I'm moving on out

The daunting task of box packing has suddenly gone from priority number 20 in my life, somewhere between unplugging the shower drain and finishing off the photo albums from my trip to South America five years ago, to priority number three. It is now surpassed only by booking a removalist and finding a storage unit for all my earthly treasures.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to consider buying some bunk beds and converting my spare room to a hostel for Japanese students, my seemingly useless real estate agent* found me a tenant! A lovely professional couple who come with glowing references and a cat (hence why they must be lovely even though I have never met them).

They wanted to move in this weekend but after brief contemplation I realised I am not super human and have agreed to next Saturday, 11 December, instead. So the torturous process of packing begins. You will probably notice a lot of blogging over the next week as the packing procrastinaction kicks in.

This time in two weeks I will have moved in with my new roomies (can you call your parents roomies?) and will only be a couple of weeks away from turning 34 and being kind-of unemployed. Serious grounds for writing more depressive 'Memories' related poetry, and yet for the first time since I first asked my boss if I could take six months off work, I am excited. Now it feels like it’s really happening!

The project plan is on track (which keeps my corporate genes happy). If only I could conjure up a box packing fairy, life would be pretty damn good right about now**.

*I really dislike real estate agents. I know that is a general sweeping statement, particularly when I have a couple of friends who are in the real estate game and my own mother used to be one, but, the industry seems to have a gaping hole in its training program that covers the “I work in customer service” component of the job.

I have been dealing with a real estate agent for nearly two months trying to get my property rented. And I emphasise the I have been dealing with them component – if it wasn’t for me making phone calls and sending emails, I would still be waiting for them to upload the photos to the internet. The same photos they had to take twice since the first lady missed the other part of the training program that teaches them how to use a camera. Or perhaps just  how to look at the screen after you have taken them so you can tell if they are crap or not.

**To be perfect I would also need to have already finished work, lost five kilos, be in training for a triathlon and have met the man of my dreams (although since I am about to move in with my parents it probably wouldn’t  be great timing).

Should I buy a one way ticket?

The end of work is nigh – Kay, my replacement, is starting on 20 December. Tomorrow would have been preferable, but only 16 working days away so I can’t really complain. A week of handover and then I am off on the world’s longest ever Christmas break.

So I have started to think about actually making a commitment to a flight to London. The question is – will I encounter any trouble at Heathrow airport if I arrive with a one way ticket, a laptop and an overloaded suitcase? I am going to use frequent flyer points, and a one way ticket is exactly half the points of a return, so there is no financial incentive to lock myself into a return date and departure airport.

But  I have visions of being carted away at Heathrow on suspicion of trying to illegally enter the country to work and put straight back on the first flight home. While that could make for an interesting story, it is one I would prefer to stay in my head.

Is a one way ticket a trouble magnet? Let me know what you think.....

The first time I was published

The more I read about published authors, the more I think I am a writing fraud.

I started thinking about this when I was reading Stephen King’s book On Writing (referenced in my last post) – he devotes the first part of the book to his CV – recounting tales of his youth and his early years as a writer that led him to being published. While his classmates were out having a smoke behind the gym or riding their BMX bikes, he was writing science fiction and suspense stories and submitting them to magazines – by the time he was 18 he already had a few pieces published and dozens of rejection slips.

I did not spend my teenager years in the pursuit of publication. While I was a dedicated student, my leisure time was spent in the same way as many other teenagers – hanging around in the city, going to movies, pretending to go to movies but instead hanging out in the city smoking Marlboro reds, giving my girlfriend Dana an undercut, talking about boys, talking to boys, and looking at pictures of boys in their high school yearbooks.  Playing netball, working in Mum and Dad’s newsagency, and reading featured somewhere in amongst all of that as well, but you can tell pretty quickly that writing stories and getting published were not high on my list of things to do.

A writing fraud through and through. Surely if I wanted to be a writer I would have been scribbling stories since I could first hold a pencil. Mulling this over, I felt slightly depressed for days. Until I remembered that I have, in fact, already been published.

Now, I’m not talking about The New Yorker here. Or even the The Courier Mail. But the Somerville House Yearbook circa 1991, 1992 and 1993.

In a fit of triumph at remembering that I, too, was a childhood writing genius, I dug out my old yearbooks with enthusiasm, flicking through the black and white typewritten pages, searching for my name in print. I was overcome by vivid memories of flowing, rhythmical poetry, and sharp, funny stories, things I hadn’t set eyes on in nearly 20 years.

On finding them, I could only hope that no one else has set eyes on them for the last 20 years either. My initial observation about my first published works is that my writing style 20 years ago was a little different to the romantic comedy that is my adult fiction of choice. My writing when I was 14 was verging more on depressed and suicidal than comedic.  In 1991 I had a short story and a poem selected – one titled “Death’s Memories” and the other “Memories”. I am not sure what memories I had developed in my short life that inspired these fine pieces of writing, nor had I experienced death other than that of my cat Pussy (my parents named her, don’t blame me) but haunting they are. Particularly the one that describes a desolate cupboard, and a dying, wilting rose.

In 1992 I progressed to writing poetry titled “View from the Inside” that was possibly even more tortured than my Memories series. The poem starts with “The world weighs on your drooping shoulders, cement blocks on your weary feet, constant overbearing pressure, to succeed, to win, to compete”. They shouldn’t have been publishing my work, they should have been sending me to the school guidance counsellor on red alert.

I did start to hit my stride when I was 16 though. Not only was I published but I won an award! The Magazine Essay Award, for an essay titled “Fame from the other side “, a topic I clearly had so much first hand experience with. It was printed on page 116 right before the report from the Chess team. Highly coveted by no one in particular, but the only award I received on completing Year 12 so one I have been quite fond of ever since. I was not successful in winning the Short Story prize though. So maybe I should be trying to become a journalist rather than a novelist.

Perhaps I am stretching it just a little to try and convince myself that I was a childhood writing genius. Well, maybe a lot. But reading back over my immature attempts at creative writing has given me the evidence that I clearly needed that perhaps this writing caper is not a passing whim. The third instalment in the Memories series could be on the cards after all.....

No backing out now

Turns out I am not irreplaceable after all - my replacement officially accepted today!!  Start date approximately four weeks time.....so looks like I will need to ask Santa for that divine inspiration for Christmas after all.

It only took 12 interviews in the end. No need to rush these things. But the wait was worth it - couldn't have hoped for anyone better to take over the reins - I don't even mind that I think we have employed someone who is going to show me up. I will be too busy churning out my 2500 words a day to be too worried about that I suspect.

Wonder if I should be concerned that I am now out of a job but have not yet signed the paperwork for my new role. Putting a lot of faith in the goodwill of the corporate powers that be.

Why I want to write a book

If someone told me the end of the world was coming and I had to give up one of either reading or writing in order to prevent it, I would take about half a second to make my choice. I would rather spend the rest of my life eating two minute noodles than give up reading.

I am addicted to books. Have been ever since I was a little kid; I have my wonderful Mum to thank for that. I come from a family of prolific readers. Christmas Day and birthdays are always a bit of a let down if there isn’t at least one book amongst the present pile. On average I would say I get through around two books a week, depending on what else is going on in my life at the time, and the size of the books in question. Sometimes it is only one a month, but that tends to result in a book reading binge. I fairly regularly stay up until 1am or 2am to polish off a book on a school night. A quick count of my bedside table at the moment tells me that I have 17 books actively on the go or with an intention to be finished at some point before Christmas (wishful thinking). And yes this includes Shantaram. It also includes Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, which I have been struggling through for about three years (loved Let’s Talk About Kevin, but this one is just a slog).

A lot of people have asked me why I want to write a book. Which is a good question given that I have just told you all that I would choose reading over writing if forced to make the choice. I guess the best reason I can give is that because I love to read so much, love books and the world of fiction, I can’t imagine not at least attempting to make a contribution to that world. I too want to create a story that makes a reader want to hug it to their chest when they have finished. To create characters that they are still thinking about days after they have finished the final page.

I wasn’t born with any athletic ability – I was born with two left feet but a willingness to try anything. My Dad once told me he was proud of me for running (I was in training for the 10k Gold Coast run at the time) because it didn’t come naturally to me. I wasn’t offended by this; I found it quite funny and entirely accurate. I also wasn’t born with a massive IQ. I have always been a hard worker (this I am convinced I was born with) so mostly achieve what I set out to do, but I was never going to be a rocket scientist or molecular biologist. I am also near tone deaf with no musical talent. Despite being quite adept at the recorder when I was about eight years old, I am never going to be the next Julia Stone no matter how much singing practice I do in the car.

But I can write. And I think we all have an obligation to make good use of our god given talents. Writing persuasive executive summaries for Sewerage Treatment Plants and Parallel Runways is riveting, but not quite cutting the mustard as they say.

So I’m going to write. Write a story that has been banging about in my head in one form or another for about seven years, although it did just make quite a U-Turn about four weeks ago when I had a moment of divine inspiration when standing at Suz and Paul’s wedding. They (the same they as referenced before, whoever they are) also say that your first novel is often quite autobiographical – and I don’t doubt they are right. I write romantic comedy, and all of you who know me (which is everyone, given only my lovely family and friends read this blog) know that my love life is nothing short of a comedy. But don’t worry, I promise this will be a little more interesting.

But that’s about all I am going to say about it. I have just finished reading Stephen King’s novel On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. He talks about writing with the door closed, and writing with the door open. Door closed is for the first draft, door open for the second. I am still writing with the door closed, and will be for quite some time. So I am going to apologise in advance if I screw up my face and ummm and ahhh a lot when asked about my book and what it’s about. I’m just not ready to open the door yet. But I sincerely promise it isn’t because I am writing a book about any of you (despite having received several requests from friends – mostly male - to have the main character named after them. Even when they don’t know if that means they will be the equivalent of Hannibal Lecter).

Ask me again in six months time, when hopefully I will have bashed out some dodgy first draft, whether I would still give up writing over reading. Maybe when I consider myself more of a writer I will have a different view. For now I had better make a dent in these books....I could be up all night.

The distraction of fake moustaches and feather boas

The last two weeks have been evidence enough for me that I need to take time off to get this book written. I haven’t even had time to buy cat food let alone write my blog. Instead I have been working 14 hour days getting our annual Queensland conference organised (what that has to do with my job as Marketing Manager I have never quite figured out but think it has something to do with a combination of event management skills and being unable to say no). It felt kind of like organising four weddings at once. 80 people, two and a half days, one awards night, and one murder mystery night (where I got to dress them all up in dodgy costumes and fake moustaches – very satisfying). I did learn that night that giving the Russian Mafia table a shot glass as part of their costume and then a real bottle of vodka as a table prop was not such a smart move. Lets just say that there are things I saw that night that will I will never be able to erase from my memory involving male work colleagues, a black lacy bra, feather boas and the song "Sweet Transvestite".

 Anyway, I packed them all back on the bus to Brisbane at 4:45pm on Friday (to be precise, it was a momentous occasion) and come Sunday morning I think I may have just about recovered. So time to get back to blogging and writing.

Two things of note have happened in my corporate to creative journey since I last blogged.

1.     We have shortlisted two candidates for my job – hallelujah!

2.     My townhouse is officially up for rent.

I have mixed feelings about both of these. While I want to find someone for my job so I can head off into the land of writing, I feel sad about leaving my team. I personally hired all of them, built the team from the ground up, and we have alot of fun at work (when we are not rolling our eyes at the antics of left brain engineers). Once we have a preferred candidate there is no going back.

I also love living in Red Hill. I like being able to walk home after a night out at the rugby and a few drinks at Gambaros (and I admit maybe a dance floor session at the Caxton – I blame the cheap wine at Suncorp Stadium). I love being able to walk down to have brekkie at Anouk in Paddington. Even though I usually drive because I am lazy. I know it’s only for 12 months but I am still feeling a little nostalgic.

Not much movement on the rental front yet though. I am trying to rent it furnished (refer to earlier lazy comment) and apparently there is only a small market for this. Will try it out for a few weeks to see what happens. I just had a look on the rental site and it has had 181 page visits...but zero inspections. There is something wrong with that equation. Think I had better start looking for some furniture storage.

Big thanks for Roary though for getting in a couple of the photos taken by the rental agent – gives the place some added character (see if you can Spot Roary Here). Just hope my body corporate don’t see it since I never did get around to paying that $100 to keep you here. You just might get evicted early.