My friend Louise Allan mentioned me on her blog as one of the versatile bloggers she knows; and she is an accomplished blogger/writer, so here I am – doing something different. I am supposed to reveal seven things about me that I may not have revealed in my writing already, and nominate other bloggers I consider versatile. Here are my seven secrets 🙂
1) I have no sense of direction. Sharon, my GPS lady hates me. She’s always telling me to ‘perform a U-turn where possible’ or ‘turn around and drive 26 kilometres on Roe Highway’ when I think I’m on Wanneroo Road. Once, when we were in Adelaide, SHE told me to drive 400 kilometres to Iron Knob. Evil GPS Lady.
2) I read the complete works of George Bernard Shaw in both volumes the year I turned eighteen. I also read The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough and wept over the fate of Meggie whose eyes were like jewels and who certainly didn’t deserve Richard Chamberlain in the mini series.
3) I can’t swim. I know. I live in a state with the best beaches on earth and I walk along those beaches when the temperature reaches about 40 in summer, but I don’t swim. I’ve tried. I waddle and wade, flop and flutter and sink. Ah well.
4) I knit when I want to think. Knitting keeps my fingers busy and my mind still. By the time this novel I’m writing is finished, I will have knitted a blanket for a very large baby or a smallish adult.
5) I sold my first short story when I was sixteen. It was titled, A Matter of Destiny and published by a magazine called Eve’s Weekly in India. They paid me 300 Rupees, which was a big deal for someone on 5 Rupees a week as pocket money.
6) I grew up on the music of Abba and Boney M. In my head I can belt out ‘Fernando’ with as much verve as Agnetha and Freida but my children tell me they’d rather listen to the Gregorian monks chanting ‘In the air tonight.’
7) I have cold hands and feet. My husband says the only reason I married him was to keep my feet warm in winter. He could have a point.
The bloggers already mentioned by Louise Allan on her blog are also the ones I love to visit. Here are a few more:
Amanda Curtin’s blog, ‘Looking up/looking down’ offers book reviews, author and artist interviews, tips for writers and advice on punctuation with generosity, charm and humour. Amanda Curtin is genetically incapable of writing a bad sentence 🙂
Christina Houen blogs at ‘Writing Lives.’ She is a reviewer, writer and artist and I find her comments on books and life, thoughtful and meditative.
Kim Coull is another writer/poet/artist whose lovely blog provides glimpses into her projects, her concerns with issues most people would find hard to articulate as compassionately as she does.
Karen from ‘Karen has things to say’ blogs mostly about books she’s read and loved. Her book reviews are amazing and original and infused with a particular generosity and insightful observation that makes each review a literary essay.
Lauren at ‘Lady Squirrelogist’ has just started blogging about her novel-in-progress and I look forward to seeing more of her feisty story-telling as the year progresses.
Frances Macaulay-Forde at ‘Exploring Possibilities’ is another writer/poet/blogger whose blog offers links to writers and poets as well as her own poems and snippets of a life lived in several countries.
And of course, Annabel Smith and Natasha Lester’s blogs on writing and books are, for me anyway, an essential toolkit for writers because of the practical tips and lessons-they’ve-learned advice they provide.
A good list, succinctly put.. I can identify with having no swimming nous and am a pretty bad tennis player as well. Also impressed with the knitting, what does the blanket look like? Thanks for sharing, Rashida
Thanks Dixie. The blanket doesn’t look like anything at the moment. I’ll let you know when it does!
Thanks for revealing these inner secrets. My GPS lady hates me, too. We call her Virginia, and she’s always giving me the same instructions as yours. Usually because I’m deliberately taking a shorter route than the circuitous one she’s recommending.
The Thorn Birds is another of my secret loves. How I loved that book! I don’t know about the writing because I’ve not read it for a couple of decades. But the story—what an illicit love!
I used to knit, too. I have a jumper that I’ve been knitting for Scott. I’ve nearly finished—only one sleeve to go. That sounds good, doesn’t it, except that I started it before Scott and I were even engaged. Ahem.
Husbands make good hot water bottles/blankets at night.
I’ll also check out the other blogs you’ve mentioned.
Thanks again for joining in the fun!
Thank you for inviting me Louise 🙂 Yes, it’s been fun. Much love xx
Thanks Rashida, that is a lovely thing to say. Do you know how to add links within your posts? Some of the other bloggers you mentioned I would love to check out. I also have no sense of direction. I hate it when people say ‘head east on such and such road’. I’m like, what’s east? Left or right are directions I can understand.
Ah, Annabel, at least you know left and right! I have to put my hand out to figure out what right is! And no, I have no idea how to add links to my post. I love your blog, though 🙂
Thanks Rashida, lovely of you to mention my blog. I am not much of a swimmer either – and I am so excited to learn you don’t know right from left. I never developed that automatic response that I have watched and secretly loved in others. I thought I was the only one. So comforting to find there is another on this planet. I will also check out the other blog you mentioned.
haha, Lauren 🙂 When I said feisty, I meant your writing is as vigorous as a summer morning 🙂 And I wonder if directional dyslexia is a common feature among writers? I’ve always struggled with right and left and numbers. Which is why my husband always wins at Scrabble – he keeps the tally!
Hello Rashida. Thanks for your lovely comment re my blog. I’m ashamed I’ve done very few posts on it in the last few months. My life goes in waves, and perhaps my blogging wave will come in again soon.
And I can’t swim either!
Hi Christina, what a lovely metaphor about swimming and life and waves! It doesn’t matter how often you write, not to me anyway, it’s what you write that resonates, so don’t feel sorry about blogging intermittently. Thank you for visiting.
Thanks for the mention Rashida – am I supposed to roll it on now and do the same? Funny what we have in common – my directional challenges are excused by being from the northern hemisphere, where my internal GPS is perfect. … Ok, sometimes perfect. … Oh, alright, I sometimes get it right!
And my GPS expereinces with ‘Janet’ (it just sounded Janet-ish) might indicate that intelligent robot life has in fact evolved, and has a sadistic sense of humour. Janet sent M and I in a great big circle in the middle of Tasmania, and was about to do it again, except M’s boy-sense over-rode her “Recalculating. Drive 2000miles north and turn left at the moon” kind of instructions. Maybe Janet was Irish and had been at the poteen.
haha, Karen 🙂 I tried the ‘I know my northern hemisphere direction’ line for a bit, but gave up after I spent more of my life being southern! Sharon, in addition to turning me around from Adelaide City and taking me to Iron Knob, also tried to drive me into the ocean on our way home from Melbourne, somewhere along the Nullabor. So maybe she’s related to your Irish Janet! If you feel like, you can do a blog post as a follow on or not, up to you; I had fun doing this, especially after Louise said there was no obligation at all 🙂
Thank you, Rashida for including me among such august bloggers. Although, as Christina mentioned, I too have put very few posts up recently – life manages to get in the way. I will try better for 2018 and well done again for finishing the book! x
You’re welcome Sue and you will always be a poet and a writer. It’s more of a view on life than anything you have to do, I find.
I’ve barely written all year, but I still write everyday in my head!