian Thorpe. It doesn't even have to be something I am dreading for the cunctation to begin. In fact finding a brand new awesome word for procrastination really just makes my point. Every time I sit down to do something productive my brain may as well be that of a ferret on crack, even the most mundane chores become shiny objects to distract and detract me from my fecundity. See I did it again!

I make all the rules I can to ensure I stay focused, no games on my laptop, ensure the television remains off, keep the current books being read and my phone In a different room. All this really achieves is instead of doing things I enjoy I end up doing things I have previously procrastinated about. Lets look at an example of the day in the life of a master procrastinator...

I set the alarm for eight am because I have a coffee date at nine, yes that is plenty enough time for me to get ready and leave the house on time but in the interest of not being cunctative lets leave that for another post another time. Now normally I have no problems getting out of bed at or even before eight am, but this morning I hit snooze, I’m not ready, I need more sleep. Nine minutes later the snooze goes off, reluctantly I get out of bed. Did I wash my hair last night? Of course not I wanted to watch a movie on TV, even though washing my hair would save time in the morning, I found something else to do. By the way, the movie was that important I can not even remember what it was.

So I wash and style my hair and for good measure decide to look for a specific shirt I have not worn since moving to Mount Isa, it just feels like a day where long sleeves won't make me feel like I am getting heatstroke. Oh no, here comes the next wave of pointlessness, this is after all Mount Isa, I had better go outside and test the heat, maybe long sleeves is not the best choice. Its ok outside, I can safely keep the shirt on. I didn't let the dog out to do her morning business, best do that before I leave the house and wait for her to finish and come back inside, our babies are very spoilt, but again in order to keep on track and avoid dilly-dallying lets leave the enthusing over pets for another time.

I'm ready, the dog is back inside, I've found my house keys and it is only twenty to nine, I'm on fire! Time to kiss Mr Saunders, without being too jealous that he is having a well deserved sleep in after working all night and get out of here. But first I'll just check Facebook and leave a status about my impending coffee date. Ok here we go, earphones in, music playing, house locked and still plenty of time to walk to the coffee shop.

I get lost on the way, and oh yes, getting lost in Mount Isa is very hard to do and quite embarrassing to admit, I'm not sure if I am really bad at directions or if it is just a self-sabotaging form of procrastination. Along the way, somewhere after getting lost and before arriving at the coffee shop I go looking for my bankcard and realise, It is still in the pocket of my uniform (yeah the day job comes with a snazzy shirt). why is it still in my pocket, well I bought some groceries on the way home yesterday and I meant to put the card back in my wallet but thought I would do it later, I was too busy to get my wallet out of my bag.

I actually think about turning around and going home for it, but after getting lost and leaving later then I wanted it would make me really late, for a master procrastinator I am actually quite hung up on being as punctual as possible. My amazing friend buys me a long black and we have a delightful catch up and I get to meet an awesome new friend as well. A couple of hours later and I head home. Having forgotten my bankcard is now a blessing, there is nothing I can do except go home.

Mr Saunders is up so I have a chat, before sitting down to edit my WIP. I'm at the lap top I may as well check Facebook and twitter, read a couple of blogs, talk to people via FB chat. OK half my day is done, it is most definitely time to start editing the WIP, first I’ll update my Facebook status, let everyone know I’m going to edit my work. Ok that's done here we go. This is of course where I notice the kitchen is a mess, wash the dishes or get to work? How can I concentrate with a kitchen like that? Ok the kitchen is clean I'm finally ready, except I really wanted to test out a new game I installed. OK the game works its time....what was I going to do today?

Gidget is the afternoon movie, I love Gidget, after the movie I am seriously going to get around to editing my WIP. Television off paper and pen in hand, one more conversation with Mr Saunders and here we go, except it is only two weeks till my birthday and there are presents already hidden in the house, maybe I can Talk Mr Saunders into giving me one early. I now have awesome noise cancelling headphones which should help me drown out the outside world and keep me from getting distracted. Of course I have to find exactly the right music to play.

Finally I get my editing done, miraculously two whole chapters which was my goal for the day, well actually they are nearly done, I decided to write my weekly blog, it is important to blog regularly, so it isn't really procrastinating right? Having decided to write my blog, and deciding to write it about my Achilles heel I feel the need to tell Mr Saunders this weeks topic, After the first couple of paragraphs I have to find him again and tell him about the awesome new words I discovered.

It's one am and I am exhausted, feels like I have been chasing my tail all day, I can't wait to get to bed, but first I have to post my latest blog and finish the two chapter goal I set on editing my WIP...actually there is always tomorrow.

I'm not Scared...I'm terrified

I've always wanted to write. As a child I made up stories to entertain cousins and siblings, a particularly memorable one was about a boy called Elvis, a boy who could captivate a room with his singing but was unfortunately so ugly his mother couldn't even hug him, that was of course until he fell on his face and became a handsome rock and roll sensation. We all got in trouble that night, lights were out we should have been sleeping not laughing and making up "rubbish". I entertained the people I loved with outrageous stories for years, it was easy and everyone loved my nonsensical ramblings.

As I grew up however I realised not everyone wanted to hear about the worlds inside my head, in fact some people criticised my stories, found holes in the plots and told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be making up "rubbish" and telling stories, I should be thinking of my future and what I wanted to be. A boy just can not go from ugly to gorgeous and become the king of rock because he fell on his face...well yes, that was kind of the point now wasn't it? 

I've lost count of how many times have I told someone I wanted to be a writer to have them tell me (many times without ever reading a single thing I have written) I'll never make it, I'm not good enough, the industry is too cut throat. Somewhere along the way I started to believe it must be true, I put the pens and paper away and went and found a "real" job, then another, then another, none of them brought a feeling of fulfillment. 

Then I thought, what if I just wrote for fun, in secret, not to be a real writer but just because it gave my imaginary friends a chance to become real?

So that's what I have been doing, until I moved to Mount Isa and met the lovely Ann B Harrison, who is not just a beautiful person but also a successful writer. Much enthusing about my writing ensued, and to my surprise Ann was interested, not politely nodding while thinking about her get away, not smiling blandly while internally wording her discouragement, she actually asked questions and listened to the answers.  Then she shared something that brought all the childhood enthusiasm about writing rushing back, if you have a good story and you work hard on the technicalities getting published is possible.

It's possible! It is a lot of hard work and I need to be dedicated to my writing, I need to market myself and learn to share my secret worlds with people again, but it is possible!

I'm not scared, I can leave behind all those years of self doubt and secretly scribbling about people and places no one else would ever see, I'm excited...I'm psyched...I'm ready...I'm terrified!