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Fifth Christmas in Australia

/ frankiebanks27@gmail.com

So what’s new?

The huntsman don’t worry us and the children now name them. Critters are part of life.

The kids are more relaxed, both concentrating on their skills and strengths. Reading is a pleasure not a race.

I don’t care what the neighbours do or think…in fact your opinion of me is none of my business!

My perspective on life is so open and free nothing surprises me.

The expanse of Australia and its relative isolation from the world gives many inhabitants a freedom.

Things I miss from the uk;

Family, friends & a pub.

However there is Skype and my veranda is the best pub in the world!

The Dark Side

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Surely we all have a dark side?

No I disagree, I refuse to believe this! There are experiences which we label as dark.  We can hide these away within ourselves, call them pain and build on them. What we are really doing is hiding what that dark actually is maybe it’s lonliness or anger, grief or distrust. Maybe it’s ALOT of these things rolled up together. Dark is easy, dark started as light.

If we call it pain we can rely on it when we need a hill to climb or a barrier to build or a dark place to hide. It is our reliable dark but how would we know it is dark if we had not experienced light? Now it is dark we can forget what it actually was and what its true meaning is and that we existed quite happily without it.

However no longer is this a small pain or a tiny dark because we have wrapped every bad experience around it.  Now it is a huge snowball of worries, stories and negatives.

What if getting rid of this was as easy as bursting a balloon? But maybe you don’t want to, you have relied on this for a very long time, it is part of you, it is always there when you need it. Why would you want to get rid of it?   You might have to admit to this pain and you might have to be slightly more specific about what this means to you. Once you have done that the weight will start to lift. The pain will dissolve, why?  Because you are being honest with the most important person in the world….YOU.

‘Turn the light on!’ Someone once told me. It really is that simple.

My novel is available below to download

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

 

Sexual Liberation

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The subject matter of my book is now starting to breathe.  What started as a walk into the past has ended up as a huge climb up a mountain of liberation, sexual liberation. 

Self exploration leads to self realisation, being completely at one with your desires and beliefs, letting go of your conditioning.

Feeling comfortable with your own sexual identity can be a wonderful warming pool of self discovery to dive in to.  All of my characters have gone through this in one form or another and I hope for my readers it will evoke some truths.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

Amazon        Kobo        iTunes

Freelance

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I have to admit I didn’t start writing to become a freelance writer. Fiction took over my everyday life and in weeks a novel was born. Then a few months later the second arrived.

After diving head first into this literary world I discovered that most fiction derives from fact.  Whilst listening to fellow writers I realised fact could actually be more interesting than fiction.

That is when the spark ignited my writing in a direction I hadn’t imagined possible and a freelance writing business became something I wanted, not needed. I soon discovered I could encourage others to create continuous content that could be used in many different ways.

Writing Spark will never be a sausage factory of endless books with authors ego’s massaged into every page. However if there is a truth you would like to be told and a lesson that you think can be learnt, I would definitely be interested in hearing from you.

If you think you would benefit from a writing spark please visit Www.writingspark.net to find out more.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

Amazon       Kobo       iTunes

The Lucky Country

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Occasionally when you open a book it gets you. It grabs your shirt collar and pulls you in, sliding into its pages the words falling around you in waves. This is not reading, this is an easy swim through someone’s mind who shares your ideas, your expectations and your dreams. Someone who sees life with eyes like yours, who has the same ideals and who has struggled up and over the same mountains. The writer knows you and when they wrote the book they were writing it for you. It’s a personal letter not a book of thousands of words. It’s a personal letter of such meaning it can bring you to tears or tug at the rage you once felt. It makes you smile all the way up to your eyes and drags your frown down to your chin.

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Ten Months of Writing

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I thought I’d map out what has happened this year.  In February I started writing my first fictional novel, my aim was to finish this by December. Then at Swinburne Uni I was told ‘write everyday’. My good friend bought me a planning diary and I soon realised my manuscript would be finished way before Christmas! In fact it was finished in July.  All 67,000 words of it, I actually wrote more like 80,000 but edited it down.  I think it fits in the genre of Chick Lit, a friend said it could be Bridget Jones meets Monkey Grip.

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Fight or Flight – Authors

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Flight

Going to the city today I listened to the authors of ‘Queer Literature’ at the Wheeler Centre, although my book might not exactly fall into the genre, I thought it an interesting talk to attend.   I was seen and heard, just maybe not for the right reasons.

Listening to them talk about how publishers would make better tyre companies churning out the same old shit. Then I was seen, as I walked away after being told by a well-known author that trying to give authors a Usb stick was the wrong thing to do, not wanting at all to listen to my story.  Yes it probably was the wrong thing to do but yes I’m desperate for someone to hear my story. On the one hand here they were saying that if you are different and not main stream the publishers won’t listen and yet the authors themselves (sorry one in particular) didn’t want to listen either. I had only knocked on the door and felt it being slammed in my face already.

I’m going to get kicked in the teeth a few times whilst on this journey I completely expect that. In fact if it didn’t happen I wouldn’t be on any journey, I would be sitting at home.  So I should be grateful and I am, it ignites the fire within me to a larger degree.

Anyway after (what felt like) being kicked out of the Wheeler Centre I was fuming. Doesn’t this woman remember what it’s like to have this fire burning a hole in your stomach. The fire of a message you need to be heard but when you touch and talk about it, it hurts. Walking back down Elizabeth Street I thought no I’m not walking away with any more pain than I need to and I turned around.

‘I’m going back’

Fight

Walking back to a relatively empty room and after a moment of realisation that yes it was her that I wanted to talk to she gestured to a corner.  Then finally I was heard.

‘I feel like you completely shot me down’ I said through tears of fire.

‘I’m sorry’ she apologised, ‘I’m glad you came back, I was wrong’

And then she hugged me, people often write about awkward hugs, this was the worst, I didn’t want to be hugged and she was about a foot shorter than me which made it even stranger.

The energy, my energy had been re-aligned but why did I still feel so riled up?  Now that I have calmed down I realise that this was fight mode and not flight, not my normal reaction at all.  No-one likes conflict and yet I went back looking for it, knowing I deserved that apology.  I’m quietly proud that I went back.  I’m sure she herself has fought many battles and won but she lost this one.

‘Oh someone wants me to sign their book’ she said gesturing to the table.

‘I hope one day that you will be sitting signing books!’ She said

I nodded and walked away. Yes I will be sitting that side of the table and yes she will definitely be getting an invite to my book launch.   My first experience of the Wheeler Centre was certainly eventful, I do hope to return and hope that next time, I keep my cool and make a better job of networking.

“How to Win Friends and Influence People” will be the next book I acquire.

Watch out world the fire is getting hotter, I may be starting to fly but I’m also ready for the fight.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

Amazon        Kobo       iTunes

Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park

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My characters in book two are in the amazing Kakadu National Park at the moment. So as I sit in the café in Melbourne, the rain thundering on the tin roof.  I can’t help feeling the weather getting warmer and more humid with every word I type.  The buzz of people around me fuelling my fingertips.


What a wonderful place Kakadu is, whilst I was working there I was lucky enough to share accommodation with three Aboriginal Australian girls. They were amazing spirits, such energy, always smiling, laughing and joking, always so much to say and always so dramatic.

There were many Australians from far and wide and immediately I recognised their accents as very different from each other.  There were a few Kiwi’s and some European’s, Indonesians, Malaysians. What a wonderful soup of souls we were.

As with a lot of lifes rich experiences I took it for granted at the time. When going back to the diary I kept, I was much more interested in recording the wildlife and surroundings than the late night deep conversations of these wonderful people. Oh how we change! If I could travel back in time I would record all of our chats, the facial expressions, the little nuances of these colourful individuals.


I have so many questions to ask of these people that have now probably little or no memory of me. I will have to rely on my recollection and add a bit of artistic license to a few stories. That is the beauty of writing, the thin line between fact and fiction is really only there for the writer to know and reader to guess at.

So as I wonder around the streets and cafe’s of Melbourne, excuse me if I bump into you, I’m not reading my iPhone or trying to get your attention. My mind is simply in Kakadu (Gagudju) National Park. The heat is burning my shoulders, as I scan the red dust for snakes. Watching the heat haze on the horizon which makes the gum trees look like a mirage. The escarpment seems to reach so far, I can see the curvature of the earth. I climb to the top of Gunlom Falls my back wet with sweat and dip my toe into the cooling water, wondering if Crocs can climb. Then I immerse my body in the refreshing serenity of the pool. The huge boulders acting like armchairs to sit upon. If I am about to be eaten by a Croc what a wonderful place for it to happen!

Melbourne is a distant memory, just the place my physical form inhabits as I type away at my laptop. I may be present in Melbourne but my presence is undeniably in Kakadu.

My book Sharks & Lovers is available to download here:

Amazon       Kobo       iTunes