The Fabric of Me - devotional art

Woven together

Each strand in its place

Dreams not perchance

Hopes not misplaced

DNA formed to Your grand design

Each gifting on purpose

Each love refined

An open channel

A clear written book

A riverbed waiting for Love to flow through…

… the fabric of me

Born to love

and be loved

I am made for You

Artwork ~ Hayley Wilson (age 12 at the time) | Words ~ Dianne J. Wilson

Dianne J. Wilson writes novels from her hometown in East London, South Africa, where she lives with her husband and three daughters. She is working on a three book YA series, Spirit Walkers, 

for Pelican Book Group / Watershed.

Finding Mia is available from Amazon, Pelican / Harbourlight, Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

Shackles is available as a free ebook from Amazon & Smashwords.

Glimpses of Light

By Jeanette O'Hagan and Nola Passmore

Be challenged, captivated and moved by these imaginative reflections on faith, help in time of need, joy in the midst of tragedy, and surprising encounters with God.

During 2015, the International Year of Light, twenty-one authors from Australia and the United States have come together to explore the theme of 'glimpses of light'—finding light in dark places—through short stories, poems, flash fiction and creative non-fiction.

Glimpses of Light includes contributions from respected and award-winning authors and poets Jo-Anne Berthelsen, Paula Vince, Lynne Stringer, Adele Jones, Jo Wanmer, Jeanette Grant-Thomson and Ellen Carr, as well as exciting new talent.

Profits from this anthology go to CBM Australia, giving sight to the blind.

~~~~

In 2014, I spoke to my fellow co-editor, Nola Passmore, about the concept of producing an anthology to celebrate the Year of Light with profits going a charity like CBM (formerly Christian Blind Mission) in conjunction with Christian Writers Downunder. At the beginning of 2015 we invited contributions for the Glimpses of Light anthology.

Nola and I were pleased with the creativity and quality of the entries we received and delighted that our contributors were prepared to work with us in two rounds of editing plus proofing. We greatly appreciated our support team, including our back-up judges, editors and proof-readers – Jo-Anne Berthelsen, Lynne Stringer, Christina Aitken and Paula Vince. We’d also like to thank Australian romantic suspense author, Helene Young, for allowing us to use her gorgeous photo for the cover.

The anthology includes short stories, poems, flash fiction and creative non-fiction on the theme of glimpses of light (light in dark places), written from a Christian worldview and values, some with a more overtly Christian content than others. There are a number of speculative fiction entries, dramatic suspense, family drama, poetry and creative non-fiction.

We believe this is a delightful and inspirational anthology that is both encouraging to Christians and suitable to give to non-Christian friends.

We are currently running a blog tour - with a chance to win prizes from Jo-Anne Berthelsen’s (until 12th), mine (until 14th) and (from Monday) Adam Collings blog. The tour will continue with another six stops until the start of February.

Glimpses of Light is available for purchase in print and ebook format from Amazon.

JEANETTE O'HAGAN enjoys writing fiction, poetry, blogging and editing. She is writing her Akrad’s Legacy Series—a Young Adult secondary world fantasy fiction with adventure, courtly intrigue and romantic elements. Her short stories and poems are published in Tied in Pink romance anthology, Another Time Another Place, Poetica Christi’s Inner Child, Let the Sea Roar, Like a Girl.

Jeanette has practised medicine, studied communication, history, theology and, more recently, a Master’s in writing. She loves reading, painting, travel, catching up for coffee with friends, pondering the meaning of life and communicating God’s great love. She lives in Brisbane with her husband and children.

Website: jeanetteohagan.com

NOLA PASSMORE'S poetry, devotions, inspirational articles, and short fiction have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. Although she’s a former academic with qualifications in creative writing, psychology, and Christian ministry; she’s found that you can never underestimate the power of friends and mentors in the writing journey.

With ringleader roles in Quirky Quills and the Toowoomba chapter of Omega Writers, she’ll be nagging (oops, encouraging) other writers for some time. She and her husband Tim have a freelance writing and editing business called The Write Flourish.

Website: www.thewriteflourish.com.au

A Poem for Every Day

You may remember that last time, I shared a template for writing a personal poem all about yourself: your past, your present, the everyday things you notice that come together like a mosaic to make your life what it is.

That template isn't any good for every day, because the formulation "I am from" results in answers that may never change very much, certainly over the course of an adult's life.

So I have rejigged it a bit here and there, with similar sorts of blanks to fill in, with a major difference: you can write one every day if you want and it will be new and fresh. Sure, it may take a little effort to come up with a new familiar object or chore, but we're writers. It's what we do.

Here is my poem of today:

Today is about Roman sandals, Harry Potter and black Inkjoy pens for writing my stories longhand.
About the haunting autumn cricket songs; Bayview’s beach, the boatramp running down to the mudflats at low tide.
It is about the daily walk, caring for the garden, and the harvest still plodding along to provide ingredients for my stir-fry.
It is also about Manuka Road, where I pound the pavement and wonder about the people who live in the houses; about forging new frontiers in publishing.
Today was about a new sketchpad I discovered at the Mall, the last one left in palm-sized blue, perfect for travelling but nice and thick too.
It was about the dream of working more within my passions than is currently possible. To read, to design, to help others.
It was about the blue hibiscus dress, discovered on a trip to New Caledonia five years ago, and my French press for loose-leaf tea, bought secondhand for a song.
It was about shredded salad, with four veg plus mozzarella, mixed till it looked like hash browns.
About needing to walk another hour later in the day, and having a small blister from new shoes. I’ll fall back on my old ones again.
And it was about that time my cat started sleeping on my bed again, after months where she seemed to have forgotten it existed.
My flatmates, both off work today, and pursuing their pastimes: one is shopping, the other listening to loud music.

And here is the template for you to fill in with your own words:

Poem of Days

Today is about (specific ordinary item), (book name) and (product name and associated activity).
About the (aspect of where you live; placename, local haunt, description). (more than one if you like).
It is about (habitual activity), (everyday chore), and (aspect of nature: plant or wildlife, and where it was seen).
It is also about (place regularly visited, and what you did there); about (thing that was on your mind).
Today was about (a favourite recent purchase or gift, and where you bought it/who gave it to you and why)
It was about the dream of (something you imagined doing someday, even if you thought it unlikely).
It was about (describe favourite old possession and its story) and (household object regularly handled).
It was about (food you ate regularly at that time, and how it was made).
About travelling from X to Y and from Z to A. (story from travelling)
And it was about that time I (or friend/family member) (story from daily life...).
(Name of friend you spent time with) and (how they contributed to your life).

Where I'm from: An exercise in poetry

There's a poem by George Ella Lyon called Where I'm From that provides a great writing exercise as well as a way to get to know people better. Do read her original version here, with the origin of the form.

Someone has written out a handy template here, and I used it once years ago to write my own version; now, I think the time has come for a new one. It would be fascinating, in fact, to do one every year or so, and if I have a child someday, wouldn't it be grand to do one for every year of life until they can take on their own writing? This particular template focuses a lot on the past, so perhaps there is something similar that could be used for a more current snapshot.

Here, then, is my 2015 edition. Will you join me with one of your own? I'm sure all the international locations represented by this blog and its readers can provide a surprising variety of results!

I am from island ferries, from mosquito coils and pavlova.

I am from the A-frame on the hill, red brick below, faux half-timbered above, baking in the summer heat.

I am from the feijoa blossom promising fruit, the tiny yellow zucchini so recently appeared in the garden. 

I am from Boxing Day parties and hospitality, from Ernest and Amelia and Albert and a vast array of barely-known cousins. 

I am from cyclical hoarding and clear-outs, from bargaining and dreaming.

From an early encounter with polite French gendarmes, and how they returned me to my parents after I wandered off in a supermarket. 

I am from moments of inspiration that are as close to heaven as I'll get in this world. Words spiral down onto my page, alive, and enliven me. 

I'm from saltwater and immigrants who travelled the seas to come here, hearty stews and fresh strawberries. 

From the German princess who married an Irishman and ran off to New Zealand, the seamstress who owned a fabric shop just down the road.

I am from a multitude of bookshelves and boxes, postcards pegged on a line. Oval-framed sepia pictures, lists of names and dates, an unmistakable resemblance from generation to generation. I am also from within my own self, sources that are mine alone and the way I see the world. 

Writers are like Goats

I really like goats . I think they are very cute. A while back we had a vacant block near us which was home to a number of goats.

It was common to see people stopping their cars to pet the goats, or feed them grass.

Sadly the goats had a tendency to get out which was not good for the neighbour’s gardens. Neighbours complained and the goats were subsequently removed to other land.

The goats made me remember a friend years ago who bought a goat. The idea was that the goat would keep the grass down so that he didn’t have to spend time mowing. Unfortunately for him, no-one told him goats were not discriminating. The plan was the goat was supposed to eat the grass. Perhaps the goat didn’t know that piece of information and no-one told our friend that most goats will eat just about anything that comes into their vicinity. This means not only grass got munched, but small shrubs and some not so small disappeared.  The end to the goat experiment came when the goat ate all the washing off the line. The goat was quickly moved on to a new home on a farm.

Writers tend to be a bit like goats. Now before you take offence at being compared to a goat, let me clarify.  Just as goats will eat anything they can clamp their mouths around, writers tend to collect ideas from all different sources. They might come from conversations overheard. I’ve heard some really interesting conversations while waiting in line at the supermarket checkout or while waiting in the doctor's surgery.  Stop and listen one time you will pick up a lot about relationships.

Other ideas may come from people you see, or it may come from reading a poem or book by someone else that sparks ideas.  Recently while reading a novel about a woman in a coma, it sparked an idea for a poem about memory.  I quickly wrote down a rough first draft which I will return to as more stimulus arrives. The seed for a poem or story may come from places visited or even closer to home. A poem I wrote years  ago for School magazine  was written looking out my study window onto the weeping mulberry tree outside and imagining a child using it as a hiding place.  Obviously editors have liked it too as over several years it has been printed once and reprinted twice more by School Magazine. Many a poem of mine has had its inception while walking along the beach near where we live.

 

I’m currently working on a poem that owes its inception to a grey heron that comes into or backyard from time to time.

Part of being a writer is also reading widely. I’ve been mazed over the years at people who claim they want to write but are not readers. How can we learn what works or what doesn’t unless we read?  I’m a great believer in reading not only the type of genre you want to write but reading outside your area of interest. Whenever I go to the library, which is one of my favourite places, I try and include a book that is outside my area of interest or my preferred reading. It might be nonfiction or it might be a different genre of fiction. It might be too do with a topic we know little about.  

For example I have just recently started  Gawain and the Four Daughters of God by Anne Hamilton.  This is a book about mathematics and medieval poetry. Now I admit I am nobody’s idea of a mathematician although I used to love algebra years ago at school, so I anticipate it will take me a while to work my way through this book. Quite simply I don’t have anything near the breadth and extent of knowledge Anne has.  But I am willing to learn. I may not know a lot about mathematics and medieval poetry now, but I fully expect to learn a lot as I go along. The information I glean may not be anything I will use in a piece of writing myself. But I believe no knowledge is ever wasted. So it may  well be the key that will open up a piece of writing or spark other ideas  in a fresh , new way.

I’d love to hear about the impetus for one of your poems or stories. Or maybe you'd like to share how you were able to incorporate some research on a topic you knew little or nothing about into a piece of your writing.

Dale writes fiction and poetry. She has had poems published in literary magazines and newspapers as well as in several anthologies in Australia and overseas. She has a collection of poetry, Kaleidoscope which was published by Ginninderra Press. She is working towards another poetry collection as well as writing another novel. Her latest novel Streets on a Map was published in December 2010.

 

Giving Up

Giving Up

Persistence is a virtue and I am all for persisting in the face of difficulties and obstacles. But, and it is a big but,...sometimes there is just no other way forward but to give up and start again.

When I lived in Sydney a friend, knowing how I love them, bought me a jacaranda. I planted it with great hope and waited and waited for it to flower. I never saw it happen.  My husband’s job transferred to Orange and we had to move.  Pointless uprooting the jacaranda as it wouldn’t grow in that cold climate. Reluctantly I left it behind thinking at least the new owners would enjoy it when it flowered.

This is a poem I wrote about that time.

Initiated Into Blue


All November I ached
for the tiny jacaranda in my garden
that had not been initiated into blue.
I watched large jacarandas
bleaching colour from the sky.
All November I admired
their insistence, the blue larceny
that left neighbouring eucalypts
drab as tarnished pewter.
Then came December
and while Sydney jacarandas
still whispered bluely
through the streets,
we moved to cooler country
where rhododendrons purple
the parks
and elms solid as sandstone
line the streets.
But in all this town
not one tree
wears jacaranda blue.


First published Northern Perspective vol 17- 1994

Imagine my devastation a few years later when I went back and re-visited our old house and saw the new owners had ripped out my precious jacaranda.  I felt like part of me had been ripped out.

I vowed that when we left Orange I would plant a jacaranda wherever we moved. A bit over five years ago we moved to a warmer climate near the coast and I did just that. The plant was watered and fed while I waited eagerly for it to flower. It didn’t. We decided it must be in the wrong place, so we moved it to another spot in the garden and repeated the process of tending it. Another year passed and then another. It still did not flower. This year, the fifth year of waiting, I had high hopes it would be big enough to flower. But again not a flower appeared. Then we’re not sure whether it was violent winds or vandals but our little jacaranda was partly destroyed. On closer inspection my husband found it also had some sort of disease. We agreed it was hopeless. Time to face facts, this jacaranda was doomed. I had to give up on this jacaranda. It was never going to flower.

So I went up the nursery and priced another jacaranda. ‘It will flower in twelve or eighteen months,’ I was assured. Forgive me if I was sceptical. I’d heard that story before. I resolved not to buy one unelss it was already flowering. I priced a taller jacaranda and nearly had a heart attack when I heard the price. Yet it still didn’t have flower on it. But I'd learned my lesson. Needless to say it was a case of no sale.

A few days later my husband and I took off  down  for a drive down the coast. What started out sunny turned into a dreary grey day. We saw a nursery and called in. He had tall jacarandas and yes, they either had buds on them or were flowering.  With trepidation I asked the price. Imagine my delight when the price was less than quarter than that of the larger unflowering ones we had seen! What’s more the man in this nursery really seemed to know what he was talking about, as I quizzed him about the requirements and right position in the garden for the tree. Elated I choose my jacaranda and brought it home. The next day while I was out my husband took out the old misshapen tree and planted the new one. And the weather turned way hot all of a sudden. I despaired for my tree and ensured it got watered and fed often.

Imagine my joy when a couple of weeks later the buds turned into jacaranda blue flowers. I rushed out and took a photo. Sorry I tried to post a couple of pics but couldn't get it to work for some bizarre reason.

Back to the jacaranda though. It made me think about the writing life. Sometimes I have had obstacles and have pushed on with a project regardless. Other times no matter what I have tried, a poem or story refuses to work. I am faced with a choice. Either persist or give up and start on something new. At times in my life I’ve known it’s time to do what I had to with the jacaranda. I’ve had to admit defeat and start again.

Sometimes that may mean starting over on the same piece of work but looking at it from a different angle or a trying it from a different point of view. Other times, it means shelving it all together and starting a new project. The trick is to know when it is time to move on and admit defeat or just to change focus.  So my question is how do you know when to keep going or when to give up with a writing project?

 

Streets on a Map, is Dale’s latest novel. Prior to that, Dale has had seven children’s books and Kaleidoscope a collection of poetry published. She has also written bible studies and Sunday school lessons. More information about Dale can be found at www.daleharcombe.com or on her Write and Read with Dale blog http://www.livejournal.com/users/orangedale/