If you're brave enough to fly

New mini shrine from the Fable Tribe

This has been a frustrating week.  My pain levels have been high, and the kidlet’s sleep has been out of whack (which means that mine has been as well).  We suspect he’s working on a molar, but thankfully he had a good night last night, which means that I actually feel human this morning.

In the mail yesterday came my new mini shrine from the Fable Tribe.  Which is amazing and magical and has found a home in my magpie collection of inspiration which lives above my writing computer.  They just updated on Friday, so if you’re looking for some magic, go and have a look at their etsy store.  I was stalking the update so I could grab a specific Glamourkin, and was very happy indeed to be able to nab it.

Not much writing done this week, though I’ve stuck to my goal of trying to get something done each day, even if it’s only a sentence.  I’m finding myself a little stuck, which means that I’ve gone wrong somewhere.  Need to untangle that.  I’m firmly in the middle of the middle of the book, so it could just be that usual middle-of-the-book syndrome kicking in.  My plan is to take a good look at my outline and see if there’s something I’ve missed or which isn’t connecting up.

I have been managing a fair bit of reading – on the ninth (and final book) of Mark Chadbourn’s massive Age of Misrule/The Dark Age/Kingdom of the Serpent series.  I find myself enthralled and frustrated by this series.  There’s so much to interest me, but I feel that there’s huge plot points that feel forced, and the characters are all-too-often sliding into cardboard cutouts.  But I’ve found enough to keep me going through the books, so that’s something.

I continue to pare down my online life.  I left a bunch of Facebook groups yesterday, and I’m going to be going through and paring down my general reading lists as well.  I’m already feeling better for it.

And now it’s a lovely long weekend, which shall hopefully be filled with lots of cuddles from the kidlet.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

I have been inspired, of late, by many of the amazing artist blogs I read – Terri Windling, Christina Cairns, and Rima Staines among others.

As always, when I read the blogs of visual artists, I wish that I could produce art.  Yes, I can pick up a pen or brush and produce something, but I don’t have the talent that would imbue that with real life, the way some of these artists can.

My tools are words and ink and paper.  And, thanks to technology, I can, at least, capture some beauty with photography.

I have been making an effort to get moving lately.  Writing is a sedentary occupation, and while I do burn some energy running around after a toddler, I crave the time to myself that I get with exercise.  Given my choice, I usually walk (these days, pushing the toddler in a stroller).  Summer has descended with a vengeance now, and it’s been too hot to walk.  And so, I return to the pool in the house in which I grew, and I swim.

While I swim, making laps back and forth through the clean water, I am watched over by the tree in the image above.  This tree has looked over this house for 40 years.  It’s watched the land be cleared, my parent’s house built.  It watched them arrive as newlyweds and birth three children.  It watched those children grow, and watched a new generation be born.

In those branches, birds come and go.  Most often, while I swim, there are ravens.  There’s one hiding in that photo if you look carefully, riding the sway and dance of the branches as they move in the wind.  Sometimes there are magpies, or twenty-eights, pink and grey galahs and doves.

Growing up, I often despaired of not living in the green and fertile landscapes of Europe, of not having that kind of history and magic soaked into the land.  But now, as life turns, I realise that this land has just as much magic.  We make it ourselves, with memories.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.