Relight my Fire!
Looking back through the mists of time (to last December) it feels like a completely different me who chose the word FOCUS as her word for 2026.
What was I thinking?
Whatever it was, it was wishful thinking.
I quicky changed my word to COURAGE because I needed it to tackle the massive list of projects I wanted to finish, start or launch over the year.
I was working on the sequel to my second book, Alia Henry and the Ghost Writer and mapped out the first season of a limited series podcast for my book about critique for creatives, Real Friends Stab you in the Front. I even recorded the first episode with Alison L Robson, friend and writer of crime and romance.
I wasn’t focused in the least, but through sheer manic energy I was getting shizz done.
Around mid-March I realised I had achieved precious little and had neither focus nor courage but I’d recorded the first episode of the podcast and had around 50k words on my manuscript.
Not too shabby.
But I felt as if I was wading through treacle. Then my husband snapped his other achilles, I went to Paris and now, somehow, it’s September.
The podcast episode is still sitting in a folder on my computer and in a way, I still feel like I’m in the treacle.
How did that happen?
I did find some focus though. While I was in Paris, I revived my meditation practice that had become just 10 minutes morning and night. Something clicked while I was there. I ‘downloaded’ a lot of stuff and had a couple of clear goals but I just didn’t have the fire to pursue them. I’d also brought home a stomach bug and felt as though my inner fire had gone out.
Then my friend, Selena Jane, also and author, told me I needed to care more.
She was talking about my entry for a short story competition, but the comment rippled out and applied to a far broader segment of my life.
I needed to care more about my writing, my work and my goals.
I had this image of myself as a creative, making lovely things, sharing them with the world, and inspiring others to do the same. I saw myself as some kind of cross between the Queen of Rainbows from the Osho Zen Tarot deck and the Last Elemental from Hellboy 2 (scroll down for an explanation…)
Yes, I have a vivid imagination.
When Selena told me I needed to care more, it was as though a chime sounded deep in my soul and rekindled the fire in my belly. Immediately I knew I needed to care more about the outcomes of my creative work, about the quality of the work I produce, about whether or not my pitches or submissions are successful.
I am all about the creativity but I wondered, at length in my journal over the coming days, whether I had cultivated an air of not caring for a more shadowy reason. I do have a long history of accismus, an ironic rhetorical device (and annoying personality trait) where a person pretends to refuse or shows false indifference to something they actually want.
I’ve been doing this for years because growing up, I was taught that wanting was bad, sinful even. It didn’t matter what it was that I wanted either; it was the act of wanting that was bad.
My solar plexus needed to get the memo: It’s okay to care, to try and it’s even okay to succeed.
So here I am, a few weeks later, promoting a workshop that’s quite different from the others that I’ve presented recently. My Reclaim Your Creative Clarity workshop is a journaling-based 3-hour In-person class presented to a small group. I have packaged up all the techniques I’ve been using over the past few years to write my books, present my workshops and get my creative work in front of people.
If you’re on the Gold Coast or in the vacinity, come and join in the fun.
It’s a great opportunity to do deep work. We’ll look at our motivations, passions and dreams. We’ll even look at the ones we won’t admit to anyone, what we put in our shadow, how we can bring it out into the light and give it space to grow inspired by Selena’s excellent advice.
