Dim's Write Stuff

Charmaine Clancy's Blogfest, Imagination Sparks , has jolted me into blogging action this week. OK I can't offer an exercise everyday thus illustrating why I need to exercise (my creative brain) more. So here is my BOOSTING CREATIVITY EXERCISE. It involves no arithmetic, very few scientific formulas, and your favourite snack can be easily incorporated into the routine. Step 1: Understand Your Mind I'm not 100% certain but I reckon the mind's capacity to take in and store data has got to be pretty huge; at least 1 Tbs worth. At least it feels like that some days in my head. And often all that info forms into a thick claggy cloud of bewilderment, stress and inactivity. Step 2:  Hit the Shut Down Button You need to do this to avoid data overload. De frag, reorganise, unclutter, minimise. Call it what you will just don't fill up your precious head space with anything for a while. If this means missing the social pages so be it. The world will get on without y...

I have recently been invited to participate in and conduct a number of creative writing workshops at our local primary school as part of this year's Book Week . The aim being to promote and foster the fun and worthiness of literature within a child's world. Running from the 22nd to the 26th of August , it promises to be a packed, productive and I wonder, if not slightly punishing week. Of course I'm looking forward to engaging the creative minds and spirits of every child from Prep to Year 7 with a stomach turning mixture of sheer excitement and trepidation. After all how many similar workshops have I attended thus feeling well confident with my content and subject matter? After all how much passion do I possess about the subject matter? After all how difficult can it be to persuade kids to feel the passion too? After all they're kids...They're kids. And there in lies the rub. They're kids; possibly the world's most difficult group to publicly address. ...

Feathers are flying. Egg count diminishing. No wait, Zero Eggs last count. Our Cackleberries are officially Off The Lay . Apparently you can't make eggs and new feathers simultaneously. So as our beloved chookies lose feathers by the doona full, so we lose our supply of happy eggs. So what now? What do you do when your production drops off? How to you maintain your productivity? What keeps you driving forward with your writing or your life when all you feel like doing is hunkering down and waiting for the miracle of new feathers or inspiration to reappear? Well for chooks, it's all about the amount of daylight they get a day. The more they get the more they are inclined to lay eggs. So... 1 . Install an industrial strength fluorescent light (the kind film gaffers use) over your desk. Direct glare into your eyes and watch the colours of inspiration swirl before you.  Chooks love a warm high protein mash of grains, garlic and chillies. Gets them through the winter months an...

With little time to deliver a sensible, insightful, useful or otherwise entertaining post, these REALISATIONS grow ever more ostensible. 1. Glitter is harder to vacuum up than you'd think. My vacuum just tends to move it around the house. So if you don't mind your floors looking like a fairy has thrown up all over them, repeatedly, confine all glitter activity to the great outdoors. 2. School Holidays are not a good time to complete your next best seller. In fact abandon all hope of completing anything during this enforced hiatus. 3. I need a new vacuum. 4 . There is no finite number of times you can ask your significant other (aka common old husband) to do something. Better to stick a post it note bearing request to his forehead. He will act on it, eventually, when he feels like it or when somebody else politely points out he has a post it note stuck to his forehead. 5. Children under the age of four really do mean it when they say they love you. Anything beyond ...

I'm fond of quotes which cast wide philosophical nets, evoke emotion and rearrange one's thinking. But sometimes you just can't beat the Oldies but Goodies like this of Dr Seuss (I Can Read with my Eyes Shut). "The more that you read, The more things you will know, The more that you learn,  The more places you'll go . " It simply recounts an epiphany I had in the girls' toilets of my new school in Adelaide as a wise old Grade One newbie (not sure why it occurred there, maybe because water inspires me); That books would always be my friends, that I could attain absolutely anything from within them and that their power was limitless. Wouldn't it be lovely to bestow this upon children so that their worlds are boundless too? 

It was still dark and bitterly cold at 6.00 am yesterday. Five year old declared it too cold for our early morning walk. At 3.5 degrees C I was inclined to agree. So we read on the couch instead. Snuggling together warmed a memory, which hatched an idea, that grew into an incredible urge to write a new picture book.   Now I'm bubbling away with images, characters and half structured sentences like a percolator about to explode. I don't quite have a full pot but there's definitely a brew in the making. The feeling is tantalizing. Stunt doubles no doubt are accustomed to the kick of adrenalin. They recognise its scent and relish its taste. They know how to harness its power. For we writers, that initial surge of motivation is no less subtle than a shot of adrenalin. I want to sprint down the beach, leap through the surf and slay slimy sea monsters: well I want to be in a comfy chair at least while I observe my characters as they do this. What spurs you into a fren...

Winter time on Mount Tamborine . A melodious mix of wood smoke, cerulean skies, honey coloured sunshine and hot chocolates (with marshmallows the size of small clouds). And what better way to savour these delights than with a good book, the laughter of children and the odd nursery rhyme. That's exactly how we spent this morning, basking in the winter sunshine of   The Kitchen Table  at the Launch of "On the Night That We First Met ",  Hootenanny Book's inaugural publication. Creative Director and Editor, Nadine Bates, decided to put her heart where her mouth is and has not only produced Hootenanny's first picture book but also wrote it. Exquisitely illustrated by Slovakian Zlatica Hlavacova, On the Night That We First Met is a tender emotional recollection of a mother's first encounter with her new child. It gently emphasises that although a child may enter a family in many different ways, the way a child is acquired can never dimini...