Can good fiction really change the way you view the world?

Of course it can!

Anyone who reads knows how easily a good story can get under your skin and permeate your every waking thought. These are often the same stories that plague your dreams, everywhere you turn it seems something reminds you of a character, place or even line of dialogue. It is the mark of a great story when you steal the characters as your very own imaginary friends. I can only hope readers will fall in love with my characters the way I do with those created by my favourite authors.

Sometimes however a story is so remarkable it transcends from great fiction into something more. As you read it something inside you shifts and you know you will never be the same as you were before you cracked open (figuratively for those of us with e-readers) the cover. This internal metamorphosis is a rarity, many great pieces of literature are entertaining and deserve to be praised, but not every masterpiece is leaving us with soul shattering realisations about ourselves or life in general.

Today’s blog comes to you courtesy of one of these truly extraordinary and rare moments when a story becomes the catalyst for a long overdue emotional epiphany. If you would like to know which story try my other blog On the Couch with a pot of tea and a good book.

So what is this epiphany?

If you're not happy, you can't be healthy!

Actually there are lots of competing thoughts and realisations coming from this one book but all of them be boiled down to the very concise line above.

I view myself (and am told by many other people) as a positive person who will try and find at least one good thing about any situation. Until today I thought that meant I was happy. Positive and happy are just not the same thing however, related yes, but definitely not the same. Lets look at an example of the difference from my life:

I moved to Mt Isa for my day job, always one to look at the positives I focused on the extra money, opportunity to further my career and excitement of discovering a new part of Australia. All of my friends are back in Cairns or Brisbane but that’s ok because I'll have time to write when I can't just casually hang out with them at the drop of the hat.

I can say all of that and I can mean it, until I look too deep. Upon inspection (and not that close of an inspection), it isn't that much extra money and it sure is expensive in Mt Isa, while I love my day job my genuine passion is for my writing and lastly, I am a social creature and I need my friends.

These are just a few of the positive pep talks and rebuttals I have given myself while here in the Isa. It isn't that I hate it here, the town has a certain charm (though I am decidedly not a fan of the dessert), it just doesn't have all of the things I have always taken for granted.

I have been sick and stressed a lot since coming to Mt Isa and at times staying positive is even a struggle, but I fight onwards. I keep the bitter pill inside and put the fake smile in place for everyone to see. I'm not letting myself be angry by my choice to come here, I’m not letting myself expunge the ill ease and negative feelings, I'm holding on to baggage I don't need. As a result I'm not happy, fooling everybody (including myself) with my positivity, but it is just a damn good act.

I'm not happy, I'm not healthy, some days I fear I’m not really even living, just running through the motions on auto pilot.

That changes today though. It changes because of one novella I read and one concept it contained that resonated deeply within me. Lance your soul of sorrow and make way for joy. Tears are healing, so cry your tears of pain and suffering and when there is no more hurt left inside let your tears become ones of joy.

I am not going to ignore my darker emotions, I am going to let them out and I am going to do this without burdening anyone else with my malaise. I'm a writer, a pen and paper, a computer, a voice recorder, these are the tools I can use to lance my soul and make room for happiness to find a home.

I will be happy, I will be healthy and I will continue finding inspiration in the books I read and stories I tell.

Now I want to ask you, what story has changed the way you view the world?

Hi my name is Sarah and this is my dirty little secret!

My name is Sarah and I am a reality Television addict

For my friends and family this is not a mind blowing admission, it is something we don't talk about much, something that gets swept under the table with all the other dirty little secrets we keep for each other. I have some friends who would rather I come out as an alcoholic or drug addict (I'm not normal and neither are my friends so stop judging us!) than as someone who spends a chunk of their evening watching train wreck television. At least if I drank or took recreational drugs I would be up for a good time right?

Instead of being the life of the party however I am at home making sure dinner is cooked by 7:30pm so we can watch Masterchef, and if Mr Saunders thinks I am talking to him after it finishes he can think again! The last two nights I have been changing the channel to catch the end of 'When Love Comes To Town' and let me tell you that is a total bus wreck. If you don't know what I did there then you haven't watched the show, or any of the many, many advertisements.

I also watch The Voice, So You Think You Can Dance, The Bachelor, Next Top Model (any of them), Hard Core Porn, Pawn Stars, RBT, Cops, Wife Swap, Tabitha's Salon Takeover....Come on you get the picture right? I really love that cringe worthy, fifteen minute of fame chasing, fake honesty that you get to see when you sit down to watch reality television. Occasionally there will be someone who seems so genuine that you have to admit they are probably exactly as they appear to be on TV...or a VERY good actor, either way these people are the true gems of reality television.

I try and rationalise my obsession, to my friends and myself, hell when my pets look at me funny I try and rationalise it to them too, I am pretty sure Brandy (the dog) is ok with it, but Ninja and Burley... well let's just say you haven't truly been judged and found wanting till you have been judged by two cats who will never forgive you for keeping them locked indoors!

My excuses are simple, I'm a writer and it's great research for character development. Mr Saunders sometimes pretends to believe this one and I would trust he really did believe so much more if I couldn't hear him laughing at me from the other room. My other big justification is I'm not really paying attention, it's just background noise...This excuse would go a lot further if I ever answered my phone or engaged in conversation with Mr Saunders or house guests during the shows. I once answered a call (and only because it was from my mother) with “You're interrupting Masterchef, I’ll call you back”, before promptly hanging up without letting her say a word. Not a moment I'm proud of but we are talking about an addiction here.

It’s not just the show itself that gets me either, all the social media and live tweets that go with reality television are quite riveting, there are so many extraordinarily funny people on twitter all just waiting to get their quips out there. Reality TV is such an interactive sensation these days, the social aspect makes it so much more fun. When Love Comes to Town is a great example of this, if it was just the show itself I don't think I would keep watching, however, add the (mostly) witty or dry humour of fellow Australians and it becomes a very enjoyable hour of entertainment.

Of course I watched these kinds of shows long before I used social media, Facebook and Twitter simply add to the immense pleasure I find in the saccharine fame seeking, humanity destroying, false privilege building, phenomena of reality television.

They say everyone has a vice and this is mine, reality television is my kryptonite, I can make all the excuses under the sun but the truth is I just really like watching it. So I am am sorry Mum for airing my dirty laundry across the internet but that’s my dirty little secret!

Feel like sharing? What's your dirty little secret? Are you brave enough to leave it in the comments below?

Too many "to do's" means I don't!

I hate to do lists, not because I am lazy and don't want to do anything but rather because I never know what to do first and I end up staring at the list for ages caught up in some funky kind of decision paralysis...Which “to do” is the most important? How do I start? Am I able to do it with out other preparation? And gods forbid there is preparation needed because that is a whole other list of things to do!

I just don't know how to work my way through a list of chores or obligations, I find it overwhelming to have too many things to do and prioritising them makes it worse. show me a list of things to do and I instantly turn from a highly motivated girl with a “can do” attitude to a stuttering fool incapable of even the simplest action.

It isn't just a written list that gets me either, my brain has a list of things I should be doing and it often makes me just want to crawl under a rock and ignore the world. Of course it probably doesn't help that my darling brain starts listing things while I am in bed or busy doing something else. My beloved brain also almost always insists its list is of the utmost importance and must be done now...right now...even though it is 11:30pm!

For the last week I have had so many things I want or need to do and have not been able to achieve anything. I want to finish one of the many, many books I have started reading, finish editing my WIP, write my blog, arrange a time to catch up with our friends to play some games and do something towards the organisation of my wedding...oh yes and Mr Saunders and I are on holidays in a week so I have that to think about too!

As a result I have done nothing but go to the day job and come home all week, I don't know what to do first or how to work my way through the magnitude of some of these things, how is it possible that I got myself into the predicament of reading over 10 books at once anyway?

Organising a wedding to be held in Brisbane while you are working mega hours in Mount Isa is a whole to do list in itself and I just don't know how to go about finding florists and hairdressers when I won't meet them until one week before I get married. Luckily Mr Saunders has taken over planning the honeymoon and most of our looming holiday, I just sent a message to my amazing friend to catch up next weekend and pouring my anguish out on paper has given me my blog. So it really is just the big things left, the ones no one can help me with.....so maybe the first thing on my “to do” list should be stop staring and do something!

How about you? Do too many choices leave you with decision paralysis?

Are you as good as your favourite authors?

So many writers have published work out there these days, and it seems (especially with self-publishing and e-books) it has never been easier to get your story out in the world, but should every story available truly be there?

For me personally it is my favourite and most read authors that become the measure I hold my writing up to. Is it arrogant to believe I can write a story as captivating as Stephen King, Richard Laymon or Kelley Armstrong? No, it is not, if I didn't think my storytelling could match these well known and well loved authors why would I even be writing?

If you are working towards being published for the first time or even writing your third or fourth book you should be able to hold your head up high and proudly throw your literary piece in the ring with the strongest contenders. It is true we can't all be the next Mark Twain, J.R.R Tolkien, or even J.K Rowling, but if that is not what we are aiming for then aren't we just wasting our time?

I have complete faith in my stories captivating readers, and I am willing to put in the hard work (and trust me the repeated editing is hard and tiring work), so I can publish something that will hold its own on the new release shelf of any book store.. If I didn’t have faith in myself and pride in my WIP I could take the easy way and self publish an incomplete poorly edited version of what I want my literary legacy to be.

Not that I think self publishing is an easy way out, or that all writers who self publish are not great writers, after all even Mark Twain self published! It may even come to pass that I do indeed choose self publishing when I finally have my WIP ready for public consumption. But if I don't think my writing is up there with my favourite authors then it will never see the light of day, and it is my very strong opinion that everyone who writes for a living should answer this same question, so how about you? Are you as good as your favourite authors?

Why New Years Resolutions never work!

How many times have you made yourself a huge list of things that will change with the new year?

How many things on your list do you think you will still be working towards by the end of 2014? How many will turn up again on the 2015 resolution list?

New years resolutions are impossible to uphold, all we do is set ourselves up for failure. Writing that fateful yearly list is nothing more then self sabotage, something that as humans we are already very adept at. But why does it fail? We start with such high hopes and good intentions, but everything falls apart before the dust on the new year has even settled.

The biggest downfall for well meaning resolutions is the sheer size of most peoples list, how many of us put 10 or even 15 things on a list sculpting a huge change in our current lifestyle? Too many things to do at once is overwhelming, where do you start? Faced with the seemingly insurmountable our subconscious has already given up before we have even consciously started.

Working in retail management, where self development and improvement is as mandatory as adapting to change I often struggle with all of my shortcomings and perceptions of failure. I use to write huge lists of skills I needed to hone... Until I was given invaluable advice, a self improvement list should be less then 5 things to work on, three is a perfect number, finish that list before adding more.

Now isn't a list of New Years resolutions a very personal self improvement list? So why are we loading our selves up with so many things at once? Three things a year to work on is such a manageable number, and if we did it one thing at a time we would have 4 months for each resolution to become reality. In my case I have chosen to commit to just one thing and spend a whole 12 months improving one very important aspect of my life.

The other thing that lays waste to our carefully constructed list is a lack of detail (another lesson from retail management), goals should be both challenging and achievable, we don't truly appreciate what we achieve unless we work hard for it and likewise hard work needs to lead us to something for us to continue. What should our hard work lead us to? When is it enough? How will we know we have achieved our gaol and nailed our resolutions?

We need to be able to measure our goals, knowing how far we have come and how much further there is to go. The terms we set in our new years resolutions need to be realistic and specific and we need to give ourselves a fighting chance to achieve them.

For example lets take my one and only commitment for 2014 and break it down. I want to be a published author, so I could write my list of one as Get published, I can even measure that, either I will or will not get published in 2014. It is definitely challenging and seems achievable, but it is open to all kinds of interpretation. It is not specific and with the amount of naivety and innocence I have as a publishing virgin it isn't setting a very realistic picture.

I have a lot of work to do before I am ready to send my manuscript off to publishing houses, publishing is so far away I will surely get disheartened before achieving this goal. Challenging, achievable and measurable with milestones along the way, this is what I need. This is what we all need. So what is my actual one and only New Years resolution?

I will treat my writing like a part time job until such time as I can swap it to a full time job. I will work on editing my WIP, and educating myself about the professional world of publishing. After my WIP is edited and I am ready to seek out a publisher I will keep writing. I will not neglect my blogs, Facebook, Twitter or other tools an author needs like I have in 2013.

There you have it, longer then your usual New years resolution, if I was inclined I could make it into 4 individual yet related resolutions. I know I can achieve this and I know I can watch myself get closer to the dream of being published. It will be challenging finding time for a part time job when I already work a 50 hour a week day job, but I will work hard on my one and only resolution to improve something that is such a central aspect of my life.

I know I can achieve my resolution with hard work and dedication, how about you? What is on your New Years resolution list?

A moment of brutal honesty.

As the title of this blog suggests I am going to be completely and brutally honest with myself and anyone who takes the time to read this post. If you have long ago decided to stop reading my struggling, intermittently updated blog I can not really blame you, if you are still reading I thank you profusely for hanging in there!

Let's start with the obvious, and a point I have dedicated a whole post to in the past... I am a procrastinator! With all good intentions I keep putting things off till later, I make excuses for not doing something right this moment and then before I know it the time is too late to start, so I promise myself I will do it tomorrow. Tomorrow I find other things to take up my time, or struggle to catch with looming deadlines.

After a while I feel guilty for not doing something and actively look for ways to avoid it. A great example of this is (and I am not proud to admit this publicly but I am being brutally honest) washing the dishes. I have gone almost a whole week without filling a sink with water and washing our dishes. The first night is easy, I assure myself I will get to them in the morning, of course I choose the extra hour of sleep before getting ready for the day job over washing last nights dishes. So now I tell myself after work I'll do them, after work I am tired and the last thing I want to do is wash dishes just to dirty more. I tell myself I'll do them after dinner, now we have a HUGE pile of dirty dishes and my tummy is full, I just want to relax before bed. Three or four days of this and there are no clean pots and pans, I really should wash the dishes, it looks like it will take hours though so instead we have a take-out night...YAY no cooking and no dishes...except for the ones I am now ignoring! I turn the ever mounting pile of dishes into a subconscious elephant in the room, when I finally get around to doing them it takes less time then I thought and I feel so much better for having finished them, I promise myself to wash the dishes every day....but maybe not tonight’s dishes...I'll do them tomorrow!

Lets take this scenario now and apply it to every part of my life. My Upcoming wedding, walking the dog, Facebook, Twitter, my writing and both my blogs. The only place I don't seem to fall into the procrastination trap is my day job, which is quite odd because my writing means so much more to me than working retail! Days off are so stressful because I don't know what to do first or how to catch up with all the things I have put on hold. I haven't had contact with my celebrant in 4 months now and she is waiting for the forms I have to fill in, I should do this, but will it shock her to hear from me? I could easily talk myself out of contacting her at all and she is a lovely lady. It is so bad that I am even telling myself I don't need to get married we should just call the whole thing off and stay the way we are now...except I really really want to be married, I want to be Mrs Saunders legally not just as a pen name! Best I stop procrastinating and get in touch then, right?

The second part of the shameful lack of productivity in my non-work life is I lie!

Mostly to myself and possibly not always on purpose, is it still lying if when I tell Mr Saunders I am going to work on my WIP I mean it? I noticed the other day I don't make decisive statements it is always “I think I am going to”, “maybe I will”, “I might” or “I will try”, that way if I don't do what I said I have an easy out, I never said I was definitely going to do that. I often make plans to hang out with people and back out of them later, because I really didn't want to do it in the first place, if I have kept plans I have made with you then you are someone important in my world. I should just be honest and say, I don't think that sounds like something I would enjoy, instead I say that sounds fun I will try really hard to make it. The truth is It doesn't sound fun, I don't want to do it, I am too much of a homebody to enjoy going out (even to your house) but I will try and talk myself into it. Maybe I should try just saying the truth.

My writing is again the sticky one here, I love writing, and while editing my WIP is slow and arduous and not as much fun as coming up with the story I enjoy it when I finally make myself sit down and open the editing suit. I wake up many mornings and convince myself I will write/edit, yet the day gets on and I never come and sit down at the computer. This moment right here is the second time I have sat at the computer since Sunday (it is now Wednesday), before that it was three months since I looked at my Facebook, twitter account or even spent any remarkable time near a computer. I sit here now telling myself it just isn't good enough and I will do better! But how can I trust myself? My integrity is truly lacking when it comes to doing what I set out to do. It must be time to start doing what I say I will and not agreeing to things that do not sound fun, there is no shame in being content with a quiet lazy life. People may think it is rude to turn down an invitation because you just don't feel like leaving the house on a weekend, but isn't not showing up or making excuses for not being there after saying you will even ruder?

I'm not sure I can do much about being a procrastinator, but I am positive I can improve the integrity of my internal dialogue, no longer will I say “yes but” from now on I will say “no because”, I will not make brash statements that I will blog weekly and check Facebook and Twitter daily, but I will try and be around more, I will try to not let three months of procrastination and excuses pass by and if it does I will be honest about it. Juggling life is hard, Management in retail is time consuming, I need time to decompress, and sometimes I just want to spend time with Mr Saunders or my daughter. However I am going to make an effort to be more visible and keep plodding away at my WIP. I wanted to be ready to look for a publisher by the end of 2013, that is not going to happen, I'm not going to make a rash statement or promise here but lets aim for Easter. If that doesn't work, Christmas 2014.

Do you think I can do it? What have you been procrastinating over? Maybe we can work together!

Excuses, excuses, excuses or Busy, busy, busy?

I have been racked with guilt for the last few weeks, I seem to keep ignoring things I should be doing. this can be an issue as I am a HUGE procrastinator. The problem is I am not sure if I am procrastinating or just really busy. I could ask people their opinion but then we just add “needy” to procrastinating!

I came back from a wonderful holiday full of renewed vigour and determination to do more. I really meant to be busy, busy, busy, and it feels like I am but it isn't the things I want to be busy with. My big plans of organising all the final small details of our wedding, my determination to upload one blog post a week, keeping Facebook and twitter up to date and even editing the WIP have all fallen by the way side.

This is the fourth week since my last blog update, Facebook and twitter have definitely been neglected, I haven't looked at my WIP since returning from holidays, and wedding plans are in an indefinite holding pattern. I keep meaning to make time, but whenever there is a moment with nothing to do or no one to see, I sit down with a book, play a game, watch a movie or stare into space. Then I feel guilty because those two or three hours could have been spent doing any number of tasks on the list of things I am going to make time for.

I realise that the body, mind and soul need relaxation time and for me reading a good book is the greatest kind of relaxation, without taking time out the creative juices will cease to flow...right?

Everything I read about writing and becoming published tells me to sit down and write whether I feel like it or not, get up earlier, go to bed later, stop watching TV, lock the door and write. I thought this was sage advice, I tried to follow it. I gave up computer games, television, movies (I still read, why write if you don't read?), pretty soon I was doing nothing but the day job and writing, except I wasn't writing anything good, I couldn't keep my mind on the editing process, I was becoming indecisive and reclusive.

Friends were asking why I wasn't seeing or speaking to them, the day job was a chore and I was way to tired to be there anyway having stayed up late with my ineffectual writing. So after my holiday I added spending time with the people important to me and quality time with Mr Saunders, This meant late nights and trying to cram writing into weird times. A change in habit is a procrastinator's worst dream, It makes finding the time so much harder and the excuses for not finding the time so much easier.

I haven’t been able to find much time for the computer, Christmas is approaching and the day job is getting madder by the day (as retail does with the onset of the silly season), Huge amounts of over time, then cooking and cleaning, when my day off comes around I sleep, spend time with Mr Saunders, catch up with a friend, or as I am today organise family dinner with my daughter and her girlfriend. When all of this is said and done I would kill for a few minutes to myself so I read, have a long shower or just stare into space.

Add to this my two weeks trying to beat the worst flu I have had in years and you get a lot more sleeping. It seems hard to say I am too busy to write when all I seem to do is work, sleep and see a couple of friends. Writing (as fun and wonderful as it is to create new worlds and imaginary friends) is another kind of work, and one that takes a lot of mental and creative energy. If I don't take the time to recharge and re-energise how can I do justice to the worlds I am trying to get down onto paper?

Having put my rambling thoughts down into a blog update (YAY!! one thing done!) I am still not sure if I am making excuses or genuinely busy, What are your opinions? Do you find life getting in the way of the things you wish you could be doing? Do you feel guilty for not enough done?