Hello!
June is like ‘wow, I’m here and I’m going to be super busy and full-on and you’re cool with that, right? okay thanks bye!’
Or is it just me?
There’s been a shift in me that is very small, but feels monumental. I couldn’t tell you what caused it, but for most of this year I simply couldn’t imagine doing creative writing. I’ve been in a pretty dark place for a while now, but especially the last 2-3 months. I’ve been putting off picking up the projects that have been waiting for me — projects that I honestly felt like I wanted to work on, but simply couldn’t muster any sense of motivation for them — or much else besides.
Then June arrives, with it’s very full calendar, an entire writers festival I’ve helped organise, and other things filling my days and nights.
However, for some reason when I woke up on the 1st of June, I got it in my head I was going to finish the first draft of a creative project I’d told myself would take me two weeks… back in January. I’d been chipping away at it over the year, but very sporadically and sometimes going weeks at a time without even thinking about it. But, I got it done. (Well, the first draft, at least.) It was an incredible feeling to not only have fun playing around with words again, but to reach the end of it.
The next day, I woke up and was spontaneously compelled to revisit all the fiction projects that have been sitting in the draw for the last THREE (!!!) years while I’ve been working on my memoir. (What?! Yes! I got a ‘memory’ notification today that three years ago I was seeing Tori Amos in San Diego and felt the WTF-ness of time.) Also, I do mean compelled! I got straight out of bed and gathered my work together — two novels and three short stories — and put them into an app I use to read things to me as audio books while I’m driving around for work. I was so fixated on this task, I nearly forgot to have breakfast and then had to rush out the door in the harried way of the ADHD people.
In four days I’d listened to/read them all. One of the novels is about 75% complete at about 65k words I was delighted to discover that it’s much closer to being a full draft than I remembered, with less work required to hit that point than I’d anticipated. One of the short stories I felt did not need expanding into a novel like I’d once thought. Another I could absolutely see as the opening to a great fun novel, but I don’t have a sense of what the story would be about, just the characters in it. So, it can wait for inspiration. The final short story is absolutely screaming for expansion, but yet again, I don’t know yet what the overarching plot would be, so I’ll think more on that. The second novel (which is actually the first I ever completed) I’d been contemplating turning into a graphic novel manuscript. Now that I’ve read it again, while I believe it would work in that format, so much of the character/voice is internal narration which is difficult (not impossible) to translate into a more visually reliant medium. So much to ponder!
And thank you, Life, for deciding to reunite me with my creativity as my time becomes poorer than ever, I appreciate it.
Maybe I just thrive on being overworked? (Shhhhh! Don’t tell my therapist!) (Also, please make it not be like that; I really would like a little holiday, or even a nap?)
But I keep wondering what it was that changed, because the things that have been dragging me down certainly haven’t gone away nor been resolved; all the external factors affecting my life are just as uncertain as they’ve been for ages; and the world at large is just as much of a dumpster fire, if not more so…
What I keep coming back to is that maybe I caught a glimmer that even though I still feel the way that I have been, it occurred to me that I won’t always feel this way. Perhaps that’s the only thing that changed: I remembered that things change. I think some people call it hope.
As I wrote this newsletter, I was reminded of the ending of Shaun Tan’s The Red Tree.
I had these photos from a blog post I did a while back about the power a picture book could hold at various points in your life; even (especially) as an adult reader. If you’re interested, you can read that on my website:
So, in case you’d not realised, Q-Lit’s Naarm festival opens this coming Friday!
*Gasp!*
Yes! Friday 20th June is the Opening Night Gala!
If you’ve not checked out the program or booked your tickets yet, you’re doing yourself a disservice! We’ve already had a bunch of the events book out, and the rest are set to book out before the festival opens!
Personally, I’ll be at all the events, but I’m particularly excited for the Afternoon of Stories on Wednesday 25th at the Fringe Common Rooms in Carlton.
It’ll start with a panel discussion about why it is we write, our motivations and their payoffs hosted by Mama Alto, with Alison Evans and Chenai Mupotsa-Russell.
Then it’ll move into a storytelling showcase (in the tradition of Queerstories — an evening I’ve often referred to as ‘my church’) where we’ll get to hear storytellers from all kinds of disciplines and backgrounds tell us a story like we’re sitting around a campfire. Hosted by Maiah Stewardson, and featuring Nevo Zisin, Katerina Gibson, Artemis Munoz, Bebe Oliver and Troy Hunter. With music from Max Aurora. It’s going to be epic!
Well, I genuinely hope to see you at one or all of the Q-Lit events, but if you’re not in Melbourne and that’s impossible, I hope that you get some great queer literature in your life in lieu of a whole festival.
Until next time…
If you’re like me, maybe you just needed reminding that change happens.
💚💚💚
Michael