Hello Friends,
I’ve never been good at keeping a diary or journaling. It’s never been the friend I’d confide all my secrets in. If it were, I think they would have ditched me yonks ago from neglect.
Maybe that’s not entirely fair. For most of my life (at least until I leant into working on writing *books*) I’ve done various kinds of journaling. I would write endless poetry which I treated as if it were a journal. Capturing a feeling or a thought or an image in a bid to chronicle my days. The trouble with poetry, however, is that although it can reveal emotional truths, it’s very nature is typically sparce and lite on specifics (unless they’re so specific to reflect something greater). Reading back over them makes working out what ‘real-life’ event inspired the words difficult to place. Especially because I only started dating my poetry scribbles in the last few years. I have endless notebooks where all I know is a rough year of origin.
Then, there’s the ‘Open Diary’ (online journal) I kept somewhat diligently for a good eight or so years. And by diligently, I mean any song lyric or poem that caught my heart would be cut and pasted in as an entry, somehow acting as an emotional marker for that day. The posts which were actually me writing were PLAGUED with endless ellipses, as if every sentence or thought would go on forever… or I was giving clear directions should anyone read the entries aloud on stage as a monologue. Here, Dear Actor, is where you pause for dramatic effect… It amuses me now to reread these posts and be at a complete loss as to what actually happened because I’m usually hiding behind phrases like ‘he said something that really hurt’ or similar, rather than saying what the thing was. Even big significant events which would easily be considered okay for public consumption are hilariously sparse on details.
Here’s an entry from 2005 when I met Tori Amos for the first time and saw a literally life-changing show:
Well.... I met Tori Amos!!!!!!
she hugged me and signed my program......
I know that there are heaps of people out there who have met her many times and all of that but this was the first time for me.... and it was fantastic!!
I'd like to write more but I'm at uni and I should be doing work.... so I'll leave it at that...
Bye For now....
Dear Reader, ‘For now’, meant for good. I never returned to the event in my Open Diary again.
It makes me chuckle, really. Years and years I went on this way. I suppose there was also the fact that from the age of 18 through to 33 I was in a relationship which was not healthy (in more ways than I care to get into in this post). But I also learned early on that my journals and books of poems were not a private and sacred place. I would occasionally even find notes from him offering me love and support in relation to some tormented poem or other. At first I found it endearing and I just came to understand it as a part of our dynamic. But it also meant that I had nowhere to put my thoughts that he wouldn’t read, so many of my thoughts had no other home than my head. For fifteen years………………… (*insert light callback humour to break the tension*)
This year I’ve been struggling with my mental health considerably, and this last two weeks have been among the darkest and hardest for years. I don’t have a healthy relationship with myself, and things have transpired which have brought to the surface deeply rooted negative schemas and self-beliefs.
I’m sorry to treat you all like the Open Diary of yesteryear, but I’m not about to unpack it all here in my monthly newsletter. I more was using the idea of journaling as a prompt for my musings.
What I can tell you is that I’m journaling more than ever before, and I’ve changed how I approach it. I’ve started bullet journaling, and I’m still getting used to it but enjoying the process. I then try and actually ‘journal’ in earnest every day where I actively talk about the very specific things that are on my mind/in my life. I then move onto another notebook where I write at least one poem, much in the same way that I have done all my life, but now that the details are recorded elsewhere, I feel a freedom to be even more abstract in how I explore my emotions than ever before. Sometimes a line from the journal will appear in a poem. And I can tell you (because of my bullet journaling) that in the last three weeks, I’ve only missed out on two days of this practice.
I’ll also admit that — for the moment — this routine is consuming the time that I might have otherwise dedicated to ‘writing’ and I find myself questioning if all this writing counts for anything? Have I put my priorities in the wrong place? But each and every time I come back to the realisation: no. I’ve not. If I’m not looking after myself on a fundamental level, no amount of ‘output’ is worth it.
So I’m going to keep on, knowing these words count, even if no one will ever read them. Not even myself.
It’s your last chance to book your place for my writing workshop this Saturday.
Writing the Rainbow
For IDAHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia) I’m running a workshop with Bayside Libraries on what to consider when you’re writing Queer characters. It’s only $10 to book and goes for 2.5 hours! That’s such a bargain!
Sandringham Library, 1pm - 3:30pm on Saturday 17th May 2025
And, Only because it the biggest thing I’ve done all year, here’s another plug to Q-Lit’s Writers festival happening in June!
I’ve spent a lot of time programming this along with Timothy Christopher Ryan and the Q-Lit Team, and I’m so proud of what we’ve put together.
Running from the 20th of June to the 28th, there’s events of all kinds in different pockets of Naarm and I really hope you’ll come along to something if you can.
There are evenings of storytelling, romance, poetry, research and comedy. Panels and workshops and a book fair and music.
Featuring an incredible line up!
Bebe Oliver, Dean Arcuri, Tiger Salmon, Urvi Majumdar, Claire G. Coleman, Wallis Prophet, Noah Riseman, Lili Wilkinson, Rae White, Ed Moon, Christos Tsiolkas, Jes Layton, Charlee Brooks, Amie Kaufman, Reimena Yee, Paul Venzo, Carolyn D’Cruz, Tom Sandercock, Bron Bateman, Mama Alto, Alison Evans, Chenai Mupotsa-Russell, Maiah Stewardson, Nevo Zisin, Katerina Gibson, Artemis Munoz, Troy Hunter, Steph Crothers, Lazy Susan, Patrick Lenton, Scout Boxall, Matt Barron, Maddy Weeks, Neptune Henriksen, Shyaire, Natasha Hertanto, JC Roycroft, Jasper Peach, Fleassy Malay, Jax Brown, Andrew Rose, PoetPre, Hal Simons, Bayley Turner, and more to be announced!
And every event has a free ticket option, as well as a $15 or $30 option for those who can and would like to support us to do more in the future!
Also, you should jump on Q-Lit’s mailing list to keep up to date with everything they’re doing.
What would be even cooler, if you were to share the festival with your own friends and networks! It being our first major metro shindig means we’re very eager to make sure it’s a success.
I hope to see you at some event or other.
Keep on ticking on. You know I will be.
💚💚💚
Michael