Mirkwood Cottage

The Perfect Space

I dont know about you, but I find that certain spaces help my creative juices to flow better. I love writing at night, sitting by an open window, staring out at the distant window lights and stars. I love writing by the sea; the ebb and flow of the waves soothing my thoughts and words. I love writing in the mountains; their sheer mass and majesty allowing me to feel my smallness in a beautiful and peaceful way. (What are men, compared with rocks and mountains? ;)

And then there's this little beauty. I can imagine my inner five-year-old delighting in this fabulous pink space, playing with the cupcakes and tea... inviting my teddy bears in to dine... reading the lovely invitations to delightful tea parties in my letterbox.

What a wonderful place! What a glorious space! If you'd like to honour your inner five-year-old, this 'Cup Cakery' play house is available from Miss Pretty Pretty on Etsy.

And in the meantime - I'd love to hear about your perfect space for creativity!

The best laid plans of mice and men...

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks, that's for sure. But I'm pleased to update you all and say that my novelS are moving forward, just not in the way I thought they would! I thought I'd share my observations here in honour of full disclosure, and in the hope that this might help other inspiring authors out there.

To revise, this was my Personal Goal: to write 450 words per day of my novel.

So, what didn’t work?

I’m going to start with this question, because honestly?  This goal was a complete mess. After getting home from a very motivating seminar and intending to get on with my personal goal, I found that no matter my intention, I just didn’t get around to my writing.

With each passing day, I felt more and more guilty, started internally beating myself up, and not surprisingly, went into a bit of a depression about it all. I thought about trying to “catch up” on my word count by writing extra words each day. By starting all over again. But no matter the mechanism I came up with, nothing came of it.

The Write Stuff

Oh, the doldrums. I'm sincerely struggling to get into the "write" space. Anyone have any interesting or creative ideas about how to get back on the writing horse? Help!

Another year over, a new one just begun...

They say that if you fail to plan you plan to fail; and that the first step toward achieving your dreams is to write them down and put the intention out into the universe. This gives you a starting point and helps to make you more accountable to your goals. In fact, statistics indicate that if you have just one person in your circle who will hold you accountable to your goals, you increase your likelihood of achieving that goal by 300%! So, my lovely cyber-friends, I'm laying my dreams at your feet...

This year I WILL achieve the following:

- Complete my first novel by May/June 2009 (I'm borrowing and idea from fabulous Keris, and I'm going to write approximately 1% per day, or around 450-500 words)

- Get a literary agent (I've already picked the one I want)

- Get a book deal from a great publisher (preferably a two-book deal ;)

- Qualify for a free holiday to Fiji, through my new Wellness business (which is the main reason I've not been blogging and have been working so hard!)

- Visit Disneyland (Anaheim), realising a 25-year dream

- Spend more than a month in Scotland over the Christmas holidays

- Write my second novel by the end of 2009

- Drop two dress sizes

- Take up an interesting hobby (like archery or sword fighting)

Now, bring me that horizon.

p.s. What are your goals and dreams for 2009?

[Image courtesy of my exponentially increasingly talented husband, David]

Writing a Synopsis

Having completed a 7-day fitness goal and feeling entirely invincible, I've set myself another one, but this time it's about a book! I have three chapters of my first-ever novel completed and I'm quite happy with them... and rather than wait until I've finished the whole book and am 100% satisfied with it (reformed perfectionist? Moi? Quite true!), I'm going to use them to query an agent (or two)!

I'm told that this is how "real authors" do it, to see if their work / writing is marketable; and I did set myself a 90-day goal a few weeks ago to "find an agent" (you'll see the countdown ticking away on my blog, in fact!), so what's to stop me?

Well, maybe a workable synopsis!

So, this week's goal is to write a draft synopsis. I've never written one before, and by all accounts, they're terribly tricky, practically impossible and take years to write. Mmhmm. Yep! That's why I've got exactly one week to write mine! (Nothing like the pressure of a deadline to get one's brain moving!)

However, I thought I'd open it up to you for any advice! Have you written a synopsis before? Do you have any amazing tips that might help me complete my goal?

[Lovely image by darling husband, which has nothing to do with synopses; except, perhaps as a visual interpretation of a goal that is close but distant at the same time. Or I could just be moderately nuts!]

You Can't Handle the Truth...

I realised today that I am my greatest critic and I am a terrible self-sabotager.

I set goals that are realistically unattainable.

I make myself promises that I can't keep.

And when I cancel plans on myself, I tell myself that I didn't want them and I'm really not worthy of attaining them anyway.

"I don't have time for you," I say. "There are more important things to be done." "You're just not worthy of my limited time and you're too much of an effort!"

Can you imagine how a friend would feel if you said that to them after cancelling a dinner date? Why, then, is it acceptable to say it to ourselves?

I started a self improvement journey a little over 18 months ago now. And I'm having to face some cold, hard facts about myself. Things that I REALLY don't like. Things that make me feel horribly uncomfortable. But I'm voluntarily subjecting myself to it, because I know that until I break these walls down, I will never be the writer or the success that I want to be.

So, I'm going to be honest with you. When, on the 23rd of June, I said to myself "I am going to finish my first novel in 90 days!!!" - I think I set the bar too high. I think I knew I couldn't realistically do it amid all of my other commitments. I think I set out to fail.

With 3 weeks to go, I can tell you that I am failing. Reformatting 8 chapters into 4, writing some plot notes and maybe five new sentences of the story is a FAR cry from what I set out to do; and being a bit of a perfectionist, to admit to any kind of REAL failure in public is pretty hard for me.

Instinct tells me to run around, flailing my arms in the air, screaming "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"; instead, I've decided to fail forward.

I, Erin Le Clerc of Mirkwood Cottage, hereby decree:

By the 23rd of September 2008, I agree to complete a very detailed plan of a new novel idea, including characters and all main events from Chapter One through to 'The End'. And I think this is risky. Not risky in the sense that it's too big to manage. More 'I can do this, but it's going to take real courage, real dedication and real change'. And a lot more than five measly sentences.

But I need help. I cannot do this alone. And I'm asking for you to be with me on this one. I need your harrassment. Your encouragement. Even a nod of support would do. And I need this for the next three weeks.

I also need you to know that this is about more than a book outline.

This is about keeping an agreement with myself. About not letting myself down. About saying that I am worthy of my dreams.

If I can do this one thing, I can do anything. And so can you.

The New ADD?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently, during which we debated whether there's a new kind of Attention Deficit Disorder afflicting the nation - or, y'know, me.

I've noticed for some time now, that I struggle to focus on or do one thing at a time. I might have a DVD going, but I'll be blogging, reading news sites or knitting at the same time. I prefer to cook with a movie playing somewhere nearby; and I even find it hard to concentrate on report writing at work without a second data input, such as Coldplay on my iPod. About the only task I can focus on completely nowadays is reading a book, and I think that this is because it demands one's full attention - eyes, body and imagination.

The specific conundrum that this issue poses, however, is that it's very difficult to write a novel while other stimuli are playing nearby, which leads me to feel both disgruntled with and disappointed in myself. Too many cooks spoil the broth, and it seems that too many brain spasms spoil the novel.

I'm not alone in thinking this, either.

The Home of Beef

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, you say? You're not wrong. So, here I am in the land of BEEF. I've not yet seen any living cows, but then, I guess that's why Rockhampton's all about the eating and less about the raising. I may or may not have gained about 7kg since I arrived on Sunday, which I will also blame on BEEF. Because it's tasty, mm'kay?

In any case, I had many plans to write in my spare time, but it seems that life, the universe and everything is taking pleasure in getting in the way. Actually, less universe, more work. And BEEF. I have had a ridiculous run of crappy back-in-Brisbane happenings that I've been trying to handle with no files, no access to my remote desktop and REALLY bad mobile reception. Let's just say that when you combine those problems with a client overdosing on pain meds and you're the only one who knows? Not. Happy. Jan.

Feeling slightly less shaken after a few stiff drinks (if Diet Coke is stiff, in any case)... here's hoping tomorrow's less eventful and my poor little novel gets some love!

Making it Official...

And, the winner for taking the longest time to tell people that she's officially a .com is... me!

www.mirkwoodcottage.com

For those of you keeping track of my (still limited) progress on my first novel, you'll be pleased to know that my primary character lives in a lovely little house called... what else, but Mirkwood Cottage!? In my head, it looks something like this lovely home, only more ivy covered and with a bright red door.

[Image of Woodley Cottage, Echinswell credited to Colin Smith]

The Process of Writing

One month ago, I went to an excellent weekend seminar run by Klemmer & Associates, called "Personal Mastery". It was a course designed for 'revelation' - that is, revealing some of the mental blocks that run like little programs in our subconscious, that rule our conscious decisions and behaviours, without our being aware they're even there! These programs are generally a product of childhood and adolescence, although they can be developed at any time of your life.