I have taken myself off to the city for the weekend to get some writing done. I am living the author high life; It’s 9;30pm, I’m in my jim-jams in a hotel room with a bottle of water and soothing focus music playing.
Rock on! I know how to party.
A writers festival is a happy place for me. I love my husband and son, my fam and my non-writer friends, and love spending time with them but I’m happy as a pig in mud at a writers festival, workshop or other bookish event. Bookshops and art galleries are high on the mud-scale for this little piggy too but oooh I love me a writers festival. To immerse myself, do bookish things all day, then sit in my room and write at night. It sounds a bit tragic when I read that back but I don’t care.
This week I started a 4-week course with the Australian Writer’s Centre. As I write this, I have just finished the first module and assessment and I’m feeling smarter already.
It’s my first course with AWC. I’m a big fan of National Director and founder of the AWC, author and visual artist, Valerie Khoo. I’ve been listening to her on the AWC podcast, So you want to be a Writer, for years. It’s gloriously nerdy which is really up my alley.
Having completed my first week of the course, I’m impressed with the content. I was attracted to the course because I want to bring more professionalism to my opinion writing (that’s what this blog is) and I hope it will help me write my non-fiction title without losing my “voice.” I want to write Real Friends Stab you in the Front in my own inimitable fashion but I want it to be a useful book. I don’t want to half arse it. Yes, I want to use my whole arse.
The first thing I learned is that I don’t have to be an expert to have an opinion! I should know that – like, der. You just have to cruise social media for thirty seconds to work that one out but smashing out a comment on Facebook is not what I’m hoping to do.
Nor must I have a PhD to be allowed to express said opinion but there are right and less right ways of expressing an ourselves whether or not we are an expert.
By employing a little extra structure and perhaps some nifty statistics or other factual fun I might achieve my goal of being taken a little more seriously. Doing this course is basically the start of me taking my non-fiction writing more seriously. I really want this book to find its audience.
I want to express my thoughts in more cohesive ways. I want to make sense and reach people.
Something weird has been happening at one of my other happy places lately. I’ve been practicing Yoga for nearly 30 years and have a daily home practice. It’s always been important for me to practice with a group at least once a week too.
I do a lot of classes when I’m in Bali and always love The Practice at Canggu. We didn’t stay up there this time so I only got in one class there and it was lovely as usual. So welcoming. The classes are structured and taught by a thoughtful, trained teacher.
I also did a couple of classes at two schools in Seminyak but I wasn’t impressed by the offhand manner of the teachers. As a middle-aged woman, I am quite used to being invisible in a lot of settings but when the yoga teachers don’t acknowledge you, don’t look at you when you’re paying them money, and go so far as to actively exclude you from a post-class conversation, it’s time to vote with your feet. No one needs to be made to feel unwelcome.
On top of this, the weird thing is yoga has been making me angry.
Pilates doesn’t piss me off, just yoga, so it’s not matt-based exercise that’s annoying me.
I think it’s all the faux-spiritual BS that can go with it in certain places. I’m not a fan of the creative faux-poses invented by westerners. Cactus arms anyone?
Students wobbling all over the place because the teacher can’t be bothered correcting their alignment? It’s hard to watch new students struggle at the back because the teacher is too inexperienced to help with alignments or do adjustments. Those people may decided yoga isn’t for them and never come back and that would be sad.
Maybe it’s the never-ending dribble of woo that comes out of some teachers’ mouths? You’re not a spiritual guru, Kyle. Just shut up and tell us the next asana.
The teachers who ask a room of ten “so what does everyone want to work on today?” Umm, Krystal, you’re the teacher, didn’t you prepare something?
The people on their phones.
Yeah, any of that could be the source of my frustration.
It’s not the yoga, it’s the location. Looks like I’m heading back to the yoga centre this week.
