sallymurphy.com.au

Sally Murphy, Australian author

Of Fridays – and Inspiration

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Last Friday I got up veeerrrry early in the morning, and drove ‘home’ to Corrigin (I divide my time between there and here, in the Southwest, because school for the Murphlets and work for me are here, and work for my beloved is there). Anyway, I digress. My journey this time had little to do with my beloved, though I was lucky enough to have coffee with him as soon as I arrived and before I got down to the business of the day – lunch. And what a lunch!
Dining Divas was organised by a committee of local amazing women, for local amazing women, and featured three amazing women (one almost local and two less local) as speakers. As part of Corrigin’s centenary year festivities the lunch was a celebration of friendship, fine food and fun, and with 150 women in attendance, there was lots of noise and laughter. But there was also a really inspirational program of speakers.
Caroline Robinson, from Narembeen (just down the road)  was the 2011 Rural Woman of the Year and a perfect opening speaker, not only sharing her own experiences but also reminding us of the importance of supporting and seeking out the support of other women.  Estelle Blackburn,currently from Canberra,  spoke about her experiences helping John Button and  Darryl Beamish  overturn their wrongful convictions – inspiring us with her determination to right an injustice. The final speaker for the day was Una Glennon, who travelled from Perth her husband Dennis and shared her journey through grief, and beyond. 
I was lucky enough to be the MC for the day – a new experience for me – and one which terrified me beforehand. It was a real honour to be able to introduce each of these women, and to get to talk to them personally as well. It was also wonderful to catch up with friends and to meet new ones as well.
It was an exhausting day but I came home inspired. I want to be hard working like Caroline, a fighter like Estelle and strong and dignified like Una. 
This Friday I’m at home, alone, which is as it should be, as Friday is my writing day. And I have written this morning, sending off revisions on my next verse novel to my editor. But even home alone I manage to get inspired. Today it’s because a beautiful teacher,  Miss Doran, sent me this link.  Thank you Miss Doran and Year 3/4 . Sometimes writing can be lonely, or frustrating, or draining, or all of these things at once. Sometimes writing about hard topics makes me sad.   But when I hear that a class of students has read and enjoyed my book , and maybe even benefitted from it I am inspired to keep writing. 
And so I do.
What inspires you?

Author Visits

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I just got hold of some photos from my latest school visit. It was a couple of weeks ago, and involved classes from preprimary to year eight at Corrigin District High School, my local school. I had an absolute ball, and think the kids enjoyed seeing another side of me – they usually know me as their music teacher. Let’s just say that as a music teacher I make a great author 🙂

Anyway, I can’t post any photos with identifying photos of kids in, so these shots are all of moi.
Here I am reading from Doggy Duo to a group of year eight students.

Here I am reading the author bio from the back of Bugged to the year four and fives. They liked hearing about my history with chocolate topping.

And, finally, reading from The Floatingest Frog to year one and two students.

Tomorrow I am off to do another school visit – this time at Hyden Primary School. I love getting out and talking to lots of different kids. I love sharing my stories and always come home feeling inspired and energised.

Writing from Your Life

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Yesterday I ran a workshop at the Corrigin Creative Arts Centre, with the focus being on writing from life experience. It was a smallish group – five participants (plus myself of course) which made for a special day, with lots of sharing of participants’ writing endeavours and their life experiences.

As well as me doing lots of talking about myself and the writing life, I lead the ladies through various writing exercises aimed at getting them writing and also tapping in to memories which could be developed into stories or used in various forms of autobiography. Perhaps the most successful exercises were two quite simple ones.

Firstly, as a free writing exercise, I had them write the words I remember and then simply write for about ten minutes. Most thought back to childhood times, but others had specific adult memories come to the fore. I did this exercise myself and found out that a memory I thought I had was quite different than what I actually remembered. I have often talked about how exciting it was for me to catch a school bus to kindy when I was little. When I wrote about this memory I realised that I had no memory of actually being on that bus – only the excitement of knowing I was going to catch it, and a memory of waiting for it to come. It was interesting for me to make this realisation.

The other exercise we did was simply writing a list of things which were important at different times in each person’s life. I asked them to write down such things as a special toy from childhood, five books they’d read, a birthday present they’d received, a gift they’d given and so on. Many people were surprised at the things they remembered, or at things they had trouble remembering.

I don’t tend to write a lot of autobiographical pieces, but having guided others through this workshop, I realised that I have plenty of material there to tap into either for such stories or for fictional stories. Of course, I already use life experience in my fiction, but exercises which unlock these experiences will be a really useful writing starter for me in future.

Rather than asking yourself ‘what have I done that’s worth writing about’ how about simply writing and seeing what comes out? Use a list, or a photo, or a possession as a trigger, if needed. So, why are you still reading? Go and write something! I’m going to.

Out and About

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I’m leading such a busy life at present – and loving it. Busy isn’t always a bad thing, even when it means some juggling of tasks.

It is Literacy and Numeracy Week this week, and as part of this special week I was invited to visit Kondinin Primary School yesterday. Kondinin is about half an hour drive from home, and with some beautiful Spring weather happening it was a pleasant trip.

The students at Kondinin were a pleasure to speak to – they were enthusiastic, friendly and had beautiful manners. The children, their parents and the school staff should be congratulated for this. I really enjoyed sharing my picture books with the students, as well as speaking about my life as a writer and answering their questions.

It is also Adult Learning Week this week. This morning, as part of this, I ran a creative writing workshop at the Corrigin Resource Centre. There were nine participants, from a range of backgrounds, and I had them all working hard tapping in to their creative sides. I also shared with them a bit about my journey as a writer – the highs and lows – and some general advice about getting published. I always find these sort of workshops a lot of fun, but there’s so much I want to say. I managed to run overtime and could still be there talking and listening.

Now it’s back to my desk and back to work. I’m still finishing the poetry book, which will be done in the next day or so, but have finished the revisions on the nonfiction reading book titles. There are, as always, some books to be reviewed, and a million other things I want to write or revise. Better get back to it!