neXtDRAFT 42. Toward peace

Published: Mon, 10/22/18

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 Monday, and welcome to neXtDRAFT 42. Toward Peace. Two weeks in Australia and my body is settling into the amazing peace of our country. Quiet streets and the sounds of insects, birds and ocean. It's just lovely.

After a rainy week of mist on the wildflowers in Blackheath (and a visit from my friend Jac who flew down from Brisbane), I turned to the north last Monday landing in Cairns, Mission Beach and Townsville. It had been more than 4 years since I'd seen Far-north Queensland as well as my friends and family there so I"ve had such a wonderful week wandering the beaches, photographing the tropical ocean, and catching up.

It's truly amazing how connected I was, beginning conversations that felt like they had started only a few days earlier. It was also great to hold again my Gidgee Guitar (which has been in Mission Beach with the original luthier John Brown for the last four years).

Even the simple textures of a feather over sand and other flotsam and jetsam was incredibly beautiful.

Sometimes when you are away from a place for a while you can lose confidence in your connection there and then a little bit of confidence in yourself too. I suppose I felt a bit lost when I first arrived, you forget so much of a place when you are away for so long. But actually it only takes a short time to take off your shoes, breathe in the air and allow the energy of that place you held close into your heart and to fill your lungs again. The people too.

So that has been my week --- sitting, talking, listening, looking, remembering. Plus finding a few photographs to send back to Jerry in the Philippines who eagerly awaits footage of islands, swimming pools, and crocodiles.

More beach, island and late afternoon textures.

Back in the Philippines Jerry is on school break and my friend Emelyn has returned them to their home town of Estanica. Jerry is happy visiting his relatives and classmates --- we chat each day on video call using Emelyn's cell phone. The iPhone remains broken, but actually it's probably a good thing.

So now this minute I"m in Townsville staying with my sister and her family. The little children who called me Aunty Mel and brushed my hair and swum with me and awkwardly rode their bikes around, are now young men and women with jobs and careers and plans and girlfriends. There has been lots to talk about. Again, lovely times.

Loving the paperbark textures as I wandered parts of the Kennedy Track in South Mission Beach earlier this week.

Tomorrow I'm on my way again, after a short stop off at the pathologists. A visit to the doctor in Mission Beach this morning and I've been sent for a TB and liver function test in the morning. Jerry has been pestering me to go to the doctor so I finally relented (and actually it's something I should have done weeks ago so I'll let you know how I go).

After my tests I'll be making my way to Townsville airport and will arrive at mum and dad's place on Wednesday for three lovely weeks wandering among the melaleucas of the Nambucca Valley.

Till then.

Mel xx

Sincerely,

Melinda J. Irvine

[email protected]

mangrove roots

swathe rock to sea

old coast walkway

1974-84 Australian Paintings $1-$10 Complete Set of 7 MUH

Stamp Corner: Australian Paintings

Uncle Richard was busy listing new stamps in the eBay store yesterday and if you love famous artworks (especially Australian paintings) the complete set of 1974-1984 Australian paintings might be a cool click to your collection.

All of the stamps are in mint condition and have never been hinged. The set includes the 1974 $4 'Shearing the Rams' by Tom Roberts, the 1974 $2 Hans Heysen 'Red Gums' (which won the 1931 Wynne Prize) and the 1974 $1 George Washington Lambert 'A Sergeant of the Lighthorse'. There are also gutter blocks of a number of individual paintings from the set.

If you are an art lover (or just love cool stamps) check them out today.

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.

1974 Australian Paintings $2 Hans Heysen “Red Gums”

Gutter Block of 6 w Sheet No. MUH

Ocean Pandanus

all her life

she leaned toward sea

pelagic and tidal

she yearned for the deep

and yet she remains

only brine on the breeze

a blackened torn shadow

over sunset stands she

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.

PROFESSIONAL WRITER TIP #4: Showcase your writing on Linkedin

Linkedin is a great place to showcase your writing to potential clients as well as build a following. Being the world’s largest platform and publisher of business-relevant content, writers have a huge audience for their work.

Publishing articles regularly and consistently supports your writing portfolio too. Even if your network doesn’t comment much (or even ‘like’ your posts) they do notice that you publish every week.

For your writing portfolio you could write a series of articles around a niche topic and use the most popular one in the portfolio. By ‘niche topic’ I mean a topic or industry that you know well, have professional experience, and where you could specialise as a writer.

The other great thing about Linkedin,it has its own portfolio section. You can actually attach different media samples of your work to your Linkedin profile. Word documents, scanned articles, links to websites, photographs: you can even include a video where you reach out to potential clients.

For a few days this week my writing space was the Cairns Library. How lovely! 1GB of data, free charging, plenty of space, super quiet, and a view to antique figs and tropical gardens. Amazing.

Why I write

I write because I am inspired by what I see. Feeling the seasons change on my skin, or navigating the public market, or just passing some street graffiti -- I am called in.

Then as the pen hits the page or my hands strike the keys I feel thrilled and excited at the possibilities. I lose all sense of no, just sitting and forgetting everything but the writing.

And then the drawing out, the extraction. I love this process even more. The raw material reviewed and perused; something grabbed and used and placed on the screen. My hands melding the black keys with characters, clattering along in loving familiarity mingling new thoughts with that something the pen wrote earlier.

Finally I love the look of those words on a page or on screen in a blog post. The construction and the arrangement set for your eyes, the words wrapped into an image or some artistic sort of photo that I have hunted for on the backroads.

Why do you write?

Writing in the garden at my friend's house in Mission Beach.

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: Oct 2016

I promise I won't kick Tita Mel

Jerry still kicks and thrashes in his sleep. And though it diminishes with time I guess the trauma he suffered when a very small boy has left a legacy of restless sleep and nightmares.

Culturally, Filipino kids sleep with their mothers and Jerry would sleep in my bed every night if I allowed it. But he just kicks around too much and I never get any sleep. When he was smaller I used to let him in my bed until he went to sleep and would carry him to his own bed once he was already in a heavy sleep.

If you look in the photo here (from October 2016) on this particular night I had promised him that he could sleep in the bed the whole night through and I wouldn't move him out. So off he went to bed very happy.

A few hours later I found him lying on top of my bed looking like a rigid little statue with his legs tied up with a headscarf. Funny little thing must have thought if he tied his legs together he wouldn't be able to kick me in his sleep and then he could stay there the whole night.

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