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The Best of all possible worlds
I met Indydreaming/Jayne Kearney at a Lunatics Society of Newcastle event in June 2010. Jayne is a Newcastle NSW writer, blogger, tweep was one of the panellists on the topic of social media for business.
Jayne started blogging for WebChild one of the first online parenting websites I visited. Jayne is now the editor of Sunny Days a parenting newspaper in Newcastle with a circulation of about 20.000. She has also done a stint on The Punch.
In November 2009 Jayne started her own blog Indydreaming and includes two main passions; her family and her writing. Jayne is a fantastic and observant storyteller.
On the one hand she writes that it is sad that kids have to grow up and that we have to say goodbye but accepts there is a paradox “…it’s also incredibly joyous to watch kids blossom. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to fall in love with the continuous emergence of the people I know as my children.”
“Motherhood – The Greatest Gift of All”
Jayne blogs about writing a novel. She acknowledges she has the seed to write but knows she needs the time to write. She has the first sentence and knows how it ends. Possibly, there is a more of the story still to happen.
- Social Media and Alcohol
- Stumble is beer. It makes you feel like crap.
- Facebook is white wine (occasionally it’s French champagne – but not very often)
- Blogging is red wine – quality dependent on the vintage. The vintages I like can be seen to the right.
- And Twitter – for me at least – is like your favourite cocktail mixed to your own personal specifications. That would make mine a French Martini.”
More on her love of Twitterverse, Tweeps and writing can be heard on 1233 ABC Newcastle radio with Carol Duncan. Below is a snapshot of that interview.
- Twitter is a way to reach out to a network without leaving the home/office.
- Jayne decided at 4 years she wanted to write.
- She went into communications at uni and specialised in print publishing.
- Unfortunately she lost her daughter Sienna 4 years ago. And has written about it and her miscarriages to help get over the pain. Also to share, speak and be heard.
- Being a parent she says had helped her get her ideas to write her blog. “Parenting has helped me find my voice”. Her blog posts has received not so pretty comments which hurts “But it gets you back up on your horse with a sword”.
Life has its up and downs and so do house renovations. But “Don’t mention the ‘decorating feature’.” “And secondly (and most importantly), plumbers are, quite simply, gods.” Her family lived without a kitchen, bathroom, laundry and running water at times.
She has written a lot of the changes in her family and writes a very personal piece about her mum. “I was 20 when my mother became permanently disabled. One December Saturday the line between parent and child became blurred. It’s a challenge many of us will face – how do I parent my parents?”
She is very candid and a bit tough on herself at times, I think. “I can’t play with my kids. Not something you want to admit at mother’s group, but there it is.” The replies to her blog show that she is not alone. We can’t be good at everything.
There are bloggers and authors like Kylie Ladd who Jayne says have inspired her. “A couple of years ago I started following Kylie’s weekly blog on Web Child. It was around the time that I was making moves towards writing seriously myself. ”
Not only are other bloggers inspiration to her, but so are her children. They too are her teachers.
Pondering over her makeup prior to having a family photograph taken, Indy, Jayne’s daughter says “Mummy, you always look beautiful – even without make-up.” At this stage the cockles of my heart were warmed but my inner cynic was still scoffing. However, the defining moment was yet to come. Indy continued, “But,” she said as she snuggled in closer , “Maybe you should wear some make-up for the photos – other people mightn’t see you the way I see you.”
Zoe Taylor’s book Pregnancy Loss: Surviving Miscarriage and Stillbirth spurred four blog postings. I was totally drawn in. It was pure emotional whiplash for me reading as well for Jayne writing. Jayne at one point reflects about her husband Luke “His presence was another reminder that, when it comes to babies – including babyloss – it is always, always about two people.”
Kids always have an innocent take on life and sex. “Luke and I saw fit to use a story about how the daddy has a seed which he puts inside the mummy where it grows into a baby – just like a tree.”… “Both kids accepted this version of events which was a relief because I had heard a story about a mum who had told her little one a similar story only to be asked, “But how does Daddy get the seed in? Does he have a magic wand?” Well, yes, he’d like to think so!”
“But how did it get there?” four-year-old Indy wanted to know….. “Remember how we told you the story about how the daddy puts a seed in the mummy and it grows into a baby? Well that’s what Daddy did to Mummy.”
“Oh,” she said, her crestfallen face accompanied by a tone of frustration and dismay, “I wanted to watch!”
“Speechless doesn’t even come close.”
In a blog posting sometime later about writing a novel Jayne writes “It’s all fun and games calling yourself ‘a writer’ until someone says, ‘how’s the novel’s going’. Then it just sucks. It’s time I pulled my finger out.”
Jayne started her Masters in Creative Writing and then put herself in Twitter rehab to get the writing rolling. One of the first pieces she share on her blog is a piece about her childhood “…if I want to be a fair dinkum writer, I think I have to try to find some of that emotional truth. To occasionally reveal the wound, raw and weeping, before I put it away again.” Again, well written but a very sad story.
June was a quiet blogging month and in July there was some sole searching. Jayne decided to put aside her half planned manuscript (for now), back away from the Twitter tribe “…to take leave of absence from Uni; as I say goodbye…”
“My grief isn’t done yet. But one day it will be. And then, maybe then, it will be my time once again. Time to work. Time to write…”
Wanting more time to spend with her family she blogs “As my lovely children watched me struggle they have displayed humility, courage, bravery, compassion, empathy, a sense of justice and, most of all, love.”
“They are twenty nine thousand shades of awesome. And I’m proud to say I made them.
As they reflect back at me the things I tried to instill in them during their early years I think that maybe I’m not a complete #fail.”
“But, in the struggle to have it all, sometimes something’s gotta give in the best of all possible worlds.”
I like others, admire your bravery, raw honesty and your personal quest for self truth. Take your time to regain and regroup. Jayne I thank you for sharing your stories of life thus far, look forward to the next chapters…in the best of possible worlds.
- Indydreaming
- Indydreaming/Jayne Kearney on Twitter
- Lunatics Society of Newcastle
- Sunny Days
- WebChild
AU Mummy Bloggers 