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The Raptorial is my monthly newsletter with articles on writing and editing, reviews, news on publications and works in progress, a writing prompt, and a short story book club.
Hope and horrors
Issue 18 of my newsletter, The Raptorial, out now.
A response to the current horrors, some cause for hope, and calls to action.
Summer holidays
It is the eve of my return to work and Ruben’s start of Grade 3. The summer holidays were so good, but in hindsight, I should have had an extra week once term began.
I had great ambitions for what I would achieve over the holidays, and I didn’t quite hit all my goals, but I achieved relaxation, a semblance of an organised home, lots of fun with Ruben, and much rejuvenation.
The coming week is an opportunity to reintroduce my grounding practices that have fallen by the wayside in the absence of structured days. I will return to day 1 of the 30 day yoga with Adriene, aiming to do one each evening, and start my days with 15 minutes of unguided meditation. Oooh, and a new routine which I am most excited about is a morning swim with Ruben before school and work one day a week. We’ve given it three early morning trials over the holidays, so I know it can be done!
Routine will return big time once uni starts next week. I am looking forward to my Semester 1 subject (Developing a Writing Project) and the opportunity it presents to progress my novel with new insights, workshopping sessions and importantly, deadlines. The preparation I did over the summer, while not as much as I had hoped, has set me up with a good starting point for the semester. Bring it on.
If you want to read about the general flavour of my summer, I go into more detail here.
A bit of southern hemisphere life update with some wintery northern hemisphere inspired lines thanks to Sonya’s photo prompt — Three Line Tales 26 January 2023.
Light
cocooned in white coats, they witness the season’s rituals.
hushed footsteps, gliding snow sleds, mitten-moulded balls and peals of laughter.
crystalline flakes refract the light that lingers a while longer each day, promising warmth, peeling away the layers.
Selfie
Occasionally, it occurs to me that when my son is older, he’ll look back on millions of photos capturing his life but very few that include me, particularly post-separation. I then try to right this by taking a selfie of us, but I suck at selfies and they often end up being hyper-close-up shots of the two of us in almost identical poses, side-by-side and faces squished to fit the frame with little visual context of place or event being captured. I’d like to get better at this, but in the mean time, it’s probably easier to recruit others to take pics of us like I did on our recent camping trip, with our camp neighbour Ann obliging, and lingering for a chat.
I learnt that Ann, who is in her early 80s, is an intrepid camper. Following her husband’s death 8 years ago, she found a new lease on life when she joined an online, solo-women-only posse of caravan adventurers.
‘It’s better than staring at the four walls of my unit.’ She said.
Ann and her friends, who are either single, widowed or leave their partners at home, make many trips around Australia each year. On the trip where we met, however, Ann was camping with her family.
A photo with a story not only in front of the camera, but also behind the camera — maybe I won’t bother trying to perfect the selfie!
How do you capture and store memories in this age of click and forget?
This little ramble was inspired by my micro story below, which was inspired by Sonya’s photo prompt — Three Line Tales 19 January 2023. If you’d like to read more than three lines of my writing, check out: raptorial.substack.com
Warrior 101
Dark plumes billowed from the funnels of the Ocean Spirit and rose to meet the cranes that stretched in complex asanas above stacks of shipping containers in shades of industrial chic. Josie was pleased with the surreptitious photo opportunity she’d stumbled upon on the tourist trail; she smiled and threw deuces at the device resting on the end of her selfie stick. The ship’s foghorn let out a long blast that cut through clangs of steel and squawks of seagulls seeking dinner as Josie tried a few more angles, stopping only when she lost her footing and noticed that she, and the Ocean Spirit, were gliding away from the dock.
A Return
Hello! It’s been a while! Funny, I had thought that perhaps three line tales was the best way to dip my toes back into blogsville, and when I looked sometime last year, it appeared Sonya’s prompts were no more. I was super surprised and elated to see them in my reader the other day, so here I am!
Believe it or not, despite the tumbleweeds at 10000hoursleft HQ, I have been writing, including a story on my beloved public library that was published in The Big Issue last year, and a bunch of newsletters at my substack, The Raptorial with regular monthly posts over the past 9 months (thanks to my friends from WP who have joined me over there). I have even returned to my novel which I used to go on and on and on about here.
In other news, I am still at uni (very part time), soon to enter my fourth year of a two year Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing. I’ve also bought a house (yay me, on 31 Dec 2020), and also in 2020, I started a writing and editing business. Oh, and somehow I succumbed to years of my son asking for a dog, and had to make good on my promise that it would happen once we have our own place … Rocco the Lagotto Romagnolo joined our family in August 2021. He’s now 19 months, very cute and sweet but still in need of training (or maybe it is me that needs to be trained in being the ‘top dog’ *sigh*).
I’m glad to be back and to have found a fun way back in. The community here means a lot to me and is a big part of why I am still writing. Occasional checks of the reader fill my heart with joy when I see bloggers from way back still blogging.
Tell me, what’d I miss? What’s new? I’ll attempt a weekly hello accompanied by a three line story, and watch out, I’ll be reading posts and engaging again. Wooh!
Oooh, and rather than complain about the ‘new’ backend as I did on a previous fleeting return, here, I have embraced it after stumbling on something (what, I do not know) that has allowed me to offset my Three Line Tales story from the rest of the post. Fancy huh?
Thanks for the inspiration, Sonya – Three Line Tales 13 Jan 2023
Saturday night lights
He broke away from the throng that was crossing the intersection of 2nd and Broadway and the stripes that promised safety. His was a lone figure following a lone white line, remaining faithful to its guidance after stepping off its edge like a sailor navigating the doldrums. A yellow cab in his line of sight sounded the alarm with a long beep that turned heads and slowed the procession of revellers entering the seedy bars along Broadway — the night was young.
3 Types of editing: which do you need?
So, you’ve written your heart out and have a compelling essay, gripping short story, delicious recipe (with or without accompanying memoir), or dazzling web content to share with the world. Naturally, you want your words to shine and land with readers as you’d intended, without pesky details like spelling, punctuation, voice, grammar, orphans, or widow[er]s […]
3 Types of editing: which do you need?
Sixes and Sevens
Part 1
It’s not about the cake
As my tagline states, this blog is ‘a place to practice the craft’. I meant the craft of writing, but it could also be the craft of living, engaging, witching, mothering. Launched a handful of weeks after the birth of my son, it has been many things — a creative outlet during the long days and nights of new motherhood, a digital sandbox to hone my writing craft, a place to find a writing community and make what are now old friends, a path to tread tentative steps toward intentional and ‘professional’ writing, and a repository for parenting mementos that I’m already grateful for, seven years on.
Those mementos include a post for each of Ruben’s birthdays. Number one was small on fanfare but big on joy; two a day of firsts with first tram ride and aquarium visit for him, first foray into fondant foolery for me; three was spent on the half pipe and dirt mounds of the skate park, inspired by his prodigious way with wheels; four an epic piñata and a dinosaur theme; and five, marveling at the wonders of the universe and his mamma’s baking skills as he sliced through an astronaut helmet cake to discover a solar system within.
Continue readingOn Fast Winds and Slow Emergencies
What role does art play in conversations around slow climate emergencies? This is one of the questions that artist, photographer, activist and PhD candidate Jessie Boylan explores in their work The Smallest Measure—an evolving multi-channel sound, video and photography installation.
I caught Jessie’s exhibition at the Castlemaine State Festival, tagged along during installation of their work for the ClimARt festival, and chatted with them in their studio in Central Victoria.
My profile on Jessie is now up at Get Outta Town. Go have a read! And check out Jessie’s work here.
Thanks Jessie, and thanks Yas (Get Outta Town’s senior wheatbelt correspondent and writer extraordinaire).
Creek-side Ephemera
I was honoured and thrilled to have a piece I recently wrote for Writing Non-fiction: Research and Readership published on the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing site as a sample of student work. I’m among incredible company. Go have a read if you’re interested. Estimated reading time 2-3 minutes. Five if you want to savour it cause who knows when I’ll post again haha.
I have clearly been absent from Blogsville for a while. Someone please tell what is going on with the editor and how I can revert back to the older style. Although I guess that older style was once new and I did get used to it.
100 Days of Opening Lines
At time of writing, I am on day 71. I haven’t missed a beat since starting. Head to @10000hoursleft to have a read!
Work in Progress 