A cork popper!

    2011 began with a pop - literally. My thoughtful daughter-in-law found a bottle (or three) of Whispers champagne and we toasted to the success of Rupert, Neti and Athena. In such times, when you ride on the well wishes of those you love, and who love you, anything seems possible and I thank them for providing such sweet moments. Fireworks at midnight signalled a beginning filled with promise. When I won $1300 the next day (New Year's Day) in Tattslotto, I felt that exquisite pleasure of universal forces aligning in my favour. In moments such as these, I believe it's important to ride the crests, even if it is with smug satisfaction. There will be troughs, I know that only too well, but I've learned to grab great moments while I can. They feed our psyche like a shot of calcium in the bones, propping it up with a subtle framework of hope and wonder. I like to reinforce that framework whenever I can. 

I had to wait until April for the outcome of that competition. In the bigger scheme of things you might wonder why it was such a 'big deal'. After all, it was a small publishing house running the competition, and I wasn't Peter Carey. Did I think that if I won I would be able to retire on the profits? Not at all. Let me tell you too, that I had no illusions about the literary merit of Whispers. It is my first novel and, as such, it suffers for the self-consciousness of my early writing. Whenever I received a rejection I would always consider reworking the whole thing, but hesitated, not for laziness, but because I feared I would corrupt Rupert's innocence and gentility with a slicker writing process. Of course if I was skilled in my craft that wouldn't happen; but I know my limitations. Winning the competition would give me a much needed shot of confidence, a sign from the 'gods' that just maybe I had some talent to build on. The wait until April was excruciating. 

The Shortlist

From previous blogs, if you've read them, you will have the idea by now that I wasn't holding out too much hope for ever seeing my first novel published. Instead, I was deflecting my daydreams to anywhere else but writing. On a day at work that didn't seem out of the ordinary, I received the message by email, congratulating me on being shortlisted for the publishing prize. Interesting to note the workings of my mind at this point. Don't get be wrong, I was buoyed by the news that I was one of seven finalists, but this wasn't a big publishing house that was running the competition; it was in embryonic form. My next thought was that there must have been, maybe ten submissions in the competition. Poor other three, I thought with a smidgen of arrogance, at least I'd beaten them.  

Entrez-vous s'il vous plait

2010 is coming to a close and my insides clench at the thought that another year is passing and I'm still no further towards my dreams, though am confused now just what those dreams are. The bookshop cafe undergoes another mental refit as I size up local shops for possibilities. I imagine myself cycling to work early in the morning. It's aways sunny in my daydreams, bright with promise. My bicycle's carry basket is filled with sweet smelling tomatoes, just-baked olive breads, sweet pastries and the mandatory baguette that I have purchased from local stores on the way. I laugh a lot in those daydreams, and flick my hair flirtatiously at butchers, bakers and, yes, the candlestick maker if there's one around. They smile appreciatively as they stand in the doorways of their impeccably clean shops, the subtle lighting from inside pouring onto the pavement through their french windows. My own bookshop cafe waits expectantly for me like an old friend and I can feel its hum of pleasure as I turn the large, old-fashioned key and step in. I turn on the lamps, strategically positioned in front of baroque-styled mirrors and light the fire in the reading room at the rear of the shop. I scoop a ladle of coffee beans from a large hessian bag and bend to savour their aroma before I grind and ready the coffee machine for the day. A quick dust of the books; fresh flowers and candles at each table. I run a cloth impregnated with olive oil, a hint of sandalwood and rosemary across the surface of the mahogany counter, and place the pastries, still warm from the bakery, into tiered racks. Tiny fairy lights climb the tiers like jasmine and their light reflects in the glaze of apricot and berry Danish. (Why, might you say, do I not have an Australian theme? A red gum counter, wattle seed damper and lillypilly jam? Because my appreciation of what it is to be Australian is still not fully developed. I'm still caught in juvenile Europeanism. I know it. I accept it. Growing up will probably take place in a Winnebago trekking across the Nullabor). 

Back to my shop... My day will be busy enough to pay the rent, provide me with a surprisingly generous income, but there will be time enough too, for writing another page of my new, highly anticipated novel, while customers lounge in the reading room, sipping tea and extolling my talents as they absorb themselves in the lives of Rupert, Neti and Athena, and then, Dana and Madeleine.  

There's a clanging in my ears. It's jarring, not at all like the sound of the little chime that ushers in another eager customer. I sense a stampede approaching and shake myself out of my reverie. There's a problem with my daydream. I can't ride a bike. I pick up the text books and teacher's chronicle and ready myself for Year 8 Science, last period Friday afternoon. 

Sorry, I lied

I lied in the last blog. Of course I didn't forget about entering Whispers into the competition. It would be nice to think that I could be that blasé, but there was too much emotional investment every time I sent off the manuscript. Also, I worried about Rupert and Neti. I know that probably seems odd, but they are the 'children' of my creation. Rupert is a grown man, able to look after himself, you'd think, but if you've met my Rupert you'd know what I mean. Thoughts and their adhesive emotions fluctuated between envisaging my dejection as the envelope rebounded, and the elation of winning. Unfortunately, the former was too easy to imagine. It might be pleasant to daydream of a better outcome, but sometimes our fibre resonates at a much lower frequency. How could mine do much else when it was already fine-tuned to the vibration of disappointment? There, you might say, was my problem. I was failing in the 'Course of Miracles', the critical stage in The Secret ... For someone who claims to be a positive thinker, I was feeling very negative and I just wished those self-help books would shut up! There was one though that did help. Margrit Segesman, the founder of the Gita yoga School and my own teacher's mentor had a bit to say about such things in her book Wings of Power and here I'll paraphrase: 'the subconscious is the servant of the conscious mind', 'the subconscious does not discriminate between positive/negative thoughts and directives', and, more profoundly for me 'the subconscious responds to images as this is what was active before the development of speech in the human species'. Now this appealed because it was in a pseudo-scientific form that I could relate to. She really believed in imagining the outcome you wanted - picturing it over and over, instead of thinking it, and then letting the subconscious tick away at its outcome and let it go. I was getting desperate and thought I'd give the positive imaging a try. Better still, I'd try to let it go. Too easy. (Really?)

Anyway, life did push the whole thing to the background to some degree and so by the time December 2010 arrived, I was in the middle of the familiar 'burn out' from a hectic term of teaching and, I can truthfully write, had let it all go.