Monday, January 4, 2010

I mentioned that I would tell the story behind the use of the name nativebee3.
As a child, I often spent holidays in Western Queensland Australia on my grandparents property in the country. The youngest Uncle was forever teaching us about the bush. Being with him was like being with a talking encyclopaedia, he was wonderful. He showed us (me and my brother) what an Australian native bee looked like and told us that they did not sting.
This was too much of an enticement to go rob a bee hive. Problem was, the hive was high up in an ironbark tree. The wood was so hard that when I swung the axe the first time it bounced off the tree and nearly hit me on the head. But gradually through sheer determination, I finally managed to cut the tree down - I think I was about 10years old at the time, and we were able to get to the hive and take out the honey comb and put it and the honey into a billycan(a small tin can with a handle) which we had brought with us and proudly took our spoils home. So to me, the name nativebee3 not only represents bees which do not sting, but I learned that they are not defenseless either but clever to build their hive in a tree that is very difficult to access. For me cutting the tree down represents determination and resillience. I might add that I lost all the surface skin off both hands in the endeavour and yes, it was worthwhile.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Writing a novel

I subscribe to "The Writer" magazine, and find them full of valuable tips in relation to writing. I have finally started to write a book which is more autobiographical in nature. They say that one needs to write one's own story first in order to get personal issues out of the way to enable one to focus o writing novels.
I need to begin to discipline myself and my time in order to achieve this. I am thinking of moving to an Island in the pacific where there are no distractions. There are about 1500 people on the Island- so it is not totally isolated.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Today in The Age newspaper, I read about Joumana Haddad and was very impressed with her background and the first poem of hers that I read has left me thinking about the content.
Nativebee3