Do you take your own advice?

I met a new friend for a chat today. She wanted to talk about writing and it's a subject that I'm always happy to discuss. We talked through the various basics of pitching and angles and the like, and then I said something that struck me as meaningful. It went something like this: "You can talk about writing as much as you like, but unless you have words on a page, you're not doing it."

Given my book manuscript with a deadline and my half-finished novel in dire need of resuscitation, this was timely advice for me. Too bad I don't appear to be taking it.

Do you take your own advice?

[image: love this upcycled notebook from This Page/etsy]

What's the best book you've read recently?

With the school holidays upon me, my thoughts turn to life before children, when a holiday meant a complete break and, probably, a lovely pile of two or three new books to read. I'm thinking there won't be much of that going on in the Fibro in the next few weeks...

But, just to torture myself, I'm going to compile a reading list. With your help. So tell me, what's the best book you've read recently?

[image: from one of my favourite websites bookshelfporn.com]

A ticket to procrastination, via hypochondria

Writing may not seem like a physical job. We're not lifting heavy weights, tis true, unless you count the weight of words. We're not tossing cabers, or standing on our feet all day. But that's not to say that there are not side-effects to the job. Work injuries, so to speak.

Fortunately, the big item, the paper cut, is fewer and farther between these days. I'm still surrounded by a sea of paper, but that's more just my inefficient filing systems than anything work-related. But that day-to-day horror that is the sore neck and shoulders shows no sign of abating.

Today I went to see my physio. I've been putting it off for, oh, six or so months. Mostly because his last name involves beating people up (seriously) and that's pretty much how I feel when I leave. Not his fault. No. He tells me it's my fault for leaving it too long between visits.

Our conversations go like this:

Phyiso: "Where does it hurt?"

Me: "Here, here, here - oh, and here."

Physio: "Okay, let's cut to the chase. Where doesn't it hurt?"

Ha.

Moments later:

Me: "Ow. No, really ow. This is hurting me much more than it's hurting you."

Physio: "True. I live for this stuff."

Good grief.

Having prodded all my trigger points and wrapped me in ice for 20 minutes, he declared me ready to leave. He sat opposite me, in his shorts (have you ever met a physio who was a fan of the full-length trouser?), face serious, and proceeded to lecture me on how I need to take better care of myself and - and here was the pay-off moment of the whole visit - embrace hypochondria.

"Take it seriously," he said. "Stop at the first sign of pain. Walk away from the computer. Take a break."

So there you have it people - a ticket to procrastination.

[image: hobbiesfromtheheart/etsy via (nay, because of) Maxabella)

So long and thanks for all the Hot Potatoes

On Sunday I did something I'll probably never, ever do again in my lifetime. I attended a Wiggles concert. My fourth Wiggles concert to be precise. That's the thing with having your kids three years apart, you get to Rock A Bye Your Bear lots and lots and lots of times. 

I remember my first Wiggles gig. It was at a club local to where we lived in the Big Smoke. They did three shows there, back to back. We got the 10.30am show, the difficult show. Difficult because it's key mid-morning sleep time for about three quarters of the audience. Mr7, who I hasten to point out was two at the time, sat on my lap, unmoving for the entire show. I bought him a t-shirt - his first-ever Gig T - and we went home. I had more fun than he did. No really, I loved it. Bare stage, four guys in t-shirts, no back-up dancers, no dog, no dinosaur. They brought the house down. Oh, how the mums screamed and sang along.

By the time we went back the following year, Mr7 (then two) was a devoted groupie. He took his guitar to play along with Murray. He'd worked on the actions. He was ready. We sat on the floor with Maxabella and her crew, not far from the front. Murray and Jeff ran through the crowd and, I confess, I screamed. I am a Murray girl. Go figure. In my defense, I saw him on Spicks and Specks - he's musically very knowledgeable. It's kind of an intellectual crush... I'm not making this better am I?

Mr4 attended his first Wiggles event at the dreaded Christmas concert. Mr7 was, by this stage, at school and heavily into Star Wars. Gran, Mr4 (then two) and I took the limousine service (aka Pops) to the front door of the Wollongong Entertainment Centre, sat somewhere in the nosebleed seats and watched the Circus extravaganza. He was mildly interested. He liked The Big Red Car. I didn't scream. Too far away.

Which brings me to Sunday. Five rows back, up the road. Perfect. The four of us went - we dragged Mr7 along for old times sake and he was noted to be singing along despite his best efforts to appear above it all. He did confess to enjoying seeing Sam live for the first time - it had been Greg all the way in his day.

Mr4 had a little dance, played his ukelele, wiggled a bit. The Builder got his first eyeful of the fab-to-the-under-fours but enjoyed Mr4's performance more. And me? I loved it. I sang along, clapped in all the right spots, laughed at the dumb jokes and fully appreciated the spectacle of an Australian entertainment icon in full flight. They even played Shimmy Shake, my favourite Wiggles song. (Even as I write that I appreciate that not everyone will understand the fact that I even have a favourite Wiggles song.) One of the best things about the way the Wiggles work? They constantly watch the audience - you can see them doing it, gauging what's working, taking sheer enjoyment in the kids' enjoyment.

And so that's that. My last Wiggles concert. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Murray, Jeff, Anthony, Sam, Greg, Captain Feathersword and crew for many, many sanity saving moments over the years. I would not have survived the first years of motherhood without your DVDs and I truly appreciate the broad range of musical styles and instruments to which you have introduced my children.

I admit that I never really understood the rose-eating dinosaur, nor why you would choose an octopus as one of your characters, but you write a fine song (some finer than others) and for that reason I will forgive you some of your dicier moments - including that nursery rhyme DVD, and even Cold Spaghetti Western. I will even forgive your onward, ever onward, merchandising steamroller - though possibly not the small voice that repeats 'Hot Potatoes' over and over again in the swirly light thing that Mr4 simply had to have on Sunday.

If nothing else, we'll always have the Shimmy Shake.

[image: courtesy of Mr7 (then 4)]

Could you self-publish your book?

My monthly writers' Q&A is an endless source of fascination for me. So many writers, so many questions, so little time. My guest this week is Hazel Gaynor. I first discovered Hazel when I was in my infancy as a blogger, criss-crossing the internet in search of blogs I could relate to. I found Hazel's Hot Cross Mum relatively quickly and was soon a regular reader. She was straight to the point, and funny, and she'd somehow managed to spell out her blog name in spaghetti to create her header. What's not to like?

Now Hazel has launched her first book - a self-published e-book called Hot Cross Mum: Bitesize Slices of Motherhood (featuring that world-famous spaghetti), which charts the first 12 months of her journey from leaving a corporate career to adjusting to life as a SAHM to two children. The story of how it came to be is an interesting one, and one that I just knew the friends of Fibro would want to hear. So here it is.

Why did you decide to self-publish your book?
HG: "Two years ago, I didn't know what an e-book was, or a blog for that matter! I started my blog as a platform for developing a writing career after I was made redundant, just at the point when 'mummy blogging' was exploding in the UK and Ireland. The phenomenon of blogging and my part in that attracted the interest of Irish press and TV, and the blog was noticed by a literary agent. She enquired whether I'd considered developing a book based on the blog. I hadn't - but I started work on it the very next day!

"When it was submitted, the book received interest from publishers in Ireland and the UK, but unfortunately didn't make the final hurdle. I was obviously very disappointed, but dusted myself off and continued to write the blog for my personal pleasure and turned my hand to fiction writing and my freelance career.

"The book has sat on my PC ever since, nagging at me! As e-books became more and more popular, I started to think about putting 'Hot Cross Mum: bitesize slices of motherhood' out in that format. A friend of mine, Catherine Howard, was starting to see phenomenal success with her e-book 'MouseTrapped', and encouraged me to go for it!"

What was the process?
HG: "Initially, I planned to do everything myself; sourcing a cover designer, formatting the book for the various e-book distribution channels and managing all the uploading. Other writers who have gone down the e-book route have done everything themselves and it has worked for them. But with two young children to look after and a part-time freelance writing job to hold down, I just simply didn’t have the time – or probably the technical capacity if I’m honest - to do this. Having finally decided to do the ebook at the start of 2011, I just wanted to get on with it.

"So, I decided to use the expertise of a self-publishing company, Original Writing. They created the cover (using my carefully crafted spaghetti letters image!), formatted the text and have managed all the technical aspects of uploading etc. It still took a lot longer, and more work, than I’d anticipated - to get the cover looking right and to proof the formatted PDF for errors, pagination etc. But it certainly got the job done and I can guarantee the book would be floundering somewhere in cyberspace without that external input."


What has been the most daunting part of the process?
HG: "I think the most daunting part of the process is just about to happen. Having put so much time and energy into writing the book, I feel extremely protective of it. Also, this isn’t fiction. This is real, honest stuff about my life and my family – I think that makes it all the more important to me. Now it is out there and available for public consumption I just hope that it is well received. I guess that’s the leap of faith any writer takes when their carefully crafted words are let loose on the general public!"


What are you doing to promote the book – has that been a difficult task? 
HG: "Promoting a book is hugely important – especially for an unpublished author who is self-publishing. Fortunately, through my blog and social media such as Twitter, I am connected into a great network of other bloggers and writers. A number of people who have seen a preview of the book are kindly doing reviews and guest posts on their sites.

"I also approached some successful, international established authors , and parenting magazine and website editors who have given me some lovely review comments to include with my promotional material. Having their endorsement was really important to me. Plus, I'm working closely with Irish-based site http://www.directebooks.com/ to generate a publicity campaign for the book. This will include the book being featured on their blog and being promoted as their recommended read. I will also running a competition, sponsored by directebooks, to win a Sony e-Reader and credit for their e-bookstore."


I assume you've researched the ebook world extensively - what do you think are the keys to
creating a successful e-book? 
HG: "I think that the key to creating a successful e-book is probably the same as creating a successful book in any format: it has to be the writing which ultimately engages the reader and wants them to keep turning the page – or sliding their finger across the screen in this case! From seeing other writer’s experience of publishing an ebook, it seems to take a period of about 12 months for the word to get out there, for reviews to start coming in and for the sales to really start to increase. I am at the very start of my e-book journey. It’s a daunting but exciting prospect ; who knows where I might be in 12 months’ time. As they say, watch this space!"

Check out Hazel's book on Amazon and go say hello at her blog here.


So, what do you think? Could you do it yourself?

Weekend Rewind

It's halftime at the footy, which seems the perfect time to get the Weekend Rewind underway. I peaked early last week with Guns'N'Roses November Rain, but my time has come this week. I can already hear Axl Rose wailing away in my mind...

In case you're wondering what I'm on about, welcome to the web's easiest linky. All you have to do to participate is to dust off an old post and link it up for some new comment love. Please follow the Fibro if we're not already friends, and be sure to visit a few of the other links to make some new friends. It's definitely worth the effort.

The prompt this week, as hinted at in the opening par, is November, so link up a post from November 2010, or earlier. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

To get you started, I'm sharing a post about one of my least favourite aspects of motherhood. This was clearly written on a less-than-stellar day.

Ready, set... Rewind!