Fatty and the Physicist

Not mine, but some wonderful local authors. Fremantle Press launched six new children's books at the State Library yesterday and it was an awesome event where I got to meet some of our amazing local talent. I caught up with Deb Fitzpatrick again and bought both her Spencer Gray books, which I am looking forward to reading. I loved Deb's workshop last weekend and I am eager to discover her writing style. I also bought a book by Cristy Burne, who did an amazing reading of her book To the Lighthouse, which got everyone engaged and Yasmin Hamid's inaugural book, Swimming on the Lawn, which is about a little girl living in Sudan. Yasmin was particularly lovely to talk to. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kyle Hughes- Odgers, whose illustrative works we came across at the Heartlines Festival the week before. V was particularly fond of his work, so I purchased his book Can a Skeleton have an X-Ray, which has the artwork that was on display in it, and had it signed for V. T

It started out in a fashion, like a pantomime. I rose early after a great sleep, my back (which is taking it's sweet time to heal) feeling OK. I, therefore, decided (as after all I am meant to be in training) to go for a walk. There was no way on this earth that the dogs were going to let me go on my own. Everywhere I walked, I had one in front of me and one behind stuck to me like glue. After 10 solid minutes of trying to get Harper into her harness, we finally made it out the door. Then began the dance of dogs wrapping themselves around my legs, or zig-zagging from side to side, chasing after people and other dogs...by the time I got home again my back was a mess again. Thank goodness for anti-inflammatories! I downed two of those babies quick smart as I was a free agent that day! The Physicist was on Netball duty shuffling my littlest to her game and I was hitting the road to the Heartlines Festival to spend the afternoon with V. We signed up to attend a couple of worksho

It began Friday evening doing the shopping when out of nowhere my back decided to spasm suddenly turning me into Igor as my knees buckled and face contorted in pain and my right arm swung around to support my back and stop the twinge... from there it was all downhill. A restless night where no matter which way I turned, my back locked in pain which resulted in sleeping upright on the couch with a heated wheat bag jammed up against my back and a weekend of doing very little.  There was no excuse now. I had to write and write I did. So far I have planned every piece of writing I have done. Mapped it out, written a plot, all the good things I was taught to do in high school English class. And yes, for the most part, it works. I know where the story is headed and I know where it will end, but I never quite get the flow. It's an effort to construct a tale that starts at A and has to marry up with B for the plot to continue. I, therefore decided that I would wing it, or pants it as t

They say to be a writer, you just have to write, which is all well and good, but when I feel like writing, everything else is not willing to be placed on hold so that I can. Dinner needs to be cooked, washing needs to be done, and I have to start spending some time with the family or they are going to think I am just the maid and not someone who has an emotional connection to the other humans who dwell in the house. This weekend, though we had an extra day to while away, started rather dramatically with my daughter having a car accident on Friday afternoon (fortunately she was OK but her car will no longer see the light of day), and everything kind of piled on from there. I did manage quite a bit of quality family time, I even exercised every day of the weekend and I managed to deforest the front garden for green waste pick up. I cooked every night and managed to clean the house...but I did not write a single thing! I barely managed to read a couple of chapters of my book. :( I hav

Where does the time go? I can't say I have written much at all this week. Oh plenty of emails, texts, facebook comments, notes on lunches, school notes and a list or two, but nothing really creative and I feel the same way I feel when I haven't gone to the gym for a while (oh and you guessed it, I haven't done much of that either!!). I really do have to find my mojo again. It's a little lacking in all departments this past week, culminating in a very upset digestive tract on Friday (TMI...yeah sorry, but it is funny how some things manifest in different ways). If I want to look at positives though, I did finish a book, start another, had some family time with the people I love the most, and may have lost a kg (we shall see...weigh-in is tomorrow). So there was a little sunshine in the gloom of my foggy mind and I will take that and be happy with it hoping for finer weather this week and the fog to lift completely. Things to look forward to this week; well it woul

...and what a week it was! Wednesday was our inaugural Creative Collective meeting and from some people's perspective (insert Physicist), it may have looked like we had just gone out for drinks. I corrected him of course and said no, it was more than that, and he responded 'Oh that's right, you had dinner as well'.  Well it was a little more than just an evening with dinner and drinks.  There was a lot of discussion and time spent getting acquainted with each other, and with our amazing waiter who looked like Roberto Benigni, but had in fact been his personal waiter in a restaurant when he was writing either a book or film. Our waiter (who was French) certainly knew his wines and V and I had the benefit of his attention when we spent an hour together whilst waiting for the rest of our party to arrive. We both concluded that V has an expensive taste in wine when the wine she was drinking was being sold for $75 per bottle. Myself, on the other hand, would highly recomme