neXtDRAFT 46. Last Days

Published: Sun, 11/18/18

Welcome new subscribers. If this is your first neXtDRAFT you'll find poems, stories and pics about my life as an adopted mum (and freelance writer) living between Australia and the Philippines. Every week I also share my best tips for making money as a professional writer and how to navigate your home office workplace while serving clients from all over the world.

Here in the Philippines I support about 20 kids from a rural municipality with food, school supplies and love; while encouraging them to go to school. You'll read their stories here too. And if you are a stamp collector, you'll be the first to see the newest listings in the STAMPS FOR THE VISAYANS eBay store -- where 100% of the proceeds support the kids here.

neXtDRAFT is delivered to your inbox every Sunday(ish) depending of course on the frequent monsoons, powercuts and WIFI outages (which sometimes interfere with my publishing schedule).

Again welcome, I'm so glad to have you part of the neXtDRAFT community. Unsubscribe anytime using the link at the bottom of this page.

Melinda J. Irvine

https://melirvine.com.au/

Hello, happy Sunday, and welcome to neXtDRAFT 46.

Last Days.

Yesterday I arrived back in Iloilo City to an excited 10 year old boy. While I was away my friends and helpers Emelyn and Neda transferred all our things from the flooding house to our new rented apartment on the other side of the city. It was a big thing for both of them to leave their families behind in Estancia and take care of Jerry and the house transfer. We are so grateful.

Features of the new apartment include: 2nd floor (no FLOODING); in-house generator (no black-outs or WIFI outages); clean modern building (no fighting rooster farms outside my window or hoards of feral cats in the roof); shower and fully flushing toilets (no more bucket showers and sewerage stinking well water).

Oh it is marvellous and a big shout-out to my friend Matt Kennedy (hi Matt if you are reading this) who lived here before us and got us past the extensive waiting list for apartments.

I'll write more in neXtDRAFT 47 and leave you with this painting from the painted rocks at the V-wall in Nambucca Heads as well as a few poems I found walking the wonderfully quiet beaches during my last few days in town.

One of the rocks at the V-wall in Nambucca Heads.

I've quickly stepped back into my Philippine persona here and adjusting again to the tropical heat. I truly needed the trip back home and relieved to have arrived back here completely recovered from all of the stress, mould, floods, and typhoons.

Thanks everyone again for your love and support.

Till next week.

Mel xx

Sincerely,

Melinda J. Irvine

[email protected]

when you look
inside the tides
what do you see?

1981 Australian Paintings $2 McCubbin “Wallaby Track” Full Sheet of 100 MUH

Full Sheets of stamps

Stamp Corner: Australian Paintings

(full sheets)

Uncle Richard has found quite a few full sheets of stamps in the collection which he now has available for sale. Get in contact with Uncle Richard on [email protected] if you are interested in full sheets. There are quite a few in different denominations across the Australian Paintings and Navigators series.

PS: Stamps for the Visayans is a project of my Uncle Richard. In 2014 he inherited the family stamp collection which dates back 3 generations. He sells the stamps individually on eBay and sends the proceeds to help me live in the Philippines with Jerry (as well as run small projects for other disadvantaged children). It's incredible how these $5, $10 and $20 stamp sales (plus the odd big one) add up and make our life here possible.

Full sheets in the Australian Paintings series. Uncle Richard is considering cashing these in at the post office so please make an offer if you could use these for postage in your business. We can definitely send you an official tax invoice.

rock pool shook
by the north shrilled wind
cloudy

The north-east wind shaking into your face the rock pools and grey clouds. As grey as the reef egrets, feeding.

ngaduun
captured by hand
back a decade or more

I’m a professional writer making my way in the world of business. The WritingBiz section is for anyone wanting to make writing a career (or at the very least make some money writing). Each week I share a few ideas on how to find writing jobs, self-publish your own eBooks, as well as how to setup your writing business and run it profitably.

Book Review: 'A Separation' by Katie Kitamura

4/5 Stars

'A Separation' by Katie Kitamura is certainly unsettling and makes you feel awkward (and at times manipulated), but not a lot happens. 4/5 stars for the exceptional writing. It reminded me very much of Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse'. Don't buy it if you are expecting a 'Gone Girl' styled thriller, do buy it if you like thought-provoking literary fiction.

#amreading #bookreview

PROFESSIONAL WRITER TIP # 8

Make a commitment to quiet time

Unbroken periods of solitude is conducive to good writing. Being able to write without interruption gives you the space to concentrate, or let go and explore into a character. You need intense concentration to write your book outline, or research a client’s copywriting project, or nut out how a character will react to the disappearance of the kittens.

As you can imagine, I get so irritable when I’m in the middle of writing for a client (on billable time) and the door bursts open to an exuberant Jerry telling me school has ended two hours early. There’s things you can’t control and things you can.

When working from home, private work time requires more than a door and a lock, it requires a commitment from everyone in the house to respect your writing time. And if not everyone in the house is old enough to understand what that is, you’ll need to make some arrangements. So yeah, I hire a babysitter to take care of Jerry when I’m working on client projects with deadlines.

Because writing is such creative work, constant interruptions deflate the writing process and your imagination becomes awfully shy. When you have a dedicated writing space and you start to trust it, your imagination will show up.

More poems and stuff on the blog

For more stories, poems, articles and reviews follow my Wordpress blog. More than 700 posts and 1,000s of photos. Tell your friends too.

Back Issues of neXtDRAFT

https://melirvine.com.au/nextdraft-back-issues/

From the vault: Nov 2017

jerry singing to maxine

Little Pieces of Joy

This time last year we were still living in Estancia and still had Maxine. Jerry was quite devoted to her and it's always a bit cute to see a little boy singing to his cat. We can't have cats in our new place so she lives now with the family of Jerry's half-brother Ryan.

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