Yeah, haven't been here in a long time, again. I'm thinking of using this blog and changing the focus, somewhat. Or should I just begin another one?

It's difficult to know. I may just leave everything as it is in the archives and shift the focus onto my crafter's challenge idea.

On a beading forum I hang out in most nights I read a question by one of the members asking if any of us had made everything in a beading magazine from cover to cover. I haven't, as yet, achieved this, but felt it would make a great challenge.

I'm thinking of calling this The Crafter's Cover to Cover Challenge. Most crafters purchase related magazines, but how often do they make every item in those magazines? I would say not too many of them achieve this. And there's nothing wrong with that, either. Sometimes magazines are simply an inspiration to create something original.

But how might skills improve and confidence grow if you were to select just one magazine you have? One with a few projects you're intending to try. Just go and look and think about it. Just one magazine, and then set about making each and every project inside it.

I've been going through my beading and jewellery mags with an eye to this challenge. Of course, there would need to be substitution involved. Not all materials would be available and the cost could really escalate. So, I suggest you make either the piece as is, or you make something like it, using the same technique or inspired by it. Does that sound fair enough?

This way crafters get to raid their already groaning supplies and still get plenty of excuses to purchase more products, which is something most of us hardly need any excuse for.

Anyway, the idea is still in its infancy. I'll post more info when everything comes together. I'm hoping to get a few people interested, so please share this info if you feel so inclined.

I haven't written anything in here for quite some time. One reason is that I pulled out of the Boot camp thingo. There were a few things I wasn't exactly happy with and for me the best thing was to just pull out and leave it alone.

I have been keeping busy writing, though. I have my other blog, my personal one where I write about my family, etc. And I also have a new blog on journal writing. Check it out if you're interested: Journal Writing Blog

And there's also my other project. This one is close to finished. All I need to do now is get a good title for the non-fiction book project, upload it to Lulu.com and get the pages all formatted, etc. I'll definitely make a post here when that's done.

Otherwise, we've had a few problems at home with our 15 year old son. He's been wagging school, running away from home and fighting non-stop with his father. I spoke to the ladies in the reading group about it and they weren't dismissive, but simply labelled it the old bull, young bull thing. It wasn't cold or heartless. I felt encouraged to be honest. It helped me see there would be an end to it and that their clash is nothing new. I suppose I knew that, but that's one of the reasons it's great talking with older people.

I am the youngest in the reading group, but those women give me so much, I don't mind at all. Anyway, that's the update for now. I'm sneaking this in while bubby is taking his morning nap.

The thing about being ill is that you really don't feel like yourself. The tiredness takes over and you can't even think straight, let alone tap the keys and make sense at the same time. I used to be the kind of person who didn't give up when I felt sick. I'd soldier on. It always ended up being needless. I served no one best by being so tough on myself. The only way to really get over being ill is to let it happen, give in to it and rest.

Okay, I'm not talking about terminal or serious stuff here. I mean the odd cold, flu, tummy bug, or whatever. Rest and relaxation are sometimes the only things that work for minor ailments. They might cause great inconvenience, but I've learnt to take it as a gentle reminder that I may need to stop for a while.

All of Saturday and Sunday I did exactly that; rested and relaxed. I filled my time by sitting next to hubby, who has been as sick as me, anyway, watching TV, movies and reading. I read the weekend West Australian, from front to back, well, almost. I finished White Teeth for my reading group. I watched The Edge, Legends of the Fall and the 30th Anniversary digitally re-mastered version of Jaws. Has it really been 30 years?

I also had a lot of coughing, sneezing, eyes weeping, nose blowing, head pounding, muscles aching, sleeping, and conversations with hubby. The big kids were out of the house for most of the weekend. They both worked all day Saturday, slept all day Sunday, we stayed home from church to prevent spreading our germs, and they went out on both nights to events with other youth at our church. That left hubby and I to look after the baby and each other. Poor little bubby has had the sniffles and a cough, too.

What has all this to do with writing?

Nothing, really, except that I think sometimes we need to rest from writing. I'm not talking about huge chunks of time. That's impractical and puts you back out of touch with your reasons, plots, characters, or whatever you're working on. But I mean small breaks. I wouldn't be feeling like I do now, which isn't the best but it is a whole lot better, if I hadn't stopped and rested these last two days. I didn't feel bad for it. There was no sense of guilt over not having done the daily blogging. I didn't do much writing at all. I did still manage a good session in my handwritten journal on Saturday morning. And most nights I get at least five lines down in my nightly journal each night.

I feel refreshed. I feel ready to take on the remaining challenge. I feel ready to get to the job of writing as often as I can for the rest of these days in the Boot camp. I may not achieve all the goals I want to reach, but that's okay. As long as I'm trying, working, moving forward. That's all I can expect at this point in time. That's got to be enough.

Calling people on the phone is a thing of the past. I'm sure of it. Any time I ring, expecting to speak to an actual person, I get this recorded message. That’s fine if everything goes as expected. But I'm not sure how often that really is. In the end I made three phone calls instead of one. The voice recording, which is supposed to respond to my voice, gave me the run around until that last call. For some reason everything worked that final time. I'm still not happy about it, but the reason I called in the first place has all been sorted, finally. I decide to make another call and get yet another recorded message. What happened to people? I had to leave a message and now I don't get that extra sleep I'm desperate for, because I'll be sitting here waiting for them to call me.

I wrote all that to point out that sometimes we're pushing all the right buttons and saying all the right things, yet we aren't getting the response we need. This couldn't be more true that with writing. You do your homework and find the correct writer's guidelines. You follow them to the letter. You submit your query/article or you ring first with your idea, and yet nothing happens. Or you write a terrific short story and enter it to another competition. You've stuck to the submission guidelines; you've worked on your prose, description, characters and plot. You even make sure the entry gets in well before the deadline. But your piece is not selected to win a place in the competition.

Why is this? What are you doing wrong?

Most likely you are doing everything right. Sometimes you have to hang up and try again. The first short story I ever had published I sent out a total of three times. The last time I changed the title. I still don't know if that third editor would've liked the story with the old title or she'd have loved the piece without the change. All I know is that time it worked. I hit the mark and got the piece accepted into the magazine for publication. The feeling still lingers in memory even now.

I've entered competitions with stories I know are top quality, but when I hear the winning entry read aloud I can only scratch my head. What made that story better than mine? Sometimes I'll share this with other writers and they feel the same way. Other times when I hear the winning entry read aloud I know it's because the winning tale was far superior to my own. But it's up to the judges. This fact is something you cannot change or manipulate to your favour. It might help if you know who the judges are, perhaps. But you can never know just what appeals to them in the long run.

This is what makes writing a subjective exercise no matter what. I've been baffled by the meanings of stories selected as winners in some competitions. Sometimes these tales just go right over my head. I've sat in stunned stupor over some silly short story a magazine chose to publish over my own. Once I entered a short story, in the fantasy genre, in a local competition. I didn't win, but felt the winner deserved to. I sent the story out to various magazines and eventually received a bite in a low paying magazine. Later I sent the same story to a website and received a glowing email about the tale from the editor. She loved it, but the subject was something she really related to at that point of her life. Had I sent it earlier she may not have reacted that way.

What I'm saying is back to the second paragraph of this entry; you can be doing all the right things and still get nowhere. Your writing is good. The subjects, content, information and style works. You send your piece out and it returns to you unaccepted, unappreciated. The editor or judge just didn't see the piece as quite right for their publication. This is one reason to resubmit as soon as you know the magazine switches editors. The new editor might just gel with your piece where the other didn't.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for that phone call. Keep writing and don't give up.

There are certain places I find creativity blooms. For me the ocean shore is one of those places. It's been a while since I've allowed myself a dose of that salty air and the strong wind off the coast of Western Australia. You could say I have been busy. What with the baby and helping hubby with his course. Taking a moment to go breathe in the air, let the wind carry away my worries. Watch the gulls lift and float on the currents of air. See the small children build and destroy sand castles. See the people walking their dogs, pumping their blood, chasing the dream of youth, smell the slick sunscreen and the meaty juicy aroma from the barbies in the park.

It might be something about all those things, but it could be that it takes me back to childhood. My earliest memories are of the beach, swimming, fighting the pounding waves. I grew up with salt water constantly in my ears and sand in the crotch of my togs. I would pull on my togs and present myself to mum claiming to be fully dressed. She'd snatch up straw bag filled with towels and hats and toys and cross over what was then called a highway, but hardly any traffic buzzed along at that time, and took us to the beach.

I grew so used to the sting of sunburn it became only a sensation of heat across my nose and cheeks and a tightness across my shoulders. Every morning for the first several years of my life I lived and breathed the beach. Apparently we visited a relative in snow covered Katoomba, in New South Wales, and I screamed and screamed. I was all of two and when they could finally get anything out of me, it was simply, "I c-c-c-cold, I c-c-c-cold." Nothing they did would please me. I sat crying in front of the fire refusing to remove my jacket, hat and mittens.

I still dislike the cold, even as an adult. Perhaps this is why the warmer weather inspires me more. It could have something to do with my dad, too. As a small child I was close to my dad. He took me down to the beach in the afternoons and walked in silence with me as I'd look for shells along the wet sand, toss some back into the shore waves, and drag seaweed in and out of the water. We'd sit for a time and listen to the lull and lapse of the waves until the tide went way out and we could walk where earlier in the day we'd swam.

I'd return with him and sit and watch him work the planks of wood and later foam, into surfboards. The overwhelming fumes of catalyst there in the shed, the long strands of fibreglass, the lumps of coloured resin on his shorts and shirt, the dust on the floor. I'd watch him sand the boards through their various stages, watch him lay the sheets of fibreglass onto the boards, mix the resin. I'd watch his face, half covered in a hankie, until someone made small moulded masks for jobs like his.

I'd sit and watch, always silent, learning from his methods and just being in his presence. I don't know when that changed. One day I left home and realised I didn't even know my father. I didn't even know how to speak to him. The companionship of my younger days had turned into silence and anger of adolescence. But whenever I think of the ocean I think of dad. To me the two are inseparable. I could rely on the tide to come up to the top of the shore and make the white sand dark and damp. I could rely on dad to be there. I could depend on the later return of the tide and the off-scent of drying seaweed in the burning sun. I could depend on dad. He taught me to swim, to listen, to watch for rips and how to swim out of them. He taught me to be still and know the silence of beauty.

These are the places I return when I need inspiration; the beach and the memory of my dad. He's been dead some 16 years now. The ocean connects me to him still, even though I can never gain access to him again. A letter I wrote to him some five or so years ago, which could never be sent, was published in several places on the internet and even found a home in an English language text book for Chinese students. I found that significant. It was also about the time my writing really broke through into a new level.

I suppose the point is the places you find inspiration will really speak to others, too. You should never be afraid to use them as tools to writing better fiction and non-fiction. Anyway, I'm done for the day.

The sky outside is a perfect blue, the kind of colour that sweeps away bad moods and sleepiness. The clear sky beckons me in a summer whisper to come outside and play. Twenty eights, pink and grey gallahs and white cockatoos make their way over the house, heading to water and food. A noisy truck zooms down my street. I feel the chill on the back of my neck where the hair used to be. I've just got in from having it cut. Both hubby and bubby are in bed.

This kind of weather makes me want to write more. There's something about the clear blue sky that speaks to me of rest, calm, peace. I love the way staring out into it makes me feel. It is only second to the ocean. While the surface of the ocean is ever changing and restless, the sky is similar, but the changes are slower.

First there's the changes from morning to evening. The colours of morning are the pinks and blues of freshness and bright new light. The same tones are deeper for the lack of sunlight later in the evening when the sun begins to lose its hold on my side of the earth for one more day. Clouds make the sky different, too.

Watching the clouds float by is one of my favourite activities. I love making shapes out of their billowing beauty. I love to spread out on the soft and lush green grass and stare up, up, up into the blue sky. It makes me think of when I was a kid. Summer time, blue skies and remembering my childhood all make me want to write. There's nothing worse than trying to write in winter with your fingertips all frozen and the sniffles to distract you.

It's cold right now, but nothing like the days we had a few weeks ago. This kind of weather is what I often refer to as a Goldielock's day. The day is not too cold, or too hot, it's just right. We're coming into more Goldielock's days soon enough. I'll be more productive then. I've always noticed I have a better time of year for my writing. For some people summer is a difficult time to write. I don't find it so. For me I feel there's less reason to sleep-in during summer. The morning light calls to me and I get out of bed well before the rest of the family.

That just doesn't happen in winter. The mornings are darker and bleak with the cold. The days are also shorter. They're over before you know it. In summer there's time to write early in the morning, late into the balmy nights or just at any time at all. I can always sit a fan in front of me if I'm really desperate. I've done it before. At my desk I have two small desk fans. One is generally enough for me, but hubby needs both blowing.

My mood is different in winter, too. I feel lighter and more joyful in summer. Roll on summer. Better finish here, even though there wasn't much to this entry today.

Each night before I come to sit here and write the thought passes through my mind; what the heck am I going to write about? I mean this is the 46th day of Boot Camp and I'm sitting down to write another entry. Surely there are only so many things one person can say on writing.

But as I sit I know the very challenge of writing about writing for some 14 weeks, that's right I hope, is where I will find myself digging down within myself to find what it is I really feel about writing. I'll rediscover what I know about writing. I'll write and grow just by challenging myself to do this task.

I've always found when you first start writing there's a kind of skimming off the surface you go through, all that stuff that's just floating up to the top. It doesn't really matter what it is you're writing about, the action is the same. You begin and you can amass a certain amount of material just from what comes to mind reasonably immediately. That's pretty much the easy part.

After a few weeks, or perhaps longer, you find you're going to have to dig deeper, get a bit of a sweat up, and work harder to get something down on the page, or the screen. This is where regular journal writing is a good habit. There are times when what I write is dreadfully mundane. But it's the act of going over the same old ground that inspires me to seek further into myself for more interesting material for those pages that breaks me away from the same old, same old. Before you know it I've hit a rich vein of gold that keeps me mining for weeks.

This is where you come into the real resources inside yourself. The top layer of anything is usually pretty good and it could be easy to be satisfied with just that, but we are intensely spiritual beings. Our souls are capable of absorbing so much in life. This can only compute out in various ways, but filtered through you own perspective, touched with the tastes of bitterness and sweetness from your own experience, your words will meet someone, somewhere in a way that no one else can ever do. You can only find that view-point or attitude if you work at it.

I know that's a word most people don't really like these days. It's a four letter word, but one writers should embrace. I heard it say you have to write one million words of junk before you start writing anything worthwhile. There could be something to this. But it's not just a flat one million and you're into the cream. In my opinion it's on just about any subject you start to write about. The best work is often the work you produce later. That is if you're committed to finding what it is you really have to say. It may take a million words to discover just what it is you are trying to convey. I feel that's okay. A committed writer will give their writing that time.

I don't believe there's any such thing as an overnight success. If people try to tell you they are, then I believe they're lying. I don't think anyone ever just sat down and produced a really great piece of art, not before they prepared themselves in some way for it.

It also makes me think of the wells the shepherds in bible times used to water their sheep. Those wells could fall into disuse. Sometimes years went by before they revisited those same wells, especially when there'd been drought in the area. The shepherds had to go down and dig to re-establish the flow of water. That is what writing is like.

It might be each day or each week, but we need to roll our sleeves back and open up that flow again. Hope this helps someone. I'm done for today.