my notebook

Carla — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:54:13 +0000

I am by necessity a very organised person.

But I’m not very methodical when it comes to notebooks.

I always start with the best intentions.
I always start on the first page.

But then I find myself with a thought that simply must be committed to paper immediately and I leap to a fresh sheet somewhere in the middle of the notebook…
or unknowingly write down pages of ideas only to realise that I had the whole notebook turned upside down.

I have my notebook in my hand now. It contains of a years worth of scribbles and scratchings.

Some pages have one word upon them.
Others bustle with sentences fighting for line space.

There are thoughts aplenty, but because of my haphazard style there is no discernible chronology.
So reading back through it is an interesting task.

Now indulge me for a minute and let’s flick through this notebook together,
for today I have some pages I’d like to share with you.

Starting here…

See this… in green highlighter I’ve written: Start a blog.

I wrote it in response to a simple no-nonsense instruction delivered by my fiction lecturer, Dr Gaylene Perry.
She said: Write everyday.

And so with that in mind I sat in front of a virginal white page, or rather the blank screen, of a freshly minted freebie wordpress account and

I started writing.

One year ago today.

I started it in essence to practice writing. But I could do that on paper if I’d wanted.
With blogging it’s the audience that makes the difference.

Blogging is immediate.
It’s exploratory.
It forces you to tune your own editing skills.
It prevents you from being overly precious.

Pressing the ‘publish’ button on your blog quite literally means anyone can read your musings.
Anyone in the world (not just your mum.)
And the joyful thing that I never expected is: blogging envelopes you in a like-minded community.

Look here is the page where I’ve penned in blue biro a reminder to myself:
Email Mr Kramer re: linking to his blog. What is the etiquette? HTF do you link to a blog?

This was written after I stumbled across Neil’s blog.
His writing is the story of his days, a mixture of light and dark, of laughter and gravity, shaped by the tools of fiction writing to share with us a larger truth.
It was a style of writing I had been fumbling my own way through. I was equally inspired and intimidated.

I wrote a post and emailed Neil for permission to link back to his blog. Credit where it is due I believe I wrote. I was surprised when he wrote back to say that he was delighted that he had inspired me.

Hangon… a complete stranger taking the time to offer me encouragement?

It was my first real sense of the support one can find within the blogging community.

And hey look at this page… my old blog name “Blah Blah” with three fat question marks beside it in red ink.
I know who inspired this comment.
Quadelle, my blogging buddy from NanBlo-losemysanity-WriMo last November.
She asked me why I called my blog “Blah Blah” which, in her indomitable Canadian manner, really meant why the feck is it called something so condescending?

She was right.

A long walk later saw the rebirth of my blog as 10% fiction.
A name that paid homage to the fact that blogging for me is the truth of my experience, told my way, subjectively, and with a growing sense that I am never far from those fiction techniques.
That though my posts are non-fiction they are in essence shaped as the micro-stories of my life.

And here are two notes on the same page written in grey lead, HB I think,

Domain names? and PROOF!
These notes refer to David who set up my very own domain, when I knew I was really ready, and was patient through all my know-nothing-about-programming-questions.
And…
Rosa who often, as a real-reader, proofs my writing (including my bio for Miscellaneous Voices, my first ever, whatthehelldoIwrite? bio…) and offers me invaluable doses of encouragement served upon platters of realism.

And as we flick through this notebook together I realise with a pang there is but one page left. Somewhere left of the middle.
But perhaps that is perfect.
For I only have one more word to write in it anyway.

With my favourite pen I write:

You.

Some of you I know. And some of you will always be faceless.
But whoever you are and however you found me, thank you for clicking on that link that brought you tumbling across oceans, down through cables and wi-fi invisibility straight into my world for a minute or two,
this past year.

Mental note- Tomorrow: Notepad shopping.

a lesson in grace

Carla — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:18:27 +0000

My son is the family jokester.

We call him Jerry, because sometimes he channels Seinfeld… but most of the time he’s a total Lewis through and through.

He decided he wanted to play a birthday trick on his little sister, Miss A. So he concocted this (err…not very original) idea of wrapping up a pack of knickers and giving it to her, as though it was the only gift she was going to receive.

I looked at him a bit puzzled.

You don’t know your sister very well, I said.

But he was already chuckling at the hilarity of it all and he picked out a pack o’five for his joke.

In the morning we serenaded Miss A with the traditional rendition of the happy birthday song (meaning we sang it properly, not the you-smell-like-a-monkey version…) and he gave her the present, barely suppressing a smirk as he watched her unwrap it.

Undies, she smiled, thanks they’re really nice, she said flinging her arms around me and giving me a big, long hug.
Her brother waited for the question… Is there anything else? Or the expectant look around in case there was another gift waiting… but there was nothing but cuddle… glorious cuddly-cuddle.

Over her head I looked at him and I raised one… single… eyebrow.

Now if you haven’t seen this particular look before, my heart breaks for you ‘cos you were obviously orphaned at birth… as it’s a look every Mother gives her child at least once (if not, let’s face it, a hell-of-alot-of more times) in their lives.

One, very carefully raised eyebrow equals… see I tooooold you so AND why don’t you ever listen to your mother… all wrapped up in a little arched n’hairy caterpillar of maternal guilt.

Yes, the eyebrow could very well be the single most powerful tool a Mother has at her disposal…
and I can work it like a master…

On seeing the eyebrow-of-doom Miss A’s big brother scurried away to retrieve the real present he had bought, (with his very own money… yeah I have to cut him a little slack for that, he is after all only eleven…) which was a pair of prized iCarly PJ’s (what’s that I hear you say… you haven’t heard of iCarly? Ahhh sorry I can’t be fekked explaining… suffice to say she’s the latest marketable invention in the licensing spin-cycle for cash… see your local Target for more details…) and as predicted Miss A adored them.

And then I gave her my gift.

Which was something she had admired in a jewellery shop window a while ago.
But never asked for.

A plaited leather, Pandora bracelet.

Which she liked because,

a) Mum look it’s pink!

And…

b) Look Mum, money from the sale of each bracelet go to Breast Cancer research.

She turned nine today.

And she could teach a lot of kids, double her age, a lesson in grace.

*********

Happy Birthday Sweetheart,
Love from Mum, Dad… and… Jerry.

*********

10% Fiction » birthday

my notebook

a lesson in grace