Category Archives: Blog

‘Tis the Season

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Can you believe it’s nearly Christmas? I have to remind myself of this constantly, not only so I don’t forget to acquire the necessary presents, but because to me it still feels like we’re somewhere in October! (This is despite in store decorations and the frequency with which I get told, “Mummy, it’s only X days until Christmas!”)

This year has been interesting, challenging and full of change. As we head full throttle towards 2014, I have been to more parties per week than I’ve attended in months! Fun, but who would have thought frivolities could be so exhausting?! Yesterday I even had TWO Christmas parties: one with my writing group and one with family. As always, each event was full of laughter and some VERY fine dining! (Yum!)

As the writing group party wound down, one of my writing friends and I took a moment to chat and reflect. As people were savouring treats, laughing and exchanging gifts, I noted just how different each member was and how much strength and wisdom this diversity added to our group – like a support network.

Even though it is a season of such hope and joy, for some, Christmas can be a painful, lonely time. The reality is that some people don’t have a safe place where they can feel accepted and loved. It can be easy to forget this if we’re a part of a bigger, comfortable network.

That’s where the Christmas season becomes a great opportunity to hone our giving skills and reach out to others. And this doesn’t have to be complicated.

There are many opportunities to be involved with charity groups to support needy families in both small or large ways, but I’m sure we can all think of someone within our own circles who are disconnected, lonely or don’t share the same blessings we have. This might be a neighbour, a friend doing it tough, or even a stranger we frequently see on the street.

Perhaps this Christmas we can take a moment to consider and take action on an appropriate response to brighten the day of a lonely or needy person and let them know they are valued – even if it’s as simple as delivering some homemade Mars bar slice with a friendly smile.

Best of all, we can look for these opportunities any time of year, not just at Christmas!

Goosing Around

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During a recent training session, a work colleague spoke of applying the three key principles from popular business book Gung Ho! by Ken Blanchard & Sheldon Bowles. She explained each principle, including the ‘Gift of the Goose’, which likened the honking of geese in flight to a ‘you can do it’ type of encouragement.

I thought this was a great model.

Encouragement. How much we need it on life’s long journeys.

At a recent writer’s conference I attended, one speaker* provided her session attendees an elegant sheet of paper so they could write an encouraging note to someone at the conference. This opportunity was a valuable reminder that encouragement doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does involve action. If you’re anything like me, all too often we think ‘I’ll do that later’, but never do.

I consider myself a fairly encouraging person, but when a member of my husband’s family recently passed away, I recognised how easily such moments can slip by. This particular relative had relocated some years previous, and for various reasons had become quite isolated. With great sadness I remembered many well intended thoughts of calling or sending a note of thanks and encouragement for their thoughtfulness. I seldom got beyond purchasing the card or digging out their address.

I’m not aiming for a guilt trip, but I identify the immense value of encouragement in my life. If you’re a Twitter or Facebook follower, you’d know that at that writer’s conference I received a CALEB Prize for an unpublished YA manuscript. As one of the prize recipients I was excited, honoured, humbled and overwhelmed all at once. Yet that moment also belonged to many others – family, friends, writing group members and colleagues – who have offered consistent support and encouragement over the years, believing in me even when my own confidence failed.

But perhaps those closest to us, the ones who make such generous allowances for our hectic lifestyles and busyness, can become the easiest to overlook when it comes to returning encouragement.

A close friend once said that if she could convert every thought she had for me into a letter or phone call, I’d hear from her almost every day. I believe that encouragement is a little like that – but often it doesn’t get beyond the thought. Maybe if we exercise our ‘goose gift’ we can more readily convert our good intentions into a honk of support!

*Anusha Atukorala

Dot to Dot

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The last couple of weeks have been pretty exhausting. Everyone in the family has been sick, with lots happening generally. All I wanted after work yesterday was to crawl to our spare room where the late afternoon sun warms the bed and rest my weary body – and I did!

As good as that felt, can you believe that just hours later information relating to plot lines and scenes for various manuscripts started ticking through my head? And maybe this sounds crazy, but I started thinking about how much I enjoy searching out facts and gluing together the foundational elements of a story. Research!

Perhaps that’s why I find writing historical fiction especially satisfying. It’s like a constant tension of discovery and never quite knowing enough about something – or thinking you do, only to later discover another fragment of  ‘evidence’ that completely disrupts all the strands you’ve so carefully aligned about a particular period or event.

Embarking on such searches can create a peculiar cycle of frustration, exhilaration and self-doubt.
“Did I really read/record that correctly?”
“I’m sure there was a connection! Why can’t I find it now?”
“I simply cannot find that piece of information so critical to this scene. Should I rewrite?”
“Every account I’ve found is different!”

Needles in haystacks?

In the past there have been times when I’ve covered the entire floor of the office with maps; eye witness accounts of a particular historical event; shipping records; genealogies and any other relevant document, with me planted tail up nose down in the middle, trying to find that one link between them all – a date or event that connects every point. And then, success!

That, to me, grants licence to dance manically about the room and holler for anyone in earshot to come share the excitement. (This usually incites a “the woman’s crazy” look from the family.) Then, with that one dot, I start tracing a thread to the next point; the next challenge.

Is this madness? Does it prove that writers are essentially suckers for punishment? I actually believe we all do this on one level or another, seeking out those points of connection that provide “That’s it!” moments for a searching heart. These can be critical markers in our lives.

Identity: it’s our history, our now, our future. Even if we’re quite secure with ourselves, I think most of us recognise that self-discovery is a constant. Whatever our self-perception, just like connecting those dots in research there’s always a thread that leads us to a new place – a new discovery. This can be releasing for those struggling with identity, an assurance that there is so much more to come. And for those comfortable with themselves, it can be like adding strength to a beautiful structure.

Let’s never give up on chasing those threads.

Ripple

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Many years ago, as a university student, I had just exited a train station on my way home, when a perfect stranger strode across my path. He paused to say, “How’s it kickin’ chicken? Don’t worry, you’ll make it,” and then kept on walking, disappearing into a crowd of people boarding a bus.

For all his long hair and ‘biker’ look, he could have been an angel in disguise. By my appearance, he couldn’t have possibly known that I was so unwell that even the thought of tackling the required hill to reach home overwhelmed me.

I think back on that day and marvel at the timing of it all.

Such a simple, seemingly random exchange gave me enough of a boost to get home, despite my fever and sheer exhaustion. Much to my surprise, I even managed to retain some of the information conveyed during the lectures I’d attended!

Have you ever experienced anything like that? Someone drops fleetingly into your world and changes it in an instant. Conversely, have you ever felt moved to say or do something for a friend, or even stranger, without any clue as to why?

I must confess that when such exchanges occur, there’s something exciting about the investment of energy, time, finances, encouragement – whatever it is – that can be deposited. It’s like a sense of knowing that someone’s journey has purposefully intersected yours.

For me, the connection I referred to earlier gave me enough resilience not only for that walk, but also to get up the next day and drag myself back to university again. Eventually a friend hauled me off to the doctor’s (only undergrad laboratory session I ever missed!) and I recovered, but who knows what I might have done if that man hadn’t taken the opportunity to encourage me? I might have stayed in bed for days and fallen further behind with my study. I might have even given up on my study for the semester. His words gave me the strength to tackle another day, which was another little step towards attaining my degree.

This brings to mind the image of a fish flipping up out of the water of a lake and plopping back under the surface. You see the split second of action, hear the splash, but long after the fish has disappeared, that motion will translate into a ripple that runs out towards the periphery of the body of water. Along the way the tiny wave might wash against a boat, some water reeds, waterbirds, or sometimes it can be seen reaching all the way to the water’s edge.

Every person we contact presents an opportunity to create a ripple – positively or negatively. The intersection of our lives might be simply a smile to a stranger and no more, or it could be like the man crossing that road and create a ripple that runs to the very end of our life. We may never know if our wave reaches the edge, but what a privilege to consider that it might.

Rug Pull

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Has life taken you on all kinds of unexpected adventures? Sometimes you get time to plan ahead and do what you can to make the distance. Other times you can feel like the rug has been pulled out from under your feet!

Some years ago we had a ‘rug pull’ moment. It was actually a months-long struggle that finally ended with a wham! We were on our rears, reeling to work out a) what had happened, and b) how we could possibly get back up after such a fall.

Although there were definitely some ‘angels’ along the way, beyond a few close family members offers of help were rare. It wasn’t that we didn’t try to explain at times, and I don’t think that people didn’t care, but they didn’t get it and we ran out of energy to try communicating. Survival was the goal.

I’d like to say that the ‘rug pull’ was followed by a swift regather and then we were back on our feet, jogging down the path of life as we knew it. Falling on our ends put a lot of things out of reach. We were in a different position. We couldn’t go back to how things had been – and I believe that this was no accident.

We were forced onto new things; to take a different direction in life.

Now, that new road, it was great, right? Actually, it was really hard and nearly fractured us from the inside out. Some days we wondered why we were doing what we were. We felt so far beyond our coping ability that often it was like we were existing, not living. But at least we were going somewhere, albeit slowly.

Although we tumbled down some crater-like potholes along the way, gradually (and I do mean gradually!) a new purpose was revealed, and it was exciting. What had seemed to be an end, proved to be a new beginning and eventually we were able to reflect back on the journey and see the good in it; even feel grateful for our unexpected diversion. Our vision for the future also grew so much larger than we’d ever thought it could be.

The fact is we all face rug pull days or seasons. Perhaps our story strikes a chord for you. Perhaps your world has been turned on its head and you don’t know what to do. Rug pull moments aren’t pretty. They bruise and shake us to the core. BUT if we do what we still can, have faith and hold on, gradually our world will find a new equilibrium. In time, doors will open and behind them we’ll find new purpose. Those doors might look like tiny mouse holes at first – maybe nothing like we expected them to look – but at the end of the long, dim, obstacle infested road, there will be an end. Actually, a new beginning.

No matter where you are in life, whether you’ve landed tail down or are soaring with eagles, pray, never give up, and never stop reaching forward. Even if it feels like you’ve completely lost your way, put one foot after the other until you see some light ahead – for every tunnel has an end. And that’s where the scary unknown gets exciting.

Post-rug pull we’ll never be the same again, but we’ll be facing a new landscape with untold possibilities. The future. Embrace it.