Inspired by Serendipity

Inspiration strikes at the weirdest of times. In movies it happens just when you think the hero is going to fail, lose everything and die, and then they get this great idea that saves the day leaving us with a happy ending. For me, it happens while making jam on toast late at night. Or after a marathon YouTube/Facebook session with a crazy friend I haven’t spoken with in ages. 

 Inspiration is what drives us… motivates us. You know it when you feel it – something catches your eye, the line of a song plays around in your head… or you feel strange, sad or happy and have to do something about it. For me, it is poetry or a single sentence that one day might become a story... for others it’s an idea only they can see. The real treasure is the finished product with heart and soul. It’s not about fame or money. It’s about finding yourself and taking delight in your very own creative journey.

Sometimes it doesn’t come so easily. What are we supposed to do then? I hate that sinking feeling, when I’m right on the verge of greatness, and I get distracted… the moment is gone. In the meantime, there is a little angel with a happy picture of a dinosaur, or a giraffe or even a broken clothesline on the cover of my favourite book in eyeliner. Eyeliner? How did they even get in there?

I often turn to Google images for inspiration. I love the stuff on there. As much as random searches are great procrastinating tools, you can find some pretty interesting stuff. And for you and me, I found some tips on how to get inspired that I thought I would share…

Don’t be a Tryhard
It’s true! The harder you try, the more difficult it is to think of something. The frustration and panic and sheer yearning for something fabulous will leave you dead in your tracks. Either that or you will end up as one of those ladies with the immaculate clothes on at the shops, but still wearing slippers. The more you worry, the harder it will be for those great ideas to push through to the ‘a-ha!’ side of your brain… wherever that is. 
 
Get lost in your thoughts
But just not the panicky ones. If you are feeling stuck, get outside, go for a walk. Fresh air will not only make you a healthier person (so they say… how great is the smell of exhaust fumes?) but it will clear your mind, and give you a nice dose of endorphins to send you on your merry way home again… Life, children and housework is much less daunting and intrusive if you can get away for a while – even a 5 minute walk around the block. You will feel more relaxed and ready to conquer your next project. After dinner is made and tomorrow’s lunches packed - of course.

Get rid of life’s little distractions
Although it might help, I don’t mean that you should tie your children to the trampoline along with a bottle of water and a piece of bread. Close that Facebook window! Put the phone away! Better yet, set yourself some time every day or at least a few times a week, with a pencil and a blank piece of paper, clay or fabric or whatever your medium is, and just do it. Don't overthink it. If you get in the habit of practising what you do often, it will come more easily. Creativity is like a muscle, the more you use it, the better it works. 
 
Don’t be afraid to fail
Trust your instincts. Try new things. Do something you've wanted to for a long time, but never have. Overcoming fear or laziness can be very liberating. Meet new people. Share your craft. You only fail when you stop trying and give up. Don’t give up! Put your project aside, and come back to it another day. If you decide it’s no good, and you don’t want to use it.. Don’t discard it. It might be useful one day. Especially if it’s flammable. 
 
Be ready for snap inspiration
Carry a notebook, camera, voice recorder (or these days with technology the way it is, just a phone!) so you will be able to capture or record your fleeting idea in the moment. Scribble a few words, take that picture, and record your sing song voice… anything that will take you to that happy place later  where you thought of something. You can use these ideas or impressions of other things to adapt to your own style. 

Meditate, Man!

Ok, groovers, this might sound a bit far out, but emptying your mind of all your thoughts could actually help, like, bring new ideas in. Seriously though – meditation actually relaxes you and you may be surprised with what emerges. Guided meditations are great for newbies, and YouTube have plenty available… and the great thing about meditation is that you can practise it as you fall asleep, just to get into the swing of things. You like this new age stuff? If you have Tarot or Oracle cards, why not draw one at random? Each card has its’ own symbolism and mythology… and at worst you might have some sort of epiphany!

Hopefully the above tips will actually help. Remember, your art is an expression of you. There is no such thing as bad art. It’s all about perspective. You have your own individual style and the world needs to see it. Get out there and create something inspired!

Find Serendipitous Zenefertiti in Hazed Magazine's latest issue!  I might as well tell you I'm also on Facebook - find me Serendipitous Zenefertiti

The serendipity of Time

I don’t know about you, but I seem to live my life by dates. Christmas, New Years’ Eve, the new school year, Easter, birthdays, school holidays, deadlines for assignments, for bills.. there can even be a countdown to next payday! Sometimes it feels like you’ve just managed to scrape through one thing when the next starts looming over the horizon. Someone needs to schedule some time for a coffee! If you are lucky, then the birthdays in your family are spread out over the year, with nice, even and courteous month long gaps in between. But everyone I know seems to have birthday clusters… ours are all from April - June. Time flies when you are having a life!

I won’t mention the C-word again. You know the one. With that S-guy? With lay-bys collected last minute. Rushing around for two weeks to spend a day with family. The irony is we are supposed to be enjoying the holiday season; the fact is we all get stressed out. You can tell yourself you will be nice to your mother as much as you want, but when she walks in that door knowing best and making sure you know she knows best… That’s when the crazy starts to bubble. And surely I’m not the only one who has been up past midnight, wrapping presents with images of how happy and grateful the kids will be ..only to listen to them argue over who plays with what while you are picking up all the paper a few hours later thinking "Thank God that’s over!"

I hate buying gifts for my partner. Socks and undies are easy. Everyone needs those. Gifts for the family are usually those tins of butter cookies that only appear on the shelves during Christmas. It is hard not to spend every last dollar on presents for the kids – and they are at the age where they are easy to buy for.. But time will take that from me too. It’s the innocence of children that time steals from us. My little man had his heart set on being a Power Ranger when he grew up. I had to be the one to break his heart and confirm that they weren’t real. He was devastated, but after explaining that they were actors and actors get to do really cool stuff, he brightened up – especially when I mentioned ‘Back to the Future’. Though we haven’t reached the subject of time travel yet – so I’m probably going to disappoint him again very soon! It’s sad how time ages us. The excitement and joy that kids feel at Christmastime brings us back to that lost time of wonder where happiness is simple, and infectious!

Time can be so repetitive… which is weird if every moment is a new one. There is nothing more repetitive than New Year’s Resolutions. Einstein might have said, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’ To be honest, my resolutions for the last 10 years have been to lose weight. Year after year I promise myself that I will do it – and never really have. This year, for the first time, I discovered the ‘fun’ in fun runs, so my resolution next year is to do five fun runs, all courteously spaced out a couple of months apart.

Holidays always make me feel like I have more time than I actually do. At the beginning my mind lights up with possibilities. One day, I really will learn French. I will start writing that novel, break old habits and form new ones (like going to bed before midnight!) and somehow have the most fun ever with the kids. Before you know it, the holidays are over, and you end up shoving those half-started projects aside to make school lunches.

I heard that time goes faster as you get older… perhaps because one day you wake up and a decade has gone by. Or because you have already lived 60 years, so there is less time ahead of you… even the concept of time is wacky, especially if you ask yourself whether it exists purely as a human construct for ordering events past, present and future, or as something of itself. Mmm. Too much existentialism right now. Where’s that coffee?

 

I couldn't resist putting Time by Pink Floyd in here... it's definitely is one of those songs that bring back your youth ;p

The new issue of Hazed will be out tomorrow... can't wait to see the second instalment of Serendipity. I'm feeling a little anxious, hope people will like it :) It's hard writing a column, but I like it! It definately helps to have a great Editor :)

Where have you been all my life???

A change in perspectives...

Our task for the Writers' Group this week was to take something we had written and write it from the other perspective. I mean, if you originally wrote it in the first person, to go and write it in the third and see how different it is.

There is probably a more articulate way to say the above, but sometimes it doesn't matter... its the vibe of the thing, man!

So I haven't actually read anything out that I wrote to the group yet, and I've been there a few times. Twintensity threw herself into it - and tonight she organised the topic. She read this awesome piece she wrote, contrasting her experience in the Peace Corps in Haiti and as a mother in Germany. It was beautifully done - she wrote about surviving an earthquake in Haiti and running off the road (car trouble) in Stuttgart. Lol First world problems.

(one day I will put the link here)

I noticed at some stage that the first instalment of Serendipity contains the first AND second person. I hope it flows... but anyway, I decided to write a little bit in third person - to give it a try.. mainly to have something to read for once. I almost didn't go cos I'm feeling buggared after trying to jog yesterday and I feel ill... tummy bug wise.

Anyway, this is what I wrote. And after you decide it's awesome, and that I'm really talented, let me tell you I wrote this in about 10 minutes about half an hour before the group started lol... maybe it shows.

*******************************************************************************

She sighed. Her body aching and sleep stealing away any motivation she had left, she knew she had to get it over and done with, and then she could really relax. Everyone was asleep and the night was no longer young.  But there were lunches to be made and uniforms to be laid out. The kids’ stuff could wait, but he started work before she liked to get up and she was still in the habit of making things easier for him. It was quiet. The fridge hummed. She collected lunchboxes and drink bottles.

After laying out the ingredients on the bench, Nicole began to feel hungry. No, she thought, I will be strong. Those diet lollies are good enough. No bread after 6. No carbs. The urge to binge was great. The photos of a happy family smiled at her from above. She didn’t really care. It was almost midnight, and there was still study to do. If only she could force herself to get through the rest of that reading for Uni. Maybe things would run smoother tomorrow.

***************************************************************************

The ladies liked it. One said the third person stuff sounded a bit poetical... she also whispered she thought it was beautiful and that she had been there herself. Another one liked it and said the first person stuff took you there, that it needs to be performed. As much as I love that my friends like what I write, it's also nice to hear that strangers like it too :)

And on reflection it was interesting to note, that to me, the first person Serendipity stuff was more of a bravado, a look at moiye type thing, whereas the third person stuff was a bit deeper and more honest. Maybe it was because the audience is different, or maybe cos I'm tired and don't feel like being positive.

Or maybe writing in the third person makes you more objective - its how you see yourself, not how you want the world to see you... Hmmm something to think about.

What I should really be thinking about are those two essays due in the first week of October - for Evidence it is about Hearsay. For International Political Institutions (or whatever the subject is called ;p) its whether state sovereignty should override human rights. They'll get done ... I think! Graduating in December..yaaay! Now THAT is motivation to get them done!

Serendipity

Ahhhhhhh Spring. There is something about it that makes you want to lie on a blanket outside. Read a really good book. Be nice to ants. Enjoy the sun before it gets really hot. You love the blue of the sky, the green of the grass. If only the kids could enjoy it without you having to be involved.

Sometimes, I wish they would just leave me alone. Not forever. Not even all day. Just for a couple of hours. They don’t even need to do anything… I just need to not have to look after them or think about them for a while. I’m sitting here, trying to think of an awesome topic for this column, but I can’t concentrate because my 5 year old son is wriggling around on the couch, fidgeting while watching TV. I want to believe that he will be distracted long enough for me to write something, but it’s not his attention levels that are the problem, its mine.

I am a mum, a student, a casual employee and sometimes, a crazy person. To be all those things to all people requires a bit of creativity. I don’t consider myself a creative person... Creative people have art studios and flowing floral clothes, smell like paint and incense and feel at peace with the world. I am more like the Mad Hatter – fumbling through the demands of housework, limiting the therapy my kids will need when they grow up, handing in assignments late and creating a social life out of school pick-ups and weekend work.

It really is a wonder I get anything done.

You quickly learn to take advantage of whatever time you have. You know you are a busy mum when your one goal for the morning is to be on the 8:30am train to work, after having dumped your kids at school or kindy. Once you collapse onto the seat, you know the hardest part of the day is done, and no matter what happens at work, you have succeeded. You are a success. You made the train.

At home, you get caught up in all those things that you have to do: Laundry, dishes, bathroom. Remembering to feed the fish – but checking he’s still alive first. You get creative in cleaning the armpits of your hubby’s work shirts at midnight, so he has something clean to wear the next day. Lunches are made during your morning coffee when your eyes are hardly open. You let your kids wear tracksuit pants and a T-shirt to bed, and then decide the next morning that they look clean enough to wear for the school drop-off, after a stain check of course! Yes, these ARE signs of creativity, not laziness.

I love Serendipity. I love the intricacies of life. Synchroncity. Fate. The Universe. It's fascinating. It's all maths. It's all a balancing act. How can I lose? I have to admit I get cranky when I'm trying to read or write something, and someone needs a sandwich. Geeeez, didn't I do that 10 minutes ago? Or was it yesterday?

And in this rush to get things done, and do things I want to do - I forget my serendipitous little man on the couch. Warmer weather is coming - time to get outside and enjoy Spring :)

Serendipity is my new column in the new Hazed e-mag, available September 1st. See Hazel Loves Design for more information - You'll find a link in my Favourite Blogs list...

Hazed Magazine - read it here!!!

The Columnist

So I have been off on other tangents for a while, but I'm still breathing.

I am going to be a columnist. And the fact that it will be in an e-mag based in NZ (bro) means that I reserve the right to be referred to as 'Internationally renowned columnist, [insert pseudonym here], BA LLB'. I'm designing business cards already. Well actually not yet... but I will have to eventually.

What do I write about? Universe knows. The first instalment is due by the end of July. I still need to work on a title and byline... two sentences to describe me. My first thought was 'disappointed non-runner in bridge to brisbane'.. but that crisis is over - its going to be the 10km so I can get to Uni on time. Yes, on a Sunday!

I'm not going to confess that I had to google 'columnist' just to be sure I spelt it correctly.

The underlying theme of this column is inspiration. It is meant to tie in with the e-mag's first issue, and Spring (when it is being released)... think bright colours, family friendly anecdotes and the whole "oh I'm a busy struggling Mum, but aren't we all, so let's have a giggle over a cuppa" type of column.


Google is great. I even googled how to write a column. This might not be the sign of an 'internationally renowned columnist' emerging... meh.

no point necessary - egoism just is

Tonight I went to my first writers' group at our local library. I had no idea what to do, expect, bring .. wear.. so I did what any self-respecting, curious and 'most likely to be defined as unbalanced' person would do - I googled "what should I take to a writers' group?" I wouldn't mind reading all the questions I've typed into google's search engine.. would be like a travelling circus diary of my life ;p

I took some notes on a piece of paper I siphoned from Twintensity and thought I would post them here - because I, a. will lose this piece of paper and b. I feel inspired!

The plot thickens....

Tonights session was about plots.  

Some nice things were said about plots. They are the journey of the story. They are meant to test our virtues and highlight our flaws. 'We' being the characters in the story.

You start with your character - You begin with their traits. Their greatest virtue and greatest flaw.
Then do the same with their goals, motivation and conflicts. The story is about what the character wants, their motivation. You then add the conflict - external and internal conflicts that get in the way of the character reaching their goal. Often the conflicts aggravate each other.

Your main plot thread can be romance (non gender specific person meets another non gender specific person and they do stuff that doesnt offend anybody), crime/thriller (solving the problem) or adventure. Apparently there are hundreds more.. or maybe 80 I cant remember. I do remember in Film & Television in high school we learnt about the 7 storylines ... there are literally only 7 storylines in existence.. and the millions of movies, books, plays etc are all bastardisations of these...

The incidences you write about must thicken the plot thread. Sub plots help or hinder the main characters. If the sub plot doesnt serve a purpose .. leave it out. George R.R Martin comes to mind. I love a Song of Ice and Fire, but there are so many sub-plots, that I am sure I will read the series at least 2 more times in this life.

Learn to love writing Synopses  if you want to be published. These aren't the blurbs on the back of books; these are the pieces of paper that will convince an Editor to read or at least want to read your book. No secrets - just all out there in its' most naked form. Kinda like having to write a 1000 word mini essay on the Rwandan Genocide.

I think the consensus was that the synopsis is about 500 words. And in table format? I like tables. And white space. :) Its also our homework for the next session. We are going to write the synopsis for our dream book :) Mine would be a historical fiction written in a fantasy world. Yeah.. I'll give it a go :)

A few other things are written on this page, meant to jog my memory but now I think my undiagnosed ADD is getting in the way ;p I'll write verbatim...

• Incident points are not the plot - Pick 3 and flesh them out
• "candy bar scenes"
• Storyboard cards - editing
• Backstory - knowing the character. Why they do certain things. Make the character full, a round dynamic without doing an info dump in the novel.
• narrative arc - Harry Potter, Song of Ice and Fire. "World building"

Twintensity keeps talking about Stephen King's book on writing. It sounds interesting.. but by most accounts, probably fizzles out by the end. I never did finish Geralds Game. He starts his planning of his books with an idea of 'What if?' As Twintensity said... "What if a woman and child were trapped in a house with a rabid dog outside?" I really like that. It reminds me of something I read about the Snowflake Theory(?) .. Process? Template? You start with the conflict scene or the most dramatic scene in the story, and work your way out from there - you plan the characters, the 'scenes', the story.

Wait. Method. Snowflake method. :)

An honourable mention must go to the hidden gem tonight. I was enthralled by a prologue written by one of the members. I would read her story. Everyone has a story - you just have to read people to find it.