Tuesday, November 04, 2008

don't stop now


God it's hard... doing this... trying to write...with half a brain...
I was talking to Screenwriting Mummy as we lolled over cups of tea and our various offspring/spawn of Satan/toddlers were raising tiny person hell nearby.
She nodded slightly, too knackered to actually expend energy on words.
We were trying to talk about the work we had been doing on a television series - both of us having written an episode- and this was a chance to catch up but also to debrief some of the process. Instead we slumped about, talked in half sentences, ate junkfood and yawned a lot.
Tricky, now seemingly entrenched in his big boy bed, is playing his parents for the mollycoddling amateurs they are. When, in some desperation, I turned to Christopher Green's excellent study in the area; "Toddler Taming", I discovered that C and I are textbook suckers for toddler related sleep deprivation mainly due to our willingness to fetch water, replace doona and spend hours stroking his back on demand. As well, we have let him sleep in our bed although in the wee hours I will generally struggle to carry him back.
Another playwrighting friend told me recently that her daughter still sleeps in the parental bed - at the age of five and a half. It was an improvement as far as my friend was concerned. Previously her daughter would cry loudly in the middle of the night until carried into her parents' bed, now she gets up and climbs into their bed herself.
And quite soon, I thought, she'll also be able to get herself up and pop over to the bakery for morning croissants.
The edit section on this blog is littered with the corpses of dead posts I half wrote before the mushbrain hit.
In the same way my Leunig wall calendar is crossed with never-made deadlines and opportunities lost because I've been too tired or fuzzy headed to knock up a proposal.
Which made this news so entirely miraculous:
Congratulations on your successful application to the New Work - Developing Writers grant category of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts. Please find attached your letter of notification and the contract for your grant...
This is a grant for me to write a second book, next year, which I am calling as a 'working title' (except I really like it): The Unreliable Observer's Guide To Pond Life.
And am I happy?
I tell you, I'd be jumping up and down like a mad thing, in celebration, except that I'm too frigging tired.

12 comments:

Maggie May said...

WOW! Congratulations!

Well toddlers are always going in & out of different phases. It is also tiring when you are unable to sleep, listening out for a wayward teenager to put the key in the door! Tiredness! It never ends!

Betty F said...

OH that is so wonderful! Congratulations! It's well earned! I know just by reading with so much enjoyment, your blog! I'm so sorry you're so tired. I got lucky in that area for the most part, well, as I remember, we did have one who kept getting up.. Um maybe two. Anyway! it was a long time ago!
Congratulations again!

Anonymous said...

Hey, congratulations on the funding. I have only recently found your blog and now I feel the need to buy your first book. I love what I have read so far, so I am sure I will love the book.

Good luck with the sleep deprivation. Fortunately my kids are in a good place sleep wise, this week at least.

Anonymous said...

i shall jump up and down on your behalf xxx

Away2me (Deanna) said...

Congratulations! That is fantastic! Love the title!!!!

Em said...

How exciting! Congrats!

Linda said...

Wow! Another book! OvaGirl, that is FANTASTIC! I can't wait to read it. And I love the title too, BTW.

Anonymous said...

Yay for the grant!

I'm going to have to get that Christopher Green book.
Will still sleeps in our bed. He starts off in his bed, but at some point in the night, he comes to ours. Half the time, I don't even wake up as he climbs up & snuggles in next to me.

Mima said...

Congratulations on the grant, how exciting, and I cant wait to read it. However much I don't want to, I do understand that it is going to take a while to write, and is then going to need editing, so I might have to wait a while rather than rushing out to buy it tomorrow!! Although I cant actually do it, I am jumping up and down for you in my head. Wonderful news.

Anonymous said...

I would jump up and down for you except my ankles hurt. I did clap my hands, though. CONGRATULATIONS.

OvaGirl said...

Thanks for that - I do feel pretty lucky I have to say and of course I'm pretty nervous about actually doing it. I should point out, it's not an advance on the book, it's a grant to write it. When it's done I have to do the same old dragging it round the publishers as ever..

sbs said...

money.for.writing.stuff.

*sigh* I love it.

nice going ozfriend x