The crazy creative jitters

I have the jitters. 
The crazy creative jitters.
It started in September while I was holidaying in some very odd and exciting places. 

I thought it would settle once I was home and back into writing my novel. 
Because writing a novel is a creative thing to do.

But the jitters have grown. 
They're stronger, louder, longer.
Sometimes I feel like my brain is vibrating through the night.

I just have to create something.
No, not something.
Lots of things.

I've been writing every day and I'm happy with the story I've created. 
It's the third in a series and has just been sent off to my editor. 
Here are books one and two:

The third will be sitting on shelves this time next year.

But completing the novel is not enough.

I've bought wool and cotton which I'm turning into rugs and felted blobs of brightly coloured stuff. The stuff might become cushions or it might just remain as stuff. 

I've gathered fabrics and ribbons and rick-rack and stuffing. I've started making a series of tiny little people and one feral-looking rabbit. (I mean really feral.)

I've pulled out my pens and inks and I'm drawing tulips and pear trees and rolling hills with strange geometric patterns. 
Sometimes there are bears and children roaming through the tulips.
Moody blues, hot pinks, deep purples and olive greens seem to be taking over the world.

I've cruised secondhand stores, op shops and online trading sights. 

I've bought mirrors and pot plants and books and old family crucifixes and have rearranged shelves and walls and desks and drawers. 

Now I'm dreaming of typewriters and blackboards and lots of letters in ink and chalk and maybe some letters made from that weird felted stuff that is just loitering around my work basket.

I'm thinking of doing a course. I like the idea of pottery - wobbly sculptures of people with birds in their hands and flowers in their hair. Then again, taxidermy has always fascinated me. 

And I'd really like to build a log cabin and adopt a donkey or two.

In short, I've got the crazy creative jitters and they're leading me around and around in circles but not to any place in particular.

So what do I do?
I've been thinking long and hard about this - between the splashes of ink, and pages of stories and metres of ribbons and string.
And finally, today, I have come to a conclusion.

I do nothing.
Or, rather, I do everything!
Because the creative life is as much about the playing and the dreaming and the not knowing, as it is about the final product.

One creative act fuels another.
Even the weird blobby-felty things lead to the next thing... And the next...
Which might finally lead to The Big and Beautiful Thing That Makes your Heart Sing and Brings Joy to Others.

So if you drop by and find me tangled in fuzzy pink wool, splashed with moody blue ink and rolling down the hillside chanting in Polish while playing the ukulele and eating a cupcake, don't worry.
I'm just going with the flow, surrendering to the crazy creative jitters.
And hoping that somewhere, sometime, it will all start to make sense.

In the meantime, if you have any great ideas for using feral, fuzzy felt, drop me a line. 

Stories Galorey

I know 'galorey' is not a word.
It's just that I'm excited.
I'm feeling  inspired and creative and ants-in-my-pants restless.

I've just been on holidays to strange and foreign lands. 
I don't suppose they were strange and foreign to the residents of Slovakia, Poland and Hungary. 
But they were to me. 
And that was so very, very exciting.

The problem is that I have come home with my head stuffed full of ideas.
And the ideas are jostling about , thrusting their hands in the  air, shouting, 'Oooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!' over the top of one another.

The ideas want to emerge as stories and pictures and blogs and daydreams and all sorts of other crazy, fun stuff.

A piano playing horse with romantic goals.
He deserves a whole novel, surely!

This is all just fine and dandy, but I have a deadline.
A serious, end-of-year deadline for a 70 000 word novel.

But the stories and ideas and pictures from those strange and foreign lands keep vying for the space in my mind which is currently labelled FINISH YOUR NOVEL.

Book one and two are waiting for the final story
 to complete the trilogy!!

So here, in an attempt to free a little more space so that I can go on with my Most Pressing Task, I am going to share ten of my favourite holiday shots. 
Perhaps tossing them out into cyberspace will free them from the confines of my mind. 
Perhaps another creative mind will suck up one of the images and use it to create a story, a poem, a picture, a dream.

Bon voyage!

Nature wins - Esztergom, Hungary.

Coloured log cottages ... bears ... grannies
with floral aprons and headscarves
... apple trees heavy with fruit -
my heart (and imagination) was aching
in Vlkolinec, Slovakia.

Treasures and secrets and tears hidden within - 

Jewish Quarter, Krakow, Poland.

Austere living - Bardejov, Slovakia.

An airy house - Levoca, Slovakia.

A railway station straight from the pages of a 1960's
spy novel - Szentendre, Hungary.

A reward for completing the quest -
Zakopane, Poland

Crumble and charm and some very dodgy down-pipes
 - Bratislava, Slovakia.

The Love Bank - I kid you not!
Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia

A looong wait for the train in
Dunakeszi, Hungary.

New Beginnings

Happy New Year!

And happy new blog site to me!

It's a long time since I last blogged. Nine months. Enough time to grow a baby! Which I haven't. But many women have. Over four and a half million babies born already this year.

I think I'll call the lull in my blog The Gestation Period. I like that. It sounds like I was deliberately withdrawing from blogging while I developed my musings into something beautiful and full of life. It's a lie, of course, but a lovely one. And it sounds a whole heap better than The Great Disorganisation of 2016.

I haven't been idle, though. I've been doing stuff all over the place. Here's a quick fill-in:

ONE

I did a road trip, The Telling Tales Tour. I travelled to Melbourne, Bendigo, Sydney and Brisbane with a marvellous group of fellow authors. I spoke to school children, teachers and librarians - anyone who'd listen, really - alongside the amazing authors Judith Rossell, Tiffany Hall and C M Gray.

 

With Tiffany Hall

With Judith Rossell and CM Gray

TWO

I met with a range of lovely friends for lunch, dinner, craft sessions, life-changing chats and wildly competitive games nights. Yes. You read that correctly. GAMES NIGHTS. I have a friend who fancies herself as Grant Denyer and likes to host Deal or No Deal nights. It's a hoot.

THREE

I ushered two new books into the world - Olive of Groves and the Great Slurp of Time  and Olive of Groves and the Right Royal Romp. Both true stories, of course.

FOUR

I continued to garden like a maniac. Episodes of frost, flood, scorching heat, earwigs and thistles have made this a challenge, but I still truly believe that I can make my one and a half acres of earth look like Versailles.

FIVE

I crocheted a dashing new coat for Olive, my precious little whippet. It keeps the winter chills at bay and she’s terribly proud of her herself when wearing it. 

 

I know! She looks a little sheepish here, but when she
heads out into the lane, she trots with pride. Truly!
The Great Dane slinks behind, blushing with
embarrassment.

SIX

I hit the road again for Book Week, visiting wonderful schools in Wagga Wagga, Jugiong and Canberra. And I did my all-time favourite Canberra thing, which is eating cake with my mother.

SEVEN

I fed my already raging Scandimania by travelling to Sweden, Norway and Denmark. My love affair with all things Scandinavian began 30 years ago when I first met the Great Dane and it was wonderful to expand my horizons. (Actually, I’m not sure that you really can expand your horizons within the confines of an obsession, but I gave it a good shot!)

Boat houses on the harbour at Smogen, Sweden.

Reflections on a lake near Sognefjord, Norway.

On the Pulpit Rock with the Great Dane, 605m above
Lysefjord, Norway.

EIGHT

I spent lots of time daydreaming, reading, writing, drawing, taking photographs, arranging treasures in little trays, baking, experimenting with computer graphics, splashing ink about  - wandering wherever the creative spirit led me.

NINE

I harnessed some of that loopy-la-la creativity and wrote a new children’s story. The manuscript reached my publisher just five days before Christmas. There’s action, adventure, mystery, romance, travel,  ravioli and gelati. Sounds like I’ve written an Italian soap opera. Maybe I have!

TEN

We bought a block of land - our own little slice of hill and granite and grass. Stay tuned for more details and dreams and schemes. 

The Great Dane pretending to be an Aussie farmer.
That's our hill in the background!

Have a squiz at this!

For a mind-boggling glimpse at the rising tally of births this year, 

CLICK HERE.

I'll be blogging every Friday, so feel to drop on by or sign up for blogs by email. (Look up to the right!)