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Why I’m not Doing NaNoWriMo
Happy Monday everyone… and HAPPY HALLOWEEN! May all the ghouls and ghosties resist the urge to devour your immortal souls and may you be gifted with plenty of candy to fill your trick-or-treating pumpkins. I hope everyone had an amazing weekend: we were once again a hit as the tastiest and most-stylish sammich on the market (by which I mean at a Halloween party), I’m 99.9% sure that I haven’t bought enough candy to last me the evening (and by ‘me’, I definitely mean all the little trick-or-treaters who will be stopping by our decorated front porch for some lollies—by the way, Americans don’t know what that word means. Huh?) and…
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Aussie Expats Update – Our First Halloween Party!
Well peoples, It’s been a bit of a mishmash week. Getting back into uni again for Trimester 3 has seen me chasing my tail a bit (and I only did one other blog post this week: what a sissy!), and James is working his butt off to finish his last essay for his Masters, plus we’ve recently started a new training program in the gym involving a lot of (very, VERY) basic bodyweight movements… And I’m fried. It’s really hard work, but also pretty cool. That being said, if I can’t do the splits, a full static handstand and a couple of other seriously epic things in the next week or so, I’m going to…
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Q&A with Victoria Griffin, Creator of Flooded: A Creative Anthology of Brain Injuries
Goooooooooooood morning world!! I’d like to congratulate you all first: you’ve been so well-behaved that I decided to post a special Tuesday event rather than Monday and Wednesday’s standard fare. Hurray! On a second note, buckle yourselves in, grab some popcorn and get excited about what you’re about to read. For those of you who may have missed me going on (and on, and on) about it, I connected with an amazing writer and editor, Victoria Griffin, on Twitter earlier this year and have had the privilege of getting involved with her project: Flooded (the kickstarter link can be found here). Since becoming a Flooded ambassador, I’ve seen the painstaking developmental process that Victoria…
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Aussie Expats Update – Domestician Extraordinaire!
Happy Friday everyone! Before we get caught up in the exciting whirlwind of talking about my recent adventures (stay calm, they’re honestly not really that exciting of late—sorry), I’d like to first let you all know that I’m well aware ‘domestician’ isn’t actually a word. But that being said, I really do feel like my efforts last week deserve some kind of special, completely-made-up-for-the-occasion-word to mark how much time I spent in the damn kitchen. James and I probably didn’t really discuss in depth how much we were going to do for this BBQ; I mean both of us forgot about it until about Tuesday, which was probably a sign that…
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NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge #2 – The Evacuees’ Circus
This is my second entry for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, where my prompts were historical fiction, a circus tent and a doll’s head (creepy, right?). When Operation Pied Piper sends forty little girls from their school in Manchester to Lyme Park in Cheshire, Lord and Lady Newton find themselves having to make some adjustments for their new wards. “Clara!” Lord Newton exclaimed as he walked into the room, two favourite dogs in tow. “What on Earth is this?” Lady Newton spun around. “Oh, dear,” she laughed, a long-fingered hand flying to her chest. “You startled me.” She turned to survey her handiwork. “Wonderful, isn’t it?” Lord Newton looked around…
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The Responsibility of Privilege
The current theme seems to be a heavy/thoughtful post Mondays, so I thought I’d keep it going for a while longer. I’ve been cogitating on this post for some time now, and the more I read about other people’s thoughts, the more I think about it myself, the more I found myself driven to comment on it. In light of the events happening around the world (including those particularly in our faces here in the US), it can be overwhelming to consider the pain humans can inflict on their fellow human beings. It can be so overwhelming, in fact, that it would easier not to think about it at all. And…
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Aussie Expats Update – Uni Break Fridays!!
Helllloooooo beautiful people! I know, I know… I didn’t put up a blog post last Friday. Oops. I’m sorry, but it’s a complex iss—ok, to be honest, it’s not that complex. Having (officially) finished Trimester 2 of uni on Thursday with my political ideologies exam done and dusted, I wasn’t overly keen to do very much. Plus, I made the mistake (or brilliant decision) to pick up a new book after my exam and I powered through it… Then the sequel over the weekend. If you haven’t read Erika Johansen’s The Queen of the Tearling, I highly recommend it: it was an awesome read that (obviously!) I struggled to put…
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An Introduction to my Novel
Happy Hump Day everyone! The middle of the week is always a time for partying and celebration… Okay, that’s not true. But it does mean you can all get a little bit excited because it’s that much closer to the weekend (and sleep-ins! Also maybe waffles – James?). Before we get to the promised post though, I wanted to remind you about the Flooded Anthology! The Kickstarter went live yesterday and we’re trying to drum up support for this project: please, spare a few minutes and go over to have a look at this. Perhaps you know someone with a brain injury, perhaps you have suffered one; maybe you’d like to know…
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Aussie Expats Update – What This Weekend Taught Us
Happy Monday everyone!! I know I was remiss in not posting last Friday, but… Well, that happens sometimes. I don’t know how many of you are active on Twitter, but I’m sure most people (in the US, and maybe outside of the US as well? If you’re able to avoid hearing about the US election campaign, I truly envy you and the beautiful life you must lead) heard about the repulsive comments revealed to have been made by Donald Trump in 2005. Thank god for video footage, right? Enriching all our lives. Anyway, if you’re not on Twitter (seriously, it’s pretty great most of the time!), then you may not…
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Figuring Out Your Setting
Hellloooooooo everyone! For those of you who don’t know, I’m currently writing a YA fantasy novel (it took me a really long time to accept that it was YA, so we can all celebrate my publicly announcing it as a lovely little mid-week accomplishment), which is what got me thinking about this particular blog post. But first, a seemingly unrelated paragraph (it ties back in, promise). If you know anything at all about me, you know that I think brains are pretty cool things. For instance, for a woman who is occasionally bad at map reading [Disclaimer: I firmly believe that repeatedly missing turn-offs while James is driving isn’t really…
