Monthly Archives: October 2009

Fatty returns, and it’s nice to share

I admit to being a slightly nervous cat owner.

Fatty wasn’t in his usual spreadeagled position on the sofa this morning, and after breakfast I wandered about outside to see where he was.

I check the stream to make sure he hadn’t drowned. I checked the road to make sure he hadn’t been squished.

Ten minutes after giving up and coming inside (telling myself off for being so anxious) I heard his greeting meows before he’d even come through the cat flap.

Here I am! Here I am! I’ve been out in the fields! I’m all muddy!

He transferred most of the mud to my skirt, purred loudly for a few minutes, and ambled off to eat his breakfast.

I like to share. If anyone ever wants to re-post anything I’ve written on their own blog, I’d be everso happy for you to do so – just put a link to Planting Words at the bottom.

You might have liked my advice for a poetry virgin, or the piece on slowing down. Maybe all we need is love, and we know that nanas know best. Do help yourself to whatever you like and offer it round – you don’t have to ask/tell me.

If you want to win a free hardback of Thaw you’ve only got until Saturday to email me at fiona@fionarobyn.com with ‘Thaw’ as the title. Off you go!

Fatty’s back. I hope he’s washed a bit of the mud off…

My books in the wild and egogooglaholism update

Joseph Ridgewell’s Last Days of the Cross

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Today I have something a little different. You’ve read the beginning of Thaw, and you know about my Blogsplash (What, you haven’t signed up yet? Email me your url before you forget!).

Joseph Ridgewell will be joining the splash on the 1st of March at In Search of the Lost Elation, and here is the first page of his book, Last Days of the Cross.

-1-

Sydney, Kings Cross and the main drag of Darlinghurst Street; the gigantic electronic Coca-cola sign, The Pink Pussy Cat, Playbirds International, the Goldfish Bowl, the Bourbon and Beefsteak and finally the odd El Alamein fountain, fashioned in the shape of a dandelion. Finding somewhere to live was the main priority but I knew just the place to go – the Oakwoods – a budget boarding house, three storeys high, owned by a somewhat decrepit landlord.

This dive was situated on the corner of Roslyn Street and Ward Avenue and on arrival, I suddenly had second thoughts about the idea. Phew, what a dump. No redeeming features, in fact, an eyesore. I paced up and down the street studying the crumbling edifice with the eye of a sceptic. Maybe there was some place else I could go. Then I remembered my financial situation. $1500 Aussie. That’s all I had to my name – not much by anyone’s standards and whatever it lacked in aesthetics the Oakwoods made up by being dirt-cheap.

I stepped inside. The Reception was empty. I looked around, picked my nose and scratched my balls. Then I saw the bell. I gave the thing a hit – a flamboyant smack and it rang out, loud and clear. And there he was – the landlord – one Mr Hillwood.

‘ow can I help, mate?’ asked the landlord in a way that indicated that he never wanted to help anyone for as long as he lived.
‘I’m looking for a room.’
‘Singles are $150 a week, plus one week’s deposit.’

I did a rough calculation. A week’s room in that dump would leave me with little under seven hundred bucks. Hard times – maybe even desperate times but in times like these the most important thing is a roof over the head. Four walls. That’s all an aspiring poet needs. With four walls to protect him, he could take on the world.

‘I’ll pay for two weeks, plus a week’s deposit,’ I replied like a big-shot. Strangely, Hillwood wasn’t impressed.
‘Rent must be paid each Friday, cash or cheque. A week overdue and ya out,’ he sneered.

On the way to the room, Hillwood told me the house rules, like he was reading me the last rites. Every sentence started with the word no. No smoking in the hallway, no parties, no bringing people into the rooms late at night, no loud music, no criminal activity, no drugs, no disturbances, no fighting, no politics.

No, no, no and then more no.

‘That’s the house rules but there are also the pool rules,’ he added somewhat mysteriously as he led me to the garden area. Pool rules?

Outside, all was revealed. The alleged garden was a small patch of land bordered on all sides by a rickety wooden fence and topped with concentration camp-style barbed wire. In one corner was a triangular washing line, in another a rusty barbecue and in another an outdoor toilet. However, none of these features caught the eye, for slam bang in the middle of this mini-wasteland was a shimmering swimming pool. I blinked my eyes to make sure I wasn’t imaging things but freakily, the kidney shaped pool even had a Jacuzzi. As I stared in wonder, Hillwood proceeded to tell me the pool rules but it was the same shit as the house rules. No this, no that. I didn’t pay much attention and instead thought of myself jumping into the coolness of the water at the end of another hot Australian day – a cold beer situated at poolside. Then Hillman handed over a rusty key and told me to enjoy my stay. A nice word after all that.

“Joe Ridgwell’s one of my favorite writers in the whole world. You can say lots of things about his work, all of them good. But what I like most about Last Days Of The Cross is that it’s damned funny. It’s one of the funniest books I’ve read in a long, long time.” -novelist Mark SaFranko. If you’d like to read more, visit the grievous jones bookstore. There. Thanks Joseph.

Joseph Ridgwell is the author of two books of poetry, Load the Guns and Where are the Rebels? Both published by Blackheath Books and a novel, Last Days of the Cross published by Grievous Jones Press. His work has also appeared in short story anthologies Radgepacket and The Loose Canon, magazines, newspapers, and numerous online publications.

Advice for a poetry virgin

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A friend of mine has recently started a creative writing course, and is required to write poems for the first time. He sent me an email (well actually he tweeted me) to say ‘help’.

I like this question. How can we enter into the thick forests of the poetry world (as a writer, as a reader) for the first time? I’d like to take you by the hand and lead you gently into the marvellous (WONDROUS) world of poetry…

1. Don’t think that poetry is for clever people. There is no such thing as ‘correctly interpreting’ a poem. Instead you have to read individual poems a few times and then decide whether you want a relationship with them or not. Some of the poems I like best (Gerald Stern, Denise Riley) leave me understanding very little, but there is enough to hold me – a single line that resonates, an atmosphere that builds. A good poem should flirt with you and draw you in. It’s true – you do have to work harder with poetry than with fiction, but like some of your best friends who are an ‘acquired taste’ it is worth persevering. Trust me.

2. Read poetry. Read more poetry. Print your favourite ones out and pin them up around your desk. Memorise one or two. Swap ‘favourite poems’ with your friends. Read poetry magazines on or off line. Anthologies are a great way to discover favourite poets – if you buy one, buy Staying Alive (edited by Neil Astley). Scatter anthologies around the house.

3. Invest in a couple of friendly books about how to write poetry. Even if she wasn’t my friend, I’d tell you to buy Sage Cohen’s Writing the Life Poetic if you buy anything. It’s packed with inspiring exercises and luminous poems and it’s very friendly.

4. Develop a taste for words. Stop several times every day and think how you might describe what you can see/hear/smell. Roll the words around in your mouth. Start a small stone writing habit.

5. Pay attention. This is the most important of all the steps, so I’ll say it again. Pay attention.

6. Write some things down. Buy yourself a lovely notebook and a pen that feels good in your hand. Let the words come out first without thinking about whether they’re any good or not. You can turn your critic back on in the next step. This stage is all about free-flow. See where your pen takes you. Become a conductor for the words.

7. Fiddle with your words. Which phrases stand out? What lines seem to belong together? How long do you want your lines to be? Do you want stanzas? Move ‘em about and then move ‘em about again.

8. Read them out loud. How does it sound?

9. Repeat 6, 7, and 8 until you feel reasonably satisfied with what you have.

10. Show it to someone else. Choose the person you show it to carefully. Your mum will probably be biased. Choose someone who knows what they’re talking about, but if you need them to be gentle with you, tell them beforehand. There are lots of resources online if you don’t have any poetry-writing friends. Listen carefully, and see if you agree with anything they say. You don’t have to agree with any of it, but some of it might resonate – ah yes, of course, that would make it a better poem. It’s difficult to know what to listen to and what to ignore – I’m still learning.

11. Repeat 6, 7 and 8 again.

12. Ta da! Poems! (Don’t forget Step 1. And don’t expect your first poems to be your best poems ever – would you expect to sit down at a piano and bash out a sonata before you practised those lovely simple tunes? And remember Step 13.)

13. ENJOY it. Writers need to write for the LOVE of it, as there’s so much difficulty along the way. Hold on to the love.

If anyone writes any poems this week, post them in the comments section. I’d love to read them.

Slowing down, and free signed hardbacks of Thaw

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Today I sent out my quarterly newsletter – if you’ve not signed up yet, put your email in the box on the right hand side (under the followers).

It always has a competition to win free books, and you can enter too – just send an email titled ‘Thaw’ to fiona@fionarobyn.com by the end of November and you could win one of three signed hardbacks. It doesn’t matter where you live.

It also had a link to this article on slowing down: Cornflowers and Roadkill. If you can find a quiet five minutes later you might want to read it. Happy weekends x

When I was young, I would tear through books like a whirlwind. Stories of new girls starting at boarding school, children packing picnics and setting out on adventures – I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

My dad would tease me about ‘skipping pages’, and often threatened to test me on the chapters I’d already read. At the time I felt offended, as if he was accusing me of cheating. It’s only now that I’m beginning to understand what he was trying to say.

It’s impossible to properly taste a book if it’s gulped down. We miss the sentence about the field of shocking-red poppies, and we don’t stop to consider how lonely the central character might be feeling. We can’t properly digest the meanings of words if we don’t chew on them for a while. And life is the same.

I know that I prefer living my life at a slower pace. I prefer the mornings when I give myself ten minutes to sit outside with a cup of earl grey, to listen to the sparrows chattering in the hedge and notice the silvery light on the plum trees. I prefer days when I get my writing done as well as the trip to the bank and the thirty other things, without feeling ‘used up’ by lunch time.

I’m not good at taking my own advice. Maybe none of us are, which is why we have to give ourselves the advice in the first place. I’m constantly catching myself rushing from one task to the next, or making endless mental lists of ‘things to be done’. Last week I was in such a hurry to get to work that I backed my car into a skip. I manage to clear space in my diary, and then find myself saying yes to new commitments, filling it right back up. I let my body become hurried – a tense feeling in my stomach, a pressure on my forehead.

There are many reasons for this, but I still think the main one for me is that when I slow down I’m more likely to see the uncomfortable stuff as well as the good stuff. If I really think about meeting my friend for coffee, maybe I’ll notice a tight feeling in my throat, and realise I’m still angry at her for forgetting my birthday. If I spend a quiet morning at home, maybe sadness will rise up like floodwater. If I slow the car down, I’ll see the red mess of road kill as well as the luminous blue cornflowers. We’d all prefer to look at the cornflowers.

I think I am getting better over time. I notice the tense feeling in my stomach a little earlier, and I begin more days by waking up earlier and taking things easy rather than cramming down some toast and leaping into the car. And certain habits and ways of thinking do help. My small stone blog guarantees that I stop for long enough to notice at least one detail every day. Meditating helps me to practice letting go of the future.

We can all work at slowing down our lives. There are endless opportunities to practice – when reading, when working on an urgent report, when standing in the queue at the supermarket. Sometimes all it takes is a small mental shift – ‘it’s ok if this takes a bit longer’, or ‘I’m already going as fast as I can’.

If we can start to be curious about when we speed up, and what happens when we press the pause button, change will come. And, of course, real lasting change is slow too!

(My book on slowing down is A Year of Questions)

Amsterdam

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In the summer my friend Susan accompanied me to Amsterdam so I could do research for my work-in-progress, Joe in Amsterdam.

We had a wonderful time wandering up and down the canals, eating in a funky vegetarian restaurant and drinking lots of good coffee.

What a bonus that Susan happens to be an incredibly talented poet, and that she’s commemorated our trip with this elegant poem. Here’s her site, where you can read more of her poems – they want you to read them out loud.

And when you’re done reading that you can read this post by Terresa at The Chocoate Chip Waffle – one of her pieces on her recent trip to England – she writes so beautifully. Happy Thursday.

Now

Amsterdam without
you, or you, or even you:

this time it’s easy,
lazy, beautiful, as strong

as coffee, fresh as
red shutters on high windows,

friendly as geraniums
on winking canal water.

Susan Utting

Free stuff – short stories from Neil Ayres and a mindfulness clock

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My friend Neil from over at Veggiebox has a new short stories collection available for FREE here – and here’s the blurb:

In this collection of realist short stories, Neil George Ayres details the often overlooked depth of modern relationships. From the self-contained love story of a modern marriage, through to the microcosm of the patrons of a working class public house, all life is here. If you love Raymond Carver or Jon McGregor, you should be in safe hands.

I do love Mr. Carver and Mr. McGregor very much. You can read it online, get it as a PDF etc – go see! Good luck with it, Neil.

Also I’m very fond of this mindfulness clock so I thought I’d share the link with you: here it is. Once installed it reminds you with a bell sound every hour to stop for a second and ….breathe….. We could all do with more breathing space.

Oh, and I don’t know if I’ve introduced you to Marcia at 100 Readers yet?

That’s all for today folks.

First review of Thaw

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Here’s what Sharon on Goodreads thought of Thaw:

I couldn’t put this one down. Ruth is so real and tragic she made my heart hurt. Some books stay in your head and heart forever, and this is one of them. Profound. (5 stars)

Thank you Sharon, I’m so glad you took good care of Ruth.

If you can’t wait, you can get the hardback of Thaw now, or the paperback comes out on the 1st of February, or you can wait until the 1st of March and read it for free here.

I’ve got over 80 blogs signed up for the Blogsplash now, but I’m still a LONG way from 1000. Have you signed up yet? Have you asked your friends if they can help? Come and join us by emailing me your blog address to fiona@fionarobyn.com. Thank you.

Here’s a new-ish poem – a couple of years old – I’m just not writing them any more. Maybe I’ll start again one day. I think Ruth would understand it. Happy Tuesdays x

How strange

After listening to a woman
who tries to stop babies from dying
for a living, I drive home.

The fat moon has fallen
onto its back behind the trees.

Clots of words bob up:

I don’t want to die right now.
How strange this all is.
The truth is I’m sad and a little lonely.

I take the seven bends of death slowly.

Now the moon is in front of me,
bigger, a cup tipped over
and spilling grief.

Meeting others

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I feel like I’ve just got back from several months on Mars

I’ve only spent nine days away on my Buddhist Psychotherapy Training at The Buddhist House, but – oh my – what a nine days.

As someone else in the group commented, I feel like I’ve only let 1% of the learning from the past nine days soak into me so far. But it’s been about so much more than the learning.

The theme of the 9 days was ‘meeting others’. In our daily lives, how often do we really manage do this in an authentic way?

The people who’ve shared the past nine days with me have become special to me – every single one of them. Some of them have seen right inside me, and I’ve seen right inside them. Those kinds of connections don’t fade once they’ve been made. Whether or not we refer to them, they will hang between us when we meet again, like golden threads.

This meeting others has been bloody hard work. There have been tears, anger, confusion, disappointments, pain. There has also been a LOT of laughter (some of it hysterical) and a LOT of joy. Oh, I can’t avoid being soppy. There’s been a lot of love.

In gassho to every single person who sat with us in our group, and to Jodo, Sharry, Moggy and Zen. In gassho to the cooks, the cleaner-uppers, the smilers on the stairs. In gassho to the sunlight on the sofa, and the golden Buddha in the shrine room. In gassho to Eamon’s badly drawn ear, and to singing Taize. In gassho to all of us, and to all of you. Here’s to the space continuing.

Where do you get chocolate mousse from?

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Chocolate cows.

Are you laughing?

I made this joke up a couple of nights ago. It had me in hysterics for several hours.

It works better if you pronounce it a mixture between ‘mousse’ and ‘moos’. It work better if you repeat the joke to every new person that comes into the room. Funny yet?

OK – I think you had to be there. It’s not the funniest joke in the world, but you might not think Eamon drawing a snail in Pictionary because he misread ‘small’ is funny either, or me drawing handcuffs instead of cufflinks and wondering why nobody was getting it, or any of the other hundred things that were hilarious at the time.

I haven’t laughed so hard for years. What are the magic ingredients of hilarity? Good friends? A slightly edgy energy? Overtiredness?

I don’t know what’s making it happen, but I’m enjoying every second. Chocolate cows ; ) CHOCOLATE COWS!