narrating kayoz

Writers festival weekend

I am very excited to be spending most of this weekend at the Canberra Writers Festival. I've never been able to do that before. I went to a couple of sessions from the Canberra Readers and Writers Festival (a slightly different beast) a couple of years back, but I haven't been able to make it since, what with me studying on Sundays and Chris Rolfing on Saturdays and small people needing mummy milk at bedtime and what not.

I'm still missing out on lots. For instance there's the session tomorrow night called 'We need to talk about motherhood: Spotlight on Camilla Noli'. If you know anything about my masters project* you would get why I would want to go to a session with that title (even though I haven't read Noli's book). But it's from 6:45-7:45, and after being at the festival all day, I really need to be home with my kids at that time of night.

Tonight I went to a short session which promised to have three writers talking about "their writing, its priority in their lives and how it fits into the rest of their schedule". It was interesting, as these things always are, but as none of the writers appeared to be a mother of young children, it wasn't directly relevant to my own struggles to prioritise - and figure out the priority of - writing. The writers were: one very, very successful Australian romance writer, who's been making money from writing since she was seven (and as far as I know doesn't have any children); one retired diplomat who may or may not have children (but I doubt he'd have young ones), but doesn't have to worry about making a living, since he's retired with - I presume - some decent superannuation, after 30 years in the public service; and one ministerial speech writer, who works from 7:30am till 10:00pm most days, and fits in poetry writing here and there, mostly in her holidays.

They were all interesting. It is always interesting to hear what brings other people to write. But in truth my fantasy panel for this talk would consist of people like my (RL and blog) friends, Sarah Tiffen (author of two recent books of poetry, and mother to three children the youngest of whom is a year older than Liam, and someone who definitely prioritises her writing, but not without a lot of effort), Sue Hines (Canberra writer, mother of two now moreorless grown-up children, and author of YA novels Out of the Shadows, The Plunkets and the forthcoming Water Boy's Story), Dawn Friedman (writer and blogger extraordinarie, who for years managed to fit in (some of) the writing she wanted to do around homeschooling her two children, and now fits it in around her full-time job writing for her company Smart Cookie Communications). People whose struggle and experience is more similar to mine, in other words, but way ahead of me in the actually writing and actually getting published stakes.

Nonetheless, I am very excited to spend the whole weekend (minus the evenings) at the festival. In less than two weeks I will be back at my public service job (or some public service job - I'm not sure exactly what it will be yet, but probably something to do with writing and editing and websites), leaving my masters project and my two dedicated writing/reading/studying days each week to become a distant memory. So this is like a last gasp of fantasy life where my writing is not for a government website (however interesting that may be). I'm hoping it will help motivate me to keep the faith and keep fitting in some of the writing I want to do, as well as the stuff they pay me to do, over the next eight months, without uni.

________
*Oddly I'm not actually sure how much I have ever said specifically about my project, but according to the abstract, it comprises a work of fiction and an essay, both of which  "critique some of the master narratives that appear to exist in relation to motherhood, and in particular journeys to and away from motherhood, in Western society and culture.... [focusing on] mothers, non-mothers, infertility and pregnancy loss."

Done!

Yesterday and last night I spent two or three hours just working on the final proofing of footnotes and other formatting of my major project for my masters. The thing I've been working on for a year now. I still found a few errors in the bibliography and footnotes, and spent a while getting the table of contents, headers and footers right (I moved the essay and fiction into the same document, along with an abstract and table of contents at the front, so had to create a few section breaks and what not. And deal with Word's annoying little quirks).

Aside from that I also spent an hour or two finishing a final proof of the fiction and finding a few more sentences to change, and few more words to delete. The whole thing (fiction and essay) still works out to be about 500 words over the upper end of the word limit, but my supervisor seemed to think that was okay. Better than the 2-3000 words it was over at one point.

Anyway, what this means is, that I am done! It still needs to be printed, finally proofed, bound, and of course posted, but basically, it's done. Once it's posted and I am done for real, I will be free of uni for about eight months. Then I'm going to have to figure out how I am going to fit in writing without my set study days, and what I should focus on in that eight months. But first, a well deserved break. And the Canberra Writers Festival next weekend. :)

Last day of the month (another post in dot points)

Today is the last day of my post-a-day month. It's been interesting but I don't think I will keep it going, quite. I have liked that it's forced me to post some things I wouldn't have gotten around to otherwise, but I wouldn't have gotten around to them otherwise because - well, time is in short supply. Right now I am posting instead of having time with my husband (though granted, right now he's cleaning the kitchen, but he'll be done soon), which I can only justify for so many nights in a row! On the other hand, I think I'll keep the calendar there in the sidebar for another month, just to see how it compares.

However, here is my last post-a-day post, in dot points, because I couldn't narrow it down to one topic.

• Mikaela went to sleep by herself today for perhaps the second time in her life. The first time being when I popped her in the hammock when she was sleepy on about the third day of her life. I was so thrilled she went to sleep on her own that day, but then she never did it again. Until today that is. Today she just did not want to nurse to sleep - she didn't want to go to sleep at all. She wanted to play in her cot. She kept saying she wanted to be in the cot, so I'd put her in and go do something else for a little while, then dutifully try our nursing down routine again when she started to protest. Finally I got sick of that and left her there for longer. I figured she would either go to sleep, or she wouldn't. Usually when this happens (which isn't very often actually) I'm not prepared to let it go on for so long because it gets too late for her to have a nap, but today I decided to just see what happened. She yelled out for me from time to time, then got distracted by a book or maybe by her own sleepiness. And eventually she went to sleep! It was about an hour and a half after we initially started the nap routine, but hey, she slept.
• I am not all that impressed with TypePad's new 'compose post' screen. It is too slow and can't keep up with my typing. This may be a problem listed in their 'known problems', I haven't checked, but if it is, you'd think it would be something they'd fix before releasing it. I rarely have a bad thing to say about TypePad, but this is irritating (so much so that I am typing directly into the html- lets hope I don't stuff it up).
• I have not yet become a dog person, but I am much more of a dog person than I was, say, a year ago. Still, some days I do wonder insanity gripped me when I said we could get a dog. But, today Chris got a little more work done on our permanent chook run fence. When it's finished the chooks and Lochie will be separated, and we won't need to tie him up and listen to him bark while they eat (in order to prevent him from eating their food) and he won't get all their eggs. That will improve things around here quite a bit. Plus the little bit of lawn we have will be able to recover from the sad state the chooks have it in, which will also be nice.
• Now I know I was planning to write a post tonight that was something about Kaely and Liam, but I can't remember what it was. So even when I do post every day, things still slip annoyingly through the cracks of my mind, to dribble unseen onto my dirty floor, never to be recorded. Damn.
• Have I mentioned that my masters project is meant to be completed by Monday? Yeah.

Now I'm going to take my tired brain and drink the cup of tea Chris is just making me (I think) and watch some West Wing on DVD. The good thing about not getting a lot of time to watch television is that these series take a long time to run out. I think we are still watching season two.

That's all folks.

In mourning already

Even though I have very much been looking forward to having my master's project completed, so that we could have family weekends (or at least family days) again, so that we could get some things done around here, the fact is, I am really going to miss my writing time.

I comfort myself with the knowledge that I'll be going back to work in July and that could be interesting and challenging, and will still give me some days (two and a half hopefully) away from the monotony of housework and building cubbies, which quite frankly, I need for my sanity On the other hand it could also suck - it mostly depends on the people I end up working with, individually and as a team. And as yet, I don't know who they will be, or even what work I will be doing. If it's back to the job I left two years ago then the work will be relatively enjoyable - writing and editing and reading about art and culture and recreation in Australia. So that's not all bad. As to the people I don't know. I know the team has changed significantly since I left.

However, regardless of how that job works out (and in all honesty if I could avoid going back to work I would, despite what I just said about sanity), it's not going to be the same as having two days a week to focus on my own writing project/s. Granted, most of the past year I have been focussed on this masters project, which is also not the same as having two days a week to focus on whatever writing project I want, but - it almost is. If I had another year to work in here (without the requirements of a university course) I would probably focus on something a mite more practical than an academic essay - perhaps freelance articles, perhaps turning the fiction part of my project into a novel, or perhaps one of the other novels that are ticking away in my head. But I don't have another year, so whichever of those things I want to focus on (probably the first), I'm going to have to do it in my copious spare time.

Yeah, I am really, really, going to miss my writing days.

Still, the money's going to be nice.

Re: the essay

When I say I've nailed it, of course what I mean is I know what I need to do to fix it, not that I've actually done it. Up to re-write number four, I think...

The cost of being a writer

Somewhere* recently I read a quote from a writer saying something like "to be a writer, you have to give up a lot of life and personal time" - the writer made it sound harder than that though.

Sometimes I think this is self evident, and other times I think - but if only I could win lotto, I could give up my day job (which I am due back at in about five weeks) and have time. And then other times I think - if I'd spent my two days a week for the last year working on writing to get published, instead of on my masters project... well, I might have actually made some money and got some clips.

But then again I have loved working on my masters project, even though the essay has been driving me up the wall (I think I have it nailed now - though have I said that before? - I'll be getting back to it shortly), and I have learned a lot about the writing process I think.

And *maybe* one day I can turn the fiction into a novel. But to do that, y'see, I will have to give up an enormous amount of that personal time the writer was talking about. And in a few months we're going to be starting to try for another baby (probably), and once my masters project is done, we will have at least one day weekends as a family for the first time in years (unless you count the first few weeks after Mikaela's birth, and I don't), for about eight months - until I start studying again, but that will be for my last unit in the course. And and and... well, I'm not sure how or when I am going to motivate myself to sit down and do it.

But even if I don't, I am hoping to get some parts of it published as is (as are), and either way, I learned heaps along the way. In another quote (which I'm sure came from Dawn) a writer said something about writing being a craft you have to learn, just like any other craft. So I'm learning, and it's good.

__________
* I think this might have been in Dawn's writer quotes, but all my refreshing hasn't brought it back again.

Updated to add: And then I refreshed once more and there it was:

"I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer." ~Doris Lessing

And the other one was

"Most people won't realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship in it like anything else." ~Katherine Anne Porter

Essay/silkie/knitting/colds a post in dot points

So much to say, so little time. So tonight, a post in (largely unrelated) dot points.

• My masters project is due in in one week and one day. Luckily my supervisor said (without me asking) that I could have an extension of two or more weeks, because they're all going to be too busy with marking other papers to get a panel together before then anyway. This is lucky because I've just realised that to get it bound and posted is going to take the better part of a week. Also because I am not as close to being happy with either the essay or the fiction as I had hoped to be by this point. On the other hand, I *really* don't want this to eat into my month of two day weekends before I go back to work. So I may ended up working quite hard on it this week.
• My sister gives really good feedback. Think I might impose on her to read my essay as well...
• Our little silkie chicken (who has moved to the front of our house, which is really around the side of the block, to avoid the bigger chickens, who can't fit through the fence) has taken to coming right up onto our front doorstep sometimes. Today she was sitting up there as I came out of the house, with our cat following me. The cat - who has rarely gotten that close to any chicken, that I've seen, almost touched noses with Fluffy (as we affectionately call her), then walked on, disinterested.
• All of us in the family seem to have yet another cold. So far it is mild, but by g-d I am sick of it.
• I am two thirds of the way through knitting a pretty little dishcloth with multiple stuff-ups in the pattern. Diana sent me another pattern (or three) which sounds easier, so I will try that next. My cousin (who has two small children, four months older and twelve months younger than Kaely, and whom I see every week) laughed at me when I told her I was knitting a dishcloth (in the nicest possible way). So I said I would have to write a whole blog post to explain my interest, starting with my urban by composting childhood, in which my parents read grassroots magazine and fantasised about moving to the country, much as I have often done. That post yet to come.

A claytons post (Mikaela, sleep deprivation, and the writing life - sort of)

The post you have when you're not...

Did I mention already that Mikaela was up last night from 11:45pm until 3:15am? And then back up (for good) at 6am? Yes, well, sleep deprivation might seem like enough reason for me to be writing a clayton's post at nearly nine o'clock at night (when my bedtime is theoretically 9:30, old nanna that I am), but really it's because I spent the entire day today with Mikaela attached to me. Either nursing or just whimpering. Up until about an hour before bedtime, that is, when she suddenly decided life wasn't so bad after all (could be something to do with the paracetmol I gave her of course) and started running and climbing and jumping as though to make up for the rest of the day.

That was the main part of my day today.

There was a nice moment when a friend to whom I'd sent a draft of the piece of fiction* I've written for my master's project wrote back to say she loved it and it made her cry at places. But then she asked if she could send it to some friends who she thought would really like to read it and I freaked out slightly and said NO! For one thing it's still a draft, but for another I would like to try to get some parts of it published (it's got a few discrete short stories within the story).. but then I thought, but what about the rest? All that work, it does deserve some readers. And yet it's not a format that I can see getting published as it is - too short for a novella (let alone a novel), but structured like one, complete with prologue and epilogue, too long for a short story. And it's literary/academic in style (as you might expect, given the context of its creation), so that's a small market anyway.

Anyway, I'll have to think on it I suppose.

But right now I have to go have my cup of tea with my husband before it's bedtime. Or before Mikaela wakes up next, whichever comes first...

____
*I never know quite how to refer to this as it's too long to be called a short story - over 17,000 words, though I'm supposed to be getting it down to 16,000 - but too short to be a novella.

Essay writing and the gnashing of teeth

Back when I was doing my undergrad degree, I almost invariably approached essays the way I was taught to in high school:

1. define your terms
2. take a position
3. write an outline, include relevant quotes
4. write an introduction saying what you are going to say (ie doing all of the above)
5. write the essay, make sure you use quotes, examples
6. write a conclusion, saying what you've said

Point six was always the hardest part for me, since it was hard to make it significantly different to the introduction.

That method worked well enough in high school and still went pretty well for most of my undergrad years. It helps, of course, to have an essay question that you are required to address. As a post grad, I mostly haven't had that benefit.

How I write an essay now:

1. Develop an interest
2. Read as widely as possible
3. Start to narrow down the interest
4. Repeat 2 & 3 ad nauseum
5. Start to write - this may be something by way of an introduction, attempting to set out some parameters for the essay, but it's more likely to be some disparate paragraphs supposedly from the body of the essay; presuming the latter:
6. Try to write an introduction
7. Write some more disparate paragraphs
8. Realise the introduction hasn't captured what I am trying to do at all.
9. Try another introduction
10. 7-9 on repeat, interspersed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
11. Finally figure out what I'm trying to say.
12. Write yet another introduction, hopefully capturing 11 above.
13. If 12 works, move on to actually writing essay. Otherwise, go back to 10 above, only moving to the body of the essay when 12 is finally working.
14. Write conclusion - hopefully this flows easily from body of essay, otherwise go back and try again; put gnashing of teeth on repeat.
15. Having written essay, realise that 12 was wrong after all, and re-write introduction again.
16. Tweak body of essay.
17. Repeat several times, then move to 18.
18. Tweak conclusion.
19. After sundry proofing efforts, submit essay.
20. Breathe.

I've been thinking/reading for the essay I am currently working on since last year. It's due for submission in less than a month. Finally, I think I've aced point 12. Or, it could be that I'm still stuck on 10 but just haven't realised it yet. I'm about to try moving on from the introduction (again). Wish me luck.

what I have been thinking lately (roosters, dogs, kids and writing, for instance)

I don't seem to be doing much with this blog lately. Even the baby book entries mostly just get written in my head, and end up being simple lists of words when I finally get something out.

It's frustrating because I have things to write about.

The kids, of course. How Liam seems to have turned a corner from the (slightly difficult) five and a half year old he was, to the six year old he is now, even though the books say six is supposed to be harder. How I think school plays a part, since he's now one of the older kids in his class (which has two years together, 4-6 year olds) and he seems to be feeling the responsibility (in a good way). How Mikaela is so delightful just now, but I'm still a bit afeared about what is around the corner, because she is such a determined little thing.

About future plans too. How I had a little freak out the other week that if we had another child we might end up with a "special needs" child of some sort and be stuck in this part of our lives (the part with seriously dependent beings) forever. But how I'm moreorless over that now and feeling a bit excited about starting to try to get pregnant again in a few months time, despite the very real possibility that it will take even longer than last time (me being 36 and Chris almost 40 now) or that it won't happen at all.

And that would naturally lead into the post where I suddenly remembered the fertility specialist saying to me that I might, possibly, have an early menopause, because of only having one ovary and who knows, the other one might not be all that great either (though I secretly think it is), and me suddenly realising the other day that I don't want to go through an early menopause for more reasons than just fertility - which is what I had focussed on up to now.

And then I have these posts I want to write about sustainable living, and how Lochie squashed most of our summer vegetable garden, has broken into both chicken runs and let the chooks out, let the chooks into the winter vegetable garden (which is toast now) and eats the eggs. But we're still glad to have him (mostly), though that was all a little depressing for a while. And Chris is starting obedience training with him next Tuesday night. And how one of our two Silkies turned out to be a rooster and started terrorising his sister, so we got rid of him and now she is much happier but I still think we need another little Silkie friend for her (or two, or maybe three).

And of course about The Compact and how that's going and how I feel about it, with a little more detail than that last post.

And then about writing, and how I am back to working on my fiction now (not the essay which I still haven't even got a draft of, or a conclusion for, despite it all being due in less than 2 months!) and am really enjoying the revision/re-writing process. I fact I *love* it. Who'd have thunk? (I always dread revision, and always love it once I get going. Weird.)

And no doubt a bunch of other things that don't come to mind right now because I can hear Kaely in the kitchen and I am wondering what she is doing, and because Liam is off sick today (just a cold with a mild fever I *think*, but there is chicken pox going around the school), but I've just remembered that I have to get everyone dressed and go into the school anyway, because I am the 'class co-ordinator' and I have to put out some pledge forms for the community hours scheme before term ends, and term ends tomorrow...

And now Liam is calling me, and I think Kaely is harrassing him, so I will go be a parent, and save thinking more about this blog for another day.

Hope and realism

In the first chapter of Linda L. Layne's Motherhood Lost: A Feminist Account of Pregnancy Loss in America, entitled 'The miscarriage years' Layne writes of her second pregnancy

I am surprised now, and touched, to see that at that point, even though I was certainly by then aware and vigilant against the possibility of loss, that I could still embrace a pregnancy with such innocence and hope. (p. 5 in the Amazon online reader - I can't get this in the library, damn it!)

Even though I'm reading this for uni, I am immediately drawn to thinking about my own situation and am reminded of hopeful attitude to trying for another baby next year. I would love to leave another three-four year gap between my next two kids, but given that I will be 36 this year and Chris is already 39, and given that it took 17 cycles and one miscarriage before we conceived Mikaela, we don't want to leave it too long. But somehow I still assume that it will all be okay; next time we'll be 'normal and conceive within 6 months, or at least within a year, and no more miscarriages either.

This despite the fact that it will be four years since the last time we started trying to conceive. My expectation suddenly seems almost presumptuous.

On being a writing student (some notes)

Discontinuous prose exercise (from the Hazel Smith book I keep mentioning):

On being a writing student (some notes)

A good day in the study leaves me filled with energy and excitement, wishing I could come back in here every day to work. I may have written two thousand words or more, or I may have only written two hundred, but feel I have worked something out in so doing.

A bad day leaves me frustrated and despairing, still wishing I could come back to work in here tomorrow (in the hope of having a better day), but also relieved that I don’t have to.

Things that help:

• finding something in The Writing Experiment (or elsewhere) that speaks to exactly what I want to do (eg, some ideas I came across today about mixed genre writing and fictocriticism - exactly what I have been thinking of doing, without quite knowing I was thinking it)

• sitting out on the deck to write by hand for a while, if the family are out and about (and it’s nice weather)

• just doing it.

Things that don’t help:

• reading that in 2004 only 32 Australian literary novels were published (by mainstream publishers), which was a drop of almost 50% since 1996 (source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,18464035-16947,00.html)
• faffing around on facebook
• being sleep deprived
• having a good idea for an entirely different project so that my energies become divided.

A friend said that she is feeling exhausted by the whole thing, the very idea of writing, but listening to me talk about my writing processes is inspiring. Ha! I must have been having a better day then.

Another friend had her short novel critiqued by a critiquing service and they said it had some nice ideas but read like a very early draft. She did not leap for joy.

One of the great things about being a writing student is reading. I can justify reading just about anything as ‘work’ – Virginia Woolf’s diaries, any literary novel you care to name, articles about the state of writing (or publishing) in Australia, articles about the experience of mothers (or non-mothers) in Australia, or articles on whatever else I might be writing about. Of course, one of the things that really doesn’t help is spending too much time reading things that aren’t actually relevant, but just might have that kernel that sparks my untapped genius. They mostly don’t, and they still take just as much time out of my day.

I love that as a distance student the library delivers books to my door (or at least they pay someone else to deliver them), and mostly they give me pouches to pack them back up in and have someone come and collect them from my door, too. Which is much better than when they send reply paid Australia Post postpacks, so that I actually have to leave my house to get the books back to them. Those books are often overdue by the time I drag myself down to the post box.

I’ve just remembered that what I was supposed to be doing today was looking at the story I wrote for Fiction Writing B last year, using my tutor’s notes to see if I can tighten it up (and get it below 3000 words) so I can enter it in a short story competition. Now I will have to wait until next weekend to get into it, which could be tricky since I think the competition closes this Friday. But there is another that closes the next Friday, so I suppose I will still have to do it.

There’s really not much point in being a writing student – or in writing in general – if you never submit anything anywhere. Or sure, you can write a blog and have some people read it, and that can be nice. But if you don’t want to publish stories on there, then really, those stories need to be submitted somewhere else. But first they need to be polished to be their very best. I mostly don’t do that, not only out of lethargy, or even out of a fear that they still won’t be good enough, but because I am a writing student – which means that drafting the next project is always more pressing than revising the last one.

Which is why instead of revising this discontinuous prose exercise, I am going to publish it on my blog, right now. Finally, a post that is not a quote.

The (would-be) writing life...

I am sitting in my dark part-time study, having just come in out of the sun where I was reading Virginia Woolf’s diary. I am reading a few pages of A Writer’s Diary (extracts from her diary published by Leonard Woolf a decade or so after her death) each day before I begin work (each Sunday/Monday that is!). It was tempting to stay out there and keep reading, but my point for the day is really writing, which I can do most effectively sitting in front of the computer. Besides, I wanted to record something she wrote in May 1920:

It is worth mentioning, for future reference that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning  a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything. I’m a little anxious. How am I to bring off this conception? Directly one gets to work one is like a person walking, who has seen the country stretching out before. I want to write nothing in this book that I don’t enjoy writing. Yet writing is always difficult. (Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1954, p. 25.)

Leonard Woolf comments in the preface that one must keep in mind at all times that this is only “a very small portion” of her diary, and does not constitute the entirety of her thoughts. Otherwise “the book will give a very distorted view of her life and her character” (p.ix). I mention this, because as I am reading there is a part of me wishing to have what she seems to have – so much time to focus on writing. I know she didn't have children, but indeed the entries in this diary are often weeks apart – indicating, presumably, weeks when her diary consisted only of non-writing related observations. And even within this extract she remarks that her time for writing has not been hers at all (evidence by the fact that she has hardly done reading outside her review books). Of course, my reading is also inevitably coloured by knowledge of her suicide two decades later. It’s hard to be jealous of that!

Last week I had an email from a (single, childless) old school friend who is currently in Berlin, having (by the sounds of things) the time of her life. She is there for (I think) about six weeks, following which she is heading to France to visit some friends there, and “then on”. I could hardly read her lovely email without feeling jealous as hell. I think she is living the life I want!

But actually, she’s not. I love my husband and my children and even my house, despite the mortgage. When I first bought a house I was 22*, and more than one person commented that I was the last person they expected to ‘settle down’. I wasn’t settling down, I replied, I was merely committing to live in the one place for a year or so, after which I could rent it out and head back overseas if I felt like it. Up to that point I had cultivated a footloose image - which I believed in myself and which fit beautifully with my star sign. I was carefree and adaptable, ready to pick up and leave at a moment’s notice. (According to this site, for instance, Sagittarian likes include travelling and freedom, while dislikes include being tied down, being constrained, being bothered with details). Then I met Chris, whose star sign makes him out to be a homebody (“It is a fundamentally conservative and home-loving nature, appreciating the nest like quality of a secure base” ). You’d think we’d be at odds (if you believe in that sort of thing). But actually, as much as the idea of being able to take off to Berlin appeals, I’m honestly just as much of a homebody as Chris is. Maybe more.

Sure, I have a constant conflict between my role as a mother and my role as a writer, but is there any other option? The fact is, I’m living the life I want. Except for the lack of a rich sponsor of course.

____

*The housing market had just crashed and it was basically cheaper to buy than to rent, once you get past the start-up expenses which I borrowed from my mother, and paid back in dribs and drabs over the next several years. The house I bought then would now be worth over three times what I paid for it.

Opening up conversations

Carolyn Ellis, writing about autoethnography, says

...[O]ur goal is to open up conversations about how people live,
rather than close down with a definitive description and analytic statements
about the world as it ‘truly’ exists outside the contingencies of language and
culture. I believe the conversational style of communicating has more
potential to transform and change the world for the better. As a multivoiced
form, conversation offers the possibility of opening hearts and increasing
understanding of difference.
    'Analyzing Analytic Autoethnography: An Autopsy', Ellis, Carolyn S.; Bochner, Arthur P., Journal Of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 429-449, August 2006, p. 435.

I think my central narrator in the fiction I'm working on may be an autoethnographer, so I'm doing a bit of research into what the hell it is.

The spacious present

...[I]ndividuals always act in the briefest of moments, the here-and-now present. However, individuals’ actions of the present moment emerge from understandings of pasts and anticipations of future selves pursuing future lines of action. The present can be very spacious.
    'Introduction to Two Thematic Issues: Defective Memory and Analytical Autoethnography' by Hunt, SA an Junco, NR, in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35:4, August 2006, referencing Mead, GH, Mind, self, and society, 1934.

Uni starts today

Technically the semester starts tomorrow, but for me that's today, because Sundays are going to be my prime study days again.

I'm feeling enthusiastic about getting back into study. For the next two semesters I am working on my 'research project', which is actually going to be a few short stories plus a related exegetical essay about their genre (I think that's right!) (total of up to 20,000 words), which is exciting. It's bit like what I did last semester but on a bigger scale. And I loved what I did last semester!*

But, I'm feeling quite ambivalent about giving up family weekends again. For the past four weeks we've had two day weekends (Sunday-Monday) with both Chris and I at home, and it's been heaven. We haven't done anything much - in fact we used up one on Kaely's blessing/first birthday, and Chris went to Sydney for half of another. But we have been able to do some errands, get the washing done, and just spend some time hanging out together as a family, and that has been really nice.

Actually, I'm not ambivalent, I'm downright depressed about it. Still excited to do the actual work though.

I was thinking that I would start out just working Sundays for a while, so we could still have Mondays, but I have an outline complete with references, theoretical positions (!) etc due in only two weeks, so... that's not really going to work out. In fact, I better get back to it. I have a lot of reading & research to do today!
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*And just as an aside I have to brag that I got 90% on my essay, which is a fantastically good mark (my best ever I think), and my lecturer said I was wasted on a course-work masters! It took me ages to come to grips with the essay, and there were times there when I really didn't think my brain was cut out for this kind of thing, so that was a very pleasing result. For the fiction I only got a distinction (a 90 is a high distinction - a great high distinction), but that was pretty much what I thought it deserved, so that's fine; I learned a lot writing it.

New technology

I'm writing this post from Word 07 and on my new laptop. Two firsts for me.

We bought the laptop a few weeks ago, but I've barely used it yet. Chris uses it a lot at night, after I'm in bed, since we sleep in the study these days so he can't get at the desktop. I've been wanting a laptop for ages (and we're actually paying for it out of the tiny bit of money I've earned doing web editing work since I've been on maternity leave), but shortly before we got it we finally got a wireless router, since which time I've been doing most of my (writing/studying) work out in the Rolfing studio. So it's not so exciting now. It may be more exciting once uni starts up again. I have the idea that I might go work at Starbucks for a morning here and there – though at this stage I still need to be home to nurse Mikaela around lunch time at least. (Though I started working two days a week when Liam was this age and he learned to do without 'mummy milk' on those days without much trouble.) For the moment I am on 'holidays' for three weeks, which means I don't get my writing days, but that we do actually get family time. As of next week Liam is also on school holidays for three weeks, so I won't even get my Tuesdays and Thursdays when I can write/think or even just do housework, while Kaely sleeps and Liam is out. I am planning lots of play dates!

But, back to the laptop, I've also discovered that I have to be extremely careful how I hold my hands while typing or I end up making the curser jump all over the place by (I presume) accidentally brushing the touchpad. Which is a pain, especially typing on a table that is really too high to type on. Then again, that's probably not a good idea anyway.

What I do like is the idea that I can have it out and check email etc while Mikaela is playing, without me having to go into the study. That's going to be nice.

Writing again

Uni starts again next week. I'm feeling quite excited about it, despite having a degree of dread as well - where will I fit it all in?

I'm taking a subject in Young Adult fiction, which requires me to read a number of books in my chosen genre of young adult fiction (there are a number of book lists supplied by the lecturer, but they are just suggestions, as are the genres she's come up with), then write a 3000 word creative piece in that genre - either a short story or a first chapter plus novel synopsis - and an exegesis examining three of the novels I've read, analysing the way they fit into that genre, and using them to support some contention about the genre (which the creative piece may possibly then work against).

Uni hasn't officially started yet, as I said, but already there is much discussion on the course discussion site (I'm doing all my courses online, as I have probably said, though most of them have some people doing them in class as well), which is encouraging. The level of online discussion has been somewhat variable. So I'm feeling very enthused to get back into it. In fact, I'd be looking at the site now, but the deakin web server seems to be down. So I should really go to bed...

Not that we can afford any more children anyway, but...

Sometimes, when I am trying to get some work done while Liam is out - some writing/studying work - and Mikaela wakes up every 1/2 hour or so of her nap needing to be resettled, and the breakfast dishes are still on the table, the dishwasher still full, the nappies sitting in the machine waiting to be put out, and I am still in my dressing gown at 1:30 in the afternoon, with only half an hour to go before Liam gets home, and I can't find the particular book I need to look something up in because the last time I was reading it Mikaela woke up in the middle and I put it down somewhere other than where it belongs: sometimes, I think there is no way we should have any more children.

Other times, when I am simply engrossed in the delightfulness of Mikaela's enormous grin or Liams wonderful giggle - those times I think we simply must have one more.

Right now Mikaela has woken and is calling out - so right now I get to stop thinking about it and get back to living it. And the writing will have to wait (maybe I'll find that book in the mean time).

Blogging withdrawal, or What I have been doing lately

Mikaela is bound to wake up any minute, but I must blog, I am having withdrawal symptoms. I have just put Liam to bed, and lately I then spend the rest of the evening trying to get Mikaela settled before handing her over to Chris and going to bed around 9 or 10. She has had a cold the last week which has made it worse (before that I usually could put her in the bassinette before going to bed), but even so, this has become the story of my evenings - my usual blogging time.

Not that I am pacing around with her all that time or anything, frequently I'm reading or watching TV - but with her on my lap. It seems that if I put her down in that 6-9pm bracket she just wakes up. And if I give her to Chris she cries. Weirdly, after nine I can give her to Chris with no trouble. Tonight however she had such an unsettled day (we were out all day) that she's having a nap now, after 7pm, which started at about 4:30 (she woke up just after 5, but I got her back to sleep again).

In addition, I've been spending what free time I have, or can manufacture, doing uni work. The final copy of my story (yes that one) was due in last Monday, so there's been that, plus commenting on other student's stories. And now I find myself having to write a proposal for my 'research project' (part research/exegetical essay, part fiction) for next year. I've got some pretty good ideas of what I'm going to do for the fiction, but my thesis statement for the essay is somewhat wooly. In fact, it's non-existent, although I have some general ideas.

In the meantime, I have recently bought two books with some $65 worth of gift vouchers I'd been saving. One of them, When Anger Hurts Your Kids, I bought because it was recommended by a few people over here, and -- damn damn, Kaely is awake. I gotta go. Who knows when I will come back? Lucky she's got such a cute smile...