Dear friends, I have a few “Oops, I did it again” patterns that play out repeatedly in my life. One of them is dreaming big, overcommitting, and finding myself greedily trying to squeeze two or three lives into the space of this one lifetime I’ve been given. Luckily, I’m starting to learn to read my […]
Playing Life
Dear friends, When I was about 11, my mum woke me up one morning with a plan. We were going to catch a train up the center of the Australian continent, then sail to Indonesia and spend a few months island hopping. Nothing was going to stop us: not the fact that we didn’t have […]
Don’t bring a word processor to a spell-casting 🪄
Dear friends, My best and latest rejection for my novel landed in my inbox this morning. No matter how reconciled and chill I tell myself I am, a rejection always feels like being kicked in the chest by something large and well-trained in the art of kicking. I sat down with my beloveds and we […]
The Two Things Your Creativity Needs From You
Last week I had a list-related freakout. I wailed and moaned and lamented. It was something to see, friends. “It’s too muuuuuuch,” I wailed. “I caaaaaan’t,” I moaned. Martha, being a sympathetic sort, said, “You must have a really long list.” “But that’s the thing,” I lamented. It’s not the length of the list. It’s the breadth of it.” […]
What to do with your newborn creative idea
Dear friends, It was born a couple of weeks ago: the idea for a new novel. I was sitting at my kitchen table, chatting with a couple of friends when I felt it appear. It wasn’t a dramatic moment, but it was a very clear one. It rustled. “Ah,” I thought. “It’s arrived.” I knew […]
The Joy of Getting to Zero
Dear ones, What’s the best term for friends who have become family? Friemilies? Famends? Anyway, Julie is one of my those. We haven’t seen each other since before the pandemic, and this year she flew across the country with her eight-year-old son to be with us for her birthday. That night, we curled up on the […]
