Follow my Tweets
Review: Life without limits
Vujicic, Nick, 2011. Life without limits: how to live a ridiculously good life. Crows Nest, Allen & Unwin.
This book was an impulse buy. I hadn’t set out to buy it but don’t regret for one moment having spent the money. Only the night before ‘chancing’ upon the book I had seen Nick interviewed on television. I’d seen him previously on a video shown at church. This impressive young has achieved so much in his colourful life. His testimony in his book about life, dealing with life’s challenges and the role of faith in God in all that is inspirational and one of those ‘Must Read” books.
So what makes Nick different from all those other inspirational writers?
He was born without limbs.
No arms, no legs, no worries. That’s his motto. By trusting in God – and through dogged persistence and effort on his part, he has overcome most obstacles in life – and then some. Nothing seems too hard for him. He has learned to swim – yes, without arms and legs – learned to care for himself, to surf, scuba dive, skateboard and much more.
He has learned how to become a successful international motivational speaker and preacher, how to raise heaps of money – and give it away – and how to have a zany sense of humour in all the challenges life has thrown at him. And he comes up smiling every time.
Truly humbling, amazingly inspiring.
Do yourself a favour and go out and buy this book; it will change your life.
An inspirational effort
I don’t get too many opportunities to watch sport on television these days but when I do I am often inspired by the efforts of elite athletes.
Over the last week I have been watching the television coverage of some of the events in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. These games, like the Olympics, are held every four years in a country belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations. The countries involved include Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and many of the other countries that once made up the British Empire. The Commonwealth Games are often referred to as The Friendly Games with a much more relaxed approach to the event. Competition in the field and pool are still fiercely competitive despite this friendliness, and many records, including world records, are broken.
It is pleasing to me that a country like Australia with a relatively small population base does so well in these and other games. During the last Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 Australian athletes won more gold medals than the next four best countries combined. The trend this time is going the same way again though host nation India is having a big impact on the results.
During any games events there are many outstanding athletic achievements. Several competitors have already gained three or four gold medals with still five days of competition to go. One effort, however, stands out for me. Australian swimmer Ben Austin is not a household name even here in Australia. A few days ago he won a gold medal in the 100 meter freestyle event. His time would have won every gold medal in this event up to the 1974 Commonwealth Games.
So what, you ask?
Ben happens to have only one arm.
Ben swims in the EAD events. EAD stands for Elite Athletes with a Disability. His classification is S8 (above elbow amputee). His times are not all that far behind swimmers with two arms. What an achievement. And how inspirational is that achievement?
What has this got to do with writing? Too often writers - me included – grumble when things go wrong, a story is not developing as we’d like it, we have a headache, a poem gets rejected by a publisher or some other minor inconvenience and we feel like giving up. It is times like this we need to remember the Bens of this world. He has achieved great things despite having only one arm. And what about the swimmer in the last Paralympics who won the hearts of so many because he swam the length of the pool with NO arms?
Don’t give up – Good writing.
Inspiration and writing
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
From where for you draw your inspiration as a writer?
I guess there are as many answers to that question as there are writers! It always intrigues me when writers say that they don’t know what to write about. I rarely have that problem. I can see ideas for writing all around: in the every day events of life, in the experiences of life, in the environment, in the fascinating people we come into contact with daily, in the newspapers, in things we read, in films, television programmes and so on and so on. So writers just need to open their eyes to the whole world of ideas for writing out there just waiting for a poem, a story, an article or an essay to be written.
In recent weeks I have written about my impressions of attending this year’s Adelaide Writers’ Week held as a part of the current Festival of Arts. During one of the sessions I couldn’t find a seat in the big marquee, so I sat in the shade of one of the beautiful trees which are a feature of the Women’s Pioneer Memorial Gardens where the sessions were held. It was a lovely day: bright sunshine, not too hot, gentle breeze and wonderful speakers to enlighten and entertain us.
I looked up into the trees above.
Beautiful.
I just had to take several photos to share with you here. I will use these photos, and the wonderful setting, as inspiration for some writing. The only problem now is to decide whether I write an article, a short story, a poem – perhaps a beautiful sonnet – or a blog post about those lovely trees, the sunshine filtering softly through the leaves, the birds singing overhead in the branches or some other response.
Be inspired – and use that for good writing.
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
Adelaide Writers' Week 2010, Pioneer Women's Memorial Gardens
Writing when you don’t feel like it
Last year I bought a copy of the Garry Disher book called Writing Fiction: an introduction to the craft. It was the required text for the fiction writing unit in my Master of Arts course.
As I read the first chapter I underlined the following: ‘…new writers… believe that the best writing grows out of powerful feelings and intense passion.’ (Disher, 2001, p.5) While this can be true I have found that it is not always the case. Sure, intensely experienced life events can be a wonderful source of writing inspiration, but if that is all we had to write about we’d never have much to say. Most of us lead such deadly dull and boring lives that we should restrained from hoisting that on our readers.
Disher goes on to say that ‘even the most mundane incident, can give rise to a story or novel, and the best writing and creative insights often come from writing calmly and with detachment… day after day. Don’t sit and wait. Start writing, and write regularly – for the practice, and to find what it is you want to say.’ This has been another benefit of doing this and other writing units in my course; the regular enforced writing exercises and the requirement to hand up finished works.
While it is writing under intense pressure at times, I believe that it is excellent discipline for the aspiring writer. To succeed, the aspiring writer must become a perspiring writer. Over the last three years I have, in part, developed the skill of writing on demand. This was in relation to my blogging. I set myself the difficult task of writing – on average – three articles of 300 – 400 words each per day. I haven’t succeeded entirely, especially last year while studying, but I came close to it before commencing the course. I have learned to very quickly come up with ideas, plan and then write rapidly. The more I’ve done the less editing and rewriting is required, so my skills are definitely developing.
Later in the chapter he says: ‘It’s pointless to wait for inspiration… Write whether you feel like it or not.’ (Disher, 2001, p. 12-13) He suggests setting definite goals with writing, say a 1000 words per day. When I was blogging solidly over recent years I had goals for each day regarding word count, number of hours of writing, number of articles written. I also had weekly, monthly and annual goals. All that discipline has helped me during my year of study and will be of great help in coming years as a writer - especially if I ever have looming publisher deadlines.
Good writing.
Reference:
Disher, G, 2001, Writing Fiction: an introduction to the craft. Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest.