Well, I have been having ideas while being sick. Quite a few of them, in fact.
One of the better ones (I think!) is that I have a notion of putting together a slender volume of sevenling poetry, with an introductory text explaining the form and how it's done. I do have a few sevenlings myself to include, but ideally I would rather this wasn't All About Me - I'm envisaging it as a book about, and a homage to, the form. I think it might be a fun project, and maybe of interest to other poets and to teachers looking for poetry resources. If it worked really well, I might do a follow-up on villanelles and kyrielles, maybe.
I'm thinking in terms of doing it as both an ebook and a print-on-demand edition via Blurb. To get it to happen, I'll need:
- cover art
- 25-30 good sevenlings
- the introductory essay
- a wodge of time to edit, lay out, and make it happen
I'm lucky that I can afford to outlay a bit to get this happening, given that there is no upfront print cost to be met. I'll get in touch with a couple of clever designer types I know to organise a simple cover design, which I'll be able to pay for without drama.
What I'm wondering is, would it be better to offer contributors a flat fee to use their poems, or a percentage of sales? I am envisaging a pricepoint of $4 for the ebook and maybe $6 for the print version (with the POD fee, that's about $2.10 to publisher). If I went flat fee, I could afford to spend $50 per poem to buy up to 10 good poems. If it was a percentage, people would probably only see a few cents per sale, which could very well NEVER add up to $50.
So, the main things I am interested in, before I pursue this idea and register for GST and all that good (not good) stuff, are:
1. Which payment model do you think would be better?
2. Where would you look, if you were me, for contributors?
3. Is this a really dumb idea??
Have at it...
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Into the new world
This is the first week that it has really, properly sunk in that I am not working at my job anymore.
Most of the past three weeks have been enormously busy, so it already feels, in a lot of ways, like a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I bid my colleagues farewell on 25 June. However, because it was school holidays until Sunday and the kids have been with me, it felt like a holiday from work, rather than "my new life not employed in the office". I made no attempt to line up any freelancing in the school hols, and nor did any come my way, but this was right and appropriate and what I wanted and had planned for.
Two days ago, though, the kids went back to school. I did the morning routine and got them all delivered on time, then I came home, made a cup of tea, sat down and thought: Crap. What next?
Of course, I found things to do with my time - house-cleaning, novel-writing (I added 1500 words, which was very satisfactory), phone calls scheduling appointments and booking birthday parties, catching up on personal email. It wasn't that the 6.5 hours they were in school dragged; it was more than I felt like I should have been doing something else. (Something productive... whispered my Puritan work guilt brain).
Yesterday I was out for the entire school day, with medical appointments and tests, lunch with a friend, and a few errands. Surprisingly - or maybe not? - my general energy and mood was much better yesterday than on either Monday or today.
The big picture is I am not well again, with chest pain and extreme fatigue this time. Obviously a decrease in energy and get-up-and-go is to be expected, but it's curious to note how much worse I feel on the days when I am at home rather than out doing stuff. Partly, I'm sure, this is because I harness resources and overspend my daily spoons on "out" days, and then have to pay the piper on home days. I wonder if it's also, in part, that having structure, getting out of the house, and interacting with other humans helps me in many ways. Work, despite the ways in which it wasn't great for me, was terrific for providing daily routine and plentiful daily interactions. These aspects of it, I knew I would miss, and already this is proving true.
The problem is that I don't feel remotely well enough to start actively chasing work right now; the chest pain, which is likely muscular (but heart tests are being done just in case), is fairly constant and it wears me out, and I'm sleeping very poorly - chicken, egg, who knows? - which is no doubt a key factor in my fatigue. It's that old catch-22: having a project to work on would definitely help me, but putting the effort in to find or bid for a project is too much to contemplate. Really, what I'd *like* is for someone to ring or email me with a nice little 3-5 day job to be done over the next fortnight at home ... but if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride!
I am struggling a bit with incipient feelings of low self-worth because I am not currently contributing financially, even though I know this is premature given that I only stopped being paid, um, one week ago (when my outstanding leave entitlements were paid). I still think I will find some work, and that I need to be both patient and persistent. Indeed, I spoke on the phone today to an ex-colleague, who left the organisation I have just left in October of last year. She hasn't worked since, but has just been contacted by an old employer to ask her to do some consultancy for them. This conversation gave me hope on a couple of levels - firstly because she may well need a subcontractor with my expertise, and secondly as evidence for the way opportunities can arise, even after the passage of quite a bit of time, if you are open to them.
More than that, though, I need to reset my internal metric of "what I am worth" to be less reliant on my financial contribution. Even if I do not earn a red cent all year, I still have the value I have, to my family and my community. Once my health is more stable, I can and will fill the gap with volunteering and more time with friends and family. I won't see this new world in grey; I'm going to paint it buttercup yellow in time for the spring.
Most of the past three weeks have been enormously busy, so it already feels, in a lot of ways, like a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I bid my colleagues farewell on 25 June. However, because it was school holidays until Sunday and the kids have been with me, it felt like a holiday from work, rather than "my new life not employed in the office". I made no attempt to line up any freelancing in the school hols, and nor did any come my way, but this was right and appropriate and what I wanted and had planned for.
Two days ago, though, the kids went back to school. I did the morning routine and got them all delivered on time, then I came home, made a cup of tea, sat down and thought: Crap. What next?
Of course, I found things to do with my time - house-cleaning, novel-writing (I added 1500 words, which was very satisfactory), phone calls scheduling appointments and booking birthday parties, catching up on personal email. It wasn't that the 6.5 hours they were in school dragged; it was more than I felt like I should have been doing something else. (Something productive... whispered my Puritan work guilt brain).
Yesterday I was out for the entire school day, with medical appointments and tests, lunch with a friend, and a few errands. Surprisingly - or maybe not? - my general energy and mood was much better yesterday than on either Monday or today.
The big picture is I am not well again, with chest pain and extreme fatigue this time. Obviously a decrease in energy and get-up-and-go is to be expected, but it's curious to note how much worse I feel on the days when I am at home rather than out doing stuff. Partly, I'm sure, this is because I harness resources and overspend my daily spoons on "out" days, and then have to pay the piper on home days. I wonder if it's also, in part, that having structure, getting out of the house, and interacting with other humans helps me in many ways. Work, despite the ways in which it wasn't great for me, was terrific for providing daily routine and plentiful daily interactions. These aspects of it, I knew I would miss, and already this is proving true.
The problem is that I don't feel remotely well enough to start actively chasing work right now; the chest pain, which is likely muscular (but heart tests are being done just in case), is fairly constant and it wears me out, and I'm sleeping very poorly - chicken, egg, who knows? - which is no doubt a key factor in my fatigue. It's that old catch-22: having a project to work on would definitely help me, but putting the effort in to find or bid for a project is too much to contemplate. Really, what I'd *like* is for someone to ring or email me with a nice little 3-5 day job to be done over the next fortnight at home ... but if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride!
I am struggling a bit with incipient feelings of low self-worth because I am not currently contributing financially, even though I know this is premature given that I only stopped being paid, um, one week ago (when my outstanding leave entitlements were paid). I still think I will find some work, and that I need to be both patient and persistent. Indeed, I spoke on the phone today to an ex-colleague, who left the organisation I have just left in October of last year. She hasn't worked since, but has just been contacted by an old employer to ask her to do some consultancy for them. This conversation gave me hope on a couple of levels - firstly because she may well need a subcontractor with my expertise, and secondly as evidence for the way opportunities can arise, even after the passage of quite a bit of time, if you are open to them.
More than that, though, I need to reset my internal metric of "what I am worth" to be less reliant on my financial contribution. Even if I do not earn a red cent all year, I still have the value I have, to my family and my community. Once my health is more stable, I can and will fill the gap with volunteering and more time with friends and family. I won't see this new world in grey; I'm going to paint it buttercup yellow in time for the spring.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Flare in a Sevenling (Poem)
The body signals ills both present and to come:
Humming in the surface skin, pain under each breast;
Legs that weaken, unresponsive, knifing-sharp.
Hard to disentangle, now deep in the valley, that which is mind-born:
The free-flooding fear, the flattening of the world;
The twisted, difficult relationship with sleep.
The road ahead promises nothing, not even an ending.
- Kathy, 11/7/15
Humming in the surface skin, pain under each breast;
Legs that weaken, unresponsive, knifing-sharp.
Hard to disentangle, now deep in the valley, that which is mind-born:
The free-flooding fear, the flattening of the world;
The twisted, difficult relationship with sleep.
The road ahead promises nothing, not even an ending.
- Kathy, 11/7/15
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Justice (Poem)
Picking up on a theme I got interested in during January's month of poetry, this is another poem in my Maligned and Mistreated Women of the Bible series. This one is about Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah, and eventual mother of his twin sons through a twisted series of events. Tamar wanted justice, and she got it, but played a very dangerous hand to get there.
My husband, Er (your eldest son, old man): Er was a man of beauty
such a man! his hair soft as the fleece on a kid, his eyes pools of stillness
in the night, our cries joining; our tent a haven for only joyous things
such gentleness could never live. And he did not.
My tent darkened forevermore the day I sent him to Yahweh,
My womb empty, and my cradle.
You gave me next Onan, your second son, as you were bound to do -
To make a child for Er, whose blood no longer stirred,
whose hands - such hands! - no longer animated me;
That son (Your son!) thought to cheat me
Lying to me while lying with me, his contemptuous heart
So small, hard as a stone, who would not give justice to a widow, a son to his brother -
The Lord your God is not mocked, old man.
Justice was served, and Onan followed beloved Er into the night.
I saw your face the day we buried him, the trouble in your eyes; I knew, then,
that you thought of me as at fault, for these lost children.
"Go back to your father's house", you said to me, "Go back and wait" -
Your baby, Shelah, a boy whose voice had yet to break, not ready to deliver me my due
He shall so deliver it, you promised. When he is full-grown.
Go back and wait, Tamar. Four years, five;
You shall have your son, Er's son, when time ripens Shelah to the marriage bed.
Oh, old man. I shall have my son. None of your deceptions will prevent it.
I shall bear Er a son of your line, whether you will or no.
Now I wait, in my harlot's tent, by the dusty roadside, where you will pass.
I have layered my veil carefully; in your frustration and lust, you will not know me;
Shelah is a man grown, and I, well, I am fading, and I am not waiting more.
I shall call to you as you pass, swaying my hips; you shall pledge payment to me, and
the tokens I will have of you will be my strength and my shield.
I shall close my eyes, old man, and think of my husband
and of the sons I shall bear him, as you groan and shudder
I shall let justice be my banner, and the Lord our God my witness
For you owed me a son, Judah, old Judah -
and Tamar is not gainsaid
let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream
I shall not burn;
I shall bear sons, and Er my husband will have his rest
and you will know I have the right of it
you will declare it among the tribes of Israel
Old Lion of Judah, father / grandfather to my sons
my perfect sons.
- Kathy, 8/7/14
My husband, Er (your eldest son, old man): Er was a man of beauty
such a man! his hair soft as the fleece on a kid, his eyes pools of stillness
in the night, our cries joining; our tent a haven for only joyous things
such gentleness could never live. And he did not.
My tent darkened forevermore the day I sent him to Yahweh,
My womb empty, and my cradle.
You gave me next Onan, your second son, as you were bound to do -
To make a child for Er, whose blood no longer stirred,
whose hands - such hands! - no longer animated me;
That son (Your son!) thought to cheat me
Lying to me while lying with me, his contemptuous heart
So small, hard as a stone, who would not give justice to a widow, a son to his brother -
The Lord your God is not mocked, old man.
Justice was served, and Onan followed beloved Er into the night.
I saw your face the day we buried him, the trouble in your eyes; I knew, then,
that you thought of me as at fault, for these lost children.
"Go back to your father's house", you said to me, "Go back and wait" -
Your baby, Shelah, a boy whose voice had yet to break, not ready to deliver me my due
He shall so deliver it, you promised. When he is full-grown.
Go back and wait, Tamar. Four years, five;
You shall have your son, Er's son, when time ripens Shelah to the marriage bed.
Oh, old man. I shall have my son. None of your deceptions will prevent it.
I shall bear Er a son of your line, whether you will or no.
Now I wait, in my harlot's tent, by the dusty roadside, where you will pass.
I have layered my veil carefully; in your frustration and lust, you will not know me;
Shelah is a man grown, and I, well, I am fading, and I am not waiting more.
I shall call to you as you pass, swaying my hips; you shall pledge payment to me, and
the tokens I will have of you will be my strength and my shield.
I shall close my eyes, old man, and think of my husband
and of the sons I shall bear him, as you groan and shudder
I shall let justice be my banner, and the Lord our God my witness
For you owed me a son, Judah, old Judah -
and Tamar is not gainsaid
let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream
I shall not burn;
I shall bear sons, and Er my husband will have his rest
and you will know I have the right of it
you will declare it among the tribes of Israel
Old Lion of Judah, father / grandfather to my sons
my perfect sons.
- Kathy, 8/7/14
Friday, July 3, 2015
A little winter holiday in Marysville
Sharing our Marysville accommodation
with family friends, who have two children whose ages perfectly align
with my kids, we spent just one day (Wednesday) on Lake Mountain at
the tobogganing and snow play zone, but it was a very full day indeed
(to say we were all exhausted at the end would be an epic
understatement). The kids had an absolute ball, though, and three out of the four adults enjoyed a few turns at tobogganing as well. (It's quite exhilarating!)
The Tuesday was spent slow-journeying to Marysville, with stop-off in Healesville for lunch and exploration, then settling into the house; the Thursday, the two families made an attempt to walk to Steavenson Falls (thwarted by rain) and stopped off in Healesville again, then lunched and shopped at the inimitable Yarra Valley Chocolaterie before parting ways around 2:30. Our family then meandered slowly home, stopping off in Yarra Glen and the Christmas Hills, before a 5:30 arrival back to base.
Overall, it was a lovely winter holiday. Yeah, we weren't away that
long, but with Comic-Con the weekend prior, it's been a busy and varied
school holidays for the kids. They're off to their grandparents for a
2-night sleepover on Sunday, so never a dull moment, and we've promised a
trip to the movies next week to see Inside Out. As school holidays go, I
don't feel anyone has anything of which to complain.
We've decided we'd really like to go back to Marysville in warmer weather for a long weekend - we saw virtually nothing of the town or surrounds this trip, partly because of focusing on snow, and partly because it was so cold. I have not been to Marysville since I was in my 20s, and my husband was last there on - yes, ON - Black Saturday. We'd like a better chance to see how the town has rebuilt since the fires, and to enjoy its many beauties. We'll try to schedule a Friday-Saturday night sometime in November, I think.
All in all, as three-day holidays go - this was a good 'un.
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