Tag: writing

Top of the World

On By taniacreationsIn roaming the earthLeave a comment

I’m at the top of the world. At least what I was told is the highest restaurant in Australia, The Eagle’s Nest, after taking the Kosciuszko Express lift in Thredbo. It definitely feels like the top of the world.Since my legs aren’t very happy to ski this morning, I have decided to come to do something else I love doing…

Eagles Nest

I came to the mountains to ski, but my very-advanced-beginners level is letting me down today and I’m not even reaching an intermediate-beginners level. I feel tired with muscles screaming. It might be because I’m not very fit this year or maybe it has to do with sharing a room with 4 people, who took forever to go to bed yesterday, after a long drive from Sydney meaning I went to sleep almost 3am. Then a $ˆ#ing phone rang three times between then and 5am. The very unconsidered person did not turn the phone off even after I asked her to.

It is difficult to go back to sleep because you keep thinking “in which world, does this person thinks this is okay?” We all had to wake up early to get breakfast, ski gear and passes, before seven I was up with a headache. I’ve upgraded for tonight to a very single, wonderful, phone-ringing-and-conversation free room.

I have decided to make the best of it, and here I am looking out, seeing brown mountains contrasting with very white snow. Rocks that look like dinosaur droppings, but pretty nonetheless.
I just heard one of the waitresses talking to the other:

‘Did you bring your board?’

‘Yeah’

‘When you finish do you wanna go down?’

Meaning, after work they snow-board mountain down. How cool is that?


Like one of my gurus say, this is living the life of my dreams to the degree that I can.

It did not start as fancy stuff, it is a backpacker’s trip, but can it get any better? Writing with mountain views, eating the best wine garlic prawns ever, and knowing I will even sleep tonight?
This place has a cinnamon smell and offers hot chocolate with Baileys. Guess what I will order next?
I can say with my whole heart, head and body into it: I’m happy.

Simply Gerva, an Australian-Brazilian Romance

On By taniacreationsIn booksLeave a comment

Simplesmente Gerva is my second self-published book at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil. It is a fictional romance which was created in a very interesting way. I met another Brazilian writer and we decided, almost as a joke, to write a book in collaboration. The idea was that I would write a part and send to my co-author, then he would continue the story as he saw fit and send it back to me.

Capa Simplesmente Gerva

It took us months, I spent time in Brazil, then he moved to Perth, then he went to Brazil, I came back, and we kept writing.

We never knew what was going to happen, we had no plan for the story, what moved us forward was the character, Gerva. The end result was quite difficult to polish because of this structure but the writing was a great pleasure.

Unfortunately, it is not translatable, there are so many cultural references that it would become very strange if attempted in another Language.

Gerva is a typical Brazilian guy, with his forró dancing, his sensuality and flexibility in life. He meets a Brazilian muse and an Australian girl and with them lives many adventures.

I am in the process of writing the second book of the series, a continuation of this first story. Although my co-author lost interest in the project I am committed to the same process as observed in the first book: writing without knowing where the character will take me.

If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:

You can read Kindle books in any device.

The Technique

On By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

I write using the many parts of myself. I write using both my home language, Portuguese, and my adopted language, the one of my fantasies and dreams, English. One day I may write in French, who knows. I write using the young me that lives inside and the older one. The wise and the silly. I write using my South American style, some fantastic reality, chopping off sentences (see the one just before) while writing really long paragraphs in other times.

I write with my own sense of fun, my original abilities and I have upgraded my technique with a Masters degree in Arts – Creative Writing from UTS. I am far from a literary writer, (as far as I can, actually), I aim to write in a straightforward way in plain English (or plain Portuguese, from Brazil). This was not without challenges during my studies, it was difficult to separate what was valid feedback on my style and what was my own Brazilian flavour, or what was because of the simplicity in the style. I guess I am still searching for this distinction.

I write following mostly the inspiration and the voice I found when I was seventeen, but try to give it a bit more style and maturity. I keep honing the knowledge, keep reading, listening and viewing anything that will enrich and feed my writing.

What do you Write?

On By taniacreationsIn what1 Comment

Whenever I tell someone that writing is my passion they come up with the difficult question ‘what do you write?’.

‘I write letters in a blank page’ doesn’t really explain, does it?

What I do is creative writing, short stories, blogs or novels. No poetry, no journalistic pieces. I write fiction and non-fiction, although my non-fiction reads like fiction. I love writing with humour but I also get into deep depressing stories and tales, at times.

My main subjects are day-to-day adventures and relationships. I like romance.

I would probably say that there is an element of sensuality in my writing. I am an kinaesthetic person and movement of bodies attract me even in bi-dimensional black and white letters.

I write anything that inspires me.

The Tools

On By taniacreationsIn howLeave a comment

At the moment, I have 3 loves-of-my-life (how do you pluralise such a word?):

1) my computer — where all my ideas are stored. A present from my parents, the best ever. My lovely MacBook Air, that is the size and lightness of an ipad, with a phenomenal, smooth keypad, from a company that is aligned to my own values: creativity, design, beauty, sensuality (yes, the mac has a sensual design) and agility. I can carry it everywhere and write anywhere, and it has another love-of-my-life in it: the software for writing…

2) my scrivener — the discovery that changed my writing life. It made it very easy to keep all my ideas organised. It is also perfect for compiling projects. When creating a book you can keep the ideas for the chapters organised and then go into each part and just fill it with the actual writing. Next you are able to move the parts around, keep notes, research items, etc. Finally it exports to many formats including most, if not all, e-book publishing formats. Love, love, love it!

3) my nespresso — the food, albeit a drink, for my thoughts. With which I create magical Moccas with melted chocolate that energise my ideas. Another gift from my parents and my sister.

The WordPress in my Mind

On By taniacreationsIn whyLeave a comment

I write because I do it anyway, even without pen and paper, or without a computer. In my head I write all the time, for everything that happens around me I create an entry in my imaginary post. I even speak as I write sometimes and the thing that would give me the biggest grief would be to be made to stop writing.

I have created stories about what would happen to me if I was made to stop writing or if I didn’t have the means to do it. In which situation would you not have access to writing? And then, what would you do?

I would go insane because when I need writing something, it enters a loop in my head and I repeat the tale over and over in my head — the dialogues or the paragraphs — until I can sit down and ‘download’ them.

If I had no access to a computer, or to pen and paper, I would have to remember everything my experiences are creating… I guess my memory would expand and so would my despair.

The Positive Narrative

On By taniacreationsIn whyLeave a comment

Searching for the reasons why I feel my writing is as essential as breathing for me, I looked at what I like in life.

I have a passion for narratives, tales, characters. In books and films, give me stories I can follow, give me well constructed characters. Give me profundity of personality and longer accounts. I love reading and watching TV series and movies; I love talking to my friends and following their lives and my favourite subjects are relationships and discussing the intricacies of how the world works.

Following that logic, I have discovered that I write to be part of the construction of people’s narratives, to influence (even if it happens to be in a small way) their choices and fate.

A fuzziness invades me every time I hear someone laughing at something I wrote, or when they say that something I created influenced their lives in a good way. I write to promote positive change and accept that sometimes it can be seen in a negative light.

I know, from experience, that changing the path of our lives is very difficult and I wish to share my stories to help creating courage in my readers to change when necessary and always move forward in their own lives.

Improvising & Dancing With the Stars Appearances at SSC 2009

On By taniacreationsIn Orble Post, The Dancing BugLeave a comment

The Sydney Salsa Congress is a place so special the guests feel free and inspired to do great things on stage.

Kim, Alex, Jaime, Zoe & Dave backstage at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009

Alex & Kim, Dave & Zoe felt inspired to improvise a show together. I thought the seriousness of performing was suddenly lifted from stage and we were seeing things that were not quite possible.

It was a game, with each couple showing off to the other, exchanging partners midair, each of the guys carrying both ladies over their shoulders as if they weighted nothing. You could see the show was more an improvisation than something rehearsed over and over and even though the tricks were ridiculously incredible, I got the feeling as if I was dreaming. 

After the shows I heard Alex saying to Jaime that it was so good, that it was great that the congress gave them the chance to have that much fun on stage, for them to meet as they would never get to meet anywhere else.

You see Dave and Zoe are not Salsa dancers and Alex and Kim are, normally they wouldn’t know about each others’ existence and here they were, showing us what “amazing” really is. 

Johnny Vasquez is always a party just by himself.

It’s a bit of a hazard to give him the Microphone, he looooves to talk. But he does well and from his hello to his singing and dancing you smile and laugh the whole time. He sang and danced on Saturday and Sunday and on the closing of the congress he made us sing my favourite salsa song, Baila Rumbero, it was the first time I saw the artists applauding the crowd.

Then he and Ramon Morales danced for a few bars with each other, and those moments are branded in my memory.

The words that came to my mind seeing them dancing were: “Puro Sangue” as in “Pure Blood” not trying to offend anyone that is not a born Latino, it’s just that those two were probably dancing in the womb.

Their genes must have been turning around each other in spins not spirals!

The sperm that made each of them was swimming and singing:

‘baila, baila, one, two, three; five, six, seven… Now on2!’ As they were swimming up towards the egg.

We have even drawn some famous TV figures to the crowd; that is because we have them on stage…

Luda Kroitor was performing with Oliver Pineda, five times Salsa World Champions so her TV partner and winner, Luke Jacobz, from Dancing With the Stars, (reality TV Show) came to watch her shine at The Sydney Salsa Congress. 

Charlie Delaney was also watching her Dancing with the Stars partner, Csaba Szirmai who was performing with Vali Damaskou. They were very graceful and smiling guests.

19 Orble Votes

Dance of Life

On By taniacreationsIn Orble Post, The Dancing Bug1 Comment

The other day my friend saved my life when she compared my job with a partnered dance.

‘Imagine your boss is your dance partner, and for the time being he is the leader. While the music is playing your best chance of enjoyment is relaxing into that leadership and following.’

It is very easy to follow a great leader.

But if the guy is a bad dancer, you may be in for a challenge.

You may have to step with him rather than with the rhythm of the music, endure his silly pa‐pa‐pa singing completely out of tune with the song; stop when you should move, turn to the other side, be kind to yourself when you make many mistakes and step on other peoples’ feet and, most of all, understand you will have your limits and sometimes you will say ‘NO, I won’t dip as you want because I feel that I am going to fall’.

Sometimes working is exactly like that. The best thing to do is relax as much as you can, follow the leader while the music is on, or until you reach your limit, find something to enjoy about that moment, and try not to get stuck in the sense that you should be doing something else (like sticking to the rhythm of the music).

Thinking about this, I have come to the realisation that this advice is valid for life in general.

You won’t have amazing dance partners every day, actually most of the time you will be thrown into the strange dances of the day to day life, with the girl who is preparing your coffee, the life partner, the children, the employers and the employees, and if you relax into the leadership of fate or reality, you will have a better time than resisting the movements of life.

When you resist the bad dancer, you end up in a war… it’s not worth it.

18 Orble Votes

Directly from the Bachata-Me Dancefloor

On By taniacreationsIn Orble Post, The Dancing BugLeave a comment

It has been a while, since I danced and even longer since I posted a Dancing Bug piece.

I’m excited about both. I’m here at City Tattersals waiting for the Bachata Month to start.

With the first party to mark the official countdown to the Sydney International Bachata Festival. 

The deliciously tacky bachata music is one-two-three-fouring louder and louder.

“Te aaaamooo” sings the song.

The first couples are venturing onto the dance floor and I’m on the sideline typing as quickly as I too, can be free to Bachata the night away.

There is some excitement, the feeling that reminds me of a time when I was starting to venture into the Latin dancing world. Finding my dancing feet, my heels’ balance, recovering my life’s passion for dancing. And for the first time learning that dance can encompass sensuality too. Discovering the perfection of moving in unison with a partner…

I hope this is a special night. I’ll will pray to the Goddess of Dance & Fun that a lot of guys ask me to dance, and at least one dance tonight is one of those that go into my own personal hall of fame, those that fill your mind and you keep dancing for years hoping for another one like that.

27 Orble Votes