My writing habits are undisciplined and erratic; sometimes I won’t leave home without a notebook in my bag to ensure that I’ve got somewhere to jot down thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I find myself forming ideas, getting lost in thought and tangled up in plot, only to fail to commit it to paper and watch it drift away, ephemeral and of no consequence.
I wrote a piece for Day Six last week and was convinced that I’d posted it, but it’s nowhere, lost to time. My lack of discipline bites me in the arse, once again.
I have a desk set up in the spare room of our rental property that should, in theory, be ideal for writing but it just doesn’t work for me. Distractions in the form of notebooks, old diaries, half-forgotten photographs are all within easy reach, just begging me to leaf through them and lose myself in a rabbit-hole of memory.
The room heats up quickly; the harsh Australian sun takes no prisoners and the electric fan brings little relief, moving the hot air around, turning my sharpness into relaxed, languid movements until I stand and drift away from the desk.
Lately, I’ve been writing at work. I left my last job in August and started here a week later and quickly realised it is far less challenging. No matter how many projects I create for myself or how much extra work I take on, I still find myself with unfamiliar downtime during the work day. The lack of pressure is strange and somewhat unnerving, but I am making the most of it by writing and crafting when I can.
My day is filled with editing copy, altering images and creating content for our news stories, our social media accounts and website. My life is filled with words and I find the time to dive into writing whenever I can. Most of my writing is done on my fourth-hand laptop, sitting at the kitchen table as the late afternoon sun dapples the courtyard, the cat lazily blinking at me as my fingers fly over the keys.
I need the discipline of writing regularly to keep me on track, to feel the rhythm of the words along with the beating of my heart.
Fractured reality 