Embrace the Chaos
Life’s ups and downs are teaching us a thing or two about flexibility
Hello!
Let’s talk about news, chaos, and a giant-arse pumpkin.
If you follow the news headlines each day, you may find some of it’s alarming to say the least; the rioters storming the Capitol in the US, the fire that blazed through South Australia, and really famine in general, which is currently running rife in places like South Sudan, Yemen, northeast Nigeria, and Burkina Faso.
Queue the heart palpitations and nervous sweats. It’s enough heartache and terror to make us avoid the news app altogether for the rest of the century.
But every now and again we’ll come across a nugget of a feel good puff piece that we can’t get enough of.
Here enters, Dale Oliver from Knockrow (north of Ballina), blessing our eyes and minds with the Southern Hemisphere’s largest … pumpkin. The ABC article headline reads: ‘Pumpkin smashes Southern Hemisphere record with 867-kilogram cucurbit at Kyogle festival’. They just had to have a headline with the word smashing next to pumpkin and we will be forever grateful for that.
More of this please. It helps provide a soft balance between the grim and the feel good new stories available to us.
Not only — and with a jaw-clenched thanks to news media — has the big wide world seemed uncertain and anxiety-inducing, life at this moment (with our littles ones) has also meant adapting to many changes. Changes in the ways we interact, and connect, and go about everyday activities.
Things we took for granted.
It’s the more than usual absentee days from daycare due to sickness, it’s kids’ parties downsized, it’s limited social gatherings, it’s less willingness to head to the park in a public space. We’ve had to get used to less face-to-face interactions with others. We genuinely haven’t seen so many of our friends in real life that we wonder if they’ll look different somehow when we do see them.
And all this, though hard and challenging at times, is not the worst that could happen to us, so we truly are grateful that this is what we have to ‘get used to’. But it doesn’t mean that from time to time it doesn’t bum us out.
However, it has taught us to become more flexible with those occasions where not much goes to plan and the days where you just have to scrap it all. It may mean the only writing you achieve is your to-do or grocery list, and that’s okay.
There are days when the stars align and everything’s coming up Milhouse and you take your project by its horns and hold on until you can’t any longer. And then the opposite occurs the following day, where everyone in your house suddenly requires a manager, or your little one just wants more cuddles than usual (which is always a nice surprise).
Accepting these ups and downs, what could seem like sporadic moments of calm and chaos, and all that’s in between is becoming the new normal around here.
‘People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint — it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly … time-y wimey … stuff.’ — Steven Moffat (from Doctor Who)
In other words, we’ve begun to accept that until we die, time, as a construct of accountability, isn’t really linear. There is no beginning, middle, or end. It’s more of a circle. If I don’t get something done today there’s always tomorrow.
Not to say this as an excuse to put off writing. You really should be writing. It’s more of a forgive yourself mantra for not getting everything done all the time.
Author Spotlight
Meet Andrea Duran, our fascinating featured writer for February 2021.
A writer and a voracious reader who loves to learn new things. Andrea loves hiking, biking, and all cardio. She is also a substance abuse counselor for incarcerated women, and is working on becoming a clinical therapist for young adults with mental health issues. She is currently finishing a young adult novel surrounding themes of mental health and substance abuse.
Three things shared from our fellow creative:
- I’m in Los Angeles, California (USA) but I grew up in Fontana, a former steel mill town, less than an hour away from Los Angeles.
- I was an avid reader, enamored and obsessed with literature by the age of eight. My passion for writing developed when I was around ten and our teachers required us to type up a five-page fictional story. From there, I started creating short fiction pieces on a weekly basis as a hobby and eventually went on to study creative fiction in college.
- I am obsessed with the paranormal and love hearing (and telling) real encounters with ghosts and aliens.
See Andrea’s latest story below.
Check Out Some of the Latest Stories
When We Were Young by Andrea Duran — You met this fellow creative in the Author Spotlight. This bittersweet short story allows readers into the heart-wrenching world of its characters, and it evokes a curiosity surrounding the lived experience of mental health, forbidden desire, and the betwixt and between.
5 Writing-Related Things to Do When You Can’t Write by Melissa-Jane Nguyen — Melissa-Jane is a writer, editor, and co-curator of SBR. Her writing article features five doable activities any writer can take up when the words aren’t flowing.
When Will We Rest Again? by Dayle Fogarty — Dayle is a writer and co-curator of SBR, living in Lake Macquarie, NSW with her partner and two-year-old. This piece ponders the musings of parenthood, and all that comes with it; the good and the bad, and all the worry in between.
Book Review
Offering a quick look at the sequel to ‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ by Laini Taylor.
My review of ‘Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ finished with — A wonderful sentiment in a story about hope within times of conflict and the perils suffered through blind righteousness — and to say book two was verrrrry different to where things were left in book one would be an understatement.
It was certainly a typical book two of a trilogy or multi-series. The main character, Karou, is tested in more ways than one and hits some pretty low points.
Not having read the third book yet, I’m going to take a stab at a seraphim (a name for an angel) in the dark and assume that these well curated low points by the author are all leading somewhere, and for the purpose of Karou’s character arc.
Karou is left deciding where her loyalties lie as she explores more of her old self. As a reader you wonder what she’s going to do next to survive. Will she continue to suffer and help the chimaera rebuild an army? Or make amends with Akiva and run away like they were supposed to? Read More
What’s On
2021 Newcastle Short Story Award | This Hunter Writers Centre competition is open for entries (see T&C on their website), with up to $7,500 in prizes. Closes 8pm (AEDT) — April 14, 2021.
SCBWI Winter Conference | An online conference run by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators that will be ‘focusing on popular genres and behind-the-scenes looks into the children’s publishing industry’ — Feb 19–21, 2021.
Voices on the Coast | ‘The aim of the festival is to inspire young people to enjoy the world of reading, writing, drawing and performing through their experiences each year’ — online program March1–5, 2021.
WriteOnCon | ‘A three-day online children’s book conference for writers and illustrators of picture books, middle grade, and young adult. WriteOnCon features blogs, vlogs, pitch sessions, Q&As, critique forums, and more’ — Feb 19–21, 2021.
Writing Resources
Paradigm Online Writing Assistant — Created by Chuck Guildford this website plays hosts to many skill-based topic areas, from starting out to editing. A large focus is on essay/thesis writing, however, concepts that are rule of thumb to the writing world in general can be found here.
The Crafty Writer’s Free Online Creative Writing Course — Presented by Fiona Veitch Smith, a freelance journalist, editor, author, playwright, screenwriter and writing teacher. She hopes you’ll see improvements in the quality of your writing; from prose to dialogue, from character writing to poetry.
Great TED Talks to Inspire Fiction Writing — A playlist that offers ‘fun writing prompts in the form of some fascinating TED Talks’. Dayle’s particularly interested in ‘The Most Martian Place on Earth’ video.
Where Else Can You Find SBR?
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“There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.”
― Jane Austen
