All posts by Princess Sparkle

Testimonial 54

Testimonial

I wrote this piece yesterday after a wonderful day spent in a Gunnas Writing Masterclass with the incomparable Catherine Deveny. The task was to send her a piece written between 10am and 10pm on the day. ‘But how? I’m going straight out to dinner and to see a show. I won’t be able to do it’. But no excuses would do. So I texted my husband the simple words…’Bring your laptop’. Later, parked in our car on a city street, I sat with the laptop on my knee and frantically tapped out this piece from the notes I’d scrawled in the masterclass. I had to do it – would never forgive myself if I didn’t – and so I did. I emailed it to Catherine, typos and all, and felt a great sense of satisfaction. The feedback and support from Catherine the next day was absolutely thrilling and so that mad writing session in my car felt even more worthwhile. It was such a great experience that I’m sure any aspiring writer would enjoy. Plus, Catherine wears amazing shoes with little musical notes engraved on the soles. So there’s that too.

Melinda Hildebrant

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Testimonial 52

Testimonial

Hey Catherine,
Wanted to thank you for yesterday, your sharing of your life experiences both as a writer, a woman and all round fabulous human being. I loved the pearls of wisdom, your wicked sense of humour and fabulous frock and expensive shoes. The space you create and the connections you make with each and very one of your gunna’s is special, also the space you create for your gunna’s to connect to each other is a great gift. La Luna is the perfect space long table with white cloths a space full of potential. The food was fabulously glorious and coffee perfect for this Greek coffee/food loving vegetarian lezo single mum (wif a daughter) Christos Tsiolkas wanna be! The timing was perfect and it’s the self care I needed!!! To be around creative nurturing folk like yourself. I loved that I didn’t even have to make a decision about what food to order!
Well done for creating a space for people to come and get whatever they want out of it!
I came home and read. I didn’t feel guilt about not writing and handing something to you 10pm, I’ve always got dead lines!! I’ll be taking up the gunna’s challenge though. Shit scared and excited at the same time.
Just wanted to share.
A million thanks.


Maria xx

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Testimonial 52

Testimonial

Six months ago, a fellow student in my Masters program at Melbourne University took advantage of my offer of my spare bedroom for interstate students needing accommodation for our two day intensive sessions on campus.

When on Day 1 he asked me if I was a writer, I knew what he was talking about. I have at least three books on writing on the shelves in the spare bedroom, and possibly others elsewhere. Despite having bought them at various times in the past, I have never read them. From time to time I’d dabbled in writing and then given up when it got too hard, or I didn’t have enough time. I’d also journalled frantically in times of crisis, but I’d never made any sort of commitment to serious, ongoing writing.

Catherine Deveny describes her classes as “creative enemas”. It’s a great description. Dev forces you to write for one minute, for five, ten or fifteen minutes, using totally disconnected prompts. There are no excuses.

I learned so much over two days of classes (Masterclass + Advanced): my writing doesn’t have to be perfect, and yes, the writing process is hard. You don’t have to commit to sitting down and writing for hours at a time. You don’t have to confine yourself to one writing project or even one genre at a time. If you’re writing a story, you don’t have to know the ending before you begin.

I came home from La Luna today (incidentally, totally amazing food!) and read the first fifty pages of Stephen King’s “On Writing”. I can’t wait to read Kate Grenville’s “The Writing Book” and Pamela Lloyd’s “How Writers Write”. I am no longer fearful of putting words on paper.

According to Dev, there is no such thing as inspiration. I think she is wrong. She is an amazing, generous, and, dare I say it, inspirational teacher. Thank you, Catherine, for two days of warmth, fun, encouragement and guidance. And thanks to my fellow class members, who over two days have shared their writing, their fears and their experiences with the rest of us.

Kath Kenny

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…and now for something completely different – Mommy With Balls

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Most days are very similar around here, getting up when the first of the maggots wakes up and demands attention…making breakfast/lunch/dinner, entertaining the brood, changing nappies, keeping the entropy in check, eventually going to bed and repeating it all again the next day. Yesterday was different, yesterday I went to Catherine Deveny’s Gunnas Writing Masterclass.

I write, obviously, you are reading my writing now but blogging comes relatively easy to me. It’s mostly ranting anyway or just some pictures thrown together and for some reason I rarely encounter any difficulties pressing the “publish” button. Ok, I sometimes encounter the problem of over-thinking and over-editing what I write and then need to force myself to let go and just throw the piece out there but this doesn’t happen too often. It happens when something is close to my heart. The more important a piece of writing is to me, the harder it becomes to finish and publish it. The longer I am editing, re-writing, polishing the words the harder it becomes to let go. There is one novel I’m working on and off for nearly 20 years now and it’s writing with my heart’s blood and I am at the point where I am petrified.

The lovely wife presented me with a gift voucher for the writing class for Christmas and I was really looking forward to go. I had no idea what was going to happen and I didn’t have any expectations other than “even if it’s completely useless I will spend a day in the company of people older than 4″, which is a rare thing for me anyway and needs to be treasured.

CLICK TO READ MORE AT MOMMY WITH BALLS BLOG

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Feminism 70s style  – M.McCarthy

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

                  I was taught to always let boys win
                  And to turn the other cheek
                  When I was young and in my teens
                  And only boys wore jeans
                 Then along came Simone De Beauvoir
                 And our very own Germaine
                 They turned our ordered lives around,
                 Inside out and upside down
                 They hung out with Bohemians
                 Which quite appealed to me
                 But how could a married convent girl
                 Quite suddenly “go off her tree”
                 But Julie Hendy took my hand
                 And led me to the march
                 With banners, songs and true conviction
                 Women’s lib had arrived at last
                “Don’t be too polite girls”
                We sang with all our might
                “Show a little fight girls”
                 I cringed but shouted out
               “What good is a man as a doormat
               Or following at the heel
               It’s not their balls we’re after
               Just a fair square deal”   (G.Tomasetti)
               Those feminists turned the other cheek
               As I left then returned to the march
               I’d sneaked off home to cook lunch for
               My hard working bewildered man
               Another march, another time
               I’d gotten the hang by then
               With a 7 months baby bump in my tum
               I turned ‘round to check out behind
              Shock horror gripped me once again
              As I read the great big sign
              “Abortion On Demand” it said
              With me leading the line
             Can’t thank those feminist’s enough
             Jan, Julie, Anne and Sue
             They’ll not read this but they have my respect
             ‘Cause they’ve helped me through and through
             I’ve been to uni and got a degree
            Raised two sons and feel quite free
            Choose to live my life from the heart
            And around each new corner is a brand new start
            Don’t know if I’d ever have come quite this far
            Without “Feminism” and blokes with a heart.
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A Hint of Haiku a Glimpse of Me – The Comeback Kid

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
If I wrote Haiku
in Gunnas  today then
it would be concise

or many concise
points from my perspective on
my experience

I have yet to say
anything about my feelings
they are avoided

so, I feel into
my body and I feel tense fear
constricting my whole being

I keep writing and
throat clenched against rising vomit
my shoulders are tense

my stomach feels like
a concrete slab, reinforced
and I continue

I am a survivor
of self inflicted murder
obviously failed

not witty, not fun
just lost and hurt and broken
If I didn’t die

Then I was meant to

live, so I better
start living and that means
integrating me

All of me into
me, all feelings and thoughts
merging into me

and now I gestate
this unborn me and I love
I love and nurture

nourish, protect, serve
myself because with help I
realise that I am

I am here, I am
I am here and I matter
I matter to me

owari

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Escape from Monotony – Stella Moss

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Every day was the same. Monotonous. Futile. Tedious. It was always going to be just a matter of time before I snapped.

As I knelt on the bed, giving a sad hand job to a pathetic man, I cast my gaze around the room. The lurid pink walls and tacky red satin sheets were more offensive in the dim lamplight than they seemed under the fluorescent room light. The organza draped ‘tastefully’ around the room did nothing to soften my mood, either.

God, I hate this place.

The pathetic man, lying back in what I can only presume was a state of euphoria, groaned.

“Oh, baby. Keep going.”

I rolled my eyes. Really? I smiled sarcastically at him, daring him, no, willing him, to open his eyes and see it. But he didn’t, so I slipped into my world of dreams. I called up my favourite fantasy – the one where I’m a surgeon, and I can cure cancer. I slice and stitch with the greatest of skill, helping people to heal and letting them live their lives to the fullest. The patient I was working with this time was a single mother with a brain tumour. She had four kids at home, whose lives depended on her survival. I skilfully moved the scalpel, knowing how other surgeons must pray to be a fly on the wall, to learn to work miracles the way I do. With the tumour cut free, I pulled at it with the tweezers…

“Hop on baby, let me take you for a ride,” moaned the man, dragging me from my fantasy.

That was it.

I yanked hard on the appendage in my hand. It had the desired effect.

“What the-?”

“I’m not your baby.” I cut him off. “I don’t even like you. In fact, you completely repulse me.” I spun on my heels, and flung the door open. “Fuck this shit! I’m sick of it all!” My scream raced through the wallpapered corridor, and a few of the girls stuck their heads out to see what was going on. I started marching, until I was flooded with a strange mixture of grief and relief, and then I was running. Far away from here.

Well, that was how it played out in my mind. The story reality told made me want to weep.

“Full service is extra, baby, and you’ll need to pay up now,” I whispered sweetly.

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There is no such thing as the perfect time: On living by the seat of your pants – Ashley Carr

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

When people start to get to know me and find out all the things my partner and I juggle in our lives (parenting three children, one of whom is our foster, I am currently doing a degree, between us we hold down several jobs, we have a beautiful staffy named Soren and a thriving veggie garden, we are committed to active involvement in our local community, and we each have lots of other projects on the side) I often hear “oh, you’re so good… I could never do what you do” and I never really know how to react. Yes, we have a lot on and it takes quite a lot of work making sure our foster daughter sees her dad and goes to counselling, and that our other children are travelling okay, but really, we’re just living our lives. I know it is a big deal because we have helped to change the life of a little girl and that is ace, but day to day? We are just getting along like any other family with its stresses and shitty times and great times.

We do things that might seem a bit reckless to other people. We have always lived by the philosophy that there will never be a perfect time to do things so just do the thing and figure out the logistics later. We made a choice to take a risk when we volunteered to be foster parents. We had a 5 year old and a new baby and we were on one very meagre income (still are!) and so, if we were planning and thinking strategically about it we never would have done it. But we did it anyway and made it work. If we hadn’t have done it, it would have been one of those deathbed regrets that no one wants to have. I now have three wonderful children that I love equally. I cannot imagine my life without my darling April.

Last year I attended Clare Bowditch’s Big Hearted Business Conference and among a whole heap of amazing inspiration, I was really challenged by something said by leadership expert, Fabien Dattner. She said she has banned the word “busy” from her vocabulary because it has so many negative connotations.

Busy = crazy, chaotic, being out of control and frustration. It means you feel like you’re missing out on the things you want to do.

Instead she chooses to say “my life is full of the things I choose to have in it”. She also talked about balance…and this is something I am working on in my own life constantly, she says:

“If you’re always worried about juggling and balancing, you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing”

This really hit home for me because of all of my commitments and responsibilities. I constantly feel like I have seven balls in the air at any one time. I’m sure people who know me and my family would forgive me for talking about my chaotic life. But I decided right there and then that I was also going to banish the word “busy” and to stop feeling like I am a victim of circumstance.

I have taken on Fabien’s advice to reframe my experience and now, when I start to feel overwhelmed with everything I take a step back, often by myself in a café, and say “My life is full of the things I have allowed to be in it, I am not too busy, I have exactly the right things in my life”. And thinking like this also helps me recognise when things should NOT be in my life and to do what needs to be done to remove unhelpful things.

We live by the seat of our pants, knowing that there is never a perfect time to live life, so we’re just living it now and having a bloody ace time of it. I sincerely encourage you to do the same.

 

 

 

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AWAKE IS THE NEW SLEEP – Melinda Hildebrandt

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

IT’S DAWN, barely a trace of sunshine coming through the windows, and already I can hear her crashing around in her room. The Kraken, also known as my six-year-old daughter Amelia, has awoken.

I know this because I can hear her clumsy, elephant-like footfalls pounding into the floorboards. Amelia is awake and the whole world must know it.

It would be churlish to complain because she is deaf and so has no earthly idea how loud she is, as she noisily gathers her numerous comfort items from the bed for transportation into the lounge room.

This is the routine for her, everyday, this girl who hears little of note without hearing aids and is well and truly on the autism spectrum.

Amelia uses various collective nouns to describe these important items. They are ‘her things’, or sometimes, ‘her stuff’.

“Where is my stuff Mummy? I need my THINGS”.

I know where her stuff is because it is never far from her side. She burrows these objects into her bed covers at night and I have to creep in after lights out to extract pencils from her hair and uncurl sweaty fingers from straws, tape, glue-sticks. The lot.

For a young child with autism, these things have a meaning beyond our reach. But what we know for sure it that they are vital this little magpie’s sense of security, her sense of self.

And so, each morning, these curious ‘things’ are dragged from her room and deposited next to her on the couch. Amelia is ready at 5am, or 6 if we’re lucky, to start her day.

It’s then that I feel her presence in the doorway to our room. She hovers there uncertainly, watching for movement, for signs of waking life.

I resist for a minute but I can’t help but lift my weary arm to offer her a little wave – words cannot travel the distance to my beautiful deaf child but one gesture can show her the way is clear for to approach.

And with this green light Amelia runs to my bedside, full pelt, to grasp my hand and throw her body across mine.

It’s my favourite time of day, the part when our bodies are so close and her face turns to my cheek to plant big, passionate smooches there. If I’m lucky, she might reach up to stroke my face with her hand.

Her sometimes-rough hands become gentle in the morning light.

I am barely awake but the smell of her, the feel of her, is everything to me in that moment.

Amelia is up and now so am I, and no matter what the hour, no matter how sleepless the night, and no matter how many ‘things’ I’ll be carting around for the rest of the day, in this moment my heart is bursting with happiness.

Dr Melinda Hildebrandt is a former film researcher and writer with a PhD in English. She writes about being the proud mother of Amelia who is deaf and autistic on her blog Moderate Severe Profound Quirky. You can find her on Twitter as @DrMel76.

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