Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 2019 – Complete!

Australian Women Writers Challenge badge for 2019, forest green background with black silhouette of a woman in a hat in a frock with an umbrella. White text overlaying with the title of the challenge.This is a challenge that I didn’t pay much attention to in the foreground, or keep on top of in any way. I tracked the books I read and that was pretty much it. Leaving it to the me of today to sort through, review and organise things so that I can submit this completion post! Dear me, please provide future you with a gift for 2020 and do *some* of this before the last minute. Please.

In any case, I read 19 books for the Australian Women Writers Challenge this year, and reviewed all of them – on Goodreads, because I just wasn’t up to doing reviews on my blog this year. Maybe next year, maybe I’ll continue on Goodreads – I would like to make a habit of reviewing things closer to when I read them as it’s easy to let that slide.

I love this challenge and I love that several years down the track, it still brings me new authors! The books I read for the challenge this year include:

In other reading news, a lot of these were also from Beat the Backlist challenge, and if you want to see what my best books for the year were, take a look at my shelf on Goodreads.

Leaving the Plateau

As I mentioned, this blog space has languished this year, not intentionally but it’s been a big year for me personally and inwardly. I haven’t had a lot to say externally. 2019 and my theme Plateau has been good for me, from where I started and what I put out there as my hopes and intentions for the year, to now where I have ended up. I have continued with moving forward, but at a gentle pace (mostly) that focused on recovery from burnout and heartbreak. If I am honest, I’m still in progress for these aims – there are parts of me that still feel so very broken and I struggle to put myself first in my life. And yet, it’s been a gentle kind of constant self work that I’ve persisted in and will continue into the new year.

I didn’t set specific goals, I rarely do because they can easily become a source of hypervigilance and perfectionism for me that feeds unhealthy habits that I’m working to shift into a healthier space. But there were focus areas that I listed some loose ideas of what I wanted and hoped for. I really did embrace the idea of a Plateau for rest, with some forward momentum but with less pressure and prioritising myself. Not pushing or being too far outside my comfort zone, taking time to be where I am now and shore up and improve my foundations.

A view of Ha Giang, on the border of China and Vietnam. Green mountains in the background with blue sky and clouds. IN the foreground a winding mountain pathway but right in front, a daisy in hyper focus.

Also, my process here can look distinctly like a lack of process and intentionality. However, that’s not actually true. Instead, the process is deliberately subtle and speaks to background thought processes, letting things work in the background. As someone grappling with fairly profound anxiety, overthinking, perfectionism, always-on-productivity, always putting others first, I’ve worked hard to create a way to know that I’m doing self-work and growth but not to be using it as another stick to beat myself with. For me that’s why having a theme is so useful to me, it’s a guiding central concept and then I let my brain mull over it throughout the year. The concept and related ideas ebb and flow toward the front and back of my mind. I always learn things, I always grow in unexpected ways. I always find that moving forward and putting to rest one theme in preparation for a new one, that there was a unique journey and that in all honesty the process allows me to get the best of that introspection and reflection that I do as an ordinary part of being in the world. This process also allows  me to set goals when and where I actually find them useful, whether it’s a goal for the day, or the month or just because there’s a thing I want to undertake. I’m not beholden to decisions made back in the beginning of this process… it’s a guide, and then the actuality is the always amazing vast difference and where all the learning and growing happens.

Where am I at now at the end of 2019?

Midwifery

I’m growing into my sense of self as a midwife. My theory and training are starting to merge with my practice and experience. I am recognising how I am a trained professional, I’m not pretending and I don’t feel unworthy, unqualified. I feel like I can provide an amazing connection and support to families during a momentous time in their lives. I am grateful to those midwives I look to for mentorship and as examples for how I want to grow. Their generosity and kindness is deeply appreciated. Similarly, I already notice how important it is for me to spend time with students and graduates and provide support, kindness and mentorship to them.

White banner with intersecting circles Hands, Heart and Mind and the kind of midwife you will be. Midwife is in the centre of the intersecting circles.

I started studying my Master of Primary Maternity Care this year. It’s a transformative program and designed in such a way to train graduants in skills to create change in how maternity care is delivered in Australia, improving models of care and outcomes both for those we care for, and for midwives ourselves. It’s designed not to deliver a qualification for the sake of it, but something that can be utilised to generate a more powerful midwifery force in Australia – something sorely needed. The program is rich in detail and engages deeply with current literature, and it seems to appeal to people similar to me, who are equally passionate about change, improving things, making a difference. It feeds into my desire to leave my profession better than when I came to it. It helps to keep me centred on the midwife I want to be and how I want to practice. It’s hard work, but I am loving it.

Also, it provides a measure of self-care because the state of maternity care in Australia is that fragmented and medicalised care is the standard. It leaves the families we care for often feeling worse for wear, and those of us working as midwives in this system, it can be so disheartening and anger-inducing. I’m not the kind of person to shut down and ignore and just get on with things. I want to make things better. I want women to come through their experience of maternity feeling powerful and amazing, not hollow, or worse, traumatised. I’m so glad I started Masters as it allows me to pour that desire for improvement, my anger, sense of powerlessness and helplessness into trying to develop the skills, experience and acumen that may mean I really can change things for the better.

I continued to support the Australian College of Midwives, both on a national level and as part of the Victorian committee. I value being involved and learning. I am invested in this profession and this is another avenue for supporting myself, supporting others and improving things generally.

 

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How do you know you’re at a midwifery conference? Well the giant placenta is a great hint…. So amazing and knitted! #acm2019

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I also again went to the National Conference, this year in Canberra. It was glorious. I refilled my bucket so much! I got a lot out of the program, but more importantly just getting to be in a room full of midwives who care. Who all come together and care. I’m excited to consider how the conference may grow and change into the future to be perhaps less academic in focus and more focused on ways people can improve things in practice that may be relevant to midwives working in broader settings. Starting my Masters this year was also good for going to conference, the director of my Masters made a point of finding me at several intervals and introducing me to so many other people as one of ‘hers’ (I definitely felt the love and wibbling associated with my deep desire to ‘belong’ and it’s definitely something I rarely experience so fully). I met so many people and the fact that she took the time to introduce me and put me in conversation with other leaders of our profession, other amazing midwives and women who are determined and powerful and seeking change, like me. It was humbling and inspiring.

Self Care

I’ve maintained everything I started in this area of focus. I’ve consistently sought to maintain balance, prioritise good sleep and enabling opportunities to practice having down time, doing fun things for the sake of it, genuine leisure time. I’ve seen movies, spent time with friends. I’ve said ‘no’ to so many things, and ‘yes’ to so many others. I’m still wrestling with prioritising myself and putting myself first, but I am no longer feeling anxiety when I do this at least. That’s progress. I’ve grown more accustomed to prioritising my own time for myself, which has meant not cooking when I didn’t want to, getting a car home from work when I didn’t want to wait for the next train. I’ve also determinedly worked on putting in requests for my rosters to try and have them work better for me and mess with  my timelines less.

I also had some profound experiences with connection this year, one particular encounter provided a singular and powerful opportunity for me to heal, reconnect with my intimate self and the ability to connect with others on that level. I’m not back to myself in this sphere  yet, but I have a doorway thanks to this dear friend’s time, energy and care. It’s like I met myself for the first time again, that’s how profound it was. I realised how much I’d cut myself off from physical touch, and given it’s an area that has strong importance for me, I’m still sad about how much I’d suppressed that need. The rawness of how skin hungry I am, hungry for touch intimacy comes with profound sadness, and I’m treating myself gently here. But I’m also trying to give myself  more of what I had denied myself through fear and the kind of broken coming out of my heartbreak and relationship breakdown from 2018. Twelve months is too little time to have made more progress here, but these small leaps were so hard won, they’re so important to me and I hope they make it easier to continue healing in this area.

Also, it bears mentioning that undertaking self care in a context where it literally feels like the world is burning down around you and the worst aspects of society and civilisation are running rampant is… a challenge. So I recognise that there’s only so much that self care can do in the wake of what is an entirely reasonable response from my brain to what is going on around me. It is horrifying, and that does have an impact. It sucks, but it is reality and I’m trying to do the best I can to stand for what is right and the kindness and humanity I want to see into the future. It’s hard. It’s not perfect. And to be honest a lot of my activism is in my daily job, it takes a lot out of me and there’s not a lot leftover afterwards, I have to hope it still counts. I hope I’ll grow  more energy and be able to do and fight for more.

Reading

At the time of writing, I’ve surpassed my minimum goal for reading and I’ve read some magnificent books. I set a goal of 50 books for this year, so far I’ve read 73. I also participated in the Sara Douglass Book Series Award, which was awarded in March. I love series, I love the extended storyline and the possiblities conferred by having an epic scale to play with. There were some amazing books that I read and discovered, several had been on my to-read list for ages! I discovered new authors and read books I may otherwise not have prioritised.

Australian Women Writers Challenge badge for 2019, forest green background with black silhouette of a woman in a hat in a frock with an umbrella. White text overlaying with the title of the challenge.I participated in a very low key way in some reading challenges, namely The Australian Women Writers Challenge – I’m sure I’ve completed that although I’ve not finalised anything so that’s another task for this week (maybe I’ll even post my short reviews from Goodreads here as a round up). I also participated in Beat The Backlist which was a lot of fun and a reason to focus on books published prior to 2019 and to try and reduce the to-read list a little. Not sure I succeeded much in reality if only because the list of books to read, is ever growing. It was a nice area to focus on and that’s another administration thing I need to finalise this week so everything is counted.

I had a loose intention to read more diversely and I don’t think I really had much success here. I just didn’t have enough brain left over to work harder in my reading. So I’m sure I’ve read some books that include authors and protagonists that come from a range of different areas of diversity, but I didn’t track it and I think I’d have noticed if I’d wildly succeeded at this.

Dining Out and Cooking

Letting myself enjoy going out to dinner as a hobby was a wild success. I did a lot of this and enjoyed it massively. I delight in amazing food experiences and I revelled in it this year. I plan to continue, up to and including moving house so that we can be in an area that more facilitates this. I ate at casual restaurants, takeaway, food courts, fine dining restaurants and pretty much every permeatation in between. I loved all of it. I didn’t get to a degustation event, but given I am a picky eater I am often worried I’ll arrive and not be able to eat anything so I’d still love to do this, if I can find suitably flexible ones. I did get to eat homemade tagliatelle in Heidelberg, Germany that was tossed in a wheel of parmesan with cognac and finished with truffle, it was one of the best things I ate in 2019 and the photo doesn’t do it justice:

Cooking was less successful in how much I did, but I did focus on doing it pretty much only when I wanted to. That made a huge difference and I can feel my sense of burnout in this area wearing off. I also bought a new fancy food processor that makes short work of things that used to take forever which is marvellous. I made scones start to finish in less than 15 minutes a couple of weeks ago.  Fox has done some cooking but not much, he’s just as much recovering from burnout as I am, and cooking has always been stressful for him, so we’ve taken that gently this year. He’s still managed several things and in certain areas has maintained confidence even if not advancing. It’s enough, the point is great food and enjoying things not beating ourselves up. And if we ate a lot of takeaway this year… who cares, it’s not the end of the world. When I cooked, I wanted to and I meant it. I did make at least one recipe that I’ve been wanting to make for years. 

It’s definitely a year where I started to upgrade my kitchen machinery, buying a rice and grain cooker, an air fryer along with the aforementioned food processor. Each has already earned it’s keep. The sodastream that Fox got us for Xmas has already earned it’s keep! Bench real estate is definitely at a premium, but the tech has made saying yes to cooking easier more often. So there’s been less sense of ‘have to’ and unsustainable effort involved. Honestly I think we just need to move so that I can have a kitchen that is not down the back out of the way and cut off. I want to cook and socialise, listen to media and watch media while I potter. It’s not really possible right now. Still, I made the best of it I think and I’m happy with how this ended up.

I didn’t end up participating in the Food 52 Cookbook Club, but it’s something I’d try for again – there was at least no sense of failure or stress around this. It was something I hoped to manage – and mainly as a away of hooking into ways to enjoy cooking and feel joy and delight in it. I didn’t get there and it’s fine, it’s still there for whenever I want to try again (probably next year).

Travel

Fox and I had a magnificent trip to Germany, I loved it – despite the challenge of blisters in vastly uncomfortable places and ongoing difficulty with foot pain. It was magnificent, I loved getting to spend so much quality time with my live-in partner and I’m excited to travel more. We’re tentatively planning several trips now… and I want to travel with other friends and partners too. We didn’t manage any Victorian escapes but we still love the idea and maybe I’ll have a better handle on my roster in the coming year that might make it possible.

The best thing about travelling is that I’m out of my routine, there’s a lot of disruption to my productivity cycle and anxiety cycle in this that I noticed. Also, I still really like staying in interesting hotels and I’m definitely a 4 stars and up kind of person. I think I converted Fox to that too. I learned a lot going overseas for the first time, both about myself and how I am in the world,  how Australia is in the world and it was valuable and rewarding and opened up a new experience of myself.

 

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The Alte National Gallery isn’t open today, but the building and statue in front are impressive!

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2019: Embracing the Plateau

The time has come for me to let everyone else in on my theme for 2019. I stumbled upon this one scrolling through Facebook, but it struck me like a bell. One of the people I follow in my capacity as a midwife is Dr Sara Wickham, who posted about an article ‘In Celebration of Plateaus’. I read the pull out quote and it resonated so strongly with me.


I suggest we reframe plateaus as being both physically and psychologically purposeful, rather than worrisome or in need of a remedy


Davis E (2018). Labor plateaus and our sexual natureMidwifery Today. 127: 14-16.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that 2018 was hard going and left me feeling quite wrecked and burned out. I now feel a strong pull to recover and rebuild myself into who I want to be going forward. This is not the hiding away from the world and protecting myself deep inside like my year of Chrysalis, but neither is it pushing myself forward ambitiously and putting myself out of my comfort zone as I did with Cusp.

2019 is about moving forward, but doing so in a way that is sustainable and building on the future I want for myself and who I want to be. I think that will require reflection and a lot of self awareness about what I want to keep from my yester-self and what new things I want to try on. What better way to do that than embracing the idea of a plateau. So yes, Plateau is my theme for 2019.

A view of Ha Giang, on the border of China and Vietnam. Green mountains in the background with blue sky and clouds. IN the foreground a winding mountain pathway but right in front, a daisy in hyper focus.

The idea of a plateau is often held as a negative. They are often perceived as being stagnant of growth and with a sense of holding back, or taking the easy route. However, as with all things, there are more positive ways to consider plateaus.

Plateaus are rest points, while you’re climbing, or pushing, learning, or building. There’s also often a view, even if it’s specifically of the progress you’ve already made and how far you’ve come. Plateaus give you the chance to continue to progress, slowly, and without exerting extraordinary amounts of energy. You get to maintain forward momentum, but in a way that continues to allow recovery before you start climbing again.

I want this year to be a year where I do move forward. I want to do and try new things, but I want that to be rooted in a foundation of self care and healing. I want to prioritise coming back from the burn out I began 2018 with and which was exacerbated by the trash fire that largely describes last year for me. I want the option of stretching myself and choosing ambition, but not at the expense of recovery.

So what might that look like? Here’s a list of what I’m thinking, I’m keeping it simple because I don’t want to pin myself down or feel weighed down by goals and obligations, even those I set for myself. I am going to split it up into areas just because I can visualise it as a balance better.

Midwifery

  • Be the best midwife I can be and keep growing and learning as a part of that.
  • Keep reflecting on my practice as a midwife and connect with other midwives and learn from their experience and mentorship. Be generous with my time and support to other midwives and students.
  • Start my Masters degree. I enjoy studying and I do want to do research in the area of midwifery, so this is a first step. I plan to take it slow and let myself be immersed in it. I am hoping this also fulfils part of what I mention above regarding connecting with other midwives.
  • Continue my support of and contribution to the Australian College of Midwives as my national peak body.
  • Go to the ACM National Conference, it’s as much about learning and growing as it is connecting with other midwives. It fills my bucket.

Self Care

  • Continue prioritising the things for my physical and mental health. I am lucky that I have health professionals I trust to work with on this and this is already something that’s in progress, it just deserves its own dot point in my opinion.
  • Continue to practice relaxing and letting myself have down time without worry or fear. Let myself have fun just for its own sake. This is just habit rewiring, it wasn’t really possible for a long time and so now it’s something I struggle with.
  • Play the video games I want to play, and watch the television and movies I want to watch.
  • Go to the cinema for the immersive experience that turns your brain off.
  • Maintain sleep hygiene stuff so that sleep remains a priority. Obviously as a shift worker my hygiene is mixed, but I do my best to support something of a routine way of handling the changes.

Reading

  • I want to read more books than I read last year, I didn’t set an ambitious overall reading goal though. I am aiming for 50 books and I hope I beat it hand over fist.
  • I’m also pledging to do the Australian Women Writers Challenge again in 2019. I just enjoy this challenge a whole lot. I’m going to pledge at the Franklin level, to read 10 and review 6. I hope I exceed this too.
Australian Women Writers Challenge badge for 2019, forest green background with black silhouette of a woman in a hat in a frock with an umbrella. White text overlaying with the title of the challenge.
  • I am also doing Beat the Backlist again, because my TBR list that I regularly prune is still over 600 books. So, reading the books I already want to read, that’s the plan.
  • I still want to increase the areas of diversity I’m reading in, more queer writers, more non-white writers, more writers who are disabled or neurodivergent.
Coloured books in the background with banner text white on black background 'Beat the Backlist'

Dining Out and Cooking

Dining Out is one of the hobbies that I started to develop last year but I think I want to highlight it a bit more. It’s a hobby Fox and I share, also something my girlfriend Omega and I share. Additionally, it’s something I’ve always enjoyed but it also will tie into self care and having fun for the sake of it. I want to try new restaurants and maybe even review them. Mostly I just want to explore all the amazing food that other people are making.

That’s because cooking is a hard one for me at the moment. I feel like I’m burned out on cooking as well because of how it was so critical in recent years. Meal planning and being frugal were absolutely necessary. And I got extremely good at using food creatively and cooking amazing meals that helped us to get by, not *feeling* like we were missing out while we had so little income. It worked really well, but as a result of doing it full tilt for a few years, I need a break so I’ve been doing a lot less of the style of cooking I’m most used to and comfortable with.

I still do it, this week I made an amazing carrot cake decorated like a fox face! But it’s more sporadic rather than being a cornerstone of my days and weeks.

A fluffy looking cake of a Fox face with icing ears stuck on and orange icing, black detailing and white cut outs. Background is rainbow fabric.

So any dot points for these items?

  • Try new restaurants, including fancy fine dining and casual dining.
  • Try to attend one of the one-off dining events that happen every so often.
  • Go to a degustation event.
  • Continue to cook what I want and when I want, try not to let obligation or duty dictate things too much.
  • Continue to teach Fox to cook and encourage him to build confidence here, but also mindful of his burn out too.
  • Join in some of the months of the Food 52 Cookbook Club, it was fun for the couple of times I joined in last year and I loved the focus on a single cookbook in the company of others.

Travel

  • Do some mini weekend trips with Fox to Victoria as whimsical escapes – like wineries and bed and breakfasts, trips to the south coast.
  • The big ticket item is that we’re planning on a trip to Germany in July, it will be my first overseas trip and I’m ridiculously excited. Not sure that I’ll get in any other countries this time around, but travel is a long term thing that Fox and I both want to do more of together.

So 2019 is about embracing the plateau as a useful way to move forward, while seeing where you’ve come from, and taking care of yourself while growing and changing. Here’s to the new year, a new theme, and the best hashtag about those I’ve come across: #twenty-nice-teen.

Reading Goals for 2018

Once again it’s time to talk about reading goals, this time for the year ahead. Reading is such a huge part of my life that I’m glad that it get specific focus in my rituals for the new year.  I’m refining and simplifying my goals from the outlandish goals I set out last year.

2017 was a year of comfort reading – there was so much going on and fluff was all I could handle. In lots of ways that’s still true, but I am also hoping that I feel resilient enough in myself again as the year progresses to read more outside my comfort zone, and challenge myself. That said, reading is my haven and one of the things I do for self-care and to take time for myself so I am going to continue in the same trend as last year and use these goals as things to reach for, but not beat myself with.

Overall reading goal

Orange-red banner image with picture of a book in white and the text 2018 Goodreads Reading ChallengeOnce again I’m using the Goodreads Reading Challenge to track this, and this year I’m aiming higher than previous years for 101 books. It’s ambitious, but I am hopeful that having finished my degree I’ll have more time and space for reading for fun. I’m really uncertain whether I can manage this many books in a year, especially going into my Grad Year for midwifery – but nothing ventured, nothing gained! I’m excited to try!

The other thing I’d like to revisit is going back to doing my series on Retro Fiction Reviews – reviews of books focusing on books by women, people of colour, and from a queer or otherwise diverse background, and that are 10 or more years older than the current publishing year. I didn’t get very far on this way back when I started it, but I’ve got more practice reviewing now so hopefully that stands me in good stead.

Australian Women Writers Challenge

Silhouette of a woman with an umbrella black on a rose background with text Australian Women Writers Challenge 2018Once again I’m throwing my hat into this challenge, I really love it and that it keeps me engaged with and reading new work by Australian writers, particularly women. This year I’m choosing my own level again and I’m going with my previous challenge of read and review 15 books.

In 2018 I’d really like to make sure they include some works by Indigenous and non-white authors, and works telling stories about diverse characters too. Hopefully I’ll be more successful with this – I earmarked a bunch of books last year already, so now to actually go forth and read them. I also want to finish reading through my Twelve Planets project if possible.

Bookclubs and Discussions

I also want to continue enjoying the challenges and discussions put forward by the Goodreads Reading Challenge book club, I really enjoy them and they prompt me to think of my TBR in different ways. Or to consider books I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. The year long challenge I’ve signed up for is the Clear the Shelves 2018 Challenge – my twist on it is that I’m focusing on clearing my TBR rather than not buying/acquiring books. My plan is to essentially follow the same guideline of reading 5 books on my TBR prior to 1st January 2018 for every book added on or after that date. There’s also buddy reads and monthly and quarterly challenges I’ll be participating in.

I didn’t get to do any real participation with the Vaginal Fantasy or Sword and Laser book clubs last year, but I’m hoping this year that will be more possible. Basically if the books look interesting to me I’ll join in, but it’s all bonus and nice to enjoy, rather than a specific imperative.

Bout of Books

Bout of Books button with determined woman in yellow looking tired and surrounded by books.I’m going to participate in Bout of Books 21! I enjoyed doing it in January last year and I’m excited to join in again. I had a lot of fun doing it last year and I could use something to get my reading momentum going and to distract me. If you’re interested in a fun, but low stress readathon with lots of participation interaction, this is a great one to join in with. Feel free to sign up on the Bout of Books blog if this sounds like your jam!

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 8th and runs through Sunday, January 14th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 21 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team


Edited to add a new year long challenge!

Beat the Backlist

A pile of books with one opened and the text "Show your TBR who's boss. 2018 Reading Challenge"I only came across Beat the Backlist #beatthebacklist after I posted my reading goals for the year, but this particular challenge fall into line with another challenge I’m doing. Two methods of participation and accountability are better than one right? My pledge for clearing my TBR is 50 books in 2018 (40 ebook and 10 physical) – so I’m going to use this challenge to help me with that too. I’m also going to see how I go using my instagram @transcendancing to participate. This looks like heaps of fun! I’m not going to pledge to complete any of the other challenges, that will be a happy bonus if it happens. I’m already planning to do reviews of some kind for most of what I read anyway so these align directly with Beat the Backlist and I can piggy-back happily.