This article came second in the "write-way writers' essay contest" write-way

It was the year I consciously made the decision to really write. Not only dream about writing, but write. Not make excuses, but write. All right, write. What? Short stories? Poetry?

These two genres seemed friendlier for a dairy farmer with six children ranging in ages from five years old to sixteen years.

It was the July holidays. Only time in the year that dairy farmers can holiday- or Northern Victorian dairy farmers, that is. The cows were on maternity leave; rain was watering the paddocks instead of irrigation water. Ideal. My husband and I had booked a unit at Lakes Entrance.

Once we’d arrived, opened every cupboard and looked at the TV, checked out every chair and the kids had chosen beds, we walked to the corner shops and of course bought a newspaper- midweek Melbourne Age. Reading the newspaper was an everyday luxury that had disappeared from my daily agenda, but on holidays I had all the time to indulge. One particular column took my attention.



The article went on to explain the rules of a competition. I just needed to write 500 words of an imaginary novel. I knew all the regency words like non-apparel, sennight, ensconced, irrepressibly, lamentable.

Here was a writing opportunity that caused me to chew my pen, smile, scribble, dream. Dream for an orderly regency drawing room, where the fire glowed gently and the quiet restfulness of a grandfather clock ticked. Where the rain softly chimed in the background and a butler was always ready to answer any call for pots of tea in suitably dainty, flowered teacups.

A definite contrast to the chaos unfolding around me, as six kids tried to watch TV, play Monopoly, demand snacks, tease and chase each other- all in closer proximity than the open spaces and hiding places on the farm. Is this what a holiday was for? Ah, but it did release me to write away at Georgette Heyer.

I used a small exercise book and began scribbling plot lines like “Claire flattened herself against the paneling of the library wall. Somehow the voices penetrated the paneling even though the words and tone were hushed,
“You must tell her tomorrow,” growled a deep masculine voice.

I called on all the Regency romances I had ever read and of course all the Georgette Heyer volumes I had devoured. Here I was in a new location, a fresh opportunity to renew my writing resolutions and a short word limit beckoned. A soft, languid 500 words.

I then re-read the competition rules and realised that I did not have to find my own entry into the story- one was provided and after the first paragraph I was to develop a story line in 500 words. Hmm a bit tougher, a bit easier.
The provided paragraph began like this:

“I hate this weather!” Isabelle, youngest daughter of the Duke of Wrexham, pouted her pretty lips into a most unbecoming shape as she stared at the endless rain, thinking to herself that she had never been so miserable in the whole of her 18 years.”

I crossed out, I re wrote all through the ten days of our allotted holiday. Isabelle Wrexham in the drawing room with the problem of boredom, took shape across meals, laundry, beach walks, talks, travel.

Our holiday conveniently coincided with the last subject I was finishing for a Bachelor of Education. I attended a weekend class at Churchill Gippsland-part of Monash University .

Of course the precious exercise book, 48 pages of ruled lines, accompanied me along with lecture notes, timetable, book lists. My husband took the kids to the pictures and arranged to meet me at the conclusion of the classes.

All too soon both the holiday and the classes were over and we were on our way back to dairy farm country and normal life. However once home I realised a monumental fact- that 48 page exercise book was still in a University class room on a University desk and contained non-academic writing like Regency romance fragments.

How I squirmed. There was nothing else to do but explain the situation via phone.

I rang. I explained, and one of the office staff duly found and returned that precious book. It was a very harrowing experience to first garner enough courage to write and then to have the book fall into unknown, possibly critical hands, was sheer gulping terror.

However the deadline loomed. Isabelle was furnished with mystery, personality and a tall, glossy haired, immaculately dressed beau.

Once that entry was in the mail, I relaxed- I actually felt as if I’d achieved something momentous. I’d carried through a writing project from conception, to drafts, to finally sending out the work. The full circle for a writer- I had become a writer, I’d sent my work out to be critically judged. The subjective become objective.

Time incubated. Really. When the phone rang or the mail was delivered, Isabelle was ready to hatch out into a real heroine or languish at a mouldy country estate forever.
Then casually reading the Wednesday section of the Age weeks later, my name and story were listed amongst the three winners. I’d won. Yippee, I could indeed write. A harsh test I’d set myself I realise now. Would I have continued writing if I’d known that further down the writing time line it is hard work to be published?

And the prize? Nine newly republished paperback editions of Georgette Heyer’s novels. Arabella, The Talisman Ring, Bath Tangle, to name just a few of the nine books. Books! No, I wanted the cash. I’d read all of Georgette Heyer’s novels, now I was after books on technique, how to become a writer, a poet, how to overcome writer’s block…