Author. Speaker. Teacher. Editor. Manuscript Appraisals.
I’m a little bit pleased with this effort.
This is my ‘beach shack Christmas’ wall hanging. It’s easy to do and gives a great result, I think. I just painted a canvas (picked up for a few dollars in a cheap shop) and dusted the whole thing with sparkly glitter for a ‘starry night’ effect, glued on driftwood pieces to resemble a Christmas tree, and topped with a starfish I picked up ages ago in a shop at the Noosa Marina. Voila!
Here is this week’s Creative Tuesday activity: homemade bath salts. (With a guest appearance from my inner perfectionist.)
I used epsom salts; dried rosemary, sage and lavender from my garden; and fine essential oils of lemon, orange and patchouli (Ahimsa oils).
Rosemary, sage and lavender are all good ‘muscle oils’. Lemon, orange and patchouli are all good for them mind.
This was such an easy thing to do and I almost felt like I cheated a bit with this activity. (Which is complete rubbish, of course, and just my inner perfectionist telling me that if it’s not ‘difficult’ then it can’t really be ‘valuable’… she’s full of nasty stuff like that, my perfectionist.) I’m really pushed for time this week, and I’ve never done it before, so it was a great one to do in an intense week when I still wanted to challenge myself and keep my commitment to my weekly goal. (So I now hereby tell my perfectionist to go find something productive to do because ‘yay me, I created something!’)
And if you want to make your own, all I can say is this smells divine! And, I get to enjoy a long soak in the bath with them!
Christmas decorations were back on today’s agenda for Creative Tuesday.
They’re made from toilet rolls, white paint, white card cut into circles and glued with glitter, paper for the beak, glue on eye pieces and thumbtacks into drift wood for feet. I still want to wire them up to hang in the tree.
I think it’s important to stress that my philosophy for Creative Tuesday is not to produce something GREAT but simply to CREATE. Thus, I present my homemade snowy owls!
Wait, did I just say “feeding my unicorn”? Yep. It’s a thing.
And now, too, is my self-appointed weekly exercise I’ve called Creative Tuesdays. In short, I have challenged myself to crete something new, something I’ve never done before, once a week on a Tuesday. Why Tuesday? Simply because it fits in with my childcare and writing schedule.
One of the fundamental premises of The Artist’s Way is taking yourself on a weekly artist’s date. But if you’ve got tiny people in your life (babies and toddlers, that is, not fairies, though I say yay for you if you have fairies), it’s really difficult to get out of the house on schedule. But as I am a creative being in a creative job, I need to feed my unicorn. And the in-home Creative Tuesday is the only way I feel I can do that right now.
But do it I must! Because I don’t want to drain the well or there’ll be nothing left to creative yummy books to read. And I love that and want to keep doing that.
So, here are my first two efforts for Creative Tuesdays.
Want to join me? I’d love to hear from you 🙂
My new novel, The Chocolate Promise, is in production and the book will be out in April 2015. In the meantime, here’s a lovely piece to whet your appetite, an excerpt and a divine recipe for chocolate lavender truffle balls. Oh boy!
Have you ever dreamed of chucking in your ‘real’ job and owning and running a bookstore instead? Of being surrounded by endless books to choose from? A coffee machine whirring away next to you, book launches and that irresistible smell of new books? I did, all the time when I was working in a corporate job and trying to crack a publishing deal. My fantasy life was as a bookstore owner. So I thought it would be nice to ask a real person what that dream is actually like.
The lovely Lucinda Morley, co-owner with her sister at The River Read, answered some questions on what her day job is like.
Could you tell us a bit about yourself (and your sister) and your bookshop?
My sister Natalie and I bought The River Read 5 years ago. For a couple of years we had been on the lookout for an opportunity to go into business together. We had grown up in Noosa and are big book lovers, so when my husbands step mother told me that she was thinking about moving on and selling The River Read it was the perfect opportunity for us. 6 months after buying the shop we added the coffee side of the business which was another great learning curve for us. We had never run a cafe OR a bookshop! We came into the business with a lot of passion and energy, and took on board a lot of advice from experts in both areas. We get told by customers all the time that the shop has a great energy, which we think is a result if it being something we put a lot of love into.
I think a lot of us dream of quitting our day jobs and running a bookstore. Is it really as much fun as it’s cracked up to be?
It’s pretty fun! We still get a buzz whenever new release books arrive, especially from authors we love. It’s pretty great going to a work being surrounded by books all day. It’s especially great because we do it together. Obviously there’s a serious side – paying the bills, hiring staff etc. but overall we love it.
What do you love most about your job?
Reading! It’s funny because people assume we come to work and get to read all day, but the opposite is true. We constantly have people (customers, book reps) telling us we MUST read this or that book and it can be really frustrating because you go home with a pile of books and not nearly enough time to read them.
How many books do you read a week/month? On average I’d say a book a week – sometimes more sometimes less. It depends on the size of the books and how much spare time I get (which is often not much).
What’s been the most challenging or unexpected thing that’s happened since you started? What really amazes me is that after 5 years running and working in a bookshop, there is still not a day that goes by that a customer asks about an author I’ve never heard of. There are so many books and authors out there! It used to really frustrate me but now I just listen and enjoy learning every day. You can’t read everything so we really take on board the wealth of knowledge our customers bring in.
What are your top three pieces of advice for someone who dreams of having their own bookshop?
Thanks, Lucinda!
I’m far from an expert at this, but I’ve had to learn really fast how to deal with high levels of writing commitments (i.e. publishing contracts with deadlines and money and stuff) with a baby/toddler in tow). And right now, I’m in the middle of my structural edit for my second novel, with a deadline this month so it can move through editing and onto the printers in time to hit the shelves in April next year (yay!).
And, timing of all timings, our household has been hit with one nasty virus after another–I’m talking flu, gastro, and now my toddler has a strain of a particularly nasty chest virus that’s knocked him down for more than a week. And when your very young child is sick, there’s not a lot you can do other than drop everything and look after them. They can’t go to daycare (if that’s what they do) and no one else (even the most doting aunties and grandparents) will want to look after your germ-infested, dripping, feverish, sneezing, snotting, wailing darling child. Quite reasonably.
Add to this the extra effort required with washing, sterilising and disinfecting, trips to the doctor, late-night runs to the pharmacy, the emotional stress of watching your little darling crying with fever or pain, or simply because they can’t breathe well enough to actually get any sleep, their rabid wrestling when you try to administer medication five times a day, and their likely constant need for affection and comfort, and you’ve got yourself a pretty intense time, and not a lot of mental space.
And then there’s the stress that your work is falling way behind.
So here’s what I’ve learnt to do: act like a squirrel. Be singled-minded about preparing for the future. Give up any idea of getting any serious work done and simply nest. Shop for food. Cook food. Freeze food. Plan meals. Do tidying and cleaning where possible. Wash clothes. Order supplies. Pay bills. Make phone calls. Send emails. Essentially, pretend you are leaving home soon to go away for a two-week holiday. You can do these things in little snatches of time between nursing, and they don’t take much mental power. And then the very second that the crisis has passed, you are set to go. Leave all that domestic chaos behind and sink blissfully into the newfound time and freedom you have so efficiently created while nesting alongside your sick child (or sick dog, or couch-surfing nephew, or whatever else turned up unexpectedly at your door). Right now, my freezer is filling and I’m on top of the washing. I’m just waiting for the season to pass so I can dive back into my book and enjoy all those nuts I squirrelled away during the storm of relentless ills.
Be sure to share this FREE event around! I’m so excited about this, a real life ‘Pot-pour-tea’ bar, just like in The Tea Chest!! And, you could win this gorgeous six-piece tea set!
I’ll be bringing a smorgasbord of ingredients (fruits, herbs, spices, teas) for you to come and try making your very own blend of tea. AND, I’m giving away cupcakes! AND, anyone who buys a book (or BYO for a signing) will go into the raffle two win this six-piece pink heart set of teacups and saucers!! (The box is a little worn but the goods are good!)!
You’ll find me at Angus & Robertson, Brookside shopping centre, Osborne Road, Mitchelton, Saturday 2nd August, from 11-2pm. I hope to see you there!
Be sure to share this FREE event around! I’m so excited about this, a real life ‘Pot-pour-tea’ bar, just like in The Tea Chest!!
I’ll be bringing a smorgasbord of ingredients (fruits, herbs, spices, teas) for you to come and try making your very own blend of tea. AND, I’m giving away cupcakes! AND, anyone who buys a book (or BYO for a signing) will go into the raffle for the day!
You’ll find me at Angus & Robertson, Brookside shopping centre, Osborne Road, Mitchelton, Saturday 2nd August, from 11-2pm. I hope to see you there!
This was an excellent question posed by a reader of my Dream time article in Sunday Life magazine last weekend.
Opal from Twitter asked said, “I know someone who is so angry they can’t get £ for their passion. Bankrupt over it & dragged his kids all over the country chasing the dream for 20 years. When dreams hurt, I say stop!”
This comment had me thinking for a long time and I decided there was so much in it that I would need to write a whole post on it to reply.
So firstly, I have to say that of course I don’t know anything about the specifics of the person Opal is talking about so I am not making any comment there. And I also have to say, straight up, that if you have small children then your first priority, always, is their welfare, no arguments about it. So if your actions are hurting your children then yes, stop right now.
However, I feel there is always a way to nurture your dreams. Okay, you might not be able to pack up and head to New York or to live in an ashram. But you still have choices. And sometimes, especially when we have human responsibilities (like parenting, taking care of elderly parents and, in my case, a lifelong commitment to more than a dozen animals) that might slow the pace of our actions, but you can still chip away at your dreams one tiny drop in the vast ocean at a time.
I’d also like to suggest that this is closely related to another comment from a reader, this time from Owla on Twitter who asked, “Can we all earn from our passion thou? What about the crazy X factor ppl who want to be popstars?”
Great question. Obviously not every contestant on a talent show is going to win. This doesn’t mean they’re not meant to have a career in music or as a singer. Those careers take many forms and those dreams evolve over the years as we get to know ourselves. Putting yourself out there in a forum like that can be a really powerful life changing experience for many people, despite the fact that they may not make it past the first round. And that could even be the fact that they realise that particular career path is not for them. They may go home with an epiphany of another road to take, such as music for children, composing, leading a church choir, whatever.
I think the real key to all of this is to look for signs that you’re on the right path. If I look back over the twelve years I was writing seriously, and NOT making any money from my work, there were STILL signs that I was on the right path. Little moments here and there, little cracks in the chaos that shone through and said, there! Keep going! For me, if I am constantly banging my head on a wall until it bleeds and there are NO signs that the universe is supporting those attempts, then I need to bail on that pathway. (Again, it doesn’t mean the whole idea is wrong for me, just that chosen expression.)
A very simple example: When I start a new book, I ‘listen’ for the story that wants to be told. And I follow it for a while with research. And while I’m following that trail, I wait for signs that is the way to go. With my third foodie fiction novel (following the first book centred around tea and the second around chocolate), I was very interested in coffee for quite a while and did a lot of research. I was intellectually fascinated about the world trade and export and growing of coffee, the history of it in Australia, and all the cultural associations. But I had no fire for it. I didn’t have the passion in my belly that I would need to sustain it for years.
So I dropped it. Just like that. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be writing another novel. It means that story wasn’t the right one at that time.
Then I found my next subject and I began to see signs everywhere. I saw movies, pictures, events. I met a local primary producer who invited me (quite spontaneously, since we’d only been talking for a few minutes) to go to his place to see what he did. I looked on ebay for something totally unrelated and the first image that popped up with to do with my book. And I felt the fire–the heat in my belly that would sustain this book for its lifetime.
Opal and Owla, I hope some of this rambling is coming together for you as to my response to your excellent comments. We need to be wise to our journeys, to know the difference between struggle and pain, to watch for guidance to the next step forward that supports us and our loved ones.