Family

In Lockdown

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Hello, I am away for a week in my mountain bolt-hole to finish the first draft of my current mystery book.

I will be taking my laptop but there’s no internet access so anything urgent will have to wait until I return.

David will be staying at home so we will be writing in different towns.

Last night I saw The Best Exotic Hotel Marigold with Artschool Annie. Critics mightn’t have warmed to this one but I loved it as it reminded me so much of my time in India.

When I am old (and beautiful) I want to stay at the Best Exotic Hotel Marigold for the old and beautiful. A very charming movie with some great depth to the characters.

And for those who missed it, here is the file of my interview with Blanche Clark which ran in the Melbourne Sunday Herald.

I shall add that to my slowly getting there media section. I am very slow with updating my website, But as the character Sonny, says in The Best Exotic Hotel Marigold, ‘ everything will be alright in the end. And so if it’s not all right. It’s not the end.’ Enjoy your week. Keep creative. Thank you for visiting me. xx

Airport Grooviness

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Today was one of those teacher’s days off. I played Lego with my daughter all day. I am not a Lego lover in any way shape or form. I’ve just reached the final chapter of the first draft of my Currawong mystery and so intensely frustrating to have to stop AGAIN. But my lovely writing mate, Nathan Burrage cheered me up when he sent through this picture of Poet’s Cottage at the airport. How divine to see it presented and looking so grand whilst I sit at home constructing Lego cars. Thank you, Nathan! xx

A Different Light

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I’m not the world’s biggest Marilyn Monroe fan but for some reason I seem to own five rather large coffee-table MM books which I can never bring myself to cull because I love looking at her jewellery, gowns and make-up. I caught the movie My Week With Marilyn with Art School Annie last week and thought Michelle Williams did a very good job portraying such an iconic figure.

I admire Marilyn because she came from a humble background (like moi) but was always trying to improve herself. Unlike the stars today who often brag about being dumb, Marilyn desperately wanted to be taken seriously. She sought out the company of intellectuals and writers. I feel so dispirited at times with the ‘skank’ culture of today.

I love Marilyn for her book collection of over 400 books and because books were such a refuge and joy to her.

I admire her strength, her insecurity, her tenacity and her love of animals as well. There’s a blog HERE that covers Marilyn’s love of books better than I have time to do.

This weekend displayed to me how much can change in a year. Last year my daughter’s party was about tulle, tiaras and pink princesses. This year we had Goth-painted nails, monsters, black balloons, ghouls and creepy Monster High dolls.

I have a busy week of doing interviews for Poet’s Cottage and trying to nail the first draft of Currawong Manor. Here is a link to another early review HERE which I loved for Poet’s Cottage. It still seems so surreal that people are actually reading the book I spent so many years upon.  I shall have to organise myself to add a review section to my tatty, scatty website.

After the party. Daisy and I walk home in Sydney light.

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Enjoy your week and happy reading. xx

MONA, QUOLLS, MEDIUMS AND A CANNY WITCH

josephinetalepeddler 12 Comments
I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We escaped to my favourite place on Earth – my home state of Tasmania – for a family Christmas.
I sighed over houses in Bellerive.
Ate fish and chips at Mure’s
and saw the incredible MONA gallery which has to be one of the most exciting venues for contemporary art in the world. A must-see if you’re heading to Tasmania and really worthy of a blog post of its own. Hats off to the flamboyant David Walsh, who chose to put the fortune he made from gambling into art.
Bless you, David Walsh, for creating such an exciting and rich exhibit for Hobart. Not all of the works were to my taste but that’s part of the fun. You select what you love and hate with the O machine that you carry around; you can also see how other visitors voted. I found the Poo Machine really silly (I couldn’t stay in the room with the stench) and the Vagina Wall wasn’t really my cup of tea, but it’s all interesting. It wasn’t as shocking as I imagined but then I did spend three years at the College of Fine Arts so it takes a lot to rock me. But MONA was way, way better than I had envisaged it would be.
We journeyed to Bruny Island for a few days where we fed wild quolls, watched hard-working fairy penguins and shearwaters return from a day at sea, and explored desolate beaches.
Daisy swapped television and city streets for nature, no shops, very late nights with our wildlife watching and the most pristine air and views imaginable. Not to mention the most luscious food on the planet. If you haven’t eaten fresh Tasmanian raspberries, just-picked peas in the pod and my total favourite of them all – pink-eye potatoes – then you must or bust. I’m always a glutton in Tasmania and the owner of the unit we stayed at on Bruny claimed the food is better because the climate encourages a slow growth which makes all the food tastier.

Josephine Pennicott and Daisy on Bruny Island

 

When you have a parent die so near to Christmas, the day can never be as magical as it would have been. Despite the silence that fell upon us at times there were many treasured moments.
I love the fact my daughter is still so innocent and believes so strongly in the magic of Father Christmas. She did ask David why so many of her toys were made in China. As he paused to consider a reply, she said with a triumphant chorus, ‘I know! It’s because the elves were lazy and bought them from the shops!’
 
It’s always so difficult for me to return from the shimmering beauty of my home state. Returning to Sydney on New Years Eve, we were greeted by the rudest taxi driver you could imagine and the usual long queues at the airport and gritty industrial city streets. ‘Welcome back to Sydney’ I sighed to long-suffering David who knows he is now in for several months of me frantically trying to come up with every reason why we should all relocate to Tasmania. I can spend hours surfing Domain, dreaming as I cluck over the houses and prices. ‘If we sell up here, we could buy a house and a boat in Tasmania’ is my current, cunning lure to my Sydney-loving man.
My daughter is home on school holidays which always impacts on my word count. Just before Christmas, I had the agony of my new laptop falling from the bed, breaking the hardrive and I lost a week of unbacked work on my Currawong Book. Luckily, my characters are patient with me. This book is different in that a lot of it came to me already fully formed – unlike Poet’s Cottage which flowed as I wrote. I knew from the beginning with Currawong Manor, where it was heading and all the character’s secrets. Hopefully, it will work. The first draft is always a vexing time and often it feels as exciting as my Foxtel guide.

Josephine Pennicott and Allison Dubois

And I have launched into 2012 with a very spiritual week ahead. As you can see from the photograph which I posted on my Facebook, I once again was in a VIP audience with Allison Dubois of Medium fame. Alas, no connection was made for me but many interesting and poignant stories from the audience, including a suicide and a murder case which Allison channelled a lot of information through. It’s the second time I’ve been in the VIP audience and although disappointed not to be selected for a reading, it’s always emotional to witness the shock, elation and tearful joy of people who receive strong readings from Allison.
On Saturday I visit renowned witch and tarot reader, Ly de Angeles who has quite a reputation for giving you the hard truth. You can read more about her death prediction to one of her clients HERE. I’m looking forward to meeting with Ly as I’ve read quite a lot about her over the years. She sounds like an amazing character and I’ve wanted to have a reading with her for years. Fingers crossed for this session…
Wishing you a magical 2012. May this year be the one that you follow your Bliss, appreciate the present moment and live the amazing life you deserve. I’m very into Gratitude at the moment and have started a second blog to journal online a year of gratitude. I’m not expecting anyone to follow this one but I do feel it’s important for me to appreciate what is here right now as I tend to always be focusing on the absence. I’ll post a link when I get it up and running. 
Here’s to being present and appreciative in 2012.
Thank you for visiting me. xx

LET IT GO

josephinetalepeddler 5 Comments

Hello,


Some sage writing words extracted from Cate Kennedy’s article in this month’s Country Style magazine.

‘Writing mirrors all of this – the disorder, the piercing together, the realisation that the distraction itself may actually turn out to be the inspiration. If there’s a mantra, it’s Let it go.’

and

‘So I’ve learned to go with the cobwebs, the giant huntsman spider on the bedroom ceiling, the skinks running across the living-room floor, the frog in the shower recess. I’m at home with the mess and disarray caused by kids making batches of cupcakes and elaborate cubbies, the dirty clothes that are proof of a day well- used.

I know that one day, trusting this process, I’m going to make something out of all of this; but for now, while the larger world is in full flight, I’m learning to put the dream of undisturbed, uninterrupted, artistic tranquillity in the corner, where it belongs.’ 

As the school holidays have just started, I really needed to hear those words as a reminder, Cate!  Not to mention that yesterday I dropped my brand new laptop, smashed it to bits and lost a week of writing which wasn’t backed up. I’d love to return to the days of writing with pen and paper and no stress. 

via my friend Dianne Wise-Carroll

 

If over the holidays you are in dire need to read more inspiring words on writing and creativity here’s an article I wrote about some of my creative journey towards Poet’s Cottage for Ian Irvine on his writing blog, you can find it HERE.

Wishing you wherever you are in the world, a wonderful Solstice, Christmas and New Year. May it be filled with all the chaos, inspiration and distraction that your soul desires.

 Thank you for visiting me. It has been raining for weeks now in Sydney with cool weather which is wonderful compared to the usual Christmas humidity. And I am 80 000 words into a very rough first draft of Currawong Manor. Thankfully, my characters are patient with me as I can only work in scrips and scraps with Miss Daisy home. Let it go. Let it Be.
 

Merry Christmas. xx