Category: motivation

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Reflections on.. writing your first novel.

I began world-building for my first novel whilst we were still enjoying our summer holiday and have been writing between 3-6 hours a day, Monday – Friday since halfway through February.

Amazingly, I’m already at 37.4k words on my first draft and have a new and deep appreciation for the craft.

I’ve consumed a lot of books in the past 6-7 years, I did some rough math the other day and calculated that I read on average 3 books a week, since I picked up my first eBook. A lot of books, a lot of words.

After a few weeks of online courses and study, I began putting my ideas together. It was a little stop/start, to begin with, because I needed the right tool to gather and organise everything. I tried Scrivener and it worked for a time but the process of saving drafts to dropbox and trying to move between my writing laptop and PC was onerous.

After a considerable amount of searching, I found a cloud-based tool called “living writer” and since I moved the notes and character sheets across to this, it’s been an easier process.

Like most writers, I often think of things a random times, and I can use this tool to add dialogue to a scene or make a story note that I can easily access when I’m at my writing desk. Before I had this, the notes app on my phone was full of ideas, scenes, settings as well as notes on the characters of my current book. (I tried to show a friend the menu I’d planned for a themed dinner party and randomly gave her the note that detailed the villain of my current book… she thought I was serving locusts, but that’s a story for another time)

When I’m asked what made me decide to write I usually tell people I’ve always wanted to write (7 year old me thought she’d be a writer, artist or musician) but the number of books I have read and continue to, should also be a clue.. as the marvellous Mr Terry Pratchett once said: “And I went on reading; and, since if you read enough books you overflow, I eventually became a writer.”

This experience has changed me already. Moving through the concepts, character creation, world building, scenes, dialogue – the story arcs.. its a big undertaking and I have no idea how our contemporaries did this on typewriters. Aghast at the very thought! No wonder writers have traditionally locked themselves away in designated spaces to weave words into worlds.

So here we are! All 37.4k words of it so far.. and more than ever before I have so much admiration for the storytellers of the world. The process of writing is beautiful, painful, frustrating and exhilarating.

But we write because we must.

 

 

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Reflections on.. the craft of writing.

“What did you want to be when you were little?”

It’s amazing how many times we’ve been asked this question, or asked it of others in turn. I always thought I’d be a writer, artist or musician and instead, I became a Recruiter for some of New Zealand’s largest corporates.

Growing up in my earliest years we were surrounded by creative people of all walks of life. It was the most natural thing in the world to me as a 5-year-old to assume that I too, would take a creative path when I grew up.

After my dad passed – life changed, the creative personalities largely dropped away and I didn’t really have those figures to look to anymore. I studied a little bit, fell into office work and stumbled my way into Recruitment because I loved how much you could learn about different jobs, companies, industries and professions – without actually having to commit to those jobs yourself.

It was perfect for someone like me, who loves to learn, listen, observe, go down research rabbit holes, meet new people, make connections and have a positive impact on peoples lives. It’s only now – 17 years in – that I’ve come to appreciate the art and science of recruitment on a different level.

For years I’d focused my efforts on corporate life… working hard, overachieving, creatively problem solving, continuously improving, putting in way too much energy than was strictly necessary, and doing my very best to be taken seriously in a profession that not many people understand, and fewer still actually value.

But this niggly voice in the back of my head was always crying out to create.

So in December I packed up my laptop for a wee while, waved a slightly teary goodbye to the excellent team of recruiters I led, and headed off for a summer break. Ostensibly, for a decent chunk of time to refresh and reset after the madness of building and engaging a team in the midst of a global pandemic. (And see friends and family again, after lockdowns put a stop to socialising)

The ultimate goal? Creative writing. Even as I’ve slogged away in the corporate world, I’d always fancied myself as a writer. An observer of life and collector of stories. But who has the time or energy for creativity? I’d always told myself one day I’d take a little break and get a head start on writing.

And here I am.

The process of creative writing is like night and day compared with the ranting/ blogging and recipe writing I’ve done on this site since 2007 ..and the biggest surprises?

I love the process: after working out pretty early on that I’m the Architect type of writer, I’ve thrown myself headfirst into world building, plotting, character development etc. Understanding that there will be drafts, re-writes and more re-writes; and made peace with this.

I’ve always been a writer: remember those comments about learning, listening, observing and going down research rabbit holes? Classic writer behaviour. Not to mention the note taking..

There’s so much to learn, and thats exciting: there’s incredible tools, resources, video courses, blogs and communities for writers and that feeling of being part of a community of creatives (that I’d craved since I was a child) is at my (literal) fingertips.

So have I written a book? Not exactly – but I have begun building a compelling world, fleshed out and built nuanced characters, imagined scenes, begun to write lore, plotted the story across three books (!!) and started plotting the story arc of my first book.

It’s the start to writing that I could have never had before: having a clear head; free (at least for now) of work situations ticking over in my brain and taking up space.

Instead of scrambling to get ready each weekday and travel in to work, we begin with a beach walk (meeting as many dogs as possible) before delving into my process, and it’s magic.

Will I ever go back to Recruitment? Well, yes – if I want to pay the bills! (And I’ll want the challenge soon, knowing my brain)

Will I ever regret taking time out for this moment? Never, not in a million years.

 

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Change: and the important business of being AUTHENTIC

‘Death & Taxes are the only constant in life’ – or so the saying goes.. I’d disagree a little and say that change is the true constant.

Even though I haven’t felt like I have grown/been challenged in a professional sense for some time, theres certainly been a evolution of my spirit and my outlook on life.

I remember back to when I first undertook Coach training, born out of an incredibly deep-seated desire to help people – yet I was so afraid that people wouldn’t take me seriously, or value what I had to offer, that I became so focussed on people perceiving me as professional, and that overtook my real aspects of value:

The ability to empathise

My intuition

My spirituality 

Genuine desire to connect and to help

My (very) cheeky sense of humour

This spilled into my ‘day job’ too, and for so long I was focussed on proving myself, being ‘outcome focussed’ – ‘committed to delivery’ and all those typical phrases we throw around in HR. I wasn’t true to myself and being so utterly focussed on one aspect of your personality is stifling.

A couple of years ago, I got a new boss.. this woman was everything that had been lacking up till that point, she was warm, honest, genuinely looked out for my team and I, had my back, and not to mention had a wicked sense of humour to boot! So for the first time in a long time, I felt as though I could in turn be myself.. and my sense of humour and enjoyment of my job increased exponentially as a result.

When people are genuine and authentic – it encourages others to be authentic in return.

Women in the workplace can feel threatened by other women, they often feel like they need to overcompensate, or even put others down and bully them to make themselves look better.. and it’s damaging. A lot of the behaviour is false, two-faced and downright mean.

We are not robots. We have emotions, feelings – and more often than not, when we are in tune with these aspects of ourselves, and being our full, true, authentic selves – we thrive.

I’ve realised that I have very little energy, time or interest in collaborating with people who insist on playing this game. And through that realisation, and my ongoing desire to be authentic in what I do, I’ve bought authentic people into my life – we can’t avoid the bullies all the time at work, but we can decide how much energy and thought we spend on them.

So as I continue to move towards my passions with greater velocity, I look back with an increasingly clear head about where I am in my life – professionally, personally, mentally, emotionally and spirituality – and I’m proud to say that its been my hard work and determination, combined with an attitude of gratitude for some pretty special people in my life, that has allowed this change… 10 years ago I would have never shared my thoughts and emotions in such a public way, but if by sharing myself and being authentic allows others the grace to do this to, then that will be the most rewarding part of all.

 

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The things we humans obsess over (Part 2)

So I’ve done 22 days no alcohol now, and I’m feeling pretty good. Previously I’d done 5 weeks in 2013 and that was a monumental exercise in fabulousness. But with this new-ish clarity of thought comes the inevitable reflection on just how utterly obsessed we are with the ‘demon-drink’ …..and I’ve realised how much alcohol is a knee-jerk reaction in modern western society.

 

Had a bad day? A glass of wine will sort that.
Nailed that project at work? You deserve a drink!
Survived the working week with all your limbs intact? Time for a beverage!

 

It’s like drinking is so ingrained into what we do literally day to day that it takes a concerted effort to minimise the ingrained knee-jerk reaction to relax with a drink…..

Think about it:
Oh it’s a beautiful sunny summers night, I’d better make the most of this and go out and have a beer in the sun!
Oh it’s a rainy winters night, freezing out there! I should tuck up with a yummy glass of red wine in front of the fire…

It’s the elixr for the masses, comes in all shapes and sizes, flavours and strengths, colours and packages, it picks you up when you’re down, transforms your face to a smile from a frown, helps lubricate communication all over town, makes you think you can dance and ‘get down’ – it’s what?! ALCOHOL! Yay! *cue mexican wave*

Now I don’t propose to have all the answers to this (or anything for that matter) what I want you to do is simply stop and think for yourself.

To start asking yourself how you feel about drinking…. to see if you resonate with anything I’ve mentioned, and to see if you too could start to challenge the assumptions modern society has placed upon you about drinking. *glug glug*

Could you go a week without drinking? A month? What changes in your social habits would you need to make in order to do this? How would your friends and workmates react?

After almost 10 years in Recruitment (an industry body known for enjoying the ‘odd tipple‘ *cough*) I can hand on heart say that I still enjoy a deep spicy glass of Shiraz, and smooth and velvety Central Otago Pinot Noir, and love the giggly brain-fuzz and silliness from a ridiculously over-priced glass of Champagne…. but my attitude to drinking is slowly changing.

With glorified boozing in adverts tempting me… And bars full of laughing, smiling, beautiful people – waving about their bottles of beer and oh-so-tempting glasses of chilled Pinot Gris as I wander past …I almost feel like I’m ‘sticking it to the man’ some days…. so yeah, fight the power and whatnot, I’m off to pour myself a stiff tea.