Six months on and how am I going with my words of the year and creativity in general. Quite frankly I’m exhausted and not from my writing or art. As mentioned, I knew this would be a challenging year, although thankfully my Dad’s health has had an upturn and at 96 (and a half. Funny how we return to this form of measuring after all these years.🤔) he has just renewed his licence. A stressful decision making process for all involved as is navigating government home care systems/website.
Despite that I do feel that I have done quite a lot this year and have been both disciplined and flexible (actually creating in the cracks) with myself and my processes. Trust has been high.
What have a done before I reached my current plateau/ moment of rest? My main purpose, direction and achievement has been on building up Western Sydney KidLit firstly by finding local creators, it’s surprising how many and they are still coming out of the woodwork which provides immense joy for me, considering that for years I thought I was alone in this fancy. As well as finding each other, we’ve shared our hopes for our community and not only with each other. (More on this later.)
I’ve also focussed on submission again this year and while I don’t feel as though I’ve done a lot of it, as the next bout of rejections and the odd medicinal acceptance pop into my mailbox, I recognise that I have. I am not prolific by any means, but I am becoming more consistent. What I have found frustrating is the opportunities I have not had the time for, due to competition and submission season falling when I’m at my busiest at work- excuses, excuses I know. (Argh noticed two new views and visitors today, I hope they weren’t publishers wondering why I haven’t blogged for six months!)
I do however, have good reason, not just excuses this year.
I was asked by Lara Porter of SCBWI Australia East to help set up for the first time, a social meeting place in Sydney’s West. A request I suspect came from a ‘whinge’ of mine (and possibly others) or perhaps the realisation that as people continue to settle further west, so inevitably does our child audience.
This brings me back to our wonderful KidLit West group of creatives and the incredible opportunity presented to us this year. The biennial Write Out West (WOW) Festival will have its second iteration in November this year and we were asked to take on the KidLit aspect of it for Blacktown Council. We were given a budget we would have surely blown except for the fact that so many of our group willingly volunteered their time. The excitement around planning the event has been heartwarming and I have since applied for a grant which will allow us to not only pay our creatives, but also set ourselves up as THE place for encouraging the love of literature (specifically KidLit) and literacy other than our diverse and proactive libraries of course. I am amazed at just how much they do offer and I hope our community fully utilise them.
Grants are an incredible amount of very specific work and I thank Michael Campbell Director of WestWords for helping me write one. I have everything crossed for this and am doing my best to trust that if its meant to be it will, because we have big plans to work within the many multicultural communities which make up Western Sydney. It is indeed tiring, but oh so inspiring and exciting to bring this festival project toward fruition and build relationships. Relationships with families and books, families and us, and schools and us, all to improve the perception of and interest in KidLit.
We were thrilled to receive a request from a local primary school to help work out a small program of talks/ workshops we could do with them after they were referred to us by council. Despite not having done the Festival, nor set up the website good old word of mouth is already working in our favour.
Finally despite promising myself I wouldn’t spend any more money on procrastinating by consuming courses and attending events, instead determinedly doing the work of creating with discipline and flexibility I did:
*Attend the State Library of NSW Mastering Picture Books Day including the incredible Alison Lester exhibition, well worth a visit.
*Conduct a WestWords Living Stories workshop (for which I got a mention on radio!)
*Attend WestWords Fundraising Trivia Night,
*Go to one event (so difficult!) at the Sydney Writer’s Festival,
*Sign up for the free online Profitable Artists Summit and
*Attend the SCBWI PD day on last Saturday.
It was lovely to catch up with so many old friends and make some new ones too.
Although it’s only a blog, I’ve finally sat down, well lay on my couch, and done some writing and hopefully some plateau busting.💥 Time to regain some trust and discipline and possibly ease up on the flexibility, now that my ridiculous workload* is on hiatus until August.
Farewell fellow traveller,
Savour the Quest,
Journeygirl
*I do love being busy/involved in the many areas of my life.
Journeygirl 