Tag Archives: self-care for creatives

unseeded, seething

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I don’t really know that there’s a way to mince words or say it politely, but white creatives really need to get over themselves and their self-importance.

The last fortnight has been rough in terms of microaggressions, and it’s not at all healthy to do it, but I can’t stop thinking about whether things would be easier for me if my name was easier to spell. Despite this, I went to see Black Panther at the Coburg Drive-In with one of my fave humans (who happens to be a white boy, gasp!). Hopefully, we’ll get to collaborate on some cool creative shit.

Lately, there are times when I feel myself talking too much about my creative work, or not enough if at all, and I know a lot of this is due to a current environment where it’s still looked at as a curiosity of an activity to engage in (it’s not impostor syndrome if deep down you’re still worried about your right to create at all). I don’t know if I want to be that clueless person at a social gathering that does nothing to learn about the others around them, that doesn’t exercise their curiosity about other humans because it’s not healthy. Though I definitely envy that type of dull stubbornness.

zine: UNCEDED

‘unceded’ is depressing – tracts of imperial Anglo law are reproduced and highlight dispossession of this land’s original inhabitants for finite ‘resources’. The momentary beauty is in a repeated few lines, on the centre fold:

I want to collect your thoughts in my coolamons / We will make madhan with our words to light two fires / Bound together by our stories we dream in refuge

drink: ‘Make Like A Gooseberry’ kettle soured berliner weisse by Red Duck Beer (Ballarat, VIC)

I’m eating last night’s leftover popcorn and really enjoying this can of Berliner weisse with organic gooseberries – I tend to buy cans of beer in pairs if the flavours/combinations sound super-interesting, and this can is way better than the first one I drank (too fast, out of the can). It’s mingled well with the saltiness of the popcorn and isn’t too sour, and the gooseberries taste really fresh?!

It’s cheered me up a loooooot.

So much good stuff is going on, so it makes no sense to feel so awful, but it’s probably because the bad dreams/bad sleep cycle has returned. I’m admittedly not practising good sleep hygiene, with a bunch of other bad habits. But…good things:

  • got proofs for my poem which will appear in Rabbit Poetry’s ‘Queer’ issue
  • my suite of three poems based on specific video games will appear in print in next month’s Writers’ Victoria member mag on the theme of ‘collaboration’ (as part of a ‘Women Writers of Colour’ commission) – I love that the suite of poems is known as the ‘Bar SK Suite’!
  • I’m doing a reading stories at Moreland Library! I get to choose two stories out of Good Night Stories For Rebel Girls 2 and read them to people! Come along!
  • I’ll be reading my poetry at Hawthorn Library, with two other poets. While quietly terrifying (from a performing self perspective), it will be fun, and it is good to hear poems as read/recited by their authors, because it’s most likely how they imagine the words to sound in their head/off the page! Come along!
  • my cat snuggles up next to me like a stuffed toy under the quilt because autumn is here, and it’s getting plenty snuggly-chilly for the warm-blooded mammals.
  • workshopping and feedback – the humans who do it and give are freaking ace, appreciated and remind me that community does exist in a seemingly solitary pursuit. Thinking of the MSW crew and We Work This Shop, specifically.

Turns out writing this helped cheer me up quite a bit…also, choosing a low ABV beer helped too (’cause alcohol is a CNS depressant – I outwardly admit to being ridic slow to take this on board – please don’t be like me in that respect!). Now to annoy my cat for more snuggles.

I need to remember that writing regularly, keeping up with regular health appointments – this is good for me, even when it doesn’t always feel it. Read, write, edit, repeat. Tea, cats, books. And ace humans (god I miss my Northcote babes Lolly & Danni <3).

screaming white into the void

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This post does discuss mental health/illness in detail that folks may find distressing (regarding self-injury in particular), and reader discretion is advised.

Despite the nihilist-sounding post title, it’s been a good, though exhausting week. I managed to visit Preston Market when it was…not quite fast-and-furious-bargains-shouted-from-all-corners, but may as well have been. I went to get myself a chicken quesadilla (one of my fave ‘treat’ lunches) after picking up PO box mail but had forgotten my key (theatrical groan!), and also had to get to Brunswick to review Bent Bollywood on a very nearly empty petrol tank…

I thought I’d have more time to generally read and write, and have found myself not making regular appointments with my psychiatrist – this is not good. I’m doing pretty well lately (it’s officially over a year now since last ECT sesh, squee!) and that has meant more energy for work-related activities, but emotional labour (yeah yeah, go on, laugh about how wanky it sounds till you realise you’re the one being drained by it) is taking up more of my time than it should…some of my anxieties have even made it into my dreams (again, not a good sign).

Anyway, it was fab to see my friend Maria and have an epic cackle session about modern romance and its…’challenges’, and you’ll soon be able to read my review on BB for Peril. Liminal sent me a copy of their zine because I couldn’t make it to their do, and it’s gorgeous! That PO box key was worth the extra trek!

Oh! Absolutely decimated the aubergine/courgette / eggplant/zucchini stash from my dad’s garden…

Almost nearly forgot to wish my eldest nephew a happy birthday, but thankfully his new bike and hanging out with his mates mean that he’s not thinking too much of his daggy aunt (it’s true, I can’t deny it)! Happy birthday Leon, me and Fance love you!

***

Last year, I went to a zine thing and spent all my spare change (nice one noob!). One of the zines I went home with was called ‘white whine’ by illustrator Sarah Catherine Firth. As the name suggests, a bunch of very first-world whines from first-world women are drawn and coloured in. Given my booze consumption yesterday (went to a beer tasting at Bar SK, then drank a Korean beverage that reminded me of dry sake afterwards at a dumpling-smashing dinner), I decided to stick to brewing up pints of white tea, with elderflower and apricot. I guess if the British are going to do white tea, they have to Englishfy it somehow. The dried apricot pieces are also quite yummy. Such a classy tea-totaller!

Seriously, one of my fave deadline-smashing/writing hardcore things to do is brew mugs of tea, or brew white or green tea weaker than its suggested strength, then let cool down, and add more cold water. Not bad for a $4 organic Brit tea – you stretch out that four buckaroonies! Freelancers/creatives, I see you nodding.

It’s hard to pick a fave panel from the zine, but I’d have to go with the lady saying “My brie is too hard.” because when you’re craving soft cheese and waiting for it to reach that magical temperature, it does feel like forever! Readers of this blog may recall I looooooove cheese, too. Seriously, I chose voluntary electroconvulsive therapy over lithium and refused to take any of the tricyclic antidepressants based on their anti-cheese thang. My life was depressing enough with cheese, how much worse would it be after?! That was a horror I did NOT want to contemplate.

In case you were wondering that my opinion was biased, it turns out that Sarah has been nominated for the Good Stuff people’s choice award over at Frankie, if you want to check out more of Sarah’s work and vote etc., then click on here.

I’ve had a couple of litmag triumphs too – Concrete Queers continue to like the poetry I lovingly fling at them, and accepted a poem of mine called ‘stationary objects’. I’ve been submitting regularly to CQ, and they’ve helped me develop a habit where I write from an emotionally and mentally healthy space, and can edit and rewrite and it doesn’t have to mean my health deteriorating (though please do note that when the poem does appear in their ‘milestones’ issue, it does discuss self-injury – a practice I can honestly say is now in the distant past).

A particular right-wing smegma stain was extremely mean to one of the CQ founders, grrrrr, probably because they won People’s Choice at Vic Premier’s Literary Awards for 2018 – how awesome is that?! Ida was one of the few books I saved for fun reading before bedtime last year, and I remember once finished that it could’ve kept going! Young adult lit is kicking mega-arse these days, and you can still read it as an older adult! No, really – do.

The second triumph is that Rabbit Poetry Journal accepted a poem that genuinely began as a joke-romantic conversation to former lover – it’s now called ‘Coimetrophilia’ and it will appear in the Queer issue 25. Chuffed doesn’t begin to cover how I feel! I hugged my cat/coworker a LOT. A lot of its acceptance is thanks to the Quippings crew who again helped me develop more confidence about being a performer and a writer.

I recently read and discussed Rabbit’s ‘Indigenous’ issue here, for last week’s post. It’s been great to read older issues of litmags lately. When I was really unwell, the sheer amount of talent of the people getting published used to make me feel guilty for not trying harder to write more, submit more, and not be producing better work. I know – it’s not a useful mindset…but depression and anxiety don’t listen to reason? It’s been great that this they have been listening more to me when I say, “no, hang on, it’s bedtime now” or “hey, if you’re feeling crap, drinking booze is not going to help – go cuddle Fance or something.” It’s also been ace that those strategies have been working too.