The following post is a rehash from something I submitted earlier in the year. I honestly can’t remember if it was something I sent to the Digital Writers Festival to win a trip to the Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne… or whether it was directly to the Emerging Writers Festival. Either way, I didn’t win… but it has given me a short blog post to share. 🙂

I stumbled across it last night and at first couldn’t remember why I’d written it but never used it on my blog. Gee, I hope I haven’t used it on my blog before… gosh I have a terrible memory!

If the title of this blog post didn’t give it away, the theme for the competition was to write about Where I write. And so I did, and here it is for you to read. My, aren’t you lucky.

Where I Write:

I tend to write in bed, not to be the next Barbara Cartland (not my genre) but because it’s about the only place left for me to use. The hordes (my children) take up the rest of the house, along with hubby and pets. And they all seem to think ‘please leave me alone for half an hour, I need to write’ actually means ‘annoy me every five minutes by loudly telling me whatever thought is currently passing through your head’. The impending house work outside my room also distracts me and brings out those procrastinating tendencies all good writers suffer from.

I also often don’t get to write until everyone else is asleep at night. So, propped up in the dimly lit room with my headphones in and music on, I write. Usually from midnight until the wee hours, forgetting all the duties of the next day this may ruin.

However, the creation of what I write happens throughout my day. While I Haus Frau my way through my daily duties of cleaning, pet feeding and horde wrangling, the voices are there and the stories percolating away in my brain. When I weed the garden, conversations are fluttering away around me as if I’m eavesdropping on some rather interesting neighbours. When I iron – and I have to say I love to iron for this very reason – story threads just untangle before me and become smooth, rolling scenes awaiting to be written down. Creation first, writing when everything else is dealt with.

Sadly I have a scattered memory and can come up with some of the most fantastic moments in my literary life… only to sit down a few hours later and squint with irritation at the words that have come out and just know something has been left out along the way and what is left is sub-par. If only I’d skipped making dinner and just sat down and written it when it surfaced… did I really need to collect the kids from school just as we summoned the best demon ever? Well, that is how I see it, call it a literary fisherman saying ‘I caught a fish this big’ before showing people a guppy.

Why do I write? As conceited as it sounds to a non-writer… my answer is ‘why do I breath?’ as it’s just something I must do. Not just because of the voices, worlds and ideas swirling around inside my head need to be let out, but because it helps bring peace of mind and accomplishment to my day. Even if no one ever reads what it is I’ve written, it is written and therefore exists. It is always nice when others read and enjoy it, but I’ve achieved enough by setting it free by getting it down on paper.

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Okay, just a short blog post today, more to come in the next few days as Halloween approaches as I have a short story to share and, of course, my from scratch Halloween feast to share. 🙂

Until next time,

Janis. XXOO