They talk about free speech.

That free speech that silences all of another.
That free speech that suffocates second thought.
That free speech that only allows one voice and one voice alone to be heard. Free speech that interrupts, name calls, demeans, labels, isolates and threatens violence. Publicly, privately, hourly, daily, always weakly. Isn’t free speech that that draws out the voice of another? Isn’t free speech a listening begun in quiet silence that speaks only to draw out another’s voice? 

Steps for reading to children:

1. Place book on your lap facing child.
2. Read book while tracing out each word.

Which of course means the child learns to read for him or herself. Which leads them on the first steps towards an education. 

The disadvantage is that the adult has to learn to read upside down. 

This is no real inconvenience. For an adult who can to read upside down can’t easily be deceived by contracts, documents, etc, etc shoved across a desk…

But there’s another advantage…exclusively for system administrators….although something like this has to happen to you…

“Andrew, can you help the vendor’s system engineers check all the serial numbers on all of our hardware?”

Sorting dust spores was more fun. Inward groan but I complied. Besides I was the most recent hire and spending several hours following a man with a printout couldn’t be that bad. Could it? 

It was right up to the moment we saw three workstations on a table backing onto an internal window. There’s only one solution to this, isn’t there?

“Andrew, can you shut these boxes down, unplug them, turn them around so we can read the serial numbers from the back?”

Okay, except…I can see the serial numbers of each box reflected in the window behind them..I start reading the serial numbers backwards. They started checking their records. Easy. Tick that one off.

Of course there are other applications….

As a country we couldn’t even agree on the width of railways.

As a country we can’t even agree on a national day. Or respect those who disagree.

Every Australia Day is the same: somebody’s yelling at the immigrants, yelling at the Aboriginals, yelling at all and those who don’t think like you.

Every Australia Day underlines how much we’ve progressed in 230 years. Methinks not much at all.

Every Australia Day someone wants to change the date. Every Australia Day there’s the same social media pile-on.

Every Australia Day no one learns from the previous year, or the one before that.

Australia Day is divisive. Rather than yelling at those who disagree why not ask how can we work together to create a better day?

Otherwise this post will be repeated next year!

Last week I learnt a few things about writing. 

Novel

I’m probably tired of talking about the novel.

It’s set in the present but with a backstory from the past.

My major problem is that the backstory is quite intrusive, so intrusive in fact that it cannot be told in flashbacks without spoiling the present day story.

Which left me stuck.

Then I bought a copy of Natasha Lester’s The Paris Seamstress : a novel with a dual narrative : set both in World War 2 and the present day.

I’ve read her previous novels and thought perhaps…

It did. All I needed to see was the table of contents.

Ironically, I already have an outline of the present story and another for the past one. Saturday’s task was focussed on the past narrative which solved some (not all) of my throny priblems in the present day narrative.

Now I have to write it. .

Poetry

But this wasn’t a week for the aspiring novelist. There was nectar for the striving poet too.

On Thursday 1st November I attended A touch of Poetry with Michelle Cahill.

It was her, an audience and an hour and nothing else. In truth, I could not think of anything more fearful. And I’m a trainer. But it was spell-binding.

Michelle Cahill is an Indian Australian poet, blogger and author who has published several books of poetry.

She talked about her background, her poetry and her struggles.

She briefly dwelt on the difficulties of publishing poetry. I haven’t encountered her struggles (yet?).

More telling for me, Michelle Cahill spoke about not being understood as an author by those closed to you although she didn’t go into details. But that was something I’ve encountered, the reactions ranging from indifference to outright opposition.

She also read her poetry. Lots. Now when a poet reads another poet it’s easier.

When you read your own, it’s nerve wracking. The difficulty occurs when one reads poems that are precious to you and you alone. The ones that touch you deeply. Now that’s difficult as Michelle Cahill gracefully showed.

But what really landed for me was her words on the sheer imperfection that is writing poetry. Michelle Cahill said she took up to six months to write a single poem. That was some comfort to me :a poet with so many scraps scattered all over the place. Maybe they’re all works in progress. Maybe things aren’t so bad after all!