Welcome to neXtDRAFT Issue 9. What a few weeks it's been! Sickness, blackouts and a cyclone. Jerry and I are recovered, perfectly fine and looking forward to our Christmas celebrations. Though if you haven't seen it yet, click through the blog and check out the
video of Jerry and I cycling through floodwaters on Sunday morning.
Sadly 40 people died during Typhoon Urduja and even though still in recovery mode, everyone is preparing for another (larger) weather system (Vinta). Vinta looks to make landfall 23-24th December. This is the reality of living in the Philippines.
In addition to extreme
poverty, the people of the Philippines live every day at a high risk of becoming victims of a natural disaster. In fact the Philippines is ranked #3 out of 171 countries worldwide for risk and exposure to natural disasters like typhoons, floods, landslides, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. I encourage you to check out the World Risk Report 2017 and learn more about it.
Christmas for Jerry
Today I'm writing up this newsletter during a break in Jerry's school Christmas Party. He was very upset last year because I was in Australia and missed his school celebrations, so it's lovely
to be here with him today. Here is us together after his dance performance a few hours ago (we'll go back later this afternoon).
Recycling Plastic Waste
Approaching Christmas and you may have seen in the last issue of neXtDRAFT the upcycling of plastic bottles into Christmas decorations. The Philippines is the world’s 3rd worst plastic polluter so there is no shortage of raw
materials to make Christmas decorations.
And of course I’m excited to see people in my home barangay finding creative ways of recycling plastic. But as Greenpeace oceans expert Thilo Maack tells us …
“We cannot recycle our way out of the plastic litter problem. Governments are too
quick to turn to recycling and should instead prioritise the waste management hierarchy through prevention at source, followed by reuse and then recycling,”
Instead how do we stop our everyday addiction to buying and using plastic; and start demanding that large brands like Nestle, Unilever,
P&G cease locking us into cheap, disposable plastics, rather than innovating and finding real solutions?
I feel I must take stronger action, set a living example and use my voice to draw attention to this critical issue. By all means continue recycling plastic, but please let’s all work together to shop responsibly and use less plastic.
Thank you for your support
Over the past few weeks a few anonymous donations have landed in my bank account. Whoever you are, thank you so very much. I've already used the money to buy Christmas foods and small
gifts for our Christmas Party here at the house on December 24th. But it might be a late Christmas if Typhoon Vinta doesn't settle down.
The ladies and I will be cooking heaps of extra food to share out with the local kids on December 25th. So there'll be heaps of photos in next week's edition Tuesday (26th December). We don't have Boxing Day here, but then Christmas doesn't stop until January.
I'd also like to thank everyone for the beautiful messages on FB, email and the blog over the past week. I was really, really sick and my head was covered in boils (yuk yuk yuk) but I've finished my antibiotics now and feeling much better.
Till next week.
Mel and Jerry
xx
PS: please extend your love and prayers to my cousin Meg. She's a keen subscriber to neXtDRAFT and sadly suffered a stroke just a few days ago. Meg, all my love and prayers to you.
Isn't Jerry cute decorating his very first Christmas tree?
Book Review: Back to Reality
I've been getting up at 4.30am each morning to write and do a bit of reading. I'm also experimenting with affiliate marketing on the blog too. Here's my latest book review on a fun little novel I stumbled across just last week.
Back
to Reality is a novel stemming from a podcast: The Bestseller Experiment. Two blokes set out to plan, write, publish and launch a bestselling novel within one year and interview authors, editors and bloggers to help them along the way. The
podcast documents their growth as writers as well as the whole process of the launch.
I started listening to the Podcast, liked it and bought the book out of curiosity. I’m glad I did too. I read the book in a day and thoroughly enjoyed the journey. It was a fun, upbeat and joyful story.
Phoebus Stretched his hands Unto each tiny stem and floret
Client Work: facebook in 15 minutes
Small business owners say to me all the time "I know I need a Facebook page for my business but .. or "I know I need more Facebook likes on my page but .." or "I've got a Facebook page and I know I should update it more often but ..". So if you don't have time for Facebook here's a quick set-and-forget strategy.
What are your plans for your writing business? Do you have enough time to write? Do you know who your readers are? Apply the principles in Stephen Covey’s classic book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to your writing.
