Iona Winter

…and now we’re back into the swing of things. I’ve been wondering if the recent full moon and equinox impacted on me, more than I realised. My feathers have been somewhat ruffled of late and, like Mrs Poohs, some have fallen out – feathers that is. Sigh. It’s been a challenging time. But on the upside, I’m humbled to have been offered a mentorship with the NZ Society of Authors. So, I can get ‘The Novel’ ready for publishing! Goal set. Check.

I’m back working longer hours, and the pressure has come on again. That said, I have realised that I write better with pressure, time frames and deadlines. Not to the extent of rigidity—that would kill my creativity. Yet somehow, knowing there is less time available for writing, I am propelled to get on with it.

Out the window, goes the floaty dream of being a full-time writer, swanning around in my pj’s, drinking copious amounts of tea, while gazing wistfully out the windows for inspiration. The time has come for action.

The main challenge will be my (self-imposed) responsibility to keep up to date on environmental/social/political things happening in the world. For example: I am constantly astounded at the language used to describe women. Furthermore, I cannot fathom how women use this language to describe each other, in denigrating ways. It shocks me, when I think of how this only supports the ongoing condemnation/oppression/marginalisation/pigeonholing (etc, etc) of women. This train of thought was (unfortunately) triggered off by a female reporter, calling another woman ‘a tramp’. Sad, but true.

It upsets me, reading the words used via social media to attack one another. Our online personas have seemingly made it easy, to take pot-shots at those we don’t like/feel threatened by/are jealous of (etc, etc). In doing so, we have reduced the (much needed) skill of saying things directly, in a constructive way, to someone else’s face. If we write something, it’s useful to think about the words we use. If we are not prepared to say something challenging in person, to someone’s face, maybe it’s best to say nothing. Just a thought.

This illustrates how difficult it may be (for me), to not get caught up in the injustices of the world. Maybe I can limit this distraction to a small portion of time, thereby allowing myself to be worked up for shorter periods (rather than a whole day). And then, I can use the (generated) energy to write in a more focused and motivated way. Genius idea! Hmm…I’ll let you know how it goes.