Write on

Well, you might know that last month I undertook the mammoth task of Nanowrimo . Unfortunately I quickly found myself stumbling at the first hurdle. At 11 000 words or so I stalled completely. There was so much happening around me physically, that just making time to write everyday was impossible. I'd be up early every morning to exercise, run around after the girls all day, (typically they seemed to require my attention more than usual), negotiate the evening madness and then when the house was finally quiet, I found myself too exhausted to string three sentences together. And what I had written was awful! Terrible! Horrible! An assault to the eyes of anyone who attempted to read it. At least that's what I convinced myself. So I picked up Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer and decided to reread it. After that, of course, I had to reread Breaking Dawn. And before I knew it the month had almost passed me and my poor little abandoned novel by. I'd failed, miserably, there was no way I could reach 50 000 words unless they fell out of my head and into my laptop by osmosis.

December showed up and demanded that I start getting festive. Between decoration making and tree decorating I took the time to reflect on Nanowrimo. In reality I don't believe I had a chance from the beginning. For one, this was my very first attempt at a novel, and that is always going to be a huge undertaking, especially when the idea only occurs to you days before you start. For another, writing is something that I have never taken seriously. Sure, the ability to play around with words and make them pretty has always come naturally to me, but I'd never even considered actually attempting to write something with publication in mind. I'm a pretty careless typer, my spelling isn't the best and I wouldn't know a noun from an adjective. Yes, people tell me all the time I should write a book, but they are just being nice right?

I was prepared to shelve the book idea and leave the whole sorry saga behind me. What I didn't count on was that my novel would keep beckoning me. Plot twist and turns, conversations between characters, names and places, new scenes, rewrites for old ones, all of these would crowd around in my head waiting for recognition. So I did the only thing I could do, and returned to my novel. No daily word Talley's, no guilt trips for watching television late instead of writing, just a commitment to my story. If it wanted to be told, then I'd tell it.

So where am I? Around the 20 000 word mark, so about half way. The novel itself is for the young adult market, inspired my Madi, and though I had originally planned for 50 000 I'm told that editors prefer shorter stories for this age group, so 40 000 seems about right. Of course I'll use as many or as little words that it takes to tell the story, so in that respect word count is secondary to story.

Yesterday I got an amazing book out of the library yesterday evening, that I'd definitely recommend to anyone looking to write for children and/or young people.
It's called How to Write for Children - and get published. I found it completely inspiring and absorbing, and will definitely be purchasing my own copy, after I reread the library copy a few times. It is a UK book, so the links and advice won't be relevant to use here in NZ, but it's easy enough to find NZ guidelines. Like right here for example. I just have to share this letter that the author, Louise Jordan received with a manuscript.

'So please read and reject - for every rejection letter I've promised myself an entire M&S Victoria Sponge with Earl Grey on-the-side to commiserate with - so would greatly appreciate hearing from you. And in case you're thinking I'm gonna put on a lot of weight because the enclosed is just awful - plan (b) is to become the fattest (unpublished) writer in Tunbridge Wells! See - faultless planning!'

I do hope the writer got published....or maybe I don't!

Well, back to it,
Hay.

Going to the Birds

Hmmm, quiet in here lately I know. Yet we are still as busy as ever, baking, cooking, crafting, learning, playing, listening, talking, watching.

Last night as I was preparing dinner for us Kyla yelped, 'Mum, a bird! Inside!' Sure enough a little sparrow had hopped inside to grab a stray piece of bread that one of the kids had dropped, like Hansel and Gretal. It kept coming back in, so we kept throwing more bread, and soon some more sparrows joined the first, and we had guests for dinner. The girls got so excited everytime a bird came inside, and soon Kyla was plotting the creation of a bird restaurant.

So this morning she dragged me out to the shop for supplies, and then we got to work. We wrapped a plank in red Christmas paper, as bird like red apparently, and Kyla designed a banner. She called her restaurant Bird Fuel, a play off her fave, Burger Fuel. I made up a batch of bird pudding, just lard mixed with seeds, nuts, fruit and bread and Kyla filled a pinecone with some peanut butter and rolled it in seed. Then we made some coloured sugar water, and Kyla made some fruit roll-ups, just some apricots and sultanas rolled in bread. Those actually proved to be the birds favourite things.

Kyla and I loved this mama and her baby chick, so adorable. We lay on the floor watching them eat.

Halloween Cookies

I know it's not halloween yet, but a little preparation never hurts huh? And the girls have been so busy on the Wii, or off playing witches, vampires or Scooby-Doo, I wanted to do something nice together today.
So Sienna and I whipped up a batch of chocolate biscuits, some orange icing and the girls got decorating.

Still loving these gel pens, and I grabbed a black one this week. Perfect for Halloween.

Kyla made a little ghost for her first one.

Denver made a spider. "Mum, how many legs again?" Lol.

Sienna made a 'pumpkin' which was really just some icing and sprinkles, but so cute anyway.

She enjoyed it too!

Kyla's second biscuit was a pumpkin too.

Madi made a 'spider' which was really an excuse to use a whole lot of chocolate chips.

SO Madi. She also made a witches face, complete with ugly mole :)

I decorated some too, and the girls generously offered to eat them for me. I think next we will do Halloween cupcakes.

Yes, more baking!

I know it seems like all we do is bake and cook and eat, but honestly, it's what gets us through these cold winter / spring days. I found some little tins when I was doing a spring clean this week, and thought the girls might enjoy decorating some little cakes. Madi picked the rabbit, Kyla the chicken, Denver the heart and Sienna the butterfly.


I got a range of decorations out, including the gel pens. I got some different colours the other week, I totally love these things.

The great thing about these tins as they come with recipes to make each tiny cake, so the girls all made their own. Less arguements.

More Juicy Writing

On Sunday Madi and I tackled the second chapter of Juicy Writing. This chapter was about ideas, and how to get them. I like the bit where Brigid Lowry says,

Your job as a writer is to stay alive to all of it, to collect the world and turn it into stories.

Madi's story starter this time was It started with bananas on toast...and heres her spin on it.

***

Bananas on Toast, By Madi Morris

It was that morning I realised I wanted to be a chef. It was my thirteenth birthday. It started with my favourite breakfast, bananas on toast. Cassie was not feeling well, and since mother cannot cook without it turning into a disaster, I had to.

As I was cutting the bananas, I felt the chef's urge. If you're not a chef, you probably don't understand the urge. I suddenly felt like cutting faster and more skillfully. Mother was involved in her work, so she didn't see how much of a pleasure it was to be making bananas on toast in our kitchen. But Cassie, or Cassandra as I call her, saw my talent. Even though she was only eleven, she saw it, because she had the urge as well. We chatted as I turned bananas on toast into a more delicious meal using various sugars and other secret stuff. Cassandra called it amazing, but she sneezed a few times near the food, so I made her go and sit on the couch.

I felt good as I put the food on mothers desk in her office.

"Mother, do you think I have the talent to become a chef?" I said, as she bit into it. She shut down her laptop and put the toast back on its plate.

"Got to go," she said as she walked out into the kitchen.

Cassandra had finished both bits of her toast and was eating mine.

"Cassie, I can't drop you off, so take the bus. Emma, you need to tell the nanny to get here early, you can't cook at all. Cassie, get well tomorrow." And with her sharp words she walked out. Cassie looked like she was about to puke.

"God Em, my senses are coming back.....uh......uh.....never cook again!" She grabbed her bag and ran out the door.

I ran over to the phone and called the nanny. "Hi, Miss K, we won't need you today. My auntie has made a surprise visit and she's going to help me become a chef. Thanks." I put down the phone. Yeah, right. Auntie Indiah was just as busy as her mum. She was a chef and taught at a chef school. I just wanted to be home alone.

*Beep*

The microwave let me know it was twelve o' clock. I decided to make pancakes, (your home alone, just turned thirteen, of course you're going to eat what you want, you're a teenager).

The phone rang.

"Hey Emma, it's Miss K, can I speak to your auntie about when I should come over to clean?"

"Sorry Miss K, she's just gone to the bathroom..."

"That's okay, I can wait a few minutes."

"To take a bath. I gotta go, I'm cooking special pancakes for lunch. See you tomorrow."

I hung up and wrote on the notepad by the fridge,

If Miss K comes to the door, recite this: Auntie fell asleep on the couch

then went back to cooking.

***For a limited time only, order a pizza and win a trip to America to go to cooking school. 092-***

I picked up the phone and dialed the number, it clicked over.

"Hello, Downunder Pizzas."

"Hello, I'd like to order a pizza please."

"What kind miss?"

"Um....pineapple."

"Hawaiian?"

"Yes, please."

KNOCK KNOCK

"Your pizza miss."

"Thank you"

"Excuse me, are you home alone?"

"No, my auntie is in the study"

"Okay. Here is the form to sign for the competition."

***

"I won!" I said to my mother the next day. But I was interrupted by Miss K coming through the door.

"Hi Brittany, has your sister gone home?" Oh no!

"Yes.....uh..... she has, I think you need to pick up Cassandra from school" I said quickly, knowing my mother would agree.

"Yes," She said, not bothered, then, "what did you win?"

I told her I'd had to fake that auntie was here so that I could sign the form.

Guess what, auntie Indiah teaches there! I'm going to be a chef!

I had my eye on a couple of other sentences, but Madi said I should do a story about Op shops (one of the topics). I'm guessing other countries have opportunity shops, but if not, these are basically secondhand clothing stores.

***

The Op Shop By Hayley Morris

It was comically Harry Potteresque, tucked down at the end of a labyrinth of cobbled alleyways, unmarked, yet not unremarkable.

At first look, and for most, one look was all they took, Opportunity Knocks was an op shop like any other. Row upon row of mismatched colours, patterns and styles, smelling of old people, moth balls and incense.

But it wasn't old clothes or smells that brought people through the faded wooden doorway of the little shop. People came for two things, Saskia and her virtues.

Saskia was from Russia, and, though she seldom wasted words, her accent was thick and heavy and sweet, pouring over you like maple syrup. Many of Saskia's customers had been visiting her for a decade or two, and she never seemed to change from first meeting to last. A small, sprightly woman, whose age varied depending on who you asked and at what time of the day, her blond hair shone like silk and her opal flecked eyes seemed to stare into your soul and bathe it in understanding.

If Saskia was captivating, it was her virtues that were compelling. People came from all over the world to seek them out. Saskia knew of course, without word or glance being exchanged, who was innocently combing the racks for a vintage treasure, and who was seeking a little something more. And without really knowing how, you'd find yourself in the back room, staring in disbelief at thousands of tiny blue bottles glowing back at you.

Harried mothers came and went, armed with bottles of patience, gentleness and determination. Suspicious spouses happily opened their wallets wide for some truthfulness, commitment, faithfulness and loyalty. Addicts of all vices scooped up self-discipline, courage and sacrifice. Lonely hearts sought out the little shop for love, idle bodies for orderliness and cleanliness and dreamers dosed up on wonder and beauty and creativity.

One day, without warning, Saskia and her virtues were gone. The little shop stood quiet and empty. Everyone seemed to have a theory. Some said she had died, and having no children, had taken the secrets of her virtues to the grave. Others argued that she did have children, and it was to Russia, and them that she had returned, to pass on her virtues before it was too late. Some claimed her virtues had just been water and she was in jail for fraud. Others swore that she had retired to the seaside, in a pretty little cottage, where she sat on the porch, watched the ocean and smiled all day long, remembering the people she'd helped.

Of course, no one could really know for sure. And whilst her customers could still recall the mesmerising eyes and musical clinks of the tiny blue bottles in vivid detail, most wondered if she had ever been anything more that a wonderful, beautiful dream.

That's us guys, thanks for reading!

Sinking Our Teeth Into Some Juicy Writing

Recently I came across a book by Brigid Lowry, a kiwi author who writes young adult fiction like Guitar Highway Rose, follow the blue and things you either hate or love. I think most of her novels are set in Australia, but she IS a kiwi :).

Anyway, the book is called Juicy Writing : Inspiration and Techniques for Young Writers.
I'd been on the lookout for a while for something like this for Madi, who loves to write almost as much as read. I was especially pleased to find something local. I promised that I'd work through it alongside her, and today we both tackled our first exercise.

The first chapter explains how writers are like gardeners. Lowry writes, You begin by making compost. Gardeners collect leaves, food scraps, lawn clippings and seaweed, but your raw material is words and ideas.

Like gardening, writing is a hit and miss process. Certain seeds will germinate, others won't.

So our first exercise was garden themed, we had a topic and sentence starter chosen from a list at the end of the chapter. Madi chose;

*Two unlikely characters meet in a garden. A girl in a wheelchair? A waitress? A wizard? Something happens during their meeting that changes them both. Tell their story in five hundred words. Make use of sensory detail, because gardens are alive with sounds, smells, textures. Give your piece a fabulous title.

And her starter;

*Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back it seems obvious my mother shouldn't have made my sixth birthday celebration a garden party.

She couldn't stick to the 500 limit, and I'm not a fan of limit's, so I'll just post what she wrote. I've edited out some things, and fixed spelling, but this is entirely her own story.

Creepy By Madison Morris (Aged 11)

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back it seems obvious that my mother shouldn't have made my sixth birthday celebration a garden party. Yeah, our garden was pretty amazing, like you see in those Home and Garden magazines, but those creepy crawling bugs that crawled on my legs were the reason I never went into the garden again, well, not until last year anyway.

I remember, that as I opened the door to peer out the garden, the summer air hit me. I can't explain the exact feeling, it was like I was not a thirteen year old, but a six year old again. I had to run, the rush pushed at my instincts and I ran. I probably squashed so many poor, helpless bugs, but at that time, I couldn't care less. It was then that I knocked into the ghost that looked like me. The ghost didn't fall, but I did, which was weird because I am top of the class in gym.

The cicadas croaked from the bush, the bees buzzed around draining nectar from the flowers and Maya and June-June barked like they were getting shocked by electric. The ghost's dress ruffled in the wind. I knew she was me, but I doubted I'd ever wear a label dress with high heels. What startled me the most about her was not the pink dress, but the blonde locks she had. My hair is naturally red....but hers was pure blonde. The ghost opened her mouth and out came a gentle whisper, 'She's ours sir.....she's captured....take us to bug form, God.'

God? It's not like I don't believe in him, but I don't not believe he exists either.

I could say that shrinking down to bug form hurts, but it's actually painless. The only problem is that when I went down I saw loads of memories, like that garden party, and the itchiness dug into my leg.

I fell on the ground. So much for good balance. In the ghost's place was an ugly creature. There was green all around me. The ghosts voice sounded like me this time. 'Come, you don't want to miss your fourteenth birthday because you are here so long.' I still had eleven months and twenty days until my birthday, but I saw a shoe through the grass and hurried ahead.

The ghost was either not scared that the shoes were about to squash her, or had slow reflexes, because the shoes nearly stepped on her. I wasn't about to rescue her, because I'm not the most heroic person....bug....whatever. I was suddenly lost. But then I crashed into another ghost bug and it's follower. I realized that all the bugs in America were probably around me. 'Matilda, you have to help us......turn off the pollution.'

And that is when I woke up. Turn off the pollution??? I went outside and mother was putting bug spray through the garden.

'No!' I said to her, 'There's bugs...'

'I know Mattie, now they have been crawling all over the house. And I don't want a bug infested house.'

'But Mom, they don't mean to. Look, I'll spray the garden, okay?' She handed me the can. When she went inside, I threw the bug spray in the shed. I touched my hair, it was blonde. I was wearing the dress and the shoes, it was my fourteenth birthday! Gosh! I was having a garden party and I was dressed like a marshmallow. I ran inside, careful not to squash any bugs...

A good first effort, wouldn't you agree?

As for me, I picked the topic;

*What would your dream garden be like?

And the starter,

*My Grandfather did not believe in flowers...

My Time By Hayley Morris (Aged 30 :) )

My Grandfather did not believe in flowers. He used to compare them to people.

'The bright and beautiful ones are a nightmare to maintain, and the simple ones are as dull as dishwater,' he'd say, 'give me a plain Jane evergreen any day.'

My grandmother would laugh and exclaim, 'Well thank you sweetheart, you sure know how to flatter a girl.'

Looking around my own garden now, many decades later, it was clear that I had inherited my grandfathers aversion to all things floral.

It was only a small area, commonplace with the Victorian styled villas in this part of the city, but plenty big enough for one old woman to enjoy some peace and sunshine. I picked up the pebble comb and absentmindedly made patterns in the small white pebbles beneath my feet.

The girls had been horrified when I had led them out to the zen styled Japanese garden, with moss covered rocks, lush green vegetation and the adorable wooden walkway that bordered the garden, set in the softly flowing stream. Various Buddha statues peeked out of the bushes, and the perfect lines of the pebble garden had gleamed in the sunshine.

'Mum! This isn't practical! What happens when you babysit the kids? Gemma could choke on a pebble.'

'And you know what Daniel is like, he'll drown in the stream!'

'Not to mention the constant trickling noise, you'll live in the toilet. And where are all the flowers, I thought elderly people liked flowers?'

I'd tried not to smile as I had ushered them back into the house, uttering reassurances that I would keep it locked least any tragedy befall their precious offspring.

My mind flipped back to the present, I put down the pebble comb and stepped onto the walkway, enjoying the feel of the cool timber beneath my bare feet. I strolled along, stopping to stroke the star shaped leaves of the Japanese Maple, chosen especially for my grandfather. It's simple beauty reminded me of both my grandparents. I loved my children dearly, adored my grandchildren, but those years of devoted maintenance were behind me.

This was my time, and I wanted to spend it in my garden.

****

That was harder than I expected. I had inadvertently chosen a first person starter, and I HATE writing in first person. But oh well.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed that little peep at what we are up to. Any inspiring young (or not so young) writers out there that want to join in let us know and we will give you the full list of topics and starters.

The Lost Egg, by Kyla Morris

If you have been wondering where the inspiration for my latest project came from, look no further. Recently Kyla and I got out a beautiful little book by Stephen Michael King, called Leaf.

Kyla, who has always struggled with the written word, fell in love with this simple, wordless book, and was inspired to make her own. She always felt like books had to be full of words, and this discovery was very exciting.

So I brought some good materials, and she got to work. She spent four days, just doing page after page, then hit the wall, and didn't do anything further for a couple of weeks. When I picked up the paints and started mucking around it seemed to rekindle her imagination and desire, and she got back to work. Inspiration went full circle.

She had researched what the birds looked like, and their eggs.

This weekend she finished it, and it looked amazing. I was really pround of her. I went and got some heavy duty card and bookbinding tape, and fixed it all together.

You can see better pics of each page over at Flickr

The Week that Was

Last week managed to disappear before I realised it had started. Here's a few highlights.



We replenished our facepaint supply at the $2 shop, and had some fun.



Then the girls had been begging to go to the beach for a paddle, and although the wind was a tad cool, there was no stopping them, so on Friday we headed out to Clarkes Beach.



We drove home late afternoon, licking ice creams and blissed out from some beach time...expect some more sandy moments now that spring has dawned!