:those elusive stories:

“I suppose I ought to tell a story, but I don’t know anymore,” said the old man.
“You can make one up, I know,” said the boy. “Mother says that you can turn anything you look at into a story, and everything even that you touch.”
“Ah, but that kind of tale and story is worth nothing. The real ones come of themselves. They knock at the forehead and say ‘Here we are!’”
“Won’t there be a knock soon?” said the boy. And his mother laughed, while she put elder flowers in the teapot and poured boiling water over them. “Please tell me a story.”
“Yes – if a story comes of itself. But tales and stories are very grand – they only come when it pleases them.”

-from Elder Tree Mother by Hans Christian Andersen

 

:let me eat cake!:

I said: “Let me eat cake!”

and Billie said “You shall eat cake!”

So we did…

(and in the wee pocket, are tiny photographs of all the cake Helen ate in whilst in Melbourne, plus what looks like are some notes she scrawled about her cakes, and cake-places reccommended)

“Sunbeam Cakes – 10.33 am, Mentone. Sunbeam House Cake – an apple custard tart with almonds.

Krustie Doughnut with apricot filling – excellent cake woman-ship! Light handed pastry, not overly sweet, pleasant service, good old-fashioned quality cake shop. Four stars.

Queen Victoria Market – Coffee Merchant – Yoghurt Cake with fruit. Three stars.

Nice and light but nothing amazing. Nicer to eat still warm.

Castagnaccio – chestnut, pine nut & rosemary. Five stars.

Excellent Castagnaccio – moist, but not too sweet. True Italian sweet.

 

:all about cake:

“Sister Mary Mackillop”, said the little bird, “Jesus says to go directly to Sunbeam Cakes and purchase a jelly finger, I can say this with great certainty. The Neenish Tarts are also excellent.”

***

Helen H records in pictures, her cake-focussed trip to Melbourne in October ‘08.

 

:digging for spain:

I just read this book.
I have to confess – I picked it up in the library getting my Penelopes confused and thinking it was going to be by Penelope Lively, a writer I love, so I was a little confused at first to get home and start reading and realise I was reading a New Zealand book! But I have READ Penelope Todd’s ‘Zillah’ books for young adults and enjoyed them very much indeed, so it was a happy accident.

This book is an account of Penelope Todd’s realisation, as her children were leaving home, that she felt completely empty inside, confused and as though she had been role-playing her life instead of living it genuinely.  In the book, she candidly reveals what it took for her to feel at home in her own skin again. She was most courageous and did things that most people only daydream of doing – she changed her name, she engaged in three years intensive Jungian therapy, she questioned her Christian faith and came out the other end a non-believer, she took a writing retreat, sans family, in a remote part of Spain (hence the title), she even flirted with an extra-marital affair.

I found the book engaging and read it in two binge sessions. There was something very comforting to me about reading this intelligent and pragmatic woman’s story.  There were several excerpts which moved me to copy them out into my journal. Here’s one – she discusses the contradictory impulses of the writer:

“The impulses are contradictory: to remain hidden; to come out as escort to your writing. The  writer’s life is a strange dance between the two. You write in long seclusion, knowing that what comes onto the page is a mix of bone and viscera, tough and tender; the things you’re proud of and thing that have the potential to shame you; then the work is ready and you can choose to herald it with a bold bragadaccio, walk coyly or proudly at it’s side, or be dragged in it’s wake. I alternate between the last two approaches, suspecting always that the flame of joy, unhooded, will invite the snuffer.

When the work isn’t perfect – and it never is – you are braced for every kind of ridicule. Sometimes there seems to be too much riding on it all and you think you’d rather sell confectionary or deliver mail for a living.

However, I recently found out that a family motto from my father’s side was Portet Vive. It behoves us to live. I choose a magnificent over a mundane interpretation. It behoves us to live well: richly, broadly, deeply and intricately – which adverbs for me, describe the route that writing seems to take.”

Amen to that!

There were a couple of things that I didn’t like so much in the book, one was that the author has a fascination with insects and writes about them frequently throughout the book – insects she observes in her surroundings and their metaphorical power for her. I found these bits a little forced, at times. The other thing is towards the end of the book she writes, verrrryyy vaguely and cagily about an extra-marital affair she flirted with but did not consummate. While I understand that she is writing about real people and has the feelings and privacy of those involved to consider – the writing around this stuff was so very cagey, the details so skant I question whether she needed to leave it in the book – in the form she offers it, it doesn’t add much.

These very minor considerations aside, I heartily recommend this book! It is full of wisdom and the story of her time at the Spanish retreat is compelling and at times, amusing. Penelope Todd has given all writers who are also parents a real gift with this book – she shows that it IS possible to have a fufilling creative life and a family. She talks eloquently about the struggle and the juggle. The writing is witty and eloquent and I came away feeling most heartened.

I also recommend her young adult novels – they are gripping, hip and edgy.

 

Thoughts on being a mother and a writer.

My partner often says “Put your own oxygen mask on first”. What he means of course is that you have to look after yourself so you can look after those who depend on you. That’s easier said than done when you are a mother. I just had a few days away from the family and almost immediately solved a problem poem that I couldn’t face at home. I often find I have to remove myself physically from the family / home before I can just focus on myself and my writing. Kids take as much as you’ll give them, which of course is natural and excellent for their survival but you have to learn how to take breaks and replenish for your own survival.

I admire and respect mother/writers who have produced books while bringing up small children. Mother/writers must be driven, compelled to write and to snatch time for themselves to do so. I guess we are lucky that we are not made to feel guilty about it to the same extent as mother/writers of previous decades. Often we are all to happy to put guilt on ourselves. I like to think that my children benefit from my writing in that the satisfaction I get from following my dreams makes me a nicer person to be around and hopefully a good caring feminist role model.

 

Hush

Here are the latest pages from the leaf journal:

 

Cross your fingers for me

I’ve just printed off my application to study for an MA in creative writing at the IIML. The MA has a high rate of applications and only 20 people get in each year (poets and prose writers combined). I feel a bit like a woman who is only a couple of weeks pregnant and isn’t supposed to tell anyone until its well and truly stuck in case she has a miscarriage.

Well I think that its better to tell everyone and if you loose the baby then they can all grieve with you and understand why you are hiding under the covers crying. I know a miscarriage is much worse than not getting into a writing course but hopefully you’ll all understand . I wont find out until Christmas either way. And no I’m not pregnant or trying to be!

 

:another collaboration:

Another Helen Squared collaboration.

Handpainted calico by Helen Heath, turned into geeky matching rosette brooches by Helen Lehndorf.

 

:you don’t win some, you don’t win some:

So I didn’t get anywhere in the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Competition for the tenth year running. I think they should have a special tenacity prize for those writers who come back year after year “without hope, without despair”. Congratulations to Julian Novitz, though, for scooping the big one. I saw him on the TV and he looked like a nice guy who deserved a break. Is that at all relevant in a competition based on merit? Well, when you are one of the legion of losers looking on – yes, it is.

I also didn’t win the Bravado Poetry Competition. I did place though – a ‘highly commended’. The Bravado Competition is a rare and wonderful one, because unlike most competitions where a ‘highly commended’ is the equivalent of a pat on the head from a distant relative…this one gives the highly commendeds a cash prize! Woop! So as well as being in the fine company of winners Michael Harlow, Tim Jones and Sue Wootton (congratulations to those three – I know Tim, at least pops in here from time to time) – I’ve won enough to treat myself a book or two and (if I buy poetry) perhaps even a flat white.

 

so much…

A small meditation on achieving literary success in New Zealand

(after William Carlos Williams)

so much depends upon

who

you

know.