Writing writing writing......

Are you a writer? Do you dabble at writing but have trouble starting and sticking with it? Do you suffer from writer's block? 

I call myself a photographer-writer, but I think I am more a photographer than a writer. I have belonged to a writers group, the South Side Quills for several years. We published our anthology, The Runaway Quill, in 2016. And I write freelance for a couple of Australian travel magazines, but I don't know if I really am a writer. I don't think I have a "novel" in me. I am not driven to write like I believe a writer should be. For instance I don't write every day. I feel to improve I should be writing every day. 

 Last week I found a blog called The Writer's Journey - you can visit them here - Writer's Journey.  This link will also take you to some writer's tips. The first one of which is:

"carry a note book at all times, in your purse, your car, by your bed. Write in this notebook whenever you can, random thoughts, observations, descriptions..... If you feel too self conscious in public to use a notebook be a thoroughly modern Mr or Ms and make notes on your phone."

This is my first mistake. I don't carry a notebook, but I do carry my camera....perhaps there is a message to me in there. I do carry a notebook when we travel and I constantly make notes in it when we are away. I wouldn't be much of a travel writer if I didn't would I? 

But I know I should take notes.... so today I took their advice when I was out in the bush and I wrote some notes in my phone. Here is what I wrote. I know it's not much and it's not going to put me up there with the great writers in history, but it's a start.

There's a slight breeze rustling the leaves in the very top branches of the trees. It's a continual sound like a story being told to the undergrowth below. Unseen birds call to each other. The mist laying in the valley below slowly lifts as the sun reaches its tendrils down over the ridgeline and through the trees. Dew drops sparkle gold on leaves and turns delicate spider webs into chains of silver baubles. We sit on a log with our hot mug of soup warming our hands.  A flock of red tailed cockatoos fly squawking overhead. 

Their second tip was using writing prompts:
 "For a week start a piece of writing every morning with the words 'I remember...'. Especially good for memoir writers. Start writing your memoir as a list. Go back as far as you can and list all your memories as dot points....Choose one each day for a ten minute writing exercise."

The prompt for this month's homework for my writer's group was "the day it all ended" or if you like "began". For me this was a piece of memoir writing. And I have a picture to go with it, of course!

In the late afternoon on the day of my seventeenth birthday, 15^th November 1972, at Belmont Senior High School, was the day it all ended. I put down my pencil, stacked my exam papers together and handed them into the Leaving Exam supervisor.

It was done. I knew I had not done well. After four years of studying shorthand it had all come down to this final exam. 

I was full of enthusiasm when I started studying Pitman’s Shorthand in 1969. That mysterious code of light and dark strokes, dots, dashes, curves and curls developed by Isaac Pitman in the early 1800s which he had spent half a century improving, was about to be unlocked for me and the other girls in my Commercial class. 

Ploughing on through second, third, fourth and fifth year high school. My results over those four years show the ups and downs of my study. At first diligent and fully committed to my studies, but slowly undermined by other distractions like the appearance of boys on my radar.  And anyway, I didn't really want to be an office worker, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

At some stage I must have believed in myself and my ability to excel. I even bought a book all written in shorthand – Half Hours with Popular Authors – for which I had paid the princely sum of 5 cents at a book sale.  Within these yellowed pages you can even read “An Evening Wind’ by Dickens. I never did read it or any of the other masterpieces hidden in those shorthand squiggles although even today I can’t bring myself to part with that book. 

That's me front row left

I passed my Leaving Certificate. I even received a distinction in Economics, somewhat due to my cramming on old exam papers the night before, to find to my delight, the same questions in my exam paper! Thank goodness for my memory that day! 

My Leaving Stenography exam was the last day I ever used shorthand. Perhaps it was just as well as my results later showed only 50%, I had barely passed. But I can still remember those first strokes – p, b, t, d, ch, j.  And for some reason the symbol for “between” which I still randomly use when writing quick notes. I guess on that day I was the girl between – between school girl and working girl.  I started my first job within weeks of leaving high school, thankfully I wasn’t required to take dictation. 

 I decided to look up Mr Dickens' "An Evening Wind" on the net. It's a passage from Chapter 2 of his book, Martin Chuzzlewit. 

You can read it by clicking here at - The Literature Network

Here is the beginning of the passage which was written in shorthand in "Half Hours with Popular Authors".

"The sun went down beneath the long dark lines of hill and cloud which piled up in the west an airy city, wall heaped on wall, and battlement on battlement; the light was all withdrawn; the shining church turned cold and dark; the stream forgot to smile; the birds were silent; and the gloom of winter dwelt on everything.

An evening wind uprose too, and the slighter branches cracked and rattled as they moved, in skeleton dances, to its moaning music. The withering leaves no longer quiet, hurried to and fro in search of shelter from its chill pursuit; the labourer unyoked his horses, and with head bent down, trudged briskly beside them; and from the cottage windows lights began to glance and wink upon the darkening fields."

Don't you just love the imagery! No wonder Dickens was such a revered author. I am ashamed to say I don't think I have ever read any of his books right through, even though I have several on my shelves. I think I will need to amend this. Perhaps I was not ready before to read him. 

I've written a few pocket memories for my writing group homework at various times.  I'm thinking I should put them into a book, with photos of course! And yes, I started writing my memoirs a few years ago. I must get back to them. I think the idea of dot-pointing your memories and going from there is a great idea.

Do you use writer's prompts? What do you do to get over writer's block? Perhaps you would like to tell us in your comments. 

This week in my garden, the grape leaves are turning red and gold, the oranges on my orange tree are ripening and we are starting to pick them to eat. And the last roses of autumn are dancing in the late afternoon light. 

This image of the rose I took last autumn. I was thrilled when my artist friend, Marguerite Aberle, used my rose photo recently as inspiration for one of her pieces for a joint exhibition of rose pictures. Done in pastel on black paper, framed in black, Marguerite called it "Sunlit Dancer". The exhibition was a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation, and was held at the Bridgetown Pottery Restaurant. 

 And if you are wondering what that little book was at the top of the page, I went to a free mini workshop the other day run by Mairim Garret from Creative in Nature, where I hand made this little book just with papers and thread to sew it all together. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 


I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
 

Mosaic Monday
Our World Tuesday
Through My Lens 
Image-in-ing

Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global
Travel Photo Thursday 
The Lovin' Life Team over at Lifestyle Fifty
Sky Watch Friday

 

RUN AWAY WITH US

Last Thursday evening 25th August, my writer's group, the South Side Quills, launched their first anthology, "The Runaway Quill", at the Bunbury City Library. The anthology has been a labour of love for us over several years to reach this point. A few of us had had a small insight into the publishing world previously, but for most of us it was new to us. What a huge learning curve it was with writing, editing, reediting, finding a publisher/printer (no they are not the same thing...), proof reading.... We could hardly believe that the night of the book launch had finally arrived. 

South Side Quills. That's me second from right.

I have several pieces published in the book and my images are on the front and back cover. So today, instead of continuing with stories from our recent Kimberley trip, I am going to share with you here the short piece that I read at the book launch - Bilbarin Morning. This piece is close to my heart, as my mother spent her early years in the tiny wheatbelt siding town of Bilbarin, north of Corrigin in the central Western Australian wheatbelt. Those were tough years..... My Mum passed away in 2012 but in her memoirs she wrote....

My early years were the humblest of beginnings near Bilbarin "in the bush". Our home was a tent-cum-shack  My mother has told me it was the hardest time of her life before and immediately after I was born (1924). She knew what it was like to be really hungry and went without herself for the children. There was no fresh milk, fruit or vegetables, and meat was probably rabbit, kangaroo and even parrot. 

When I was two or three we moved to the siding town of Bilbarin where my father John, who was called "Jack" by many people, had built a cottage with a dirt floor, walls of corrugated iron and bush timer, cut on the property, corrugated iron roof, and white washed hessian linings. We had one small rain water tank. Two soaks produced fresh water which could be used for washing, but also to water a beautiful vegetable and flower garden.

....My brother Phil, born in 1927 in Corrigin, was closest to me in age, so we played a lot together. At Bilbarin there were trees and scrub up the back end of the paddock, and we played there. We got big sticks to ride, pretending they were horses. Down the front of the property a gully ran when it rained.... We played in the gully and dug out frog's holes to get to the eggs right down the bottom..... 

.....We had a horse called Daisy. She was very very quiet. She had been a baker's horse in Narrogin before we got her. 

... At Bilbarin there was a one teacher school within close walking distance. Miss Laurie Jeffrey was my first teacher. 

Bilbarin Sunday School, circa 1929. My mother is the small girl standing in the centre, in the light coloured coat, next to Mrs Smith.

 My story - Bilbarin Morning - come's purely from my imagination but based around that time in the late 1920's early 1930's. I share it with you here....

BILBARIN MORNING

by Jill Harrison

A wild wind whips across the yard scattering leaves in devilish dance, battering a loose piece of tin on the roof and whistling through a crack in the sapling walls of the hut.  Tendrils of golden morning light seep thinly through the trailing branches of the peppermint trees.  It bursts through the door as we tumble out onto the verandah in a blur of coats and scarves. Icy water baubles clinging in wait for us on the eaves release themselves as we bound down the steps. The ground crunches noisily under our boots like a military tattoo.  The gate clatters behind us.  

Daisy stamps impatiently in her stall. Her hot breath swirls around her like a smoky wreath. She thrusts her head into the stream of grain spilling into the feed bin. 

Dry wheat stalks whip against our legs as we run across the stubble paddock.  Through the stringy gimlet trees, jumping the gurgling water in the gully, pushing our way through the scrub.  A kangaroo bounds away into the mist. Red gum flowers are bursting from their cups and we stop to pick a spray for Miss.

The clanging bell calls out to us across the dusty school yard. The welcoming warmth of the fire in the stove as we slide into our desks and pull out our books.   

Miss smiles at us, absorbing the perfume of the bush as she arranges the flowers in a jar on the window sill. 

Red gum flowers are bursting from their cups

I hope you have enjoyed my little vignette "Bilbarin morning". If you would like to buy a copy of "The Runaway Quill" please let me know. They are for sale for $20 plus postage. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

You might also like - 
The life of women in Australia's past 
Walking down memory lane 
Spring in the Western Australian wheatbelt 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

 Mosaic Monday
Life Thru the Lens 
Lifestyle Fifty Monday Linkup 
Our World Tuesday
Through My Lens 

Pepper and Salt

Image-in-ing
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global
Worth Casing Wednesday
Travel Photo Thursday
The Weekly Postcard 



Some more flowers from the Western Australian bush nearly Harvey this past weekend.

Myrtle