I had the luck to get involved on this project and it’s been great fun. We’ve all heard of music being samples and remixed, and that’s what this project is about. Take a short story and remix and it and make it your own. Now the project has been published as an anthology. I remixed a short story by my favourite short story writer Cate Kennedy and it’s a great read to see how other writers have approached the remixing. The best part is that the project is ongoing and writers have the opportunity to remix the stories featured in the anthology and have them published on the website. So get your pens ready.

Remix My Lit Anthology

Through the Clock’s Workings
Edited by Amy Barker
Sydney University Press
ISBN: 9781920899325

A world first! The first remixed and remixable anthology of literature.

This anthology of short stories is not some textual tome, frozen in time and space. It is alive, evolving organically in a constant state of flux. Why? Because each story is available under a Creative Commons licence, giving you rights to share and reuse the book as you see fit.

So how do you use a remixable anthology? Simple.
Step 1 – Read. Thumb your way through the pages at will. Find the stories you love, the ones you hate, the ones that could be better.
Step 2 – Re/create. Each story is yours to share and to remix. Use only one paragraph or character or just make subtle changes. Change the genre, alter its formal or stylistic characteristics, or revise its message. Use as little or as much as you like – as long as it works.
Step 3 – Share. Be part of a growing community of literature remixing. Post your remixes to the Remix My Lit website, remixmylit.com, and start sharing. The entire anthology can be remixed – the original stories, the remixes, and even the fonts.

Through the Clock’s Workings is Read&Write!

I was on a State Library panel on Thursday with Arnold Zable, Raimond Gaitta and convened by Jan Sardi. I worked myself up into a frenzy of anxiety beforehand yet when I get on stage my anxiety just faded away and I found myself relaxing as the session goes on. So my goal from now on is not to get freaked out about publicity engagements anymore. I have to trust that my mouth will open, words will come out and they will make sense. I’m running a workshop tomorrow and am practicing what I’ve prepared and I’m going to believe in myself and be confident.

I used to find all this easier before Sofia’s birth, but now she’s always in my mind and I worry about her coping that also contributes to my anxiety. She and Fikret stayed home. I expressed milk but as usual she wouldn’t drink. She only had 30ml but at least it was enough to sustain her until I got home again. I’ve started with solids so hopefully in a few months this will be a non-issue.

Some really interesting realisations occurred from this panel. Raimond Gaitta is the author of Romulus, My Father and his mother also suffered from Bi Polar and he has a daughter who is a sufferer. He said that he prefers the term Manic Depression, which  is the old medical term, because it humanises the illness more. And I realised that’s why I keep resisting using Bi Polar. It has no meaning behind it. Manic Depression describes the illness exactly as it is, the sufferer gets manic and then falls into depression. It’s not an anonymous label that has no meaning, it’s a real description and one we can all relate to. Who hasn’t gone through a period of mania and then dropped into depression. I keep feeling like I have to be correct in using the right terminology, but I’m not doing that anymore. I’m going to use Manic Depression, that’s the one I grew up with and most people know it.

Another great thing that came from this panel is a fellow aspiring writer got in touch and through some email correspondence has given me a lifeline to tackle Sofia’s sleeping. Sofia is great at sleeping the night through, the problem is getting her to sleep.  We started rocking her to sleep in our arms the past month and it’s mutated to the point I have to lie down with her for naps and takes me hours to get her to sleep at night. Koraly hooked me up to a book about sleep strategies and she’s saved my life.

Hubby took a week off so we can sort out her sleep and last night we got her to sleep by herself, but man was it tough. We were both crying at certain points. Sofia cried two hours until she finally fell asleep. Part of the problem is that we were still picking her up to comfort her when she cried too much, which dragged it out. In the end we stopped picking her up and she was asleep within 20 minutes.We kept thinking there was a way of easing into it, but unfortunately there is no easy way. You just have to put her down and wait it out.

We’ve created a bedtime routine which I’ve written down on an index card and we’re just going to keep repeating the same thing every night this week and every nap. It’s a ten day plan and I’m confident in my success. But I’m also going to write down a daily routine and organise my life around Sofia’s sleeping. When she has naps, I go nowhere and this will be my writing time.

The tipping point came when Koraly told me she wrote a novel while her daughter was napping. Now that’s dedication. But it underlined how hit and miss my own writing has been. Plus the more I indulge Sofia the harder it’s been even to do regular household chores like cook or wash the dishes because I’m always holding her.

I have two more publicity engagements this week. Because I’m controlling my anxiety I’m getting excited about interacting with aspiring writers and readers and connecting. That’s always the fun part of these things.

I love Masterchef Finally a reality tv show that has a point and is actually educational. Masterchef is on every night of the week, but unlike tv shows of the past that bombed for me because of over exposure and lack of tension, Masterchef is so well structured that every nightly episode has an activity and is riveting. The best part is that you learn about cooking through watching the challenges the contestants undertake and then there is a weekly Masterclass for the contestants which also means we pick up cooking tips.

What I love most of all that because of all the challenges and activities there is no time spent dwelling on the participants personal lives, learning about the tension of living together or their cliques/frenemies. Also the challenges where they are tortured and put under pressure actually have a point. They are learning how it is to work in a professional kitchen and produce food in a time limit.

Yesterday I made a fried rice recipe we’ve made a few times before, but this time I was influenced by Masterchef’s focus on complex flavours and textures and bought sesame oil to add, and it was the best ever. I feel like my cooking is improving because Masterchef shows that to prepare a delicious meal means taking your time and being thorough. While I like cooking at the moment I need meals that are quick and easy, and have lots of vegies in them.

The only problem is that watching all that yummy food makes my cravings go out of control and I have to make sure to time my tea and bikkie during the show or just before so I don’t get tempted to raid the cupboards for something to eat.

On the bebe front-I’m having so much fun. Sofia has learnt how to make raspberries with her mouth and it is the funniest thing in the world. I’m just constantly laughing when she starts blowing them.

The writing is going well. I’m still writing in the notebook. Need to start transcribing at some point, but I also want to have a draft worth transcribing and all this notebook writing is really bringing me closer to the characters and story. The only problem is that all of the reviews I’m reading keep talking about humour in The Good Daughter and I start getting paranoid about making the book funny, then I pull myself up and focus on not putting the cart before the horse. First I need to have a draft, then can check that there is humour.

Also just read something that really disturbed on Simmone Howell’s blog:

“The librarians at Weeroona Secondary College were saying that when the new school gets built there will be no library – there will still be some books, and some space for kids to read, but no actual library. I’m hearing this more and more; school libraries as we know them are on the way out.”

To Simmone the library was a refuge and it was the same for me, but it was also a space where I had some deep and meaningfuls with friends that we couldn’t have anywhere else. It was a place where you could drop your guard and just be. It was a place where I dreamed of the life beyond. We had the careers computer in the library and I would spend hours scrolling through different courses and careers. It was a place where I could access resources for my school assignments and develop my research skills.

I’m just disgusted that libraries are on the way out. I feel like such a fuddy-duddy, but what is the world coming to. We hear complaints about the new generation losing their ability to think outside the box and learn the way we did. Researching these days consists of reading a few Wikipedia articles, but how is this going to be counteracted if we give the message from the word go that there is no place for intellectual life at high school. We’re dumbing down the students before they even have a chance to form their own ideas and we’ll reap the consequences in years to come.

Now that I have a child these things really hit home when I think about the world she’s going to grow up in. My daughter will have my husband and I to teach her to love reading and the skills she can learn from this, but students like myself who had no parents to encourage and nurture this will be the victims.