amwriting

Selfie

Occasionally, it occurs to me that when my son is older, he’ll look back on millions of photos capturing his life but very few that include me, particularly post-separation. I then try to right this by taking a selfie of us, but I suck at selfies and they often end up being hyper-close-up shots of the two of us in almost identical poses, side-by-side and faces squished to fit the frame with little visual context of place or event being captured. I’d like to get better at this, but in the mean time, it’s probably easier to recruit others to take pics of us like I did on our recent camping trip, with our camp neighbour Ann obliging, and lingering for a chat.

I learnt that Ann, who is in her early 80s, is an intrepid camper. Following her husband’s death 8 years ago, she found a new lease on life when she joined an online, solo-women-only posse of caravan adventurers.

‘It’s better than staring at the four walls of my unit.’ She said.

Ann and her friends, who are either single, widowed or leave their partners at home, make many trips around Australia each year. On the trip where we met, however, Ann was camping with her family.

A photo with a story not only in front of the camera, but also behind the camera — maybe I won’t bother trying to perfect the selfie!

How do you capture and store memories in this age of click and forget?

This little ramble was inspired by my micro story below, which was inspired by Sonya’s photo prompt — Three Line Tales 19 January 2023. If you’d like to read more than three lines of my writing, check out: raptorial.substack.com

Warrior 101

Dark plumes billowed from the funnels of the Ocean Spirit and rose to meet the cranes that stretched in complex asanas above stacks of shipping containers in shades of industrial chic. Josie was pleased with the surreptitious photo opportunity she’d stumbled upon on the tourist trail; she smiled and threw deuces at the device resting on the end of her selfie stick. The ship’s foghorn let out a long blast that cut through clangs of steel and squawks of seagulls seeking dinner as Josie tried a few more angles, stopping only when she lost her footing and noticed that she, and the Ocean Spirit, were gliding away from the dock.

A Return

Hello! It’s been a while! Funny, I had thought that perhaps three line tales was the best way to dip my toes back into blogsville, and when I looked sometime last year, it appeared Sonya’s prompts were no more. I was super surprised and elated to see them in my reader the other day, so here I am!

Believe it or not, despite the tumbleweeds at 10000hoursleft HQ, I have been writing, including a story on my beloved public library that was published in The Big Issue last year, and a bunch of newsletters at my substack, The Raptorial with regular monthly posts over the past 9 months (thanks to my friends from WP who have joined me over there). I have even returned to my novel which I used to go on and on and on about here.

In other news, I am still at uni (very part time), soon to enter my fourth year of a two year Associate Degree in Professional Writing and Editing. I’ve also bought a house (yay me, on 31 Dec 2020), and also in 2020, I started a writing and editing business. Oh, and somehow I succumbed to years of my son asking for a dog, and had to make good on my promise that it would happen once we have our own place … Rocco the Lagotto Romagnolo joined our family in August 2021. He’s now 19 months, very cute and sweet but still in need of training (or maybe it is me that needs to be trained in being the ‘top dog’ *sigh*).

I’m glad to be back and to have found a fun way back in. The community here means a lot to me and is a big part of why I am still writing. Occasional checks of the reader fill my heart with joy when I see bloggers from way back still blogging.

Tell me, what’d I miss? What’s new? I’ll attempt a weekly hello accompanied by a three line story, and watch out, I’ll be reading posts and engaging again. Wooh!

Oooh, and rather than complain about the ‘new’ backend as I did on a previous fleeting return, here, I have embraced it after stumbling on something (what, I do not know) that has allowed me to offset my Three Line Tales story from the rest of the post. Fancy huh?

Thanks for the inspiration, Sonya – Three Line Tales 13 Jan 2023

Saturday night lights

He broke away from the throng that was crossing the intersection of 2nd and Broadway and the stripes that promised safety. His was a lone figure following a lone white line, remaining faithful to its guidance after stepping off its edge like a sailor navigating the doldrums. A yellow cab in his line of sight sounded the alarm with a long beep that turned heads and slowed the procession of revellers entering the seedy bars along Broadway — the night was young.

Photo of a city sreet at dusk, with

Sixes and Sevens

A couple of dozen six-sided white dice on a wooden surface, with dice showing different numbers. The image follows the post title 'sixes and sevens', an idiom that may have originated from a game of dice with that name
Photo by Riho Kroll on Unsplash

Part 1

It’s not about the cake

As my tagline states, this blog is ‘a place to practice the craft’. I meant the craft of writing, but it could also be the craft of living, engaging, witching, mothering. Launched a handful of weeks after the birth of my son, it has been many things — a creative outlet during the long days and nights of new motherhood, a digital sandbox to hone my writing craft, a place to find a writing community and make what are now old friends, a path to tread tentative steps toward intentional and ‘professional’ writing, and a repository for parenting mementos that I’m already grateful for, seven years on.

Those mementos include a post for each of Ruben’s birthdays. Number one was small on fanfare but big on joy; two a day of firsts with first tram ride and aquarium visit for him, first foray into fondant foolery for me; three was spent on the half pipe and dirt mounds of the skate park, inspired by his prodigious way with wheels; four an epic piñata and a dinosaur theme; and five, marveling at the wonders of the universe and his mamma’s baking skills as he sliced through an astronaut helmet cake to discover a solar system within.

Continue reading →

Creek-side Ephemera

Photo of an old bridge over a shallow creek. The banks have various green shurbs and trees and the sky is blue.
Franklinford Streamside Reserve.

I was honoured and thrilled to have a piece I recently wrote for Writing Non-fiction: Research and Readership published on the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing site as a sample of student work. I’m among incredible company. Go have a read if you’re interested. Estimated reading time 2-3 minutes. Five if you want to savour it cause who knows when I’ll post again haha.

I have clearly been absent from Blogsville for a while. Someone please tell what is going on with the editor and how I can revert back to the older style. Although I guess that older style was once new and I did get used to it.

The Next Chapter

pencil drawing of a type writer with partial paper visible with words 'it was a bright and sunny'

‘ “It was a dark and stormy night…” The cliché line was written in font reminiscent of a typewriter’s singular offering, with a deliberate smudge of the printed words for added authenticity. The otherwise blank sheet of paper was wrapped around the platen of the typewriter cake* from the iconic Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, with pastel icing of sage green and peachy creme, mint slice platen knobs, liquorice typebars, a musk stick space bar and keys of multi-coloured smarties. The aspiring author blew the candles and made her usual wish of publication before slicing through the cake as party guests whooped and cheered. That was me, Mek, 80s tragic, birthday cake baker, engineer, and increasingly, adopter of the label ‘writer’ as one of the many facets of my identity…’

That was a snippet of my 500-word statement that formed part of my application for a university course that has been on my radar for quite a while. Continue reading →

V/Line Vignette 11

The driver’s voice crackled over the two-way.

“Bombardier approaching Bridge over Troubled Waters. Repeat, Bombardier approaching Bridge over Troubled Waters, estimated viewing time fourteen hundred hours. Roger that.”

“Yeah yeah…”

Roger was on his 5th ‘tour of duty’ but could still not work out if Vince (the driver) was taking the piss because of his name or really thought it a military operation, though to be fair to Vince, there was manipulation of the masses and a political agenda involved— it was an assault of propaganda and faux-cheer on holiday makers who if the ruse went well, would be future investors, so one might as well call it a war effort and use military parlance.

Once alerted to the train’s approach, Roger checked his watch and did the math. It would be fifteen minutes before the train would glide over Crescent Fields Viaduct which ran parallel to the campsite of settlers 1497a. Like clockwork, he gathered dried dung from his stockpile, placed it on a retro barbecue and carefully positioned sticks on top of its grill. From the vantage of the train riding audience, it would look like sausages or even prawns, if they squinted and used their imagination. It was normally a two-person effort, but due to an incident on the worksite below that was spoken of in hushed tones, this time, Roger was alone. A substitute for the merry scene was Verity, Roger’s AI mannequin and confidant. Roger positioned Verity on a sun lounge, certain of the convincing act of her ready smile and silent complicity while on ‘standby’. Continue reading →

V/Line Vignette 10

Metro Minutia 27.8.19

The littlest one’s arms were yanked by his mother who’d had enough of the noise and restless energy of the still-in-nappies tot, together with probably half the carriage- a conservative estimate based on neatly rounded and made-up statistics, that only half of the half who didn’t have headsets on cared (about the noise) and that half of those wearing headsets had their devices switched off but were primed and ready for their sensory limit to be reached setting their trigger finger to hit play and transport them into an aural cocoon, avoiding the very noise they contribute to in the overcrowded carriage with their generic tinny orchestra joining dozens of other leaky headsets, proving that sometimes the whole is worse than the sum of its parts, but I digress. Continue reading →

V/Line Vignette 8

Nineteen Ninety Nine 12.08.19

‘Forget gelato, donuts, boiled lollies, bread—even bread Ned!’

Dorcas’ alarm wasn’t helping Ned’s paralysing fear of living out the rest of his life on a sugar restricted diet; he’d only spent the past 47 years perfecting his gelato recipe, having picked up secrets on the Mediterranean trade route with the Merchant Navy in the 1940s. He didn’t know what was worse— giving up his one pleasure in life or warnings about the Millennium Bug that could impact his sales and inventory software, threatening absolute chaos to his careful stocktake of flavours for his sweet enterprise. Continue reading →

V/Line Vignette 5

Traveller 27.05.19

The walk across the elevated platform then down the escalators was messy. Rob and Elaine had been playing tag on the phone all morning so when he rang again, despite the awkwardness, she cradled her phone on her shoulder and pressed her left ear against it while tackling a pillow under that arm and with her right, dragged her two-wheeled cabin luggage and tried to not spill a freshly pressed juice that was filled to the brim with a week’s recommended dosage of sugar, no more wholesome for the antioxidants and ‘super’ ingredients optimistically touted on the colourful disposable cup. Her cabin luggage was the cheapest option at the Reject Shop that morning after her heavy rucksack’s flimsy stitches unravelled at the straps before she made it to the station. Continue reading →

V/Line Vignette 4

Sketch of a streetscape showing buildings and parked cars

Parking 20.05.19

Lenny drove an unmarked van. He could have been a tradie or a grocer, no one would have known. It was early enough that there wasn’t anyone around who’d care, but just in case, he drove past the one-way street to scan for passers-by. It was day three of early voting and on previous days he’d only noticed old ladies shuffle from car to indoor pool or indoor pool to car for the keen ones who’d been up since the crack of dawn, but no sense in tempting fate and a run-in with what were predominantly left leaning locals in the Labor safe seat, he reasoned. The coast was clear, so he did a U-turn and parked in a disabled spot despite only one other car parked in the street, a fluorescent notice ordering its removal. What are the chances a disabled person will come by now?  That thought was in the deeper recesses of his mind, on the surface was in fact no thought.

He opened the back door and saw that the items he’d lugged- a pole, a base on which to mount the pole, and a placard, had rolled around and were now at the far end of the van’s boot, resting against the cage that separated the driver’s cabin from the rear. He had no choice but to climb in. A little contortion was required to move a sandbag out of the way while crouching in the confined space. It was a race against time, he wanted to set up and leave before a confrontation. Bang! Lenny was suddenly enveloped in darkness, the wind howling in such a way that the two doors swung shut in the right sequence. His keys were on the other side, swaying on the stationary door. Continue reading →