neXtDRAFT 39. I am ready to fly

Published: Sun, 09/30/18

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 the page.

Melinda J. Irvine

https://melirvine.com.au/

Hello, happy Sunday, and welcome to neXtDRAFT 39. I am ready to fly.

This time next week I'll be landing in Australia ready for 6 weeks of clean air, quiet, and the chance to hug my family and friends. It's not a holiday, I'll be writing like a madwoman while I'm child-free, and I'm super excited for the space to write.

Even Jerry said ...

"Tita Mel when you're in 'THESTRAILYA' you'll get so much work done without your little pest annoying you." He hasn't yet mastered the fine art of pronouncing the name of his future country.

Another reason I'm feeling so great is because I've managed to find a new place for Jerry and I to live. While I'm away my dear friend Emelyn from Estancia will be taking care of Jerry plus transferring all our things to the new apartment. Yay.

Awesome things about the new place include:

flushing toilet and shower (no more buckets of water)
generator (automatically kicking in during blackouts)
facilities (adjunct coffee shop, restaurant, garbage collection)
security (safe part of town and secure building)
convenience (close to shops, taxis, tricycles, supermarket, money changer)
peace (no roosters, traffic noise or pollution)
dry (2nd level apartment away from flooding rivers)
fun (close to a swimming pool and a quiet dirt road for Jerry to ride his scooter)

The new place is quite a distance from Jerry's school so we didn't make our decision to move lightly. In the deciding Jerry got one of his school notebooks and made two columns titling them GOOD and BAD: proceeding then to make some lists about the house we already occupy.

Good received: close to school, garden, big rooms, trees.

Bad received: noise, dirty area, roosters (which crow from dusk to dawn), mosquitoes, ants, toads (which come inside), worms (which come inside), always having to lock the gate (his job), FLOODS (which got capital letters), can't get a tricycle or taxi when it's raining.

Yes, it was a mutual decision and we are both terribly excited about the impending move. So already buoyed by our new found palace I'm thrilled also today to release my (so far) favourite edition of neXtDRAFT. For me this one will take some beating.

At the beginning of each week a theme starts to develop in my head, and by some mystical energy it all comes together over the ensuing 7 days. A few days ago I found some beautiful stamps listed by my uncle in the STAMPSFORTHEVISYANS eBay store celebrating Australian's children's literature. So #39 is filled with fairies, flying, naughty koalas and little boys.

The stamps which feature the original artworks of Norman Lindsay, May Gibbs, Dorothy Wall and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite inspired me to share some of those very pieces I found years ago in old books, cut and pasted into my sketch books and poetry journals. Having loads of empty journals and funky notebooks and paper and fountain pens on hand and everywhere is an absolute essential for me and my writing.

My poetry journal featuring artwork by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and an old photo of me and my little sister at my Uncle Richard's graduation in the early 70s.

It was only a few weeks ago that I started cutting up the poetry journal and transferring some of those beautiful paintings by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite to frames. I absolutely adore this painting of a fairy soaring on a butterfly. It hangs above the bed (directly over my head) providing the ever present inspiration for magical adventure. I feel like I'm always ready to fly.

So on this last weekend before I head back to Australia Jerry and I are having movie marathons, eating pizza, shopping, and planning how we'll communicate with each other while I'm away. Being closer to 11 than 10, Jerry is really cool with me going away, as much as we'll miss each other we've established mutual trust now about how things work while I'm in Australia.

This trip represents a shift in circumstances, mindset and opportunities. For this will be the first trip back really that I've gone willingly and in anticipation -- where I feel I can really enjoy myself (and pay for everything myself). I"m finally starting to get regular writing work each week which makes everything everywhere so much more enjoyable.

For my Australian friends reading this, I'm hoping to visit with as many of you as I can while still leaving time to wander quietly among the spring blossoming trees and find some poems among the Australian bird sounds I love so well.

Till next Sunday.

Mel xx

Sincerely,

Melinda J. Irvine

[email protected]

Friday
firefighter dressup
sliding down the firepole

1985 Australian Children’s Books 33c Set of 5 in Se-tenant Strip CTO.

Stamp Corner: Australian Children's Books

Celebrating Australian Children's Books

This week Uncle Richard has been busy filling the eBay store with new listings and I was thrilled to see this strip of stamps celebrating Australian Children's Book Classics. The stamps are only 0.99c (bargain) and I thought I'd take this opportunity to introduce my overseas readers to these Australian classics (and remind my Australian readers how great they are).

The Magic Pudding

The Magic Pudding is about an anthropomorphic bowl of pudding named Albert. Albert is bad-tempered and rude and becomes quite insulting if his pudding owners aren't hungry. The book surrounds a set of vagabound pudding owners (a man, a penguin and a well-to-do koala) and their adventures as a wiley possum and wombat (the puddin' theives) try to steal the magical smorgasbord all for themselves.

The Magic Pudding is a single book, written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay. It's hilarious and the drawings are just fantastic. Read an unabridged (and illustrated) eBook online for free at the Project Gutenberg website.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/23625/23625-h/23625-h.htm

Blinky Bill

Blinky Bill is a naughty koala created by Dorothy Wall. Her series of children's books about Blinky and his bush friends has never been out of print. The story is just wonderful and the characters are beloved by both adults as well as children. I remember spending hours copying the drawings in my teens.

Early in the story Blinky's father Mr Koala is shot by farmers, and the books are able to weave conservation issues into the tale of cheeky boy looking for a father figure, a single mum trying to raise an inquisitive and adventurous child under the ever-watchful (and not always helpful) eye of a community who've already labeled Blinky as 'difficult' and "needing a good smack".

Read the Blinky Bill series online (unabridged and illustrated) on the Project Gutenberg website. It's free.

Blinky Bill

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400571h.html

Blinky Bill Grows Up

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400591h.html

Blinky Bill and Nutsy

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks04/0400581h.html

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie are foster brothers and gumnuts (the little woody end of a eucalypt blossom). They desperately want to see a real live human. They were created by May Gibbs in 1918, and she continued expanding her magical bush fantasy land (in both magical characters, stories and beautiful illustrations) throughout her life.

Sorry no free links. Read more about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie on the May Gibbs website.

https://www.maygibbs.org/story/snugglepot-and-cuddlepie/

Elves and Fairies

I found a decaying copy of 'Fairyland' in a shearing shed at my grandmother's farm just after she died. I managed to cut out some of the illustrations but most of the book could not be saved. Created by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, I don't know much about the story, but the paintings from the book are stunning and I have one of them framed above my bed.

Read more about the artwork in Fairyland here.

http://www3.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-77/t1-g-t5.html

Ginger Meggs

Ginger Meggs is a comic strip character created in the 1920s by Jimmy Bancks. He's a mischievous 10 year old and always up to something. I was never much into Ginger Meggs but you can learn more about Ginger Meggs in this ABC podcast.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/blueprintforliving/ginger-meggs/6636780

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.

Jerry adored the Magic Pudding which we read together earlier in the year.

'Fairyland' by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

The lovely painting was inside an old book called ‘Fairyland’ by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite. I found in the shearing shed at my grandmother’s farm when it was cleaned up for sale in 2014. The book was badly damaged and only a few paintings were good enough to cut out and paste into my sketchbook. Reprinted here with love. The flowers and weeds were hand picked in the Estancia cemetery after I took Jerry to visit his mother in 2016.

In Trouble

5 double-sided pages

of handwritten notes

first he writes

“I will not fight my classmates”

all the way across the top

then he writes

‘I will‘ half-way

down the page

then he writes

‘classmates‘ half-way

down the page

then he writes

‘fight‘ all the way

down the page

then he writes

everything else

almost the same way

I did, when I was 10.

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.

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This blog is about how to organise yourself so you still get those client projects finished and get paid.

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From the vault: Sept 2016

How do you keep kids safe from harm?

In September 2016 I was running activities for children almost every afternoon and weekend from the balcony outside the room Jerry and I were living in. Just about every day 20-40 kids would turn up after school for singing, games, painting and drawing. Sometimes the rain would suddenly pound down unexpectedly and the kids would scatter home.

Once I started working again in February 2017 the activities were scaled back and happened then only occasionally. I still have a vision of opening a dedicated after school learning centre for these children.

A study by UNICEF released in 2016 identifies that Filipino children are at extreme risk of online sexual abuse, so keeping the kids off the streets and out of online gaming houses has always been one of my objectives.

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