Disorganised, depressed and discombobulated and other dastardly D words!

My on again / off again relationship with my closely related nemeses depression and anxiety has been more on that off of late.  A bit like Prince Harry and Cressida… Oh hold on they are well and truly off it seems, which is great news for my daughter who has always fancied herself as a royal wife (not to self – must move to England STAT)…

Anyway, lame attempt at humour aside, I am starting to worry about it and of course this is unhelpful and extremely non productive. One of the unfortunate side-effects of my depression is that I become terribly disorganised to the point of complete discombobulation (according to the WordPress spell checker this is not a word), but there I go digressing again… even this post is disorganised.

My disorganisation is probably one of the things I hate most about being in this state.  It means I forget appointments, miss deadlines (so not great for self-employed struggling writer), get lost when driving (I am normally a cracker with directions), buy everything but the salt and pepper that I went to Coles for in the first place, which then makes me sadder still because what I was really craving was boiled eggs on toast with salt and pepper … you know the dippy egg kind that you have with little toast soldiers:

The happy making power of the dippy egg should never be underestimated as a cure for all manner of things.  Another thing in my life that makes me happy is going to writing events, where I get to meet and mingle and most of all learn from published authors in my bid to achieve my dream (I think goal sounds better – more achievable) of being a published and successful writer.  I was really counting on one such event scheduled (in my mind only) for this coming weekend, and I had sort of put it out to my universe that this event would be the much needed charm to pull me out of my funk!

Said event was http://www.writerscentre.com.au/all-courses/magazine-newspaper-writing-stage-1/

I had told myself that it would be my Mother’s Day present to me (and from the girls) and I was so SO looking forward to it.  Being with other writers in a learning environment was to be just the ticket out of Sadtown.  So imagine my distress (lots of D words going down here today!) when the very lovely Valerie Khoo, (you can follow her on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/valeriekhoo) who is the National Director and Founder of Australian Writers’ Centre and just happened to pick up the phone (yes, I had a slightly fan-girl reaction when she told me her name – Valerie as in “Valerie Khoo I squeaked) and returned a message I left, so gently and kindly, after I went into my babble and spiel about really wanting to do the course THIS weekend but could I pay on Thursday (I didn’t let her know I was broke until then because I am depressed and disorganised and forgot to submit some invoices) but could I PLEASE PLEASE secure a spot … Valerie informed me that this course, that I was pinning my hopes of happiness on was in fact as you can see dear reader (all two of you) …. LAST WEEKEND!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! This is not me, but as close a likeness as I want to show right now, as I have hair that is short-in-between-rock-chick-tuckshop-mum, seriously unkempt brows (read monobrow with serious bristles that show under my glasses on the bridge of my nose – Hot!)) and a blind pimple the size of Everest on my chin (oh depression how you do wonders for my looks with your inability to even make it to the beauty salon.

Actually, this is a much closer likeness to me right now:

I digress again… after I heard this news, I babbled on a further forever minutes, and Valerie still kindly and patiently listened (probably thinking God, how on Earth do I get rid of this nutter?) In the course of the conversation, Valerie divulged that the next online course

is beginning next Monday 12 May, and as such I could pay for this on Thursday!  Now don’t get me wrong, the online course is being delivered by the awesome Allison Tait who kindly awarded me a copy of her book as a prize for something I wrote (my first and only prize so far, and whilst it is not the Man Booker prize but a Facebook comp prize, I felt like it was … ) “Get Paid to Write: The Secrets of Freelancing Success” which got me started with this crazy notion that I could actually make money out of being a freelance writer.  You can get your copy here: http://www.allisontait.com/get-paid-to-write/ …

The next Perth course is not until August and the next writing event that I am going to is Natasha Lester’s Scrivener course:

Of course this is not until the end of June and if I stay depressed and discombobulated until the then my head will probably fall off. I just noticed that this course is not at the venue where Natasha has held her previous awesome courses, which is a good thing as I would have disorganisedly driven there and then got lost trying to find the correct venue, and turn up late which is never cool.  You can find out more about Natasha, an awesome Perth based writer here:

http://whilethekidsaresleeping.wordpress.com/

My success rate with online learning is not great – and has at times been a costly waste of time (3 x attempts at completing my legal practice course and a HECS debt to rival the GDP of China are evidence of this).  However, it is writing and I know I love writing, I loved writing when I was lawyering.  I never loved lawyering the way I love writing.  So can this disorganised, depressed, discombobulated wannabe be writer get her dishevelled shit together and succeed in some on-line learning … well I bloody well hope so, as I just put the cost of the course on my Mastercard … and at least this way I will be able to spend some quality time dragging my daughters around Bunnings for an alternative Mother’s Day present, as this one doesn’t really count does it?

I might even buy some worms for that worm farm I bought my daughter as a much loved gift a Bunnings Trip or ten ago!

Blame it on the Bunnies…

So the “fast stuck I am” post of last week feeling is starting to dissipate.  Thanks to some lovely friends who took the time to read it, look past the self deprecating and maudlin tone to make contact with me, I have started to shake myself out of the gloom.  I have been reassured by a couple of my friends that is OK to be in that space, and it does not necessarily mean that I am going to keep going backwards, and I don’t need to catastrophise it, it is just that I am just having an off couple of days.  Anyway, one of my girlfriends and I reckon if all else fails, we can blame it on the bunnies (an inside joke that doesn’t translate too well into blogspeak).

Today I can see all of the positives about my “current situation”.  Sure the work I do to produce an income may not be that exciting, but then again, I was never actually excited when I was living my corporate life (corporate lie?).  Being stressed and working from 7:00am to 7:30pm and the last to leave an office does not equal excitement, no matter how much of a spin I used to put on it.

Whilst I find all of the clichés, “everything happens for a reason”, “every cloud has a silver lining” etc. really hard to stomach when I am feeling low, on days like today when things are looking better, I can swallow them and keep them down (provided I have had at least 3 coffees and a muesli bar).  There really are a lot of positives about my life right now, and my eternal challenge is to rise above my ego and see them. I mean, I always used to complain about not seeing enough of my kids (well the two that are still in the nest) now I am home for them more and I think they really like that, although they may not admit it openly.  I really like being home when they come in the door from school or being able to pick them up, even if they go straight to their rooms to Facebook/Snapchat/Tumblr stepping straight over the pile of dirty washing that I have pointedly left in the corridor…

I used to complain about not having enough money.  Well, when is there ever “enough” money?  I have to admit working for myself has meant that there have been some lean weeks but hey when weren’t there?  There is more to life than money, and I know that if I do a certain amount of bread and butter work, there will be enough to provide what is needed.  The biggest challenge for me in the money stakes is discipline and organisation, but hell, I am sure I am not alone there.

I have complained of feeling very lonely, and because I have lost a few loved ones, I have been single since Noah built the ark and have only lived in Perth for a relatively short time it has become a little but easy to stay there – in lonely land.  My challenge here is to not feel ashamed of being lonely and therefore isolate myself even more, but to make the effort to connect with the many friends I do have.  Even though sometimes when I am low, I find it easier to hide away at home I always feel better after a few hours spent with friends (especially when our discussions centre around the Q7700, the master of all bidets … you know who you are!) …

http://www.bizwinkorea.com/bidet-shop/quoss-bidet-store/quoss-q-7700-korea-remote-control-electronic-bidet-bathroom-toilet-seat-washlet-premium-luxury-highest-class-bidet-ce.html

So, in short I am a little less fast stuck this week, I am 🙂

Two for Two

In the 24 hours since I finally completed the letter to Dad that I posted yesterday, that I had left half finished for three weeks I have felt lighter in my heart than I have for some time.  I think there are a couple of reasons for this, and I am going to list them in succinct dot points, Fleur style (in case you don’t know who Fleur is, she is one of best friends and writes a highly entertaining blog called MY EGO AND ME which you can find here: http://wordpress.com/read/blog/id/24672493/

I am going for succinct because I have stuff to do and for the first time in ages, I am actually a little bit excited about some of that stuff – like writing.  The more mundane stuff, well meh, but I don’t feel the heaviness about life that I have felt and I reckon I might even find the energy to tidy up my office tomorrow.

I have shed my musty old melancholy coat and am (metaphorically) wearing something far more hip(ster) … because a girl who has exciting stuff to do cannot be weighed down.  I don’t know that I am back completely, because I have also acknowledged that grief takes time to disperse and no matter how forthright you are about setting some stupid time frame on that, grief will do her own thing as she knows best.  There is a gift in that somewhere.  Being able to be authentic and real about how sad you feel.  From there, you can start to heal.

Anyhow, back to that succinct list of exciting things I have to do this week, in no particular order of excitement:

• Dust off the bulldog clipped 95,000 words of my novel and get my Detective Cassidy Ryan on!
• Tidy my office
• Finish my BAS
• Complete a couple of client’s resumes – Sophie, Kendal this is you!
• Finalise a report for a development project
• Get a pedicure
• Send out 500 brochures to get some new work in
• Finalise a report for a client in Gero so I can have a good reason to get up there to visit Larsy and Dave
• Go on a first date with a lovely man (hence the pedicure)

Betcha you can’t guess which two of the above that I am the most excited about 🙂

Hold on to your hats … it is going to be extraordinary! (AKA You like me)

I am loving life right now. Things are really coming together. I am achieving my dreams, and the momentum with which this is happening is crazy wonderful. I have clarity on this like never before. Within the next twelve months I will be a published author and a property entrepreneur. My corporate writing business is building at a pace that is manageable yet looks like being profitable. My health is on its way to being the best it has been in years. This detox is really working and I am not even hungry. I am not even struggling mentally with the fact that I won’t be eating cheese and crackers with smoked salmon accompanied by a chilled Marlborough SB tomorrow night, which is a bit of a Friday ritual (OK, that one pinches a little)! I caught up with a girlfriend the other afternoon after a stressful meeting and said “I need a herbal tea and an apple STAT!” … Admittedly, said GF nearly fell backwards in shock. Sorry Larsy I have not gone cray-cray, I am just getting real about what I would for the next decade – my fabulous forties.

Am I there yet? No … do I have a fair way to travel down the path to better health, wealth and fulfillment? Most definitely. Is it going to take as much hard work as say … doing a law degree or raising a couple of fantastic kids – you betcha. Am I going to need to keep getting tidier/more focused/on time/committed/organised … Yerp!

So what is different about things this time?

Many things … the pain of how I was living certain aspects of my life finally reached tipping point. The desire to have and hold certain other things grew too big to ignore. I had some honest conversations with my middle daughter, and we made a commitment to live healthier together. Plus recently I had yet another opportunity to learn a couple of somethings about myself – that it is OK (really OK) if people don’t like me, and that I don’t have to jump in/interrupt/rescue people in order to demonstrate that I am worthy/smart/likable/funny/attractive to men …

At the wedding that I attended recently, I met up with a woman who I knew back in high school. We were chatting about men, as single gals tend to eventually. She told me that all men are bastards. I told her I disagree. It really is about perspective isn’t it?

On backing yourself

It is the nature of the artist to mind excessively what is said about him. Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others – Virginia Woolf

In my long journey towards “being” a writer, I have given up and put works aside too any times.  Ok, so I have shared a post or two about self sabotage and my inherited alcoholic tendencies which give some insight into why, but in exploring other blogs and researching and even talking to published authors, even famous ones, I have come to the conclusion that we writers are mostly a nervy insecure bunch. (yep, like some crazy fan-girl, I am the woman at the writer’s conferences I make a point of talking to the authors I read and having them sign my books and hopefully remember me … any publicity is good publicity right?).

So as the great Ms Woolf said, it is in the nature of the artist to mind excessively about what is said about him … well in this case “her”… Do I mind?  Well, yes very much.  As an emerging writer, working on my first full-length novel, my published works are so far limited to:
• A lot of government documents (which are fabulous but I cannot claim)
• some short stories (working on some more right now, and realising that I love writing short stories!
• some poetry in Dolly Mag when I was young (oh the anguish …)
• a friend’s wedding vows (getting your words printed on a 150 guest mementos counts doesn’t it?
• many irate letters to the editor on all manner of topics – asylum seekers, gay marriage rights, other stuff that I (and you should) care about
• the odd crikey http://www.crikey.com.au/ post (got in trouble for these as I worked for the Premier’s department at the time in Queensland and I did not quite make myself anonymous enough :-))
• a stack of tweets (much to my daughter’s shame, I tend to do a happy dance around the house when I get re-tweeted or RT’d for those of cool enough to be tweeters/twits? (sigh, I am so last season)
• A previous blog that I had for 4+ years on the Journalspace site, until one day the whole thing crashed, disconnecting so many people who had shared each other’s lives from the sanctity of their laptops late at night – I only ever managed to reconnect with two people from JS – Mark & Ally (HI!), as it was pretty much before the days of Facebook
• This awesome new blog, which apart from giving me a chance to practice writing, will hopefully contain enough wit, colour and insight to entice a publisher who likes by manuscript but is not quite ready to take the plunge – would it be tacky to link the publishing houses I am targeting here – maybe?)

In order to make some money to keep me in wi-fi and the kids from starving, I am also doing technical and corporate freelance writing, so jump onto the about me section on this blog if you need anything in that vein…

Back to the point of this post, backing yourself as a writer.  Just by listing the things I have written has given me a spurt of confidence I didn’t have.  I am a writer, and mostly a pretty good one.  I can entertain and convince with my words, and I think I have an interesting style.  A good friend posted this on my wall today:

It could not have been more timely … no such things as coincidences?  My journey towards “being” a writer has been littered with corpses – mostly of killed off characters – but also my dreams, killed off by my self sabotaging Ms Ego, who really really minds beyond reason the opinions of others.  She minds so much, that kept me safe by keeping me gainfully employed in a corporate career that was stifling me.  From an early age, when I was supposed to be doing homework or studying and more recently working on a dry legal document, my mind would wander into its library – a big old sandstone building covered in ivy surrounded by fog, it inside resplendent with tall oak shelves, full of fabulous old tomes,  and dark twisty passages leading to more tall oak shelves, full of fabulous old tomes. I even used to have conversations with the resident head librarian – a very tiny old lady (called of course Virginia) with a white bun, fierce eyes, half-glasses, and a lavender cardigan made of llama wool – about where to find literary treasures on my latest topic of interest.  From the Plantagenet’s to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, I have crafted stories in my head about the people of these times and places.  In the library in my mind, some have even been published.  In the library in my mind, I always backed myself and told my stories about whatever took my fancy, without the real world fear monsters creeping in to tell me they were not any good.

In the library in my mind, I have a whole shelf of amazing stories, and Virginia is directing other daydreamers to seek them out.  In the library in my mind, I backed myself.  Now all I have to do is make those stories come out …