New Ideas, poetry, Public Speaker, Writing, writing prompts

Stand Up, Sit Down and Write, Move, & Write Some More!

The title is a list of what I do, or want to do in my life. My Stand Up career is not actually a thing I’ve ever done for money, so not a career at all, not yet anyway.

This image is of me, getting in touch with the character I ‘am’ when I do my Stand Up Comedy act. Her name is Nanna Carreau, she’s considerably older than I am (twenty years or more) and I love acting as her, it’s so much fun to think about what she thinks about things, and to ‘be her’ sometimes, and making peopl laugh when I do it!

My Writing ‘career’ though, that is something I do make at least some money from. Not enough pay our household’s bills, but at least enough to be able to pay for my coffee and meals when I go out. Book sales, and an annual Government payment cover that …

That Government payment is called the Educational Lending Right, and is a payment to writers who have a book in a school library. It’s a fine payment, I love it, I write the book, do the necessarly things, and it goes on this program, to be looked at every year, and paying out the relevant amount to me, straight into my bank account! Money for nothing, to some extent because books in libraries can last for more than one year, so those books will bring in the money for more than just one year – Bonus!

If I were to tout myself as an interesting Puublic Speaker, talking about my books and a variety of other important things in my life, that would be a good money-making option for sure. I haven’t done that much at all though, and while I have in fact done that, it’s mostly been when doing presentations with my writng group, where I have a voluntary position as the President, and as the group is a not-for-profit group, members are unable to be paid.

When I’m doing that kind of thing, I make sure I look far better than do when ‘being’ old grumpy bum Nanna Carreau!

So what’s next? Ah, Move … The image shows my canine walking partner, Lenny. He’s our dog, and my husband and I walk him at least five times a week. We don’t cover as much distance as Lenny would have walked or run as a racing Greyhound, but it’s usually more than one kilometre. And doing the things good dog ownes need to do means more moving.

And I like getting outside regularly to be with nature to look at the sky as well as our trees and other plants, and other trees, crops, and other people’s gardens when I go for a walk. I’m usually looking at the birds out and about as well, I’m an interested bird watcher for sure.

And seeing things that interest me can give me ideas to write about, and I in fact have written poems that have then been published. Having my poetry in books, whether self-published or published by others, well that’s a good thing, for a writer!

Nature, Life, and Thinking About It All gives me plenty to write about, and I love it! If you enjoyed reading this blogpost, why not have a look at what else I’ve written?!

Thanks, maybe you have your own things in your life you’d like to tell us all about, if so, leave a comment!

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New Things Are Coming Together, In Great Ways!

This is a tiny section of the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation

The Art Installation as in the photo there, actually has well over 750 individual items on display. These usually (but not always) rusty items take in contexts such as reuse, recycling, and reimagining.

More than that, the overall Installation covers ideas about road safety as well, and the more I think about it, the broader the range of possible aspects of life are taken in, in response to what the Art Installation is all about!

I am so much looking forward to when people will be getting in contact, and booking visits to this Experiential site, where they will be in a lovely quiet rural area, with magnificent Eucalyptus trees as well as a fine stand of Pine trees to give shade, in the morning, anyway!

And in those various trees nest and rest many native birds, as well as those know from other countries, and it visitors are luchy they may site some other native fauna, perhaps lizards, or even snakes! How exciting!

When you come and visit the Redbanks Redbanks & Found Art Installalion, you never know what interesting and even exciting things you may see!

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Sometimes Plans Hover For A While, Waiting …

Waiting for what? That’s what I need to find out, then once I work it out, it will happen. the world the whole wide world is out there, waiting for me to get moving, and bring my ‘Thing’ out, where they can see it, do it, experience it, enjoy it, then tell everyone they know about it!

Well that’s a brief look at what my most recent plan is, or the biggest one of them anyway. I have lots of plans, if you include brief thoughts that seem to me to be good things to have a go at doing, plans.

Oh, I know that’s not a plan, it’s something much smaller than a plan, and less worthy. Plans are big, and they have bold letters, and paragraphs. Sometimes they might have numbers and graphs in them, and quotes from worthy people,

Plans set things out in ways that may seem logical, and come to possible conclusions even before the plan is even enacted, Wow!

Hovering plans like I’m on about here may have some of those things, but mine rarely have numbers or graphs, I’m more of an ideas person, working with words, not numbers. Numbers and I have never been Besties.

I can do simple math, but if I’d need a calculator to get the math done, I’m just not interested. I can write far better than I can calculate, I’ve always been that way, and probably always will be. At my age, more than half way through my likely lifetime, I’ll keep on with my plans that don’t need numbers done.

I took this photo this morning, because it looked like an owl, and I like owls. And I have a fascination in seeing living things in inanimate things.

See that photograph there, I took that photo not only because I like such things, but I also had a kind of nano plan that I may use the photo in something else, something bigger than just one slightly quirky photo.

I don’t know anything much more about that little mini plan, but it could quite likely end up in a book, with other such photos, and some words written by me, and possibly with quotes from others who’ve looked at and thought about things like I’m thinking about now.

I love the way the ideas come out of my head and onto the page as I write about them like this. And just because I had no idea about putting that photo in this article when I started, I that doesn’t matter, because, well it’s interesting isn’t it, looking at the thought practises of others? I think it is anyway, and with luck, you think so too!

Going back to how this started, the biggest plan I have at the moment is the one I’ve been working on for well over a year now, the one that possible will also be with me for the rest of my lifetime, and that is the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation.

I created this from bits of rusty and/or metal things, then put them on the fence of our place (asking my husband whether he minded, of course). He didn’t mind so I went on putting things on our fence, until there were, by my reckoning, over 400 individual items on the fence. Oops that’s a number, so obviously I can do numbers if they’re relevant to what I’m thinking a lot about!

So once I had that number of different things, I was thinking about what I was doing, and some thoughts became ideas, then some of those ideas solidified into contexts, and it was obvious I’d taken a step up from creating and had begun actually curating this thing. That’s when I named what I was doing, and now, there are (look out, a bigger number coming) now there are around 700 individual items on display at this Art Installation.

And I’m even thinking of getting students involved and having them actually count how many things there are, and separate the number into the types of things that are there. There are vehicle related, food preparation related, farming related, tools related, and probably a ‘what the heck is that’ related section as well.

This thing is a much bigger thing that the owl-looking photo, and I am proud of that fact!

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Thinking About What To Write About Next …

My mind is filled with so many ideas, it’s difficult to settle down to actually write anything, sometimes, like right now!
I had a fabulous idea to write about a plant that’s going well in our garden, making it a combination of giving information about herbs, and also including poetry, which is a very much favoured way to write for me.

This new plant has flowered, and I’ve noticed the bees around the place are very much attracted to the sweet little flowers that grow on this plant, which is new to me, having been icluded in a seed mix to plant out ro attract butterflies, and as I’ve noticed, also bees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage

The plant is borage, and if you click on the link, you’ll see the lovely little blue flowers, and large leaves.

What I wanted to do, and may still do, is to write a bit about Borage, and how it came to be growing in our garden, and then post an Acrostic poem using “B O R A G E” as the starting letters of a six line poem about this delightful new plant …

So that’s one thing, but I also possibly could be writing more of the Cosy Murder Mystery Novel I’m possibly more that half way through, but have been more or less ignoring for far too long. I’ve also been ignoring this website of mine, even though I actually love writing and connecting with other people online!

And of course there are the other things on this website of mine, which is relatively new to me, and I’m not really sure about how to use effectively … I haven’t been loving it, so have been ignoring it, which anyone who comes here may realise.

The image above is definitely NOT what I wanted to post here, which proves how much I still need to learn about how to use this website! I’d actually taken that photograph for something else entirely, the monthly newsletter I create and distribute in my local town, Mallala.

The photo was of one of the entertainments at the 2025 Mallala Christmas Street Party, which curiously takes place mostly at the local oval, rather that the street …

Anyway, enough of this, it’s time to move on to other things now, and I promise I’ll be back again soon, as long as I manage to actually manage to get here again! Haha, at least my sense of humour is still working!

Arts, inspiration, New Ideas, starting a business, therapeutic writing, writing opportunities

Moving Forward, Slow & Sure!

I know what I want to do, and I know many of the people who can help me as I go. Having goals is one thing, but with action, a goal is just a decoration, amounting to not a lot that is very useful in terms of ‘doing business’.

The goals I’ve set for this year though, ones developed after reading a recent Journaling topic given by Nan Berrett on the Facebook page ‘Your Journaling Journey’ will be guide posts to assist me as I go through the necessary steps to make my business the best it can be!

The ten ideas I came up with in response to this prompt topic cover a variety of things, some of them concerning my business others more personal things, but it all blends into creative things for 2025!

This Journaling Journey has brought up many interesting thoughts and ideas, and I definitely want to continue with journaling once this 30 day program is all over.

This is part of our gate, which forms a part of the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation, which is going to be one part of the business I am going to start up early this year, if all goes as I want it to! I’m excited about this new direction I’ll be going, it feels like I’m finally doing what what my life has been leading me to!

So slow and steady wins the race, and I have my eye on the prize, which is to have a respected business doing a variety of creativity-connected activities that will bring in a reasonable profit for me (eventually).

This year is for setting it all up, next year though, let that be the year it takes off in good ways!

I’ve made some money from my writing over the years, but now, with many more things to do, I ‘m expecting more! An I nervous about starting a new business at my age? No! I’m almost 62 and that is the perfect age to do this!

So I’ m not nervous, I’m excited. Bring it on, I’m ready to make it all happen! Many thanks to the people who’ve been helping to get to this position, especially my Support Worker, Tereza, and my husband Graham! You are both great, and have helped me to be great too, or more than that, I am Awesome!