Hey! How’ve you been? I’ve been overworking, over-reaching and a little overwhelmed to be honest but it’s mostly of my own making. Last we spoke I was in Canberra. It was so great to go somewhere different. I’ve been there before and it’s Canberra so it’s not exactly Paris or Rome but hey, it’s somewhere! Who knew we would get to appreciate going basically anywhere!
I’ve had a vacation, in Bali, which was amazing. I’ve been to a writer’s retreat which was invigorating and now I’m gearing up for a writing masterclass. I am so lucky to be able to do these things, I know. I don’t take it for granted.
The first six months of 2022 have felt a little manic. With the Covid tsunami we had and the devastating floods and the election that felt like life and death for so many of us here in Australia… it feels like Christmas was just a few weeks ago.
So in an effort to calm my farm, I’ve set some new boundaries around my time, I’m ordering Hello Fresh again, and… I’ve slowed my podcast listening speed to normal. It might not seem like much but I realised how listening at 1.2 or 1.5 speed can make you feel a little… nervy. Just me? It did feel like I was GSD (getting shit done) but it was starting to make me a little anxious believe it or not.
Even though I have this masterclass coming up and things are batshit at work, I have been forcing myself to slow down a bit. I’m listening to more music again. I got out of the habit of listening to music, preferring podcasts because I want to learn everything!
One podcast I will always listen to though is Conscious Embodiment with Dr Michael Lennox. He recently said for the rest of this year patience is the word to live by. I’m very happy with that.
And in an effort to get more grounded and slow down physically, I’m walking again and doing at least one walk a week without headphones. It’s a hard habit to break! I want to do a few longer walks too, but finding (making) the time is a challenge.
Part of my overworking has been caused by my obsession with entering writing competitions. I’m enjoying it and writing a lot of new stories. I’m also having a little bit of success which is great but every new story I write, whether it grabs the judges’ attention or not, is another little piece of Intellectual Property to add to the pile.
I say pile and not portfolio because I have never been organised enough to have a portfolio of anything. I have finally organised my stories in folders by which competition I’ve entered with them so that’s a win in itself. I’m thinking I may need to make a spreadsheet to keep track of what I’ve done with them but at the moment I’m happy to feel like some kind of creative beast that’s just birthing new things and letting the got out into the world and do their own thing.
You can read my winning story for the Tasmanian Writer’s Prize 2022, How I got this Tattoo here…
And no, I didn’t get a tattoo in Bali!
Oh wow, it’s pretty danged cool to be able to do the writing retreats and masterclass. Pics look awesome too. And I’m in the 1.5x gang too, mostly when it comes to learning or audiobooks. Anything to be enjoyed, such as podcasts, I’ll just go at normal speed. I feel like speeding up saves me time, since I’ll get to understand it anyway for the quicker time investment. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Do you think it makes you manic? I feel a lot calmer now.