Tag: the tea chest

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GenreCon Wrap-up

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I was at GenreCon in Brisbane on the weekend, just for a day on account of my young child, and sadly missed out on the cocktails and karaoke, which were responsible for a number of red eyes on the Saturday. I was in a bit of a state myself, actually, having just lost my beloved Golden Retriever, Goldie, and I had several vague conversations with people, where words simply would not make their way from my brain to my mouth. Apologies if you were on the receiving end of one of these uncomfortable conversations.

Here are the highlights from that day, during the moments I was actually engaged with life.

  • Chuck Wendig was a special guest at a session on planning and prioritising writing around the complications of life and gave a hilarious account of what it’s like to have multiple book contracts and a toddler running around while trying to work, something I can empathise with wholeheartedly. Gracie Macgregor was also a guest there and equally funny in her accounts of writing and motherhood.
  • It is always delightful to chat to the lovely and funny, Anna Campbell, who managed to cheer me up for a few minutes. Thanks, Anna.
  • I caught up with a former work colleague, a fellow editor where I worked at John Wiley & Sons, Victoria Steele, and her friend, romance writer, Christina Brooke.
  • The food. Can I just say how amazing the food was at GenreCon? Seriously. Great job.
  • I sat in on a workshop with Damon Cavalchini on preparing for reading from my book, The Tea Chest (out in April 2014). I picked up some great tips, including thinking about what I would do if it suddenly began to rain on me in the middle of my reading (has anyone created an Iddy-Biddy-Book-Umbrella?), and also, the benefit of having my own source of light, such as a book light.
  • And it’s always a delight to hear Kimberley Freeman (Dr Kim Wilkins) speak on all topics related to writing.

 

Well done to Meg Vann and Peter M Ball for organising such a great event. I look forward to staying for the festivities next year too.

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Rumi-nating Thoughts

I’m a terrible poet. Absolute rubbish. But I love to listen to it. I can sit and listen to the spoken words of poetry for hours (though I haven’t been able to for years because I’ve been living in the bush… but all of that’s about to change as of next week!).

Rumi
Rumi

While I love listening to poetry, I rarely ever read it, let alone buy it. But today, while working on my structural edit for my forthcoming novel, The Tea Chest, sitting in the lovely Rosetta Books at Maleny, a book off the shelf caught my eye. (I believe books often choose us, not the other way around, and this one certainly did.) It was Rumi, the book of love, a collection of writings and poetry from the 13th century Sufi poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. (I think he may have been ‘trendy’ for a while but I’m generally a few years behind trends. Don’t come to me if you’re looking for the latest cool thing.)

And what a charming little book it is.

Something I love so much about poetry is the way it frees the mind from structural concerns, bends our thoughts and clashes words together in a way that is so fresh and fascinating. I think it bypasses are critical minds and heads straight to the emotions.

I’ve been hopping my way through the book, opening pages randomly. Here are just a few gems that have made me laugh, long and melt.

The ground’s generosity takes in our compost

and grows beauty. Try to be

more like the ground.

You’re song;

a wished-for song.

Put seeds and cover them.

Blades will sprout

where you do your work.

Drive slowly. Some of us

walking alongside are lame.

Keep walking, though there is no place to get to.

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Roses in My Creative Life

Rose oil meringue, rose water cream, crystalised rose petals, and non-alcoholic wine with rose water and fresh mint leaves.
Rose oil meringue, rose water cream, crystalised rose petals, and non-alcoholic wine with rose water and fresh mint leaves.

Did you know that you can eat rose petals? I went a shamefully long time through life without knowing this or experimenting with the divine loveliness of this flower.

I studied aromatherapy some years ago, as part of a massage qualification. I had to complete a semester-long subject in aromatherapy. Like many people, I didn’t realise what aromatherapy was really all about. It’s name suggests it’s about smelling things. And that’s certainly a big part of it. But it should really be called something like ‘essential oil therapy’. It’s also sometimes now called ‘aromatic medicine’ or as part of ‘botanical medicine’ sitting alongside herbology and naturopathy.

So I walked into that first lecture thinking, gosh, what a waste of time! And I walked out a complete convert, and changed my qualification the very next day to specialise in this amazing healing science.

But I digress. Back to the roses.

Rose essential oil is a wonderous oil, exceptionally complex, with over three hundred chemical compounds, many of which are still unidentified. (Therefore, a synthetic version is not a complete version of rose oil.) It is fantastically healing for all sorts of emotional situations and physical ones too.

I’ve often used rose water (a byproduct of the distillation of rose petals) into cakes, icing and beverages. And this weekend just gone, I wanted to take that a step further and use the actual rose essential oil in baking, as well as rose water, and crystalise some rose petals too.

Although I’d made tea out of fresh rose petals from my garden (while I was writing The Tea Chest), until I made this rose meringue I’d never actually eaten rose petals. They are wonderful. The flavour is so much more intense than I imagined it would be because rose tea (from fresh petals) is actually very subtle. The full-bodied flowers are sensational! I highly recommend them.

(Note: You must not eat roses that have been sprayed with chemicals and that most likely rules out any you buy in the shop. Try farmers’ markets where you can get accurate information about the source of the roses, or do as I did and just take them from your garden!)

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Books as Prescription Medicine

This is precisely why I write books: to make people feel good.

Books like (legal) brownies for all!
Books like (legal) brownies for all!

I love this story.  From May this year, ‘Books on Prescription’ will begin in the UK, with doctors able to ‘prescribe’ a book to assist a patient and improve their mood. The books include both non-fiction and fiction, as well as poetry. It’s also hoped the scheme could help the struggling libraries. Win-win. How wonderful!

In the first couple of months after my baby was born, life was pretty insane in our house. Something I missed the most was reading and it was only when I began to learn how to get the reading time back into my life that I started to feel normal again. I always read before going to sleep, something that’s a very powerful mood producing activity for me. I literally feel stressed if I don’t have a good book nearby to delve into.

But it has to be the right kind of book. For me, there’s no point in reading something angst-ridden, violent, negative, sarcastic or miserable in order to feel better. Uplifting, comforting, engaging and fun–that’s what I want to read and that’s what I want to write.

My contemporary fiction novel, The Tea Chest, about three Australian women thrust together in a bid to sell tea to the English, will be out in 2014. And if you’re looking for something to make you feel good (a book that reads like a chocolate brownie tastes) then it might just be the book for you.

Read a book to feel better. Hooray!

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The Writer’s Retreat Wrap-Up

She works hard for the money… so hard for the money…

So this is how my writing retreat went:

Drinking tea and have a long soak in a clawfoot bath, all in the name of research
Drinking tea and have a long soak in a clawfoot bath, all in the name of research

Stayed in a gorgeous wee house, ‘Amelie’s Petite Maison’ at The Spotted Chook in Montville.

All alone for first time since my baby was born eight months ago… very weird but not totally unpleasant.

Had to extricate a huntsman spider out of my wee house ALL BY MYSELF!! For the record, I don’t DO spiders. My husband does the spiders and snakes; I do the rodents. Such is the perils of being all alone. Spider relocated outside in good health; I aged about ten years.

Engaged in many long soaks in the clawfoot bath.

Drank copious amounts of tea.

Ate chocolate healthy food.

Had a massage.

Suffered through the Worst High Tea in History (apologies to my sister for being subjected to that). On the upside, it actually inspired a change in the scene I was intending to write and I think it’s a better scene now, so all not lost.

Writing and tea drinking
Writing and tea drinking

Drank a cocktail with my sister after the Worst High Tea in History to make up for said suffering.

Oh yes, and worked long hours and finished my latest draft of The Tea Chest, ready to hand over to my publisher. Hooray!

And can I say what a brilliant job my husband did of looking after our bubbalicious, the furry children and the house all by himself for three days. What a superstar! Thank you xx

All in all, a pretty great birthday treat 🙂