The End of Year Reckoning

I read somewhere that life can be seen like waves in the ocean.  Sometimes you are cresting, on top, unstoppable, other times you are dumped, rolling along with the detritus on the ocean’s floor unable to take a breath until the wave’s power wanes and you can catch your breath again.  This year for our family has been a little like riding a surfboard in a storm surge – sometimes we’ve got to our feet, but a lot of the time it’s seemed as if we’ve only just managed to hang on with the tips of our toes.

It’s been a loooong time since I’ve done this – sat down to write in order to make sense of things – but I’m tired, on the emotional side and just feel the need to take some kind of stock.  It’s been a big week on top of a big month on top of a big year – not a bad year, just a big year. We’ve moved house, changed jobs, had a son travel overseas by himself for the first time and a daughter begin high school.  We’ve had an amazing trip to Nepal with my sisters to visit the orphanage begun by my youngest sister, we’ve fund-raised for the orphanage, we’ve adopted a Nepalese puppy as well as committed to help support 9 Nepalese children. Each one of the family has faced new challenges: at school, in terms of sports and hobbies, professionally.  We have been eyewateringly busy.  So busy that sometimes it’s felt as if our little world-unit is all going to wobble off course; as if one misplaced step will send us all hurtling, screaming, into the abyss.

Now it’s nearly New Year, and for me there is the end of year accounting to be made – are we okay, have we thrived or just managed, will we be entering the new year in good shape or bad.

I do know that we have all held it together, relationships are sound and more than that – when I allow myself time like this to reflect in something like silence, without the cloud of panic that sometimes engulfs me – we have actually all moved forward in extremely positive ways often with limited time to devote to things and with many competing priorities.  At the risk of sounding like a Hallmark greeting card – I think we’ve all managed as well as we have because of the family unit, the (usually) deep joy we all feel at being together: watching movies on a Saturday night; sitting down and having dinner together; driving to school; travelling to tennis comps; supporting music recitals; planning and enjoying our holiday.  It’s as if these simple things have provided the fundamental glue that has bound everything else together.

It’s more than that in fact, it’s as of the hurly-burly of the outside world and our places in it, not only makes the calm of evenings spent at home together more important, but also more enjoyable.  A wise friend of mine once said that in order to truly enjoy something, we have to feel as if we are “entitled” to it – either that we’ve worked for it or that we’ve suffered for it.  And that can apply to little things as well as big things: a cold drink after a hot day working in the garden, an evening spent in front of the TV watching DVDs at the end of a busy week, the moment you walk in the front door of your home after a hectic day at work.  

And now I think of a time, not that many years ago, writing x-mas cards when I still DID write them) and remarking that the foregoing year had been “steady as she goes”.  Unlike this year, that year has felt extremely calm and ordered, as if the family had reached some sort of resting point, like the ark settling into the silt of receding water, too heavy and too stuck to consider we might have to face another deluge.  And yet I also remember that, despite that year presenting no real challenges, it wasn’t that it was necessarily a particularly happy one for me either.

And that’s probably been the difference this year, and the reason why my end of year accounting is going to balance out more positive than negative – despite the often fatigue, the sometimes frustration, the having to negotiate a number of paths that haven’t been easy – there have been a huge number of accomplishments, a real joy in those and, possibly more importantly, a sense of having earned every damn one of the down moments we’ve been able to snatch and enjoy. 

Writerly jealously???

I'm sure I'm not the only writer who (occasionally) does it - reads other writer's books for no reason other than to try to work out what the hell it is that has made their book so incredibly successful.
And you'd have to be living in a shady grey place if you have no idea what my recent addition to that reading list is!

...I will admit that I have come embarrassingly late to this "Shades of Grey" thing.

For what has felt like a ridiculously extended period of time I've stood at the sidelines feeling a little bit jealous and also a little bit proud of E.L. James for her success.  After all, it's not every author who gets to write a work they have a lot of fun with, have it e-published with an expectation of a relatively limited readership and then go on to see their efforts not only reap spectacular financial rewards, but also experience the type of notoriety that not only results in Australian science books shirt-tailing on the back of their success but also sees them cited as the cause of divorce in one marriage (despite the fact it has possibly saved many more).  Shades of Grey is a kind of "punch the air" book for authors everywhere - see it says you can become ridiculously, ridiculously wealthy from writing.

The thing is - despite my morbid curiosity as to why this book has done so spectacularly well - my book budget is limited and usually only spent on books I think I will really love and want to keep, so I had decided I would only read Shades when I didn't have to actually fork out any money for it.

So today, as a result of a sharing friend and a rainy day at home sick, I had the time to settle down and see what the hype is all about.  What I wanted was to "get it" - to try to understand what was the secret ingredient that meant this book had succeeded where thousands of others hadn't.  I didn't expect a work of literature, I didn't expect a particularly good story, but I guess what I did expect was a synthesis of some kind, something that lifted the story from the ordinary.

Most of the books that have done spectacularly well over the last decade or so, do have something about them.  I "get" JK Rowling, and Stephanie Myer, The da Vinci Code and the Hunger Games trilogy.  They are either highly imaginative or well written, make you feel as you've glimpsed the heart of a spectacular conspiracy, or make you feel as if you are sliding into a warm, familiar, comforting bathtub.

So, tucked up in bed, with a cup of tea or three at my elbow I read Fifty Shades searching for that magical something that would explain its success.

Unfortunately, I have to say that, despite my expectations, I just didn't find it.  There is far better erotica out there, cheaply and easily available, there are better romances available - everywhere.  The book is not badly written, but nor is is particularly well-written. Above all, despite what I had been lead to believe, the story is only mildly sexually adventurous.  Despite the promise of its premise, the two protagonists do very little more than what many suburban mums and dads do in the privacy of their own bedrooms (no red room required).

So what I wonder is this - is the success of the book simply due to the fact that there are far fewer women reading erotica than I had imagined?  Has Fifty Shades suddenly introduced a whole world of women to a type of book they either never knew existed or had never had the opportunity or courage to seek out before?  Has the book suddenly opened doors to a reading experience hither-to not imagined?

That is the only explanation I currently have.  I'm happy to hear others...

I've decided to do something I've never before done in my writing life and that's to make the pronouncement that I'm committing to work on a new novel.  

You see, for the last 4 years I've been playing around in what I think of as the "real world" - the world of dressing up to leave the house, having a boss and work colleagues, working on projects and meeting deadlines.  It's been fun and believe me I'm not about to leave that world again anytime soon.  For one thing I kind of enjoy it (particularly the dressing up and having lunch with work colleagues part) and for the second thing I enjoy the MONEY - the sleep at night factor of having plenty of cash for the family needs and quite a bit left over for the family wants (cars, holidays, expensive teenage hobbies... I'm sure you get it).  

During that time I haven't completely neglected my writing of course.  During the first year I edited my second published novel - although, to be honest, that was probably less writing and more polishing up what was already there.

Then there is what I like to think of as the "on-hold" first novel of a young adult trilogy that I wrote during my second and third year of "real work".  That one was sent out to publishers around the world by three excited agents only to be slowly, but surely, rejected in one way or another, for one reason or another, by said publishers.  And at this point, while I believe that's a really, really promising story with potentially a fantastic future if handled properly, I just don't have the heart to give it the work I know it needs (rejection will do that to you of course). 

On top of that, there are the begun and "resting" carcasses of a novel or three floating around in the recesses of my computer all of which have had more or less time and effort devoted to them over the last four years.  

So it's not that I haven't been busy on the writing front (hard as it's been to find the time, particularly over the last 12 months or so), but what I have lacked is a real sense of commitment.

You see I know how bloody hard writing a novel is.  

I have said before there are only two really great times in the novel-writing process.  The first is when you have the IDEA - an idea so fabulous that you feel it can sustain you for years of work - and the second (which sometimes, but not always is almost at the end) when you realise this horrible monolith of written and re-written sludge is going to actually WORK.  That you have managed, miraculously, to have moulded it into a form that resembles a story, which someone, somewhere might actually want to read.  (As an aside some of the writing can at times be quite nice as well - but writing a satisfying scene or two is very different to writing a novel).

So I have decided - in between full time work, a husband who also works full time and commutes for four hours each day, teenage children who do EVERYTHING and have to be driven EVERYWHERE - I am going to commit to a new novel.

WHY???????  That voice is screaming in my head as well.

Because I have to, and because this novel is based on a really, really great idea.  It's the story of the convoluted, fascinating life of my great, great grandmother, who shouldn't have had the life she did, shouldn't have married the man she married and probably shouldn't have even survived her first two years.  It's the story of a woman whose life, if it had turned out as it was supposed to, would mean I wouldn't be typing these words because none of my immediate or extended family would exist.  

That why I've made the decision and am publicly making the pronouncement that I'm about to find some extra time in my life (even if it means not sleeping) and re-enter the unreal world of my writing by committing to the blood, sweat, tears, edge of madness (and sometimes exhilaration) that writing a new novel requires...

This Skirt

I have a skirt.  Two layers: a soft shortish shift overlaid with a drape of chiffon coloured a fiery Monet of oranges and reds with splashes of emerald green.  As I walk, the chiffon floats and flutters, see-through in the sun. 

This skirt makes me think of the beach and warmth and the friend who was with me when I bought it after one talk-fuelled long lunch.  The skirt makes me feel as if I’m on holiday. It makes me happy.

I wear my skirt in spring and summer with espadrilles or gold flat sandals, silver jewelry. Sometimes I sneak it on during winter with high black boots and a tight, long sleeved black top and silver belt.

Every time I wear this skirt I am complimented, most often by men, but not in a sleazy or flirty way.  They just seem to like the colours of the skirt and how it floats and moves, and silhouettes in the sun.  It makes them smile; I think the skirt makes them happy as well.

I wore this skirt today and I wondered, how many other people wear something not just because it looks good, or is a uniform, or is cool, or warm, or otherwise ‘suitable’ in some way, but simply because it makes them happy?

Anne Frank - her diary and the Mini Series

My daughter and I had a bonding session the other night, not during a shopping trip, or a visit to the hairdresser, or over hot chocolate and cake; instead, we sat on the couch, curled up under blankets with a box of tissues handy as we sobbed our way through the tele-series Anne Frank: The Whole Story. Although not endorsed by the Frank family (due to a dispute over who actually reported the whereabouts of the Frank family to the authorities), the series is very true to the actual diary and what is reported to have happened afterwards. The scenes of the concentration camps in particular were harrowing in their realism and Ben Kinsley as Anne’s father is brilliant. The only survivor from all the people hidden in “the secret annexe”, he returned to a world where everything had been taken away from him and had to somehow survive that - almost impossible to imagine.  

In fact, the character of Anne's father is probably what choked me up the most.  Afterwards, we also watched an interview from the late 70s with Anne's father. Mr Frank began the Anne Frank Foundation in 1963 and the foundation now holds the copyright to Anne's diary and runs a series of charitable projects many of which appear to be centred around working with and supporting young people.  In the interview, Mr Frank said he started the foundation to encourage peace and tolerance between people especially those who are young. 

My daughter has recently read Anne’s diary, which is why we watched the tele-series. For me as a mother it was fascinating how my daughter identified so much with the day-to-day emotions of Anne writing 70 years earlier - particularly at times when Anne was having issues with her own mother! I guess some things never change...

Both the book and the series deeply affected my daughter - it has opened her to a world of new ideas and increased her understanding of, and interest in, events and places previously unknown to her - all through the power of Anne's story. And of course that story is made all the more poignant because of what the reader and the viewer know about her fate.  Even as she lives and loves and writes we know there is no escape for her.  And perhaps the truly sad thing, is that if Anne had somehow escaped to grow old and marry and have children and grandchildren, her diary and her story would never become as famous as it has.

The Great JK Rowling

I am in awe of the abilities of this woman JK Rowling.  Like many teenagers, my son has grown up loving and rereading the Harry Potter series. I even found him with the Deathly Hallows in his hands when I got back from work last night and I can't tell you how many times he's read that. It's quite annoying watching the movies with him as he fills in all the little missing details (I have read the books myself, but don't quite have his memory on these things!)

First of all Ms Rowling creates a world that has captured the imaginations of millions of children and adults around the world, then she maintains creative control over the movies and now she is leading the creative world by the nose showing us all how it's done with her new Pottormore website which if all the hype is to be believed is giving a completely new, fabulous model for the future of "publishing".  All the while she has maintained creative and financial control over what she does, appears to have a happy home life and gives generously to charity! 

A bit of a role model I have to admit...

lI don’t intend this blog to deal only with child deaths, so don’t read too much into this first blog, other than the fact that all aspects of human behaviour interest me and how people interact with their children is one of those aspects.

Obviously I’m not the only one with an interest in this. Opening up the digital version of the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, the main story was this

http://www.smh.com.au/world/casey-anthony-found-not-guilty-of-killing-daughter-20110706-1h14z.html

the story of Casey Anthony who has now been found not guilty of killing her two year old daughter, Caylee, three years ago. While the jury found Casey not guilty of murdering Caylee, they did find her guilty of at least four counts of lying to police. Each of these counts has the potential for up to 12 months of jail time and she is due to be sentenced by the judge on Thursday.

As usual in a trial of this kind it seems impossible to separate out the truth from the fiction – both the prosecution and the defence put forward their own “stories” which were just that – stories. The only facts we can be sure of are that Caylee is dead and it appears from Casey’s actions (including getting a “dolce vita” tattoo and continuing to party hard after her daughter’s death) that she wasn’t too distraught about that.

Thrown in to the mix is the Defence’s claim that Casey was traumatised as a result of sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  When I follow events like this, I can understand why people are so interested in true crime stories. Who needs fiction?!