The Write Life

Hi readers

Keeping up to date with this blog is really proving to be a trick.  I admire those of you who can blog far more regularly than myself.  Every time I blog, I am before the screen, fingers to keyboard, for about an hour and finding that time of late has been difficult.  Perhaps I need to learn Speed Blogging.  Generally, increase my cerebral synapse-to-keyboard ratio.  

It has been cold and damp lately, with plenty of running in the chilly rain, so plenty of steaming cups of coffee and hot chocolate are being consumed.  I love the winter though and really, I don't think we can truly whinge because winter in Queensland is like summer in London for the jubilee flotilla.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images - thank you!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Jubilee celebrations, unlike several grumpy anti-Queen types I know.  It's the pageantry I think - the hats, the horses, the polished brass, the jewels, the uniforms...  It invites me into a world I would never otherwise know and I guess, it's a bit like a childhood fairy story.  Besides, I love all the traditions too.

And I love this photo of Phil and Liz.  They look exactly the same, with just a few more wrinkly bits.  This weekend I attended a Freelance Writing workshop run by the Walkley Foundation, with Benjamin Law as presenter. It was FANTASTIC.  

Thanks to Benjamin, I learned about how to come up with ideas for stories, how to pitch them to editors, how to frame them and write them and then, how to invoice them.  I am feeling very inspired.  It's all about selling myself as a product.  My writing.  To this end, he suggested to us that we should set up an online portfolio of our work so I have been working on this today. I have a lot more to do to get it right but I think it will be an effective tool, even if it's just for me.  Basically, it has nothing on it yet but I have a url with my name in it, the first step to becoming a professional.  It will be a "serious" website which I will use to impress my future employers of my incredible writing skills (ha.)  As I write that, I don't actually feel very confident but I know that will come.  

Tomorrow marks three months since I started my exciting and wonderful new job in the newsroom.  While I am not working as a journalist, just being surrounded by them, absorbing what they are doing, is making me very happy and really inspiring me.  I feel so alive. I know that's a hideous cliche but I feel that a new world has opened it's door and I am standing on the threshold as it beckons me forward.  To celebrate I have baked choc-caramel slice to take in to work.  It will be an addition to the other treats I served up from my desk - namely Cabcharge vouchers, Panadol and charity chocolate sales for the entire floor.  I call my desk The Aid Station.  Oh, the first aid box is there to.  And I was a nurse for 25 years so.... I think it works.  Must fly now. Have lots and lots and lots of reading to do.  My reading level is just not high enough.  I also have learned about a bunch of new blogs, thanks to Benjamin, that I want to look at.  These are:  The Global Mail, Vanity Fair for its excellent journalism and This American Life for its fascinating podcasts.

Oh, and errrr... yesterday I ran the fastest I have ever run in my life, finishing a 10km run in the cold rain in 50:09 minutes. I am SO close to breaking that 50 minutes.  I have never pushed myself so hard and I did so thanks to a friend who ran with me and helped me to see - once again - what I am truly capable of when I apply myself.