Jo’s Journal

So I took the month off, removed my mask and allowed myself to put me first. Felt very hedonistic, I don’t know why, but I’m feeling a lot happier, or perhaps at least, at ease.

• I did have my month off from Writers Abroad although I had work to do on the anthology we’re pulling together to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It was good to step back for a while, though incredibly difficult when I feel so responsible for it. I need to think about my role going forward, this month has given me time to reflect.
• I did muse every day, apart from a couple of Sundays which have always been a ‘day off’ from everything. I’ve always got my head in a book, or a journal or at a screen and I think one day a week should just be to chill and relax. I’ve got some great potential stories, my battle now will be with making sure I develop something out of them. I shall resurrect my posts on My Writer Within as an incentive. I’ve realised that writing and publishing for myself is good enough. If you read and like it, that’s an added bonus.
• I completed the Journalling Compendium–in a fashion. I read The Artist’s Way some years back and have been doing the Morning Pages, more on than off, since 2015. Doing the exercises made me realise that really I don’t have any baggage or reason holding me back. Maybe I’m getting too long in the tooth for all this reflection. It was confirmation. I am a writer, and I love my job. The only thing holding me back is me.
• The final task I set myself was revisiting one of my projects, The Moon Series. And oh boy, did I do some world building. The thing is, as usual, I went down so many rabbit holes and ended up with bits and pieces of different systems. So I now have the job to pull it all together into something coherent. I love this part of the writing process . . .  and that’s okay by me.

The thing I’ve learnt – again – is that it’s all about choices. We all have the same hours in the day, but the difference is how we choose to use it. I’m going to choose to put my writing first despite my desire to ‘just get this done or that done first’ which always frustrates me.

And I shall continue to wear a mask, but only for Covid reasons. 😎

This Is Me.

“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” – Oscar Wilde

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been making a concerted effort to place my short stories and flash fiction. I have a lot of stories, some polished some needing some work and many that will never see the light of day!

The trouble is the market is flooded and many do not offer any financial reward, some even charge a reading fee. It takes a lot of time to produce story submissions to meet a particular publisher’s requirements with no guarantees of success and selection is very subjective.

So I’ve made the decision to publish them myself. And why not? I’d rather commit the time to producing something I can share with others and under my control then see my work going into an eternal black hole for weeks, perhaps months.

Many of the stories will only take 5 minutes to read, some a lot less. We’ve all got five minutes somewhere, right? In these distracting times, I’m finding that a short read really hits the spot. And instant escapism. They are a mixture of genres, many  inspired by writing prompts from my online writing group, Writers Abroad.

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”
― Lorrie Moore

I shall post them regularly on my blog My Writer Within. It’s also a good exercise in accountability; writing, editing and polishing a piece of work. Creating a habit, a habit which I love to partake in.

Do let me know what you think in the comments and if you do something similar, please let me know, I’d love to have a read!

Well, since we’ve been on lockdown here in Italy since March 10 – three weeks now – I’ve not been anywhere. Only to the shops, where I dash in and out again donned in gloves, mask and misted glasses grab what I need and dash out again. But then, you all know what this feels like now, right? We’re all in this together and I’m not sure that we’ll ever go back to the world as we knew it. Maybe that’s not a bad thing… so

Where I’ve been @

@The Desk there’s been a lot in the news about now is the time to get all those things done that you haven’t had time to do before… well for me, working at home has been the norm since 2007. But not since the earthquakes have I found it so difficult to concentrate. The constant need to check the news has been stifling. So I’ve done a ‘List Of Everything’ and am trying to tick off one each day. Other than that my muse seems to be in isolation.

@The Reading Table Same kind of news with my reading, which is always affected when I’m distracted and anxious. It’s not helped by the fact that I hate reading on the Kindle but we have very little option for print books here. I’ve just finished The Strawberry Thief by Joanna Harris. I’ve loved all her stuff and this one didn’t disappoint, though it seemed a little familiar as it’s a run on from Chocolat. Must watch the film again 😛

@The Goggle Box There has been a lot of opportunities to watch stuff we might never have had the access to. Opera was streaming from New York and watched two of my favourites, La Boheme and La Traviata. This week, the National Theatre start streaming some shows which we’re going to have a look at. We watched Bird Box, of all films… about some alien virus which made people suicidal, perhaps not the best choice and started to watch Game of Thrones again from the start. I’ve read all the books but not managed to get through the TV series. So I have done a lot of sofa surfing, but in my defence the weather has been cold, grey, wet and we even had our first snow, just as Spring arrived!

@Home Well, that’s where we are for the foreseeable. A family get together over here in May has been cancelled and so I won’t get to see my son and grandchildren until this is all over… I’m finding that most  difficult to accept. At least with the earthquakes we could run away if needed! The animals continue to keep us well occupied and life would be so much more difficult without them. The best news we received this month is that Simon is to welcome his fifth grandchild into the clan in October. That will make seven between us and something positive to look forward to!

Here is Freya, our small donkey sized Italian sheepdog. This was taken one Spring some years ago, just after the daff’s I’d planted had started to poke their little way through!