Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living
-Soren Kierkegaard
Somewhere over the last few months I started doing 90 minute ‘Power Jams.’
During November, I discovered the thrill of the 10 minute sprint.
Timers create magic.
Magic create words.
It’s unbelievable how much you get done.
Try it.
Love and light,
Anushka xx
If you work at it hard enough, you can grind an iron rod into a needle
– Chinese Proverb
Day 1: NaNoWriMo
It’s DAY TWO of NaNoWriMo in Australia. The sun is shining, the air feels like spring and I am aware that many of you have easy access to spice pumpkin lattes going into fall – and I don’t.
I will be documenting my writing space in photographs on instagram everyday. At the moment the desk isn’t too cluttered, but I already spy accumulating cups of tea from the corner of my eye. Once I pull out my Dancing Peregrine edits, there is no saving this space! If anyone else would like to join me in documenting the process in pictures, let me know, and I’ll have a sneak peak during the obligatory procrastination session.
So what did I do in preparation for NaNoWriMo?
*insert guilty panster silence here*
That said, I did have a beautiful spark for an idea which has captured my sweet black heart involving cyborgs, assassins and pirates. I am quite curious and excited to see where this NaNo adventure takes me since it is very different from my current WIP which is about all things haunted, ballerinas and dark magic. Love.
I have found Pinterest to be a great inspiration tool in my outlining ‘pretend plotting’ stage. Before every session I open up the boards, drink in the visual essence and seeds of inspiration and dive straight in. I know the plotters out there are cringing a little bit, but I know the magic happens in the revision stages for me.
For those of you doing NaNo, my username is findingmycreature. Would love to connect with you there too – always exciting to see everyone’s progress – especially since it’s easy to forget real people actually exist outside of your head.
What did you do to prepare for NaNo?
Love and light,
Anushka xx
Hello Beautiful Creatures!
I know it’s been quiet the past week. Life has been incredibly busy and hectic – in a good way! I haven’t felt more inspired or motivated as I do now and the past week has made me realise a few things to help me keep on top of things.
I didn’t want this post to take up one of the regular spots on Wednesday or Saturday so I thought I would break the rules and post early!
Finding My Creature is looking for creative creatures to GUEST POST over here to celebrate all things spring and NaNoWriMo.
EXCITING!
If you are interested in contributing, send me a pitch of your idea HERE along with a link to your blog/website.
Look forward to hearing from you!
Love and light,
Anushka xx
In order to write about life, first you must live it
– Ernest Hemingway
Where do your blog ideas come from?
Love and light,
Anushka xx
PS – I’m really excited to share the blog topics I have come up with, stay tuned.
The best time to set up a new discipline is when the idea is strong
– Jim Rohn
In Australia, the first glimmer of spring has arrived. The warm breeze, the feeble rays of sunshine and the appearance of flowers waiting to bloom are signs winter is leaving us behind. It feels like only yesterday I was reminiscing about what I love about the cold, and I can’t help but feel a tiny bit sad about this change.
I’m not going to lie, I am a little bit jealous of the pumpkin spice happiness most of you will be experiencing to celebrate all things fall. Okay, very jealous. It wasn’t until I lived in Vancouver did I understand this phenomenon. When Starbucks was going pumpkin spice crazy, I was a complete snob and utterly bewildered by this craze. Who on earth would want such a horrifying combination? But during a moment of homesickness and missing my mother, I purchased my first one and fell in love. I knew if she was in Vancouver with me she’d be ordering them like crazy, because pumpkin and all things spice, are probably her two most favourite things right there – her children a close third, fourth and fifth. Reading in the rain amongst the hustle and bustle of Starbucks with a pumpkin spiced latte in hand helped me feel closer to home and those I love.
With the change of seasons I tend to reflect on the past and remember beautiful memories I didn’t realise I missed. I also evaluate my goals and I thought it would be fun to share them here.
1. Complete my 2nd revision and edits for Dancing Peregrine by the end of October 2014. This will mark one year since I finished my first rewrite. I can’t believe I left a big gap between revisiting it, but life had other plans and countries to explore and I wouldn’t change any of it. It has been an amazing journey of growth and dramatic changes and I have finally learned to respect the journey instead of fighting it.
2. Write query letter and begin researching suitable agents. I have been putting this off for too long. I’m sure I am not alone in this.
3. Submit Dancing Peregrine by the end of the year. That said, it needs to feel ready and not rushed. I’m also going to constantly remind myself to enjoy the process.
4. Enter NaNoWriMo! Words cannot begin to explain how badly I want to do this. The thrill of experiencing first draft mania has not been experienced in a long time (2.5 years?). Regardless of whether Dancing Peregrine is completed or not, I will be doing this. I need a new story and a new world. Another creative spark needs to be ignited.
Even though I don’t get to experience pumpkin spiced lattes, maybe I’m feeling a little bit excited by what the rest of the year has in store for me creatively.
What are your goals for the changing of the season?
Love and light,
Anushka xx
“Silence is more musical than any song.”
— Christina Georgina Rossetti
Somewhere along the way on my writing journey, the music disappeared.
Did it get stolen?
No.
It simply ceased to be.
Writing to silence is a beautiful thing. I hear everything, yet nothing at the same time.
Every story has a different process and this one is silence. I respect that now, after all this time. For so long I wanted to be the writer with the cool playlists, filled with inspirational songs and artists. But I realise now, it wasn’t to be.
This story is silence, like snow.
The world I explore is abandoned and cursed. The heroine, alone and lost.
There are secrets and blood.
A forgotten past.
Music disappeared from the story, because there is so much within the silence that can be heard.
Screams, tears and the missing links.
…I believe my muse has been trying to tell me this all along.
I am beginning to fall in love with my WIP once again. The second round of revision feels different, more precise and closer to almost there. I am ruthless with my cutting and rewrites – and feel empowered – because I am a different writer. One who will sacrifice anything to make sure the characters can be heard.
It isn’t easy to delete chapters or a beautiful character…but in the silence, I heard the final whispers of the story.
Have there been moments when the misty pieces began to reveal itself to you?
Love and light,
Anushka xx
Leah Johnson Photography
The exquisite Devin Berglund was kind enough to host my gypsy self on her blog. If you’ve been wondering where this creature has disappeared to…again….check out the link below!
Love and light,
Anushka xx
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination
-Jimmy Dean
Grasping Our Potential by Leah Johnson
http://leahjohnston.com
Photography is developing into a great love of mine and I enjoy the new dimension of my soul it represents. By no means am I an expert, but I do strive to be at a level where I feel comfortable capturing moments exactly how I see them in my head. During my travels I discovered something interesting about myself as a photographer, I love capturing people over wildlife. I also loved capturing forgotten and incomplete things – like the skeletal remains of sunken fishing boats or a broken birdcage – anything that stirs a story within me. Yes birds are beautiful, so are flowers and incredible landscapes. However, it’s the stolen moments immortalized forever in a photograph that I love the most as well as the eerie echoes of something long forgotten.
The visual stories send chills down my spine.
I want my writing to reflect that too.
Love and Light,
Anushka xx
When I see beautiful places,the stories start talking…
Taking in the tea trails, Sri Lanka
Routine is a wonderful thing, but breaking routine is absolutely delightful.
I haven’t been working on my WIP last month and it felt surprisingly fantastic. Instead, I went travelling around beautiful and isolated parts of Sri Lanka last month and it got me thinking about the concept of breaking routine and how it related to my own writing process.
Writing if you aren’t careful can drain and leech everything you have. For a while that’s how my writing life felt to me and then I realized something during my month of uninhibited exploring – One MUST fill the creative well. Not just for the sake of your ‘art’ but for you. In my case, the act of simply sitting at my desk and working through my revision edits was just not enough to fuel me to the end.
Was I still excited about my story?
Yes.
Could I work on it?
No.
I felt like I was dying from exhaustion and my muse needed CPR. Something needed to change if I wanted to see this WIP complete.
So I broke routine.
Such beautiful color ..
I took up photography and saw life through a different lens.
I wrote poetry and stretched my mind to see words differently.
I bonded with beautiful people despite the language barrier.
All in all, I was filling my body and soul with good things.
Falling in love with this sari a little bit
Travelling is a great passion of mine and every trip I learn something new about myself and the world. I was born in Sri Lanka, and despite visiting previously, this is the first time I left the country with a strong connection to my own sense of identity. For the first time in my life I saw the way a sari draped around a woman’s body absolutely beautiful! Here I was spending my youth avoiding looking ‘ethERnic’ at all cost. What was wrong with me?
You don’t need to go overseas to break routine to fill the well and nourish yourself – but you do need to be exposed to new things.
It is so easy to get caught up in a routine that stunts growth – so if you take anything from this post I hope you find a way to break routine a little bit every day. It doesn’t matter if you work or if you study or if you are based at home – there is something you can do to shake things up a bit and experience something new.
Although the world is getting smaller, there is just so many things to see!
Just go outside your front door 🙂
How do you break routine a little bit everyday?
Love and light,
Anushka xx
My creative messy space
It may not be your day, but it can still be your year – Unknown
Just a quick post. There have been a few distraction over the last week which has made me reflect on what is important to me. I vowed to be more selfish with my time so I can achieve the goals I want to achieve and grow into the writer I hope to be.
I want my life to be filled with inspiring people and I want to look back on this year and be proud of the work I have done.
I hope all of you have a wonderful and productive start to the week!
Love and Light,
Anushka xx
A writing related art project I’ll post about later in the week
I love the smell of fresh flowers in my office ❤
Finding My Creature 