No Longer Money-Hungry.

I haven't had paid work for over a decade now. And I've found that it's not so bad. You just have to keep yourself occupied and busy during the day and stay away from the brain-rotting box in the corner of the room called 'The Television'. Yes, that thing was a great invention for its time; but it does serve a purpose... night time use only. During the day, there's more to do than to stare at it. Talkshows bore the living crap out of me! Cooking shows can do the same; especially when the hosts get in the way of what's going on and talk over people!

I love getting up early - even when it's freezing cold - and facing the day. I'll sit on the edge of the bed and stretch and turn and then stand up and look outside briefly before pulling the curtains and looking for something to wear. The morning starts with a good breakfast and a listen to the radio. Then, I get in and do some housework. After that, I have the day to myself. However, sometimes, the housework gets left until later... which is okay to me. I'm in no real hurry to get it done. I do enjoy pottering around the house and getting some things done.
You see, I'm into Bookcrossing and Outsider Art; both of which take up a lot of my time. I'm also a prolific reader. I'm ravenous when it comes to books. It's only April and I'm reading my 12th book! My Mum is very proud to tell people that I read a lot of books and she really doesn't have a clue how many I've read - just that it's over 10 so far. Gardening takes up my time too. I enjoy getting my hands dirty in the potting mix and planter pots. It's just something I love to do.

Something you'll notice is that I'm not money-hungry. I'm on a DSP (Disability Support Pension) and that doesn't pay a lot. I just scrape by paying my bills, rent and groceries (the latter two of which I pay fortnightly) and I put away $150 into a few accounts (one of those accounts in a bill-paying account). I'm not usually left with a lot to play with. So, when it comes right down to the bottom line of it all, I find that I have to shop around for great bargains, buy second-hand clothes, books and lay-by almost everything I want... or save up really hard for it.
I'm only on Bookcrossing because it's an internet site where we all trade books to each other, conduct bookrings (where you get a list of people who want to read the same book and they receive the book, journal it, read it, and then post it onto the next person on the list) and it saves us buying the book. This site has saved me so much money... however I have found that the money I would use buying a book is now used in postage in sending out the books. However, my best finds are always at either garage sales or charity stores.

It's taken me a few years to realise that it's not the huge salleries and big jobs that make us happy. It's the small stuff; the flowers coming into bloom. The great dvd we just watched with home-made popcorn and melted butter. The boardgame we've just played with the family that makes us happy. When we are pushed back into a corner and find that there's nowhere to go, we look around and sit there waiting for the problem to fix itself when really, all we need to do as pick up the book that's sitting on the floor by our feet and open it. Say, that title looks good... have a quick read of the first few pages; it may get you interested yet!

Knitted Trees And Other Games

I've had a very productive month; and now it's April, I'll have an even more fun month. My art is going outside. I'm still painting and doing my writing... however, I've found that I can attach my knitting to trees and other objects outside. It's outsider art and my first piece was placed on 7th, April and it's still there. I've got photos on myspace.com/mozette1791 if you'd like to see them; along with all my other art and exhibitions I've done in the last decade or so.

Otherwise, I've been busy as hell doing what I do - writing. I've finished 'Fry Nelson: Bounty Hunter#2' and thought it would do me good to take a little break for about a week and think of some good stories before I dive back into the futurist mayhem that is the life of Fry Nelson. I'm still editing 'Ravenstine Kingdom and the Three Swords' and my other books are being re-read by me and still have some BIG spelling and grammatical mistakes in them. I'm not fussed, I'm just glad I found them.

Little Miss Stevie is going well. In case you're not sure who that is, she's that cute little bird you see as my default. I don't see much of her during the day, so she's on here and myspace.com. And she's a favourite amongst my friends too. So, she's cool. And seeing it's been getting that way on this side of the planet (and believe me, we're going to be in for a cold Winter, seeing the nights have become cooler this early), I've been spending a lot of time with Stevie at night. What we do is: I'll get her in my right hand and she'll just lay there and curl up next to my neck or cheek and go right to sleep; feeling all safe and warm. Once in a while, I hear her click or chirp, but she'll be good for about an hour before she gets restless and I'll put her back in her cage gently and she'll snuggle up against her mirror and snooze. And yeah, I can hear you all saying: 'Aaaaww, that's gorgeous... but doesn't that spoil her?' Sure... but you see, my little bird doesn't see much of me during the day. I'm normally on here writing or surfing the net as a regular BookCrosser and so most of my day is used up on here. So, spoiling her in the early evening is something I do regularly so she knows she's loved.

The garden is looking okay I guess. I'm not real happy with it right now as it does need a lot of work. My folks reckon it looks good, but I see the faults in its design. So, I'm trying to save up the money for plants, potting mix and other things that'll make it look the way I want it to. My garden is the place where I escape to be myself, to celebrate the Sabbaths and just be so I can get into a book or enjoy the silence of the yard on the weekend.

So, Easter is upon us already and the fridge is full of chocolate goodies! Sunday will be a greasy breakfast day (the first in a long time) and I'll enjoy being around the house to just enjoy the place for once. I'll try and stay off here for the day to read the paper; but I don't think I'll stay away for long as I'll have a computer monitor to bring in here to replace my old one. There's a book to read ('I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings' by Maya Angelou. A bookring from BookCrossing) and some other knitted swatches to complete that I'm hoping to attach to other trees before the end of next week is out with my tag on them in ziplock bags to that the weather doesn't get to them.

Until next month's blog, this is Mozette signing off for now. Take care and don't eat too much chocolate over this holiday.

Life is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

Yeah, I thought to start this one off with a John Lennon quote. It's been three months and I've been so busy with my books, publishers and trying to get grants that life has just passed me by... quite literally. However, whenever I'm working on my books - whether it's editing or writing new stories - I've found that my meals are healthy, but not up to the usual standard that I usually do. The weekends are the worst for me. I start here on the computer in the morning and finish around 4pm and that leaves very little time for planning a meal. My God! If I had a family, they'd starve! So, I've been eating home made vegetarian nachoes and just plain foods to keep myself well. No takeaway foods or junk. I've also taken up my Hattha Yoga again and meditation... it not only helps me sleep, but it also keeps my back from cramping up too.

Otherwise, I've been trying to keep myself out in the garden... well, since the last lot of loud and smelly back neighbours were forcefully made to leave last week by the police, all has been quiet. Fires have caused millions of dollars of damage in Victoria in the last few months and just last week, Melbourne had an earthquake measuring 4.6 on the richtor scale; the largest they've had in 36 years. And now, off the coast of Queensland, there's Cyclone Hamish; which has been dodging itself around 3 - 5 catagories of cyclone strengths. Evacuations have been happening all up and down the mid-Queensland coast.
As I look out my window this Monday afternoon, the day has changed from a warm sunny one with a cool breeze to a cool overcast one with a strong wind. They reckon there's going to be rain and winds for the rest of the week. Well, I'll get a lot of reading done then seeing it may effect the television reception (as it did last night at around 9:30pm).

Over the last few months, I've been finishing off the second book of 'Fry Nelson - Bounty Hunter #2' and editing 'Ravenstine Kingdom and the Three Swords'. Both books are coming along well. However, despite getting a publishing company interested in one of them, I'm having a hard time scratching together the money for the grant. A community grant is out of the question because I have give a lot of the money I make back to the community; which is fair enough. But I read the fine print and found out that the community grants often don't support writers because it's mostly the publishing side that eats up the money and they don't see that as an art (so why include us in the advertising if they're going to take it away from us?). So, I'm going to get into trying out for an Arts Grant from the government... should be interesting.

As I said, my back neighbours have left. They not directly over my fence... they were on the diagonal and backed on the unit complex I live in. However, they were noisy and had two dogs that stunk up the place! Eeew! Anyway, they're gone now. So, I'm saving up some money to get into my garden and fix it up. Sounds great, eh? There's going to be more plants and I'll be also working on my front garden this year too to make it look pretty; not just my backyard, because it's calling out for a make-over. Two small-leaf jades and a rock just aren't the way to go! I'll be getting in heavy pots with hardy plants and other rocks too... but that'll take time. Wish me luck!

Well, this is the end of the blog for now. I'll check in next month and let you know how everything's going with my books, publishing and the garden... it may seem boring to some, but this is life on a disability pension. I don't have a social life, but I have the net at least that's something. :D

Strange But True

I have found the when I go away on holidays, everything about me changes. I don't know if it's because I'm not in the same state or the same city/suburb, but when I head off to Brunswick Heads on the north coast of New South Wales, it's as though another me takes over. I settle in and read more books, take in the sea air, listen to ocean breezes at the surf walls as the salt spray mists the air. I even get on a bicycle and ride around the small, rough streets of the place I grew up around during school holidays.

But it takes a while to get as settled in as that. I have to get used to not having the television around and not having the computer to sit in front of during the day. Being a writer, I'm so used to getting my mind into surfing the net and writing and editing the next short story of a book I'm working on that when I go to the coast, it's the most difficult thing for me to unplug from this world and just to go with the flow. For about three days I just sit and look around for hours on end because I'm so up tight about not being able to type on a keyboard and read the letters on a screen in front of me. I get dreadful writer's cramp from trying to keep up with my mind when I'm writing in longhand, and then having to keep a journal of what happened that day... then write a postcard or two to some friends ends up being just scribble.

Strangely, my nails grow nice and strong and long; something that's so alien that I stare at them every day and end up purchasing a nail file because they catch on everything. I sleep well and eat better and earlier in the day. I take a good look around Mullumbimby and comment on how I could easily live in that town because it's so cool and nice and quiet compared to the place I live that's on a main road, with concrete all around and hardly anyone smiling with hot winds all the time through summer.
Yes, everything changes when I go on holidays... even the attitude of my bird changes. She enjoys the cooler breezes and loves sitting out in the cool of the fly out the front of the van where she sings to other birds. But when it came to watching me pack, she knew it was time to come home. She ran around the cage like a lunatic and knew it was her turn soon to have her cage cleaned out; readying her to be stuck in a car for an hour and half until we got home.

Now, we're back at my place, she and I are getting back into our same old routine. But I don't want that. The coast always changes a small part of me permanently... and each year, I let it stick with me. And one of these days, I'll pack all my stuff up and I may end up in Mullumbimby just because it's a nice town to be.

Our Wasted Mindspace

First a word of warning... I wrote this last year in a book, put it to one side and forgot about it. Now, I'm going to type it up here. So, what I say in it will be what came straight out of my mind and put onto the paper... only because I didn't know how to do blogs here online. Now I do, well, I don't write in the book anymore.

My life has changed so much in the past six years. I've done plenty and have a lot more to achieve to get where I want to be. However, for now, I'm happy; that is hard to achieve in this day and age of technology. Life is a gift and not a lot of us realise this until it's at risk of being lost. We don't care for our bodies, our minds; we don't keep up with educating ourselves and have the wont to learn all the time throughout our lives. Our minds have so much potential and it's a waste that we don't absorb and learn and push ourselves beyond our own boundaries of learning.

As from a very young age, we are pushed to learn and experience everything of our world. So, once we get a job and have a family, is that supposed to cease for us but not our kids? This world may not be exactly the same as it was when you were young, but then that's where your stories come into it... to fill in the spaces where school and books don't. Life is to be experienced throughout your life; not only when you're young. We must enjoy ourselves as though we're birds; free from constraints and boundaries, always willing to learn and see life from all angles possible.

It's not just learning we must keep doing; it's our attitude as well. A positive outlook to life will open doors, make the impossible possible and allow us stretch our wings fully, tilt our faces toward the heavens and take flight like the fallen angels we are. We only need to search for knowledge from the right resources and places to educate ourselves; as it needn't cost us thousands of dollars in university fees or loans. Knowledge is a powerful thing to possess; using it correctly requires tact, and when you do use it right respect follows you around. yes, if we use our wasted mindspace, fill it with knowledge - useful knowledge - each of us will learn to respect each others' faults as humans should. But the unfortunate reality is that we don't and won't; that we are in this day and age, still as self-destructive as our caveman ancestors. It is bad enough that it's to the point that eventually, we will extinct ourselves from our own home by destroying our natural resources and thus our very existence.

After that, what do we do next?

This Time

At this time of year, I get to thinking about what I'm going to be doing next year. Last year, I didn't because I had accomplished a fair bit in 2007 and so when December 31 came and went, I sat out the front of my parent's caravan at Brunswick Heads at 5am and looked around the very wet and cloudy morning wondering what the hell I was going to do with my year of 2008. I had a clean slate to do whatever I wanted... nothing... everything.

This was going to be fun!

So, what I didn't do was write out any resolutions. I looked upon this year as a year of 'whatever comes my way, I'll get in and do', and that sounded good to me. A few days later, I came home with my budgie, went shopping and paid the bills. Then, my year began in typical Queensland style with heat, rain and storms. I also began reading as many books as I could this year. Last year, I read 22 books. And right now, I'm up to my 22nd book and it's December. The one I'm reading is 'Eat, Pray, Love' and it's good so far. But I want to read more books before the next few weeks are gone and 2009 begins... I want to beat last year's record. If I can't, I'm not going to sweat it. I'll see if I can do it next year.

This year, I got into a Big Book Giveaway on BookCrossing.com, an art project that included three collages of bookmarks (all of which were donated by bookcrossers), I took part in a national study about epilepsy, migraine sufferers and art and how the three can be linked; this took up a good part of my year. I Then began pulling together my poetry book and a book I wrote last year that was all short stories and novellas and began another book on a character I knew very little about (but it's been very successful).
The collages were shown and books registered on BookCrossing.com were mass released at the showing. I've got art currently showing on the net that's for sale and I've totally enjoyed this year; even when my computer caught itself a virus and I had to move everything off all the drives, onto cds and reformat and redo everything; right up to reinstalling all my programs. Not a fun thing, but it was educational in itself.

Now, it's December, I'm looking at getting together three more books and getting them published through another publisher online, doing more paintings and reading even more books! I'm even going to work harder in the backyard on improving my garden - as it has been a little neglected this year.
This may seem like small stuff to most, but to me it's a lot. Next year, just after we all settle back into our routines, I'll be back into my Christmas shopping... sorting out who's going to get what for December 2009.... yeah, I start straight away.

So, I hope you have all accomplished all that you've wanted this year. If you haven't, there's always next year and that's a good thing. Keep on thinking positive and looking the good in all.

Mother Nature's Beauty

There's nothing like witnessing the raw and absolute rage of a Summer Storm. It howls, tearing the trees and branches to and fro; splintering them as though they are meer twigs and pelting the broken pieces through the air as though they are javelins; sharp, fast and deadly. And that's just the wind. What I love to watch is the lightning bringing the darkened skies to split-seconds of daylight only to have the thunder pound and grumble in return. This conversation starts off in the distance and get closer. It's kind of like watching a fight erupt between two good friends, seeing it come to blows then them figure it out. On the way through is the destruction of their disagreement... and what a disagreement!

Besides storms, there's other things I love about Mother Nature. It's not all violence and destruction. I love the way a flower opens and displays its most beautiful colours to the world; along with a heady scent. There's the stars in the sky that look like a scattering of diamonds across black velvet with our lunar satelitte moving across it; ever transient and ever pale with beauty, controling our tides.

The Great Barrier Reef is something to behold. Don't just go by what people tell you about it... actually get yourself there before it bleaches again and again. That dreadful thing is happening. The parts of it that are still beautiful and colourful are just spell-binding.
And it's not just the reef. The vivid blueness of the ocean is something to behold. It can change from sky blue and transcend to a teal where you've reached the deepest of oceans where the waves move and heave against the ship's bow.

Mother Nature's beauty can be found in the smallest things like a lady bug walking across your arm. Or it can be found in the possum that's taken up residence in the back of your garage. The one thing I love about it is that her creatures show up when you least expect them to; when you're having a bad day, they make you smile. When you're sad, they'll make you see something you've missed. That's what Mother Nature's all about really.

Traveling Is...

I have found that since I began traveling around the world at the young age of nineteen, I was completely addicted to it. However, you don't have to own a passport to do it. And you don't really have to watch all those travel shows to experience those places either. The imagination is a great thing. However, you must be able to use it properly.

With the internet, it's become so much easier to travel around the world and never have to leave your home, your lounge room or your office building. Everything's right there on your computer. The fun part of it is choosing where you want to go today! And then, you click your mouse or press your enter key and away it goes happily searching the phone lines to find what you asked for. Wonderful! But sometimes, it's not enough is it?
I've gotten used to not being able to travel too far. So to me, reading about a far away place or traveling three hours to the coast is - in its own way - a real vacation. It gets me away from my home, my suburb and into a place where I'm away from the television and away from everything else. I sometimes hate it... but once I get used to it, I feel okay. I guess it's because I'm so used to having the control over my own environment that I don't like being away from it.

Don't get me wrong... I have actually been outside the protective beauty that is Australia. My first overseas vacation was Vanuatu and I was nineteen years of age. It was incredibly hot, the Vanuatuans were wonderfully kind and the French were rude (even if I did speak French; which I did a little, but they didn't like it). It was Tiger Shark Season and the daytime temperature ranged between 43 - 48 degrees Celsius. In the evenings, it was around 27 - 35 deg Celsius... not very comfortable. The local water had flouride in it and I encouraged not to drink it. But the place was amazing; even if the army was roaming around fully armed for most of the day... and it creeped me out more than a little.

The South Island of New Zealand was the next place I went to. I don't remember much of this place but I do remember that it was freezing, I caught the flu and was sick for most of my tour. Then, one person I was staying with caught chickenpox when I was about to leave to come home. She had to catch a plane with them.

The UK, Scotland and Wales was my last major trip overseas. And it was my most beloved holiday. It was seven weeks long and I visited and met up with friends and relatives I hadn't seen in such a long time! The one thing I didn't want to do was come home... and it was unfortunate that I did because a week after I got back, I lost my job. So, there went my globtrotting for a long time.

But I still travel... in my mind... in my books... the ones I write and the ones I read. I believe that where there's a will there's a way to get to travel. Life is fun... learning to travel in more than one way is even more fun! Like I said, you don't really need to leave the country to travel around the world - or the universe for that matter. It's just how you look at it.

Book Personality

I know this sounds really strange, but books have personalities just like people. Just the way the cover is, the amount of pages, if it's a hardcover or paperback... and that's just on the outside of it. When I've picked up a book - or received one through the mail - I often have a good look at it. Sometimes, I know that it was printed in both hardcover and paperback, so getting one or the other a 50-50 chance. Then, I have the chance of getting either the paperback cover picture or the hardcover picture. Allow me to explain. Sometimes the publisher will put out both styles of book and they will have two different kinds of artwork on them; one for the people who can afford the hardcover and one for the people who can afford the paperback. However, both of them must be appealing to both classes of people otherwise nobody will buy one style or the other. Sometimes, the book will only come out in paperback; but it will be an oversized one and it will have the artwork of a hardcover on it. Confused? Thought so. So was I for a little while until I realised that some writers and publishers were putting their eggs in one basket and pulling all the rewards for it too.

But as I said above, this is just the outside of it.

Then, you have what the author has written on those lovely pages. Can they pull you in with the blurb that sounds promising on the back? Will the story flow as beautifully as the critics say in the 'Good Reading' and newspapers say it does? All these questions are pretty ordinary and are usually filled with the smallest pinch of doubt as you hand over your money or slide your credit card through the efpost machine. It's just the luck of the draw really.
And it's that luck that I love to gamble with. In the last few months, I went hunting for a particular book at Borders and came out with a vampire romance.... how that happened I didn't know. But it looked interesting; seeing I was writing that kind of thing in the last year. So, I got my nose into it on the way home on the bus and found it good. Personally, it could have been a little quicker, but that's me. I like books that make me run to keep up with the action.

So, books have personalities. Or is it the author that puts most of that in there? I think I'll leave the final decision up to you.

The Passion

My passion for books began very young. I was four or so and I was yet to go to school; yet my older borther was there already and bringing home little red books that held the secrets of adventures and learning. He wasn't too keen on them and so I'd get my nose into them and learnt to read the way he was supposed to practice.
By the time I was in year one, I was two years ahead of the other kids in my grade. The teachers weren't happy about it, but I found the books they gave me boring; besides, I had read them already. But the greatest thing I found wasn't at school. It was on the weekends. We had a library that a five minute walk from our house (or a one minute wild run in the rain!). It was a wonderful place. I was the youngest in my family to get a library card and didn't look back. I used that library - and the State Library of Queenslanhd - to research things I wanted to know and for school.

It wasn't until I moved out on my own that I seriously took up collecting books. My passion for these items was something I knew I wasn't going to give away too easily. Anyway, I had found that I enjoyed writing about all kinds of things in high school too. So collecting books were one. It was also one way of educating myself of thing I wanted to know about without having to go to university or college. Over the years, I've become a self-taught person; which made some other people either uncomfortable or very interested in me. Either way, I've found that I never really fitted into my own age group. Well, yes, I'd have fun with people my age. But once it came to talking about things, my mind wasn't where they're was... I was different and it was obvious. So, I read more, wrote more and simply kept myself to myself.

My passion for books has turned me into a hermit of sorts... well not as bad as you may expect. I do get out and do my shopping via public transport and only shop online when it's absolutely necessary (and only on sites that take personal cheques too!) and I talk online with people on Bookcrossing.com about books and trade books with them and give books away I either don't read anymore or I've picked up at charity shops. Yeah, even my passion for books comes out through there.

Now, I have around 500 - 600 books or so, housed in four bookcases and the collection keeps growing. I'm still hunting for the impossible books, the unreachable books and out of print. It's not just what's between the pages the keeps me hunting for the books... it's the thrill of the hunt that I love.