Dear Friends,
It’s been a wee while. I know I did say I’d be posting randomly but I didn’t mean to leave it this long. Sometimes life *$%!&!!! gets in the way. For more icky detail see my news section below.
Meanwhile I am excited to announce the launch of a new project, a flash fiction novella, episodes of which I plan to post here weekly.
Introducing: The Everyday Musings of Louisa Greene.
This is the current working title, I’m open to suggestions!
It had its beginnings as a weekly flash fiction exercise I set for myself on Medium.com in 2018. I am reactivating that exercise here on Substack with the plan to form the FF eps into a novella.
Here’s the blurb in progress…
Librarian Louisa Greene has lived a quiet life among the muted bookstacks of her working days. Now she is retired she wonders what her legacy might be and what she should do with all the thoughts she never spoke into her quiet world. In this gently satirical flash fiction novella, the character LG, a single childless woman of a certain age, finds the courage to share with you the reader, all the things she thought, but never dared say. She hopes it might encourage you to do the same.
1
Louisa Greene is feeling unsettled. It’s a slow seeping, narrow niggling type of sensation in nape of the neck, right where someone might grab a coward when dragging him into the bright sunlight to face his greatest fears.
Yes, LG is feeling cowardly because she feels she has failed the big test of realising what all the self help gurus call — her full potential. The trouble is she is not quite sure what that potential might be. Is it to become the best ukelele player in her suburban ukelele group? As yet, she has only learned two chords and finds it hard to keep the uke in tune. She likes singalongs so maybe she should just concentrate on becoming the highest note holder in the soprano section of her local choir, The Tea Cup Tinklers. Although she knows she has no hope of pushing her friend (correction, acquaintance) Hermoine Harris, off her Minnie Riperton perch.
No, I’m afraid it goes deeper than that.
When Louisa Greene retired after giving forty something years to the Department of Library Services of NSW, she was thrilled to finally do all the things that until then she had only dreamed of. She threw herself into activities and hobbies, classes and groups like there was no tomorrow. But lately with her interest in extra curricular activities on the wane (sometimes it’s just too much effort to go out), Louisa Greene finds herself mulling and ruminating, ruminating and mulling, over things she ought to have forgotten long ago.
Like the time she didn’t go the full distance on a search for a hard-to-find reference for a little old lady client and fobbed her off telling her the book in question was out of print. Turned out that very intelligent little old lady client was doing her PHD on The Sexual Habits of the Common Garden Snail and complained to management, writing an article in the local paper damning not just Louisa but the whole library staff and its regional administration.
Louisa Greene, who has always thought of herself as overly patient and compassionate and prided herself on her great attention to detail, had to face the fact that some little old ladies and all their impossible demands just got right up her back passage! And on this day, the one day out of all the days of her long and flawless career, she got caught out!
And alas there were other instances too. Lately in the middle of the night Louisa Greene has been waking up in a sweat with the memories of past mistakes and distant failings hanging onto her like a wet sticky rag.
In the wee dawn hours before the rest of the apartment block stirs, she plays the incidents backwards and forwards, running through possible scenarios of how with hindsight she could have prevented the regrettable moments from happening.
But what can she do about it now? Surely the past must remain in the past, surely there’s no going back — isn’t that the reassuring thing about getting older? Isn’t all that stuff over, finished, dead and buried? And don’t all the Ted-talking-self-help gurus smiling their too-big smiles from the back of their best selling books say that our failings are our greatest teachers? Wouldn’t we all be failing on purpose all the time if that were the case? Wouldn’t we just all go to the International University of Failure and forget about Harvard and Yale?!
Louisa Greene knows what she must do.
As the first rays of sunlight creep through her kitchen window she puts on the kettle, gets out her favourite tea pot, makes a strong brew and pours herself a cup.
Potential schmotential she mutters
as she watches the steam rise effortlessly into the cool morning air.
Potential schmotential!
©Jan Cornall 2024
This is just a taster. More to come. Love to know what you think. Please leave me some words in the comments.
WRITERS JOURNEY NEWS.
Ok, so remember the mosquito virus I got in India last November? It’s still lingering but I’m happy to say I did finally get some improvement due to the various treatments I tried. But that was child’s play compared to what lay around the corner. Got the news after my yearly mammogram (which for the last 17 years has been all clear) and yep, you guessed it. Diagnosed with breast cancer, the type that requires immediate action. I go in for surgery this Wednesday, bye, bye favourite breast!.
If you are wondering what this means for our planned trips…
Haiku Walking in Japan Mar 27 - April 1, is still going ahead with our Walk Japan guide. Whie I won’t be physically present, I will deliver the workshops remotely by What’s App and Zoom. Thanks to the aventurous spirit of all participants who have embraced this novel way of touring with a virtual facilitator!
Sensing Italy is postponed to September when we will join forces in Montesigliano, Mercatello Sul Metauro and Florence with a two week singing retreat. If you love to sing and write, this will be heaven, but if you just want to write, don’t worry we won’t make you sing! But you will have the added inspiration of music happening all around you. Details will be out in April. Let me know if this interests you.
Gascony Residency had already been postponed to June 2025.
Moroccan Caravan, Feb 10 - 24 is still open for bookings!
Draft Busters Online carries on! We have been going gangbusters since we started again in January. Fantastic writing happening there! Let me know if you want to join our next module which starts Mon March 18.
Congratulations to one of our Draft Busters Andra Putnis whose memoir about her Latvian grandmothers, Stories My Grandmothers Didn’t Tell Me, will be published by Allen and Unwin in July. Avail for online preorder end of March. I’m doing an interview with Andra on Instagram @_writersjourney at 5 pm AEST today, Sunday Mar 3.
Deluxe Mentoring Package, NEW! Submit your manuscript or part manuscript for a detailed feedback/ brainstorm session with Jan. Go away, make the changes, re-submit for a second feedback session. Book your session now for a future date and set up a deadline for completion of your draft.
MORE DETAILS ON MY CANCER TREATMENT
This Wednesday March 6, I’m having a unilateral mastectomy. Following my recovery instead of opting for chemo and radiotherapy, I will undertake a treatment in Japan called AIET. Autologous Immune Enhancement Therapy has been used for two decades in Japan as a treatment for cancer. The immune cells are taken from the patient’s body, cultured and processed to activate them until their resistance to cancer is strengthened. Returned to the body, the cells, antibodies and organs of the immune system then work to protect and defend the body against not only tumour cells but also bacteria and viruses. The process which takes around two weeks, is of course expensive and I will have airfares and accommodation to cover as well. On my return to Oz, depending on my test results I will follow up with a low dose oral chemo treatment if needed. This plan was arrived at with the help of cancer researcher and consultant, Grace Gawler, who has been working for many years helping people navigate the cancer maze and find their best medical solutions. If you would like to know more about AIET drop me a line and I can put you in touch with Grace.
So if you have ever considered upgrading your membership to paid or founding member, now would be a great time to do it! In return, founding members will receive a copy of my book of stories songs and poems, Archipelagogo: Love Songs to Indonesia plus what paid members get — a free ticket to my next one woman show!
Please keep me in your thoughts this Wed.
Happy writing and artmaking!
Jan
Wonderful! I was hooked at the self-help nonsense of “Potential schmotential”! I can wait to follow along. Your characters, as always, are alive and honest. ❤️
Morning Jan, sitting on the train reading LG - what a delight! So many wonderful images, turns of phrase & such a clear voice.
Thank you for sharing your cancer diagnosis and treatment plans. Will definitely be thinking of you on Wednesday. Jxo 🥰