The internet, children and parenting
Tuesday, 15 May, 2012
My talk at Moore Women went well last Thursday: we had a good turn-out; even though I talked fast, I think I carried everyone along with me (and the slideshow certainly helped); it went well with Bec's talk (even though there were overlaps); and we got some good questions at the end. (We weren't able to answer them all, but hopefully we made some good points and helped people think about how to answer them.)
Anyway, because it's a shame to put so much work into something and only use the material once, because people have been asking me about it, and also because the thing I love about speaking is not so much the speaking but the writing of the thing I'm speaking, I thought I would put the content of my talk online (but without the slideshow; I did think about using SlideShare, but then decided against it as audio takes longer to get through than text. Also, I'd have to edit the audio file as I recorded everything and I'd have to review what I said, but it's easier to edit text than audio [well, for me, anyway]). I'm going to edit it a bit to remove some of the things that irk me about written speech (e.g. overuse of sentences beginning with “And”; techniques that work well in speech that don't work so well in text, and so on). But I'm not going to convert it into a full blown article because at the moment it's not worth my time; I want to get back to the graphic novel as soon as possible.
Kapow!
Wednesday, 09 May, 2012
Oops, been neglecting the blog again! Not so good when you're in the middle of a blogging competition (*wink*).
Things have been a bit up and down lately. I don't want to go into details, but I don't want to gloss over it either. Ahem.
The main purpose of this post is to flag two things. Firstly, I was interviewed about Kinds of Blue for Kapow!, the comic book review show last week. Episode seven, which contains the interview, went live this morning (25:22 min). The episode focuses on women working in comics, and the interview they did with me occurs at around the 5:54-minute mark. Or you can watch it below (it goes for 3:43 min):
BFF support group
Monday, 23 April, 2012
I'm having a quiet afternoon at home today. Fortunately Past Me had the foresight to book Astrid into care so that Present Me could take a break. I thought I was going pretty well post-Supanova last week, but then I got to the weekend and crashed and burned, and realised I could have avoided crashing and burning had I used some of my non-Astrid time to actually rest instead of doing all manner of work-like things (which included all the accounting and reimbursements for Supanova Melbourne, the household accounts for the past five months and some wrangling with Centrelink). *Sigh*. As you can see, I am very bad at taking my own advice!
But this afternoon, I am trying to rest. Then this evening, I've got BFF support group. So I thought I'd write a little post about that because it's a useful little idea that others might find helpful. It came from reading Archibald Hart's Unmasking Male Depression, which was given to us years ago by a friend around the time when Ben's depression first started becoming more problematic.
Super Supanova
Tuesday, 17 April, 2012
I'm back from Melbourne! Thought I'd do a quick recap about how it went and stuff I need to remember for next time. Plus a few other bits and pieces.
Supanova Melbourne
Wednesday, 11 April, 2012
Let's see if I can write a quick post, shall we?
So this week, Bec and I are heading to Supanova Melbourne to promote and sell Kinds of Blue, our anthology of short comics about depression. We've got a table in Artists Alley (Table Y, I believe!) If you're going to be there, please stop by and say hi!
Half a wife
Tuesday, 03 April, 2012
Right. So since I entered the Sydney Writers Centre Best Australian Blogs Competition, I'd better blog (instead of being what Ben likes to call “an alternative blogger”—i.e. one who never blogs).
I'm two weeks into the new regime I outlined in my last post, and the sadness has dissipated somewhat as I've worked through my grief. So far, I think the new regime is working well. Certainly last week rather productive: I spent the Tuesday afternoon brainstorming my talk for Moore Women (by the way, I'm speaking at Moore Women on the 10 May, if you are interested in coming along. It's on the internet, children and parenting), as well as brainstorming and writing down all my ideas for Bridget James's Diary, and then on the Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, I worked on my graphic novel (among other things) and actually completed six pages of script. (I've been using Scrivener and Anthony Johnson's comics template.) The graphic novel has been slow going—mostly because I'm still at the beginning of it and everything has to be described and set up (I've only completed nine pages of script so far). So maybe it will pick up the more I work on it. I've never done this before (and so have no idea what is a “normal” pace of writing), and this whole way of working/writing is rather alien to me. Unlike the ebb and flow of words that spring from the brain, down my arms and through my fingers typing on the keyboard, writing comics is a little more stop start because you have to take the time to think visually and make decisions about how things will be laid out on the page, what sort of perspective and composition each panel will have, and (obviously) make decisions on things like the way each character looks (and why), the way they dress (and why), their environment, and so on. Of course, you have to do that in other forms of writing too (short stories, novels, etc.), but it seems to me that in writing for comics, you have to be way more specific because you're trying to communicate something that's in your head to someone else so that they can draw it. So it matters a bit more than allowing there to be a bit of ambiguity in the minds of your readers. I do like to leave room for the artist to bring their own interpretation of the character to the work, but in this case, there are certain details about the characters that have to be specific because they're relevant to the plot.
Time and what to do with it
Tuesday, 20 March, 2012
So at the end of my last post, I mentioned being on the cusp of change. It's a couple of weeks later and the road ahead seems a little clearer before, however I find myself processing and wrestling with a lot of stuff that's happened recently.
Review: The Divided Heart
Tuesday, 06 March, 2012
So today I want to write something about The Divided Heart: Art and Motherhood (Red Dog, Fitzroy, 2008) by Rachel Power. I think of all the books I've read on parenting and motherhood, this one has to be the most useful of them all. I suppose that's partly because of who I am and my natural tendencies (so please don't expect to read it and feel the same way). But I think there are some characteristics of The Divided Heart that make it helpful for everyone.
So here goes. Again, apologies for the unstructured and rambly mind dump; I'm writing fast (thinking of Joanna Murray-Smith—I'll explain further down). And also I'll probably be repeating myself from earlier posts a fair bit, so feel free to skip those bits.
Review: Babyproofing Your Marriage
Tuesday, 28 February, 2012
I don't want this blog to turn into a “Mommy” blog or a parenting blog (although the content of recent posts suggests otherwise). Once more I reflect on how my blogging has changed—how it used to be an outlet, a way for me to process my life, a platform from which to express opinions, an efficient means of sharing things with others, and so on—and yet as I said in an earlier post (I forget where), Twitter has taken up much of those functions. Nevertheless, whereas Twitter is characterised by brevity, my blogging is not (as you could probably tell from my last post, which clocked in at around 5,000 words). It's not that I feel like every post I write now needs to match that length; it's more that I feel like I need to have something to say before I put anything up here.
At the same time, however, I'm a lot more time-poor—or rather, I prioritise my non-Astrid time so that I'm focusing on writing (of which blogging is a part but not the whole) and resting (so that I'm more energised for the time I do spend with Astrid). This means that any time I spend blogging is backed by a conscious choice to work on this rather than something else. (It's the tyranny of life: it forces you to choose because you are limited. I wonder if in heaven we will truly be limitless and thus able to pursue all the roads we fancy in the duration of our eternal life.)
Today I choose not to work on the Writing Projét Dujour, but instead review a couple of books that I've found helpful—for parenting, yes, but also for marriage, art, creativity and writing. I'm reviewing them fast (I'm just trying to capture my initial thoughts about them instead of crafting a “proper” review the way I would for some sort of publication), so I'm probably going to miss a lot. But hopefully you will get the gist of why I think they're helpful. Anyways, here goes.
Astrid (at 18 months)
Tuesday, 21 February, 2012
Whoops: six months went by and I didn't write one of these posts. Life filled up with things—for example, The Plan to Take Over the World (aka Kinds of Blue), which we printed, launched and sent out into the world (and if you'd like to buy a copy, we still have some left!), I started working on a short story (which needs a little time to marinate before I go back and revise), I had a Mommy Holiday, Ben's work suddenly got really really really busy, we went on beach mission (read one of the talks!), I gave a talk at a Pozible crowdfunding information night last week, and most days I feel like I'm just treading water to stay afloat.
I also didn't keep as many notes as I did on what was going on. (That's not to say that there wasn't stuff going on. Buh: double negative.) Anyways, here goes (and apologies as always for the scatty nature of this post; I started writing it two months ago and am only updating it now):
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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