Tomorrow Land
There are two wolves who are always fighting.
One is darkness and despair.
The other is light and hope.
The question is: which wolf wins?
The one you feed
What’s Your Favourite Film Quote?
The evolving writer
One and Only
No one person will ever be your everything, no one person can possibly give you all that you need.
This is the advice I want my kids to have, don’t give that power to anyone and don’t put that amount of pressure on yourself. You are the only person in charge of your happiness.
You can give people your gift and they will give you theirs if you are lucky but it can’t possibly feed all of your hopes and dreams, aspirations, needs and wants.
Everyone needs input, we can all realise where we want to be in life but we can’t possess every attribute we need to get there. We need help from others and they need help from us.
Everyone has something to teach us. Everyone.
The Alchemist and The Secret
We moved house recently so I got to revisit a lot of memories unpacking. These two books appeared from a box and immediately I remembered the lessons they taught me.
After travelling around Australia in 2002 my mum decided to come and visit me in Perth and fly back to the U.K with me. We stopped off in Thailand on the way home and in Bangkok on the Khao San Road. The Alchemist grabbed my attention inside a tarpaulin book stall. I had heard about it for years and finally I could lay my hands on it! As soon as I finished it (about three days) I gave it to my mum to read and then every friend that I trusted to return it!
So what did The Alchemist give me? It gave me peace, a sense that everything will work out and courage to relax and trust my instincts. Having just travelled around Australia it served as a full stop to a year of searching and also a bridge to the next chapter of my life.
The Secret arrived in my life after this I’m not sure when but obviously I asked for it! It told me what I already knew, what we all know but sometimes don’t practise enough. If you want something all you have to do is ask for it.
It gave me focus, focus on what I wanted and sure enough a lot of things came my way.
As I write my treatment for a screenplay I can’t help thinking how much these two books have helped me get to this stage. Then of course there is my third lesson, always say your Thank you’s!
Buy The Alchemist here
And Buy The Secret here
Thank you Paulo Coelho & Rhonda Byrne
Editing
Finally, after a year and a half of grappling with editing, I think I just about have it sussed! I have to share with you my findings because I am sure a lot of other writers struggle with this too. Obviously, once you have a manuscript you know it will need editing so you start with the content, changing the odd grammatical error here and there as you go. However if like me you needed to edit your entire manuscript six times for content before you felt you had a finished product by the end of that process you have had enough of your baby crying. When someone says they will copy-edit for you, you almost bite their hand off. Please take this screaming baby away for a while and give me a break!
There are three types of editing light, medium and heavy and within those contexts, there is also substantive and mechanical. Substantive refers to the order of content and could be construed as heavy editing as it will also edit out content that is not relevant. Mechanical editing is relating to grammar, punctuation, spelling and footnotes. When using a publisher they may well have an in-house editor that will mechanically edit your manuscript to fit their style of print and product.
There are many programmes that you can run on your computer to edit your grammar and punctuation but they might not all understand your content. For example, my novel starts out in Southend on Sea in Essex, England. I’m afraid there ain’t a product out there that’s gonna give me the license I need to mess ’bout with words and get really lairy with my content. So using a person surely makes sense? Maybe if you live in exactly the place you want the manuscript read or based. Otherwise, you have to make do with a few proofreaders and hope they understand your spoken language vs readability vs message.
My problem with clients is that I am in love with language and people’s nuances I love an accent and even better I love broken words and out-of-place context. Perhaps I am destined to always be a light editor! I am just not critical enough I love everyone’s speech. Although I have today for the first time gone through my manuscript and seen the errors, every single one of them! Is it because I have a printer ready to go? Or is it because I have relaxed and realised everything will come in time and I’m allowed to make mistakes? I guess the test will be when I next look at my client’s work, will I see the errors or only hear the voice?
The most fantastic thing is that my printed copy will be the best I can possibly produce and I now know exactly the process I need to go through with book two. I will edit content first, a heavy substantive edit followed by a light substantive edit and then two or three mechanical edits. Nothing is ever perfect and when I found an error in Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s I have to admit to a tiny feeling of elation. However as I tell my children we can only do our best and then we can learn, improve and do even better!
My book can be downloaded at these websites
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GD8OG98
Kobo
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/sharks-lovers
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/isbn9781925457209
All or Nothing
‘Write something worth reading or do something worth writing’
Benjamin Franklin
Sometimes there is no point adding your thoughts to a quote!
My book is available to download below
Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GD8OG98
Kobo
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/sharks-lovers
iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/isbn9781925457209
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKwp2JdnHrw&feature=share
A Community of Smiles
The playground at my children’s school is full of smiling parents who generally say G’day. However this isn’t always the way, rushing around not having the time to give a quick smile and hello can be the death of a community. Eyes down, eyes on a screen, no eye to eye. Is smiling at a stranger a dying art?
I try every day to smile at others and generally this is returned. Occasionally though I get a scowl or a blank. Are people so absorbed they have no room in their life for a smile? What else in their life are they missing out on?
As society has evolved to hours spent looking at screens instead of each other, is a smile an endangered species?
Are we becoming more isolated in a world that’s population is only ever-increasing?
How can this be?
We have so many different ways of communicating via different apps, let’s not lose the smile. It is as precious as gold dust and shines brighter than the sun.
Smile, start with your reflection first.
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
Capote Still Has Me By The Balls
‘Be anything but a coward, a pretender, an emotional crook, a whore: I’d rather have cancer than a dishonest heart’
Led through the twists and turns of Holly’s tumultuous trists. Yarns of her internal and external pain that occasionally snag at the stories thread. I start to admire her honesty, her flighty language and her lack of attachment.
A small child with bold abandonment, isn’t that who we all are inside? Wanting a hand to hold, not hold us back?
Miss Golightly was definitely more likely to flee than stay and fight I knew that. The fuel of an angel is obviously stored in her wings!
Onwards and upwards Holly, I wonder where you are now? Are you still hiding behind those dark glasses in a cafe? I imagine you chatting to a handsome stranger, occasionally letting the game slip and showing your honesty, unknowingly sucking him in.
My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:
What is your Purpose? What is your Word?
Over the last year or so I have concentrated on words, not surprising for a writer! However I am talking about completely absorbing these words. Just like a fleeting hello with a stranger words are not always acknowledged, absorbed or translated into our own language. Read or written is not enough. A word conquered is a word understood.
Depression or Discovery?
What if like Jung said you need to dive into your deeper self to really discover who you truly are? Your shadow could be your friend not your enemy.