Leanne Margaret

Numbers are predicable, sequential, repeatable, spiritual. They show us where we are is this great cosmic cycle of creative life. If you're familiar with numerology, you can predict major life changes and opportunities for growth. I count on the information it provides to help me to accept the things I cannot change and to grant me the courage to change what I can – at the right time. If you know about numerology, you'll know that 2025 has been a 9 year (Y9); that is, 2+0+2+5=9. Some people (me) have experienced a personal Y9 as well, making it a double Y9. If your birth number is also a 9, you'll have experienced a triple Y9, and I feel for you! Don't worry, it's nearly over. My birthday is tomorrow, 25/12/2025. To figure out my personal year number, I add 2+5+1+2+2+0+2+5=19, which is then reduced to a single digit by adding 1+9=10. The final digit, after adding 1+0=1. This means I am pleased to be moving into my Y1, as of tomorrow.  Things come to an end in Y9, re...

Today's post comes to you from an hour hauled from my overstuffed schedule. This year, I've tried to do it all: continue reweaving the tenth draft of my memoir, create writing class content, teach two writing classes at Coonara Community House , and teach a Majickal Bellydance class at Dashanti Yoga . And I have managed it all, except – if you're a writer you've probably guessed – the memoir almost slipped from the edges of my rapidly spinning world. But I grabbed it in time, by setting a deadline. Then I realised that if I wanted to meet the deadline I'd set with a writing mentor, something had to be compromised.  This means I'll be taking a little sabbatical from teaching Majickal Bellydance . I'll be back – I always come back. I've returned from several 'retirements.' So with that knowledge, the door isn't locked, just closed for a little while.  If you're a writer, you will know that writing a book takes enormous mental focus – free ...

Do you struggle to work to a daily routine? Me too.  No matter how hard I try to get up, get organised, and get to my computer by 10am, I just can't seem to stay consistent.  Over time, I've noticed that the creative work cycle is different to the nine-to-five work cycle. It breathes with its own rhythm of intense creativity, followed by intense periods of rest and reflection.  This is the cycle of nature, as natural as the bodies that we haul to our computers. The flower doesn't flower every single day, but in an intense burst of creativity, then rest.  Plants and animals rest. Nature rests. We are nature. Knowing this cycle helps me to use my energy in the most efficient way. I've learnt that trying to work when it's time to rest isn't the best use of my precious time. I've learnt to develop rest strategies. When I can't get another word onto the page, it's time to put words back in. This might mean catching up with friends, reading, music or TV. S...

Introduction to Structured Poetry When I was a young writer, structured poetry didn't appeal to me. I was too busy getting the passion onto the page to stop and craft those words into a meaningful structure. But in 2011, a writing teacher introduced me to the idea of poetry structure. For six months, a group of Yarra Ranges writing students picked apart their work and put it back together again; into a range of poetry styles. I've always enjoyed rhyme, but I didn't think I'd appreciate being told how to order my lines.  But instead of being eye-rolling bored, I felt refreshed by the content. It gave me additional ways to express my words; that, to my surprise, I found intriguing rather than tedious. Since that course, I've written poetry in a range of styles – many of them made up – but I often come back to the villanelle poem. The villanelle is sometimes known as a villanesqe poem, and is of French origin. It is a six stanza poem of nineteen lines, divided into fiv...

There's nothing like a shiny new project to fire me up, and you're looking at the header design for my new newsletter. Every day I brace myself, ready to trawl through my email inbox – hoping to delete as many as possible, knowing that each one has the potential to leech away my writing time. Is it an introvert thing that I find it so difficult? I want to spend my days escaping into books, poems and manuscripts. Didn't I escape the admin when I fled my last office job? Nope, admin is everywhere. So the last thing I want to do is fill up people's inboxes with: more things to tick off, more things to read, more things to do, more things to manage, more. And yet I have. The first edition went out in summer. I'm entertaining the idea that perhaps not everyone is as overwhelmed with their to-do lists as I am. And another idea I'm willing to consider, is that people have just as much work to do as I do – in all likelihood much, much more – but they're just not let...

Anyone who has written a book knows, it can take years. The gratification is so delayed that sometimes the end goal seems too far away to possibly reach. During my early book writing years, I applied intense focus to get the work done. It worked for me, and I self-published two books in three years. But my third book has been more painstaking. I've been 'focussing' on it for almost five years. If I didn't have something else to do, I'd go mad. So three years ago, I set a smaller goal. I joined Writers Victoria , and decided I'd like to be published in their member magazine, The Victorian Writer. I didn't send a hundred submissions, as I didn't really have the time away from book writing to create new pieces of work. So I watched and waited for the right theme. Eventually a theme popped up that reflected a moment in my already written memoir draft. After five years of working on the memoir, it was time to start making the memoir work for me. It was only 1...