Tag Archives: Akrad’s fantasy fiction

Write Time – A Case of Extremes

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I am so excited to be hosting another guest blog series. This time last year, guest bloggers shared inspiring and humorous reflections on their ‘Write Life’ . This year the theme is ‘Write Time’.

As I’ve discovered in life, timing is everything. Time is also one of our most precious commodities. Writing in season, and finding time to make it happen, is a constant juggle. Over the coming weeks we’ll hear from a diverse group of authors as they reflect on this theme. And like me, I’m sure you can’t wait.

JeanetteOHaganWrites250My first guest blogger is one you might know. Jeanette O’Hagan is a gifted author who writes across a diverse range of genres, and she’s had a full-to-overflowing writing year. (While still managing to be superwoman without the cape!)  I could say more, but I think it’s time to hand over to our guest. Thanks Jeanette!

From one extreme to another.

This year my ‘write times’ have seesawed from intense focus to being swallowed up in other tasks. In some ways, it’s the equivalent of kangaroo-hopping down the road (for those of you who remember their first lessons in a car with manual gears).

Five months – just five months of this year did my writing get the my highest priority – in January with the Month of Poetry (over thirty poems written some of which have since been short-listed or achieved an award), in March and April I wrote three short stories for a couple of anthologies, in July it was Camp NaNoWriMo as I dusted off novel 3 and wrote 30,000 words, coming within cooee of finishing my first draft, and November was NaNaWriMo, with another 50,000 words on novel 5.

As the words began to flow during NaNo, I remembered once again why I love writing— it’s fun, exhilarating, entertaining, inspiring.

Let the sea roarSo what about those other months? Family, friends, faith, community— yes all these things take time—but what has really eaten up the hours is other writing related activities. I finished off my writing course (MA) and started another (Year of the Edit). I have been involved in editing, proofing and/or publishing anthologies (to different degrees of involvement)—Another Time Another Place, Let the Sea Roar, Glimpses of Light and Like a Girl. I’ve needed to edit my own stories and follow the suggestions of my crit friends and editors. I’ve attended conferences, festivals and retreats. I’ve taken time to set up my writing as a business and make plans for next year.

Reflecting on 2015 I’ve come to a greater understanding of my writing process:
I work well to deadlines – especially those where I’m accountable to others.
I feel alive when I write and I want this to stay a vital part of my life.

Yet writing a first draft of a story, poem or novel is just the first step in a complex process. If I want to be serious about writing, if I want to write for others as well as for myself— I have to take it to another level and that means learning my craft, networking with other writers, giving back to the community, editing my work, working out how to publish and promote it. I need to factor those times in as well as regular writing times.GOLCover

Family, friends, faith, health, community matter too. If I steal from these areas in my life for too long or too often, I’m likely to crash and burn rather than be in this for the long term.

I need balance.

In hindsight, I don’t think I’ll try to publish two anthologies (plus involvement in three others) in one year again.

Maybe moving forward in kangaroo hops is not a bad thing (especially if you are a kangaroo ‘grin’) but I’d like to smooth out the curves a little. Those other things—learning, networking, editing, publishing—are part of the journey which I also enjoy doing.

As a wise person once said ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.’ Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)

Tied in Pink_JennyJeanette O’Hagan has short stories and poems published (or about to be published) in various anthologies, including Tied in Pink Romance Anthology (profits from the anthology go towards Breast Cancer research); Poetica Christi’s Inner Child; Brio anthology, Another Time Another Place, Let the Sea Roar, Glimpses of Light and Plan Australia’s Like a Girl. She has practiced medicine, studied communication, history and theology and has taught theology. She cares for her school-aged children, has a Masters of Arts (Writing) at Swinburne University and is writing her Akrad’s fantasy fiction series. You can read some of her short fiction here.
You can find her at her Facebook Page or at Goodreads or at JennysThread.com or Jeanette O’Hagan Writes or Twitter.

Herding Cats

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JeanetteOHaganWrites250This week’s ‘Write Life’ guest blogger is emerging author, Jeanette O’Hagan. Jeanette’s approach to writing is remarkably intellectual and detail focussed, yet incredibly imaginative. Make sure you’ve got your pre-orders in the day her novels spin off the press – that is, once she’s done wrangling felines into order. Thanks, Jeanette. 🙂

 

A random thought. Writing is a bit like herding cats.

Well, at the moment it seems a lot like it to me. Over the last six weeks I feel like I’ve been skating from one urgent task to another – from kitchen renovations gone AWOL, family responsibilities and visits, study commitments, conferences, camps, retreats, birthday celebrations (a 5th and a 94th) and NaNoWriMo. Not to mention doing final edits and proofs on my first published story (a short story in the Tied in Pink anthology), follow-up on editorial appointments, hot weather and storms. It hasn’t been all bad – in fact, a lot of it has been wonderful: like being cheered on as I finished NaNo at the Writers Retreat, looking forward to my first publishing credit, or spending time with my family. Even so, it has been frenetic, a tad chaotic and draining.

So as I sit down to write this post, my thoughts are scattering all over the place, heading off in a thousand and one different directions and tipping their feline noses in the air at the very thought of cohering into anything rational – let alone brilliant, scintillating or inspirational. And sometimes, being a writer is just like that – juggling the demands of life with the need to find the head-space to write or juggling different ideas and images that pull away in different directions.

And so I reflect that writing at times is about forgetting about herding and just letting go. Maybe letting go of some of those riotous ideas for now – and allowing space for others. Or maybe, letting go of the need to arrange the cats – ahem, ideas – into neat, orderly and perfect rows. Or letting go of the need to impress or to control and allowing the ideas to lead. After all, in the beginning of all this, I didn’t choose to be a writer. Rather, the stories chose me. They were my invisible companions through most of my childhood – a way of sublimating angst and uncertainties into fantastical adventures; a way of growing in understanding of the Great Storyteller who calls me to be a part of His story.

And then it occurs to me, that maybe ‘herding cats’ could apply to groups of writers as well. Writing is so often by its very nature a solitary pursuit. And while some writers are social loving extroverts, many of us are introverts. Perhaps we like doing things by and for ourselves. Yet one thing I have learnt over the last few years is that we are stronger as writers and go further and last longer if we are willing to boost up each other. Even cats can team up to achieve a goal worth pursuing.

Then again, maybe it’s just that life’s like that. However much we plan it, it has a tendency to take turns we never anticipated and sometimes we have to let go of our plans and trust that God knows what He’s doing.

Tied in Pink_JennyJeanette’s short story ‘The Herbalist Daughter’ is about to be published as part of the Tied in Pink anthology this month (profits from the anthology go towards Breast Cancer research). Jeanette has practiced medicine, studied communication, history and theology and has taught theology. She is currently caring for her children, enjoying post-graduate studies in writing at Swinburne University and writing her Akrad’s fantasy fiction series. You can read some of her short fiction here.
You can find her at her Facebook Page or websites JennysThread.com or Jeanette O’Hagan Writes.