Category Archives: On Reading

On Reading

Sir Terry Pratchett – A Thank You

Terry Pratchett

‘THERE IS NO MORE TIME, EVEN FOR CAKE.’ – Death, Night Watch

My thank you sounds out from upon a disc, which sits upon the backs of four elephants, who stand on the back of a giant turtle, named Great A’Tuin. Who knows what he makes of this turn of events.

My thank you is so loud and so heartfelt that it can hopefully cross oceans without falling off the edge, cross universes without becoming lost in translation, cross even the borders between life and death without getting lost.

Every Hogswatch for a long, long time, I received a staple gift from the Hogfather – the latest Terry Pratchett, the latest Discworld feast for the senses. In this universe, words do more than meet your eyes – they get inside your mind and take up residence there. They treat the place like their own and turn things upside down and inside out and make you crease with laughter and tears more often than you’d think any combination of words in any collection of works possibly could. Words that are seriously funny, but also seriously clever. And, sometimes, seriously serious. There is often a message in the madness, scathing satire in the sands.

If I can make a scratch on the wall of the world even a millionth in depth of the mark made by Terry Pratchett, I will have achieved something. Books that make me laugh out loud, but also make me stop and think, but also make me grieve, but also make me cartwheel at the triumph of craft are among my most treasured possessions – thanks to Discworld, I have whole shelves of them.

It’s heartbreaking, of course, that there’ll be nothing new from someone taken too soon – that’s a refrain I’ve heard a lot these past days. But, oh my life, who else has left us so much? Terry Pratchett knew how to make moving pictures with words. He knew the colour of magic. Thanks to him, we can read all about it in the words he’s left behind. Words with a life of their own. So, thank you, Terry Pratchett, thank you for every single word.

A Post About Postcards And A Very Special Guest

cover“I’d long ago stopped being angry with her, but seeing her handwriting, reading the messages in her delicate script sent me spiralling backward through time.” – Helena Hann-Baquiat

Something rather special is happening here soon. On May 1st, not only am I hosting an enchanting writer, I already know that I’m presenting you with the conclusion to an incredible story. Helena Hann-Basquiat is the author of Memoirs of a Dilettante – and if you don’t know what a dilettante is, darlings, go to her delicious blog to find out.

I love postcards. I hoard them. I also write them a lot. I’ve travelled heaps, so some lucky people have postcards from yours truly from all over the world. I write in tiny script and sometimes send multiple cards to the same person when I run out of room. Do you ever do something *you* love in the belief/hope that other people feel the same way? Receiving postcards is one of my favourite things, so I send them often. Postcards don’t just tell stories – they map out journeys… I’m so glad that I have a collection to dive into – snapshots of different people at different times and places, frozen in that moment.

I hope you’ll enjoy your snapshot of Helena’s journey – and join me tracing back through the blogosphere to find the rest of the tale. As with many things you glimpse – a photograph, a blogpost, a face – you’re probably not seeing the whole story in a postcard. I’m always interested in what came before and what comes after. What really happened? What makes someone the picture they present to the world? History becomes what people choose to write down… Who really knows the truth? But, then, what’s life without a little mystery?

Temporarily Alone. Permanently Lucky.

Screen Shot 2014-03-05 at 12.22.18 AMAm I good luck? Bad luck? Or just too damn cute?

My Dad left on the weekend, back to the UK after his visit to NZ came to an end. My Mum left after her visit a month ago now – how time does fly! Partner in crime is up in Auckland for work for two weeks, so I’m left alone (sniff), cheating on him with books and blogs.

Disgruntled as I am to be temporarily solo (more sniffs), a few things I’ve read and seen recently have made me realise how lucky I am. If you ever find yourself needing a little perspective, look no further than the stories all around you.

Helena HB’s story of the missing two dollars and Laura Bates’s most recent TED Talk on sexism and solidarity beyond borders are two stories that stopped me in my tracks this week. Is it right that I feel ‘lucky’ not to have been abused as a child or a partner? I don’t know. But I do. I feel thankful. So many people haven’t been that lucky. I’m always going to be grateful for coming from where I’ve come from. I feel awful for the people out there who have come from so much darker places and had their trust and human right not to be abused violated.

I’ve always been superstitious. Don’t walk under ladders. No new shoes on the table. Don’t step on the cracks. Never spill salt without flicking it over the left shoulder. Heaven forbid I ever break a mirror… But while I don’t believe in tempting fate, I do still believe in making your own luck. It kills me sometimes that we can’t control the luck of the draw – we can’t control where we’ve come from. We can’t control the horrible things that people can be capable of doing to each other. But some brave souls will always show us that, wherever you’ve come from and whatever has happened, we can still control where we’re headed. And we can still control our own actions.

Can everyone stop, pause and find something to feel lucky about? Are black cats good or bad luck? Remember not to walk under any ladders, but also remember to make your own luck. There’s so much bad in the world. We need to do some good stuff to balance it out. 

The Best Way To Checkmate & The Book To Be

The Book To Be

“There was a war in my head, thundering between my ears.

This had to be the ultimate fool’s errand.”

– Sara Litchfield, The Night Butterflies

Lots of lovely things happened this weekend, large and small: I finally finished Draft 2 of The Book To Be; I gained a new, lovely, editing client; I beat Partner In Crime at the chessboard; it was sunny on Sunday; we made stuffed potato skins; and we finally watched episode 14 of season 5 of Breaking Bad (aaaaaagggghh!!!).

I was (uncharacteristically) aggressive on the chessboard this weekend. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the fact I’m trying to be more aggressive in all of life’s challenges. Sometimes the only route to success involves pushing fiercely forward. I sacrificed quite a few pieces up front in order to give myself the space to manoeuvre and I didn’t end up regretting it.

Life is very chessy at the moment, especially with Project Get Published. Some people agonise over their opening, but I’ve always found making the first move relatively easy. It’s the battle that follows that can get bloody and messy. It can be frustrating that you can only control what you can control. You may think you’ve done everything to force a certain outcome, giving the opposition surely only one sensible option – only to find that they can still surprise you with their response. Sometimes, their move might seem completely counter-intuitive. But they’re playing their game – not yours. And you can’t rush them. They’ll move when they’re ready. All you can do is prepare your onslaught and keep plugging away every time they foil you. You have to not get distracted by anything shiny and concentrate on the goal, using all your powers of prediction to take the best possible position.

Sacrifice with care – you might think capturing the King all important and worth disregarding the other pieces of your life, but it might be better in the end if it takes a little longer but you emerge still having your friends, your partner, your clients and your colleagues to celebrate with. Sacrifice is necessary – I’ve certainly sacrificed the vast percentage of my social life, and it will be worth it. But it’s important to nurture the relationships and still do the chores that you might think slow you down, but in reality are really integral to your long-term success. I don’t want to achieve checkmate but have lost my mate in the process. It can be fantastic to be single-minded, but I think it takes more than one thing to give life meaning.

So I’m sure you’re dying to know. The Book To Be is a dystopian thriller of sorts. ‘Boy monster meets girl monster in post-apocalyptic university town and their fight for survival turns into a fight to bring down the system.’ It is taking *so* much longer for all the pieces to be in the right place to publish than I planned. But the time-investment and dollar-investment and the sacrifices along the way will be worth it. The best way to achieve checkmate is persistence and patience.

Is anyone else struggling to make the right moves at the moment? Anyone struggling to sacrifice the right pieces of life? Keep your eyes on the prize. It will be worth it. 

And, *deep breath* is there anyone out there with the time and inclination who would consider being a Treasured Beta Reader for The Night Butterflies? I have 2, I’d love 3 more. Haters of the dystopian genre / books told from several POVs / people with absolutely no time to read / people who are gleeful and lack tact when pointing out other people’s flaws need not apply lol. Please get in touch, if you would like to help me search and destroy poor plot & character points pre-publication. Do it for the karma / your name on the acknowledgements page. 

 

 

 

 

Tea, Cake & Inspiration

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‘If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; if you are depressed, it will cheer you; if you are excited, it will calm you.’

Lewis Caroll – Alice in Wonderland

You are all cordially invited to a global tea party. Here in my head, as at the Hatter’s party, ‘It’s always tea time.’ I imagine that at the most monumental moments of history, someone somewhere in the world was having a cuppa. And there’s really no bad time for tea. For those of you with me from the beginning, you may remember a wee Facebook post of a picture about a month ago announcing a tea & cake launch party. The date cometh this week – the 30th August. For those of you who think it’s mighty stingy inviting someone to a launch party without putting on the refreshments, I totally agree. So, for anyone who lets me know they’re ‘coming,’ or lets me know afterwards that on the 30th day of August they did indeed drink some tea and/or eat some cake that could be construed to be in the honour of Right Ink On The Wall, I shall put some pennies in a teapot for my chosen charity, Room to Read. If you ‘post’ me a wee pic of your tea/cake, I’ll double your personal contribution.

I’d like to reflect on the last four weeks and talk about four beams of inspiration that have played parts in them. I’ve come into contact with a lot of material to encourage and inspire – I’d like to list the best of business, books, blogs and bits of ‘making the world a better place.’

Business – How often does a branding business ask you to lead from your heart rather than for your pocket? Thought Cloud does just that. Its founder, Kat Kinnie, inspired the launch of my blog as well as being the writer of the first blog I ever subscribed to (not counting Bunny). Kat is writing a book on conscious branding and I connected with her to explore the most important aspect of setting up my business – not what I was doing, but why. Before our sessions, while I was in no way treading water, I’d equate my exploration of the idea of branding with snorkelling. Perhaps, every so often in my musings, there’d be an element of free-dive. What I experienced with Kat was a deep-sea dive, discovering a colourful reef at the bedrock of the business and spotting previously hidden species of fish. Kat is an inspiration in herself, being the first British woman to set up her own business in Australia, while on a holiday working visa, and through that business gain sponsorship for herself and sponsorship status for her company in the tightest of timeframes. She asks you to imagine a world in which you make a healthy living doing what you love and doing good at the same time. She shows you it’s possible.

Book – Actually, let’s say ‘author,’ as I’ve attacked her entire back catalogue in the last wee while and don’t want to focus on just one book here. The writer is Anne Bishop – expect another blog post on the inspiration to be found in the realms of her books – there’s too much to say here!

Blog There are so many blogs I’ve come into contact with in the last month that have made me smile, laugh and learn. One entry has even made me cry – and that’s the one that tops my list. Mary Louisa Locke wrote a guest post for Joe Konrath’s amazing blog, ‘A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing.’ It is a tribute to her father and to the idea that it is never too late to follow your dreams. There are always second chances. Click to read: On Second Chances and Role Models: A Tribute to my Father

Making the world a better place – I mentioned my chosen charity above, so a word about what I’m supporting. I’m supporting the hope that it’s possible to change the world, even if it’s only bit by bit, brick on brick. I’m supporting the belief that ‘world change starts with educated children.’ I’m supporting the idea that the greatest impact can be had here by focussing on literacy and gender-equality in education. Room to Read asks you to imagine a world in which every child has access to an education. This non-profit NGO was founded by John Wood, who left Microsoft to do so after a life-changing experience in Nepal. Of everything we make at Right Ink On The Wall, 10% is donated to changing the world. That’s 10% of revenue, not profit. Imagine a world in which every business does the same.

So, please join me on Friday – whether it’s my Friday, over here in NZ, or your Friday, somewhere else in the world (how weird is it that someone’s yesterday can be your tomorrow?). Raise a cup of tea and take a bite of cake and think how sweet it is that Right Ink On The Wall is in the world – encouraging you to pause for thought / sugary treats. Oh, and your question for the week – RSVP?