Detonate the one with the trophies, Sal! We didn’t ever want to stand up out the front like that. Once upon a time there was a chance to stay out of the limelight but good old Dad was always saying, Come on girls, just give it a go. Dive right in even if the water is freezing. Grab that hat, girl, and get out there. Give the dancing a go.

So off we went, you in your togs and me with my sash and fancy steps. By the time prize day came we were pretty good. Every day we practiced. Every day we felt resentful. I wanted to spend the summer reading and you wanted to take it easy with your friends but Dad had a houseful of daughters and no sons. He seemed to need to make something of us.

He’d signed us up…extra swimming for you (you had a facility)…then he looked at me doubtfully. I don’t think you’re going to be very tall, you’re not very good at sports but any girl can dance. So for me it was the Pride of Erin and the Barn dance, the classes on Friday night where the girls outnumbered the boys. Because of that we had to dance with each other. We were very confused about male and female parts, about how to lead and who to follow. We waited all night for our five minutes with the instructor.

One night you said you’d rather dance and because of that you came with me once but you spent half the evening outside with that boy you liked who’d come out specially to meet you…until finally Dad drove up and I rushed around the corner of the hall to tell you he’d arrived and to hurry up.

For most of my life I’ve worked as a cook to bring in the bucks and I still do now. Each year, in a quiet little commercial kitchen across the other side of town I churn out three and a half thousand meals while running a zillion circles around the middle island bench where I chop, chop, chop. I make soups and main meals and always desserts. Monday is cake,Tuesday is something fruity and Wednesdays are always ‘naughty dessert,’ the ones that make you feel like a kid when you eat them. Vanilla slice. Ice cream sundaes. Trifle with strawberry jelly and whipped cream and if you’re really going all out, chocolate curls.

But I digress. Or maybe not.
You see the thing about cooking and writing is that they are by nature the same. You start with an idea. You search around to see if someone else has done something like it and if so how they managed. You get your tools; your knife and board, spices and oils, your laptop and notebook and pens. You just go ahead and get it done, step by step and word by word. You hope that it will look how it is on your head. You hope it will taste good. You hope someone else might like it.
You put it out before someone you love or maybe someone you don’t know.
‘Here,’ you say, ‘try this.’ And often times they will.

Here’s the other thing.
When you cook, when you write, you get the breathing space to piece things together. Maybe it’s a dish, or a story or even a part of yourself.

I cook to write to write to cook.
At work I think about the roast shoulder of lamb I want to make on the weekend. Or the orange zest I’ll add to the tahini biscuits I tried last week because I think they might taste better if I do. At night when I lie in bed and my body is sore from cooking I think about the puzzle pieces of the story I’m writing and how they might fit together. I listen to the cicadas and I feel lucky. Because I can eat what I like and say what I like and that feels like freedom.

And that would be about 1 minute of the 5 minutes down! Bloody mac! Took far too long to load up. Or is it just my impatience? As my dad would say “You’re like the bad doctor – you’ve got no bloody patience!!” He could be right…

So here I am. In Melbourne. My beloved “hometown”. Place of real vanilla slices, where the sacking of the Collingwood coach would usurp any mention of World War 3’s outbreak on the front page of the “little paper”. Where there are 4 seasons in one day – today’s season is exceptionally fucking hot, dry north wind summer. The Vic Market, sensational doughnuts from the American Doughnut kitchen (always get the double jam) and where ugg boots and moccasins abound.

But I’m here in Carlton (Go Blues!!!!!), at La Luna Bistro. And I’m not eating (well not at the moment). I’m here in a room full of strangers and we’re all writing. It is silent apart from tapping of keys, the wrinkling of paper and the scratching of pens. We’re at a “Gunnas Masterclass” with the infamous Catherine Deveny – who may or may not be fatter in real life! She’s wearing a bright green, Joan Kirner-esque spotted dress and a bright shade of red lipstick. There’s a little green clip in her dark hair and a cherry necklace around her neck. It reminds me of 1950’s understated glamour.

We’ve gone around the table and we’ve introduced ourselves.   It’s taken a couple of hours. And now we’re writing. There are a lot of “PhD’s” here. (I hope that you’re reading this as fddds). We’re all here for a variety of different reasons. Some of us are professional writers, some of us are academics, some of us are looking to unblock creative constipation, others want inspiration. I’m here because I play piano in a whorehouse. Actually, I don’t do that, but my day job is far more embarrassing and it’s a much more interesting thing to say that you do, n’est-ce pas?

I’m Senior Legal Counsel in Wealth Management at the *&()^%% Bank. I hate being with that Bank. I loathe financial services. I loathe financial planners who are dodgy product floggers with as many scruples as Dracula in charge of the Red Cross Blood Bank.   It makes me sick. And then there are my everyday clients in the business who are like recalcitrant children who never listen to their mummy. And I’m a good mummy! I warn them of the risks, I tell them the rules. I set out all of the bad things that could happen, I give them options but I leave the decision up to them. Then they go over the edge. They go too far. Then they tell me “it’s like you have an 18 year old son who has just got their driver’s licence and a car. You don’t just tell them they should get car insurance.   You make them get car insurance!”

Actually – no. Your job in the business is to make your own decisions. My job is to give you information and advice to use in making those decisions. If you don’t take that advice, well that’s your fucking problem not mine.

Everyday, I get up – a la Dolly Parton – “I roll myself out of bed and pour myself a cup of rendition…” Is it rendition or have I just stuffed up the words and kind of “Alex the Seal-ed/ Our Lips Are Sealed” by the Go Gos, Dolly?   I think I’ve stuffed up. Rendition makes no sense… but then lots of things are nonsensical.

I put on my non-iron Leona Edmiston “frock”, my shiny stockings and slip into my ballet flats. The hot heels come later… I put on my battle mask (supplied by Mecca Cosmetica), grab my 2 and a half year old daughter and jump into “Blanche” – my trusty white Corolla. We drive to Artarmon, where I take Phoebe to Nicky’s Kidstown Daycare. We go past the McDonald’s at Gordon. Phoebe points it out and says she loves “chippies”. By 7.30am, I’m at daycare and drop Phoebe off. Then I park Blanche and walk down to the train station.

There I join the sea of commuters. Those soulless zombies boarding the train heading off to work. I think of TS Eliot and “The Wasteland” and wonder how “death has undone so many”.

I am one of those dead. I approach the modern glass buildings in $%^&*( Street.   They shine and gleam in the morning sun. They don’t look like glass prisons.

My stomach lurches and I head into the building. I pass through the barrier gates, hoping that the jaw like gates don’t slam on me. I was always a bit nervy about that when I was pregnant. I get into the lift and I proceed to our floor. We work in activity based working. This is modern day code for we only have enough desks for 80% of our staff. People don’t have regular workspaces. There are no places for photos or mementos that might suggest you are not a worker bee, that you may be an individual and that you may have a life outside of work. Each desk must be left vacant every night. Clinical.

There are some good people at work. There are people I trust. Some of my clients are really nice. Sometimes we have a laugh.

Then there are the other people. The narcissistic psychopaths, the backstabbers, the meeting attenders, the “influencers”, the blaming clients, the clients who just will not listen…

Oh the frustration. When I go to work, I do my best. I use my considerable intellect, I think outside the square, I solve problems and, I give of myself. I give of myself and it is never, ever enough. They always want more.

I am tired. I am not happy. I want to be happy. I don’t know how to get to happy.

And then I saw the Gunnas Writing Masterclass on Facebook the other week. And I knew. I just knew. It was the right thing. It was something that I had to do. For some months now, there has been a voice bubbling away inside of me. It’s been rearing its head in strange places. Observations of people, situations, places. Words that long to be written. Sentences strung together and for meaning to pour out. I have to write.

The class has ended now. I’m sitting at Melbourne Airport drinking bubbly water and typing on the Mac. I’m reflecting on the day. The food was great! The class was practical, amusing with lots of good tips to just frigging do it. You know it was a lot like Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT. It was about just putting it out there. About murdering the myth of motivation and promulgating the power of action.

So where to now? Well aside from the plane back to Sydney and then going to Gold Class to see “Star Wars” with my hubby tonight, I’m not sure.

But that’s ok.

A story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Today was my beginning.

And that would be about 1 minute of the 5 minutes down! Bloody mac! Took far too long to load up. Or is it just my impatience? As my dad would say “You’re like the bad doctor – you’ve got no bloody patience!!” He could be right…

So here I am. In Melbourne. My beloved “hometown”. Place of real vanilla slices, where the sacking of the Collingwood coach would usurp any mention of World War 3’s outbreak on the front page of the “little paper”. Where there are 4 seasons in one day – today’s season is exceptionally fucking hot, dry north wind summer. The Vic Market, sensational doughnuts from the American Doughnut kitchen (always get the double jam) and where ugg boots and moccasins abound.

But I’m here in Carlton (Go Blues!!!!!), at La Luna Bistro. And I’m not eating (well not at the moment). I’m here in a room full of strangers and we’re all writing. It is silent apart from tapping of keys, the wrinkling of paper and the scratching of pens. We’re at a “Gunnas Masterclass” with the infamous Catherine Deveny – who may or may not be fatter in real life! She’s wearing a bright green, Joan Kirner-esque spotted dress and a bright shade of red lipstick. There’s a little green clip in her dark hair and a cherry necklace around her neck. It reminds me of 1950’s understated glamour.

We’ve gone around the table and we’ve introduced ourselves.   It’s taken a couple of hours. And now we’re writing. There are a lot of “PhD’s” here. (I hope that you’re reading this as fddds). We’re all here for a variety of different reasons. Some of us are professional writers, some of us are academics, some of us are looking to unblock creative constipation, others want inspiration. I’m here because I play piano in a whorehouse. Actually, I don’t do that, but my day job is far more embarrassing and it’s a much more interesting thing to say that you do, n’est-ce pas?

I’m Senior Legal Counsel in Wealth Management at the *&()^%% Bank. I hate being with that Bank. I loathe financial services. I loathe financial planners who are dodgy product floggers with as many scruples as Dracula in charge of the Red Cross Blood Bank.   It makes me sick. And then there are my everyday clients in the business who are like recalcitrant children who never listen to their mummy. And I’m a good mummy! I warn them of the risks, I tell them the rules. I set out all of the bad things that could happen, I give them options but I leave the decision up to them. Then they go over the edge. They go too far. Then they tell me “it’s like you have an 18 year old son who has just got their driver’s licence and a car. You don’t just tell them they should get car insurance.   You make them get car insurance!”

Actually – no. Your job in the business is to make your own decisions. My job is to give you information and advice to use in making those decisions. If you don’t take that advice, well that’s your fucking problem not mine.

Everyday, I get up – a la Dolly Parton – “I roll myself out of bed and pour myself a cup of rendition…” Is it rendition or have I just stuffed up the words and kind of “Alex the Seal-ed/ Our Lips Are Sealed” by the Go Gos, Dolly?   I think I’ve stuffed up. Rendition makes no sense… but then lots of things are nonsensical.

I put on my non-iron Leona Edmiston “frock”, my shiny stockings and slip into my ballet flats. The hot heels come later… I put on my battle mask (supplied by Mecca Cosmetica), grab my 2 and a half year old daughter and jump into “Blanche” – my trusty white Corolla. We drive to Artarmon, where I take Phoebe to Nicky’s Kidstown Daycare. We go past the McDonald’s at Gordon. Phoebe points it out and says she loves “chippies”. By 7.30am, I’m at daycare and drop Phoebe off. Then I park Blanche and walk down to the train station.

There I join the sea of commuters. Those soulless zombies boarding the train heading off to work. I think of TS Eliot and “The Wasteland” and wonder how “death has undone so many”.

I am one of those dead. I approach the modern glass buildings in $%^&*( Street.   They shine and gleam in the morning sun. They don’t look like glass prisons.

My stomach lurches and I head into the building. I pass through the barrier gates, hoping that the jaw like gates don’t slam on me. I was always a bit nervy about that when I was pregnant. I get into the lift and I proceed to our floor. We work in activity based working. This is modern day code for we only have enough desks for 80% of our staff. People don’t have regular workspaces. There are no places for photos or mementos that might suggest you are not a worker bee, that you may be an individual and that you may have a life outside of work. Each desk must be left vacant every night. Clinical.

There are some good people at work. There are people I trust. Some of my clients are really nice. Sometimes we have a laugh.

Then there are the other people. The narcissistic psychopaths, the backstabbers, the meeting attenders, the “influencers”, the blaming clients, the clients who just will not listen…

Oh the frustration. When I go to work, I do my best. I use my considerable intellect, I think outside the square, I solve problems and, I give of myself. I give of myself and it is never, ever enough. They always want more.

I am tired. I am not happy. I want to be happy. I don’t know how to get to happy.

And then I saw the Gunnas Writing Masterclass on Facebook the other week. And I knew. I just knew. It was the right thing. It was something that I had to do. For some months now, there has been a voice bubbling away inside of me. It’s been rearing its head in strange places. Observations of people, situations, places. Words that long to be written. Sentences strung together and for meaning to pour out. I have to write.

The class has ended now. I’m sitting at Melbourne Airport drinking bubbly water and typing on the Mac. I’m reflecting on the day. The food was great! The class was practical, amusing with lots of good tips to just frigging do it. You know it was a lot like Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT. It was about just putting it out there. About murdering the myth of motivation and promulgating the power of action.

So where to now? Well aside from the plane back to Sydney and then going to Gold Class to see “Star Wars” with my hubby tonight, I’m not sure.

But that’s ok.

A story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

Today was my beginning.

My name is Yvonne and I am a procrastinator. There. I said it. Now that I have made the admission, where is the 12-step program to overcome this affliction? Surely there is a Procrastinator’s Anonymous session somewhere out there for me to attend? However, I am very specialised in my application of procrastination. I seem to find alternative things to do when it comes to writing up my PhD thesis. I am at the home stretch. All the data has been collected and analysed. The advantage of the craft of writing is that it leads one to new ideas and additional perspectives where the sum of the parts becomes a cohesive whole. I have enjoyed the experience of this glorious process… on rare occasions; but I need to make a regular habit of it.

I sit poised at the computer, fingers at the ready atop of the keys, waiting for the tappity tap tap that alerts me to my flow. But all I get is staccato sounds; infrequent, small bursts of activity amidst long silences…. Ideas? Where’d they go? What was I just thinking? I have a thesis to work on – I talk incessantly and passionately about my research, but as soon as I am in front of a screen with a keyboard, everything disappears from my head – a miraculous vanishing act. I resemble a frustrated pianist with the finest of instruments, waiting for a concerto or symphony to flow out of me. And what is my output? A crappy jingle that has probably been unintentionally plagiarised from something I’ve heard before. Ugh…  I know the tools of the trade, the tricks to tickle the habit, and yet I resist using them. Write everyday. Be disciplined in your approach. Set daily goals/tasks/topics. Make them public so you are accountable (does humiliation for not doing what you publicly claimed really work as a motivating force?)

I struggle.

I procrastinate.

I do everything to not write.

I’m afraid.

I’m a fraud.

I’m a fool.

I’m frustrated.

I am unfinished.

I find myself waiting for inspiration, knowing full well that this is not the way to get ideas (or writing) out of me. I have encountered profound flashes of writing elation, where I get lost in the moment and write with fervour in a feverish fit of flow. And then it stops. Dead. Where did it go? How do I get it back? What if I have nothing of value to say? WTF?

I do not believe (enough) in my own ideas and musings. I am afraid of being publicly consumed and criticised. It seems that I am a coward. And I am eternally suffering an existential crisis by remaining in the safe confines of my own head. I am passionate about sharing discourses and delving into dialogues about the human condition. I can discuss such things with strangers on a bus, travellers on a train and customers waiting at the supermarket checkout… and yet, I struggle enormously to articulate my thinking via the written word. Can I find the right word(s)? Can I get my meaning across? Am I using too many adjectives? Am I over complicating what is an essentially simple premise: my struggle to contemplate and capture ‘stuff.’ Stuff is slippery. I forget stuff. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I know that I know the underlying theoretical issues that help explain some stuff, but I labour with accessing this knowledge. My memory is not sharp. Maybe if I wrote more, I would be more successful accessing what I know, or maintain the knowledge better? But these are the ‘what ifs’ that I am riddled with. What if my mind was sharper? What if I was a different version of myself that overcame these insecurities? What if, in a parallel universe, another me was successfully forging ahead?

None of these questions help me get on with the job of writing now! Even while writing this piece on the challenge of writing, I have followed the white rabbit down the hole and been distracted by new thoughts and ideas, losing my grip on the theme I was expanding (or lamenting) upon. The Mad Hatter teases me; the Cheshire Cat grins tauntingly at me. My brain pings. I want to follow every new trajectory in a manner that is akin to experiencing ADHD symptoms. I start many projects and very rarely complete them all. Poor form. Poor discipline. I lose interest. I can rationalise that I have learned what I wanted and thus move on. But this is self-deception of the highest order.

So, here I am, an aspiring author struggling to ‘phinish’ my doctorate. Colleagues, friends and mentors have more belief in me than I do. What do I need to spur me over the phinishing line?  How do I access the internal dialogue and transform it into an academic thesis?

I am going to monitor and write about the process. I will share my odyssey over the next few weeks and months. It doesn’t matter if you, dear reader, are not actually interested (though I do hope that you are). I need to forget that you might critique my process, or nod knowingly at my dilemma, offering no words of encouragement or enlightenment – because you know that while these are great to hear, they do not generate the writing. I know you will judge me, and I have to be comfortable with that. There will be flaws. I will mix tenses; use too many adjectives, analogies and metaphors. My narrative will lack cohesion; I will neglect to fully expound an idea due to being distracted, or simply losing my thread. I will feel vulnerable. I do feel vulnerable exposing myself to potential judgement. But I remind myself of the spirit of generosity that the majority of readers display because the ‘stuff’ resonates. Because of empathy and shared experience. So, I give myself permission to write badly. It is a self-full journey. I have to find my own way….

I am making the shift from waiting for inspiration to writing for inspiration. It is only one letter that is different, but I look forward to practicing the process whilst supping from my new Gunnas Writing Masterclass mug with the words: “fail while daring greatly…”

Exploring the world is one of my life passions, and so is sharing the stories of those adventures.

Travel for me is all about seeking out the essence of a destination.    I want to get to know a place, to feel and experience it rather than rushing from tourist site to site.    To explore and be ensconced in the atmosphere; to sit back and enjoy the tastes, smells, sights and sounds.

The concept of being lazy simply means not having to conform to the expectations of what I should be doing when I travel.   The idea of being constantly surrounded by fellow travellers ticking off a list of “must sees” sends a cold shiver up my spine.

What being lazy doesn’t mean is that you won’t find me at the top of that mountain or off exploring remote and difficult to get to places, cause I’ll be there!    But you’ll also find me sitting in a cafe for the afternoon, hanging out watching the world go by and sometimes doing absolutely nothing at all.

Stay tuned and enjoy the journey!

Jillian (aka Lazy)

Traveller, Dreamer, Writer, Photographer…

Once upon a time, long ago, there was a young boy who had travelled a thousand nights across desert sands, dangerous seas and ice-capped mountains to the land of tundras and reindeer where the ground was frozen and there were no trees. Why he had started on his journey and where he was bound for, he did not know. He remembered walking barefoot in the sweltering sun and hanging on to the mast of a wooden sailing boat in perilous winds. When he got to the mountains they gave him shoes, a spear and animal skin coat and sent him over the mountain top. When he got to the mountain top he looked down and saw a huge flat plain and in the distance the sea again with icebergs poking out like jagged teeth.

Every day as he made his way down the mountain to the tundra below the wind blew against his face so hard he could hardly breathe and his chest felt tight. But still he walked on following the trails of reindeer. Every night he wrapped his arms around his knees so that he was as small as he could possibly be under his animal skin coat and fell asleep to the sound of wolves howling. Sometimes the wolves would come to his side, curious to know what this boy was doing in such a bleak and desolate landscape. They listened to his breathing as he slept and heard the whispers of his story on the wind blowing across the frozen ground, and lay down close beside him to keep him warm and protected until the pale sun began to rise in the sky above.

One day the boy woke up with a sense of foreboding. The wolves had gone and the harsh wind was battering against his face so that he found it hard to open his eyes. He felt like he was carrying the ghosts of his past on his back. He pulled his animal skin coat tighter around himself, and too tired to get up and continue walking, he fell asleep and dreamed a deep dark dream. He was back in the desert sands and sweltering sun, beads of sweat laced across his forehead, frightened and running because he had lost his mother. He could not find her, and like everyone else, just kept running until he saw the boat on the water.  Every day he scanned the horizon in case he could spot her. Every night his spirit traversed the universe looking for her but he never found her. But last night the wolves had called out and her spirit had come to him. Now he felt the imprint of her bones pressing against his back and he knew then that she had not abandoned him and that she would be with him until he reached his destination.

Because of that he breathed in deeply and took his strength from the wind and started walking with the weight of her bones imprinted on his back. Winter turned into Spring and still he was walking but the wind had lessened and the arctic hares had come out of hibernation. The frozen land turned soggy making it harder for the boy to struggle across it, but he did not give up. The grey skies lifted and ribbons of blue stretched across the horizon and patches of brown green marsh were flecked with small white flowers. Still the wolves protected him, understanding now the purpose of his journey. They left him food when the weight of his mother’s ghost made it too hard for him to do his own hunting. And the wolves howled at night with a different voice, telling the Yupik nomads in the lands below of the boy’s story and his imminent arrival. And the nomads’ hearts swelled with sadness for the boy.

And because of that the nomads spent the summer making a special tent lined with thick reindeer skins for the boy to live in and hunted for extra seals so that he would never be hungry over the coming winter. Then they built a sacred pile of stones for the boy’s mother to rest in so that the boy and his mother would know that they had finally reached their new home.

Until finally one late summer morning, waiting on a windswept hill, two reindeer herders spotted the boy with the weight of his mother’s bones imprinted on his back slowly walking his way towards them, and they rode with their sledge to meet and welcome him. The boy thought it was a dream when he saw them coming, and had to pinch himself as the sleigh flew across the landscape to the tent village where everyone was waiting for him. And when he saw the special tent and the sacred pile of stones, and the rainbow arc across the sky, he knew he was finally home and the weight of his mother’s bones fell off him and for the first time in a thousand nights, he smiled.