Since deciding to hike the Camino de Santiago (an almost 800km hike across the top of Spain), I have been a variety of training hikes – large and small, flat and hilly, easy and difficult. I have discovered a real joy for hiking and being in nature, and uncovered a motivation, persistence and strength I never knew I had. Continue reading
I have had acute/chronic, stubborn Achilles tendonitis for some time now – years, though only diagnosed in the last 8 months. And I have been training to walk the Camino de Santiago, so the Achilles tendonitis has been a bit of an issue. Continue reading
In December, I hiked the Overland Track in Tasmania. This hike was amazing! I absolutely loved it. Continue reading
In November 2017, I did The Bloody Long Walk in Sydney – a 35km charity walk for mitochondrial disease from Palm Beach down to Manly. I’ve never participated in a charity walk, but a friend invited me as good training (I plan on doing the Camino de Santiago later this year). I had never done a 35km walk before, and so began training. Continue reading
I’ve drafted an itinerary for hiking the Camino de Santiago in 33 days. That’s 33 days of walking, no rest days factored in.
Continue reading
I write poetry because I like it. I still have poems that were written when I was a child.
It has been around a year since I was last formally employed, since I last had a day job. That statement alone sounds phenomenally thrilling! I mean, how many people wish they could say that?
Like a Bowerbird, I have become an avid collector. I imagine inside my mind there is an open space delicately lined with found language, words of beauty – it is quite a thing to behold! I tuck each snippet away, weaving one line, one word, with others.
It is the hope of every male Bowerbird that his blue-blessed bower will attract a twittering mate. My bower will attract great ideas from which stories will flow. As I gently tuck these phrases into my collection, other previously collected words stand out, or are plucked out, and used to prompt my writing. Of this I am certain: collecting small well-crafted gems from other writers inspires me in ways I would never have thought possible. Photo credit.
Another Louise Doughty inspired piece of writing about being lost, physically and metaphorically. It is based on an incident in my life, but overly exaggerated. Actually, reading it back I really dislike the writing I have done (perhaps because most of my writing is in 1st person and this is in 3rd person – but this was intentional, to replicate the distance the character feels from those around her and from herself). However, the purpose of this blog is not to publish only highly edited and re-worked posts, but to give you a sense of ‘writing in process’ over the course of writing my novel…and it is my hope that seeing my less than brilliant writing will also inspire you to have a go at writing yourself.
Most of the writing I have done on my blog has nothing to do with the novel I’m working on, however, everything I read keeps telling that writers, well, write! So here I go writing again. At some point, I will gather some of these pieces and turn them to my novel, or actually do some novel writing! Again the important thing is to keep writing, keep exploring ideas, keep playing with language and keep practicing. Play around with point of view and genre. Today I am using first person narrative in a piece of autobiographical writing: a small memoir.