~ Written by Danielle N. Bilski ~

Rest in peace Great Uncle Fred
1917 – 2011
Sometimes there are just no words; only silence for the loss. May you know your family loves you very much and let you rest in peace now, in our minds and hearts forever xx

A family member passed away on Saturday morning and I remember after I found out I went outside, looked up into the sky, closed my eyes and took a deep breath in. He was 93 years old and three weeks ago had gone into hospital. Our extended family had been warned that he didn’t have much time left. His daughter, his only child along with his two grandchildren, cared from him at home until the very end and now he is in a better place where he may finally rest in peace. It is always sad to lose a loved one. I didn’t know him very well, but I called my Nana straight away to give my condolences for the loss of her brother. That day I had an overwhelming awareness of the energy around me. I spent the afternoon outside with my dog, enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

On Sunday, an ambiguous word/name popped into my head and at the time I had no idea why.

The word:

McClelland

First appearance of the word: Sunday 13th February, 2011 in my mind – no conscious trigger

On Sunday I was sitting on the couch watching TV, I had my notebook with me and I was thinking about ‘My Time with You’. Suddenly the name McClelland popped into my head. I have no idea why this word or name came into my mind. I don’t recall hearing it or seeing it any time prior to thinking it last Sunday.

Second appearance: Tuesday 15th February, 2011 – seen as a street name on a letterbox in the background of a movie scene.

To see the word McClelland Road printed on a letterbox in the background of a movie I was watching on TV two days later made it clear to me that it was something I shouldn’t ignore. The movie was, don’t laugh, ‘The Baby Sitters Club’ (1995) which I had chosen to watch because of the inspiration it gave me as a child growing up in the 1990s. In a scene where Kristy Thomas played by Schuyler Fisk arrives home with her friend Mary Anne (Rachael Leigh Cook) and Kristy’s her father is waiting in his van out the front of her house, in one shot Kristy stands in front of her letterbox and ‘McClelland Road’ is clearly printed on it.

On Wednesday 16th February, 2011 I Googled ‘McClelland’ and it came up with a Wikipedia link to David C. McClelland who was a US psychological theorist (1917 – 1998) who is ‘noted for his work on achievement motivation and published works from 1950s until 1990s and developed new scoring systems for the Thematic Apperception Test and its descendants.’ ( David McClelland, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McClelland, accessed 16th February, 2011).

I followed an in text link to achievement motivation and it lead me to a page title ‘Need for achievement’. (Need for achievement, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_achievement, accessed 16th February, 2011).

‘Need for Achievement (N-Ach) refers to an individual’s desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards… “intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult. To work with singleness of purpose towards a high and distant goal. To have the determination to win” (p164). The concept of NAch was subsequently popularised by the psychologist David McClelland.’ (Need for achievement, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_achievement, accessed 16th February, 2011).

It continues on to say that ‘an important corollary is that there is no point in trying to assess people’s abilities without first finding out what they care about. So one cannot (as some psychometricians try to do) assess such things as “creativity” in any general sense. One has always to ask “creativity in relation to what?” So McClelland’s measures, originally presented as means of assessing “personality”, are best understood as means of measuring competence in ways which break radically with traditional psychometric approaches.’ (Need for achievement, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_achievement, accessed 16th February, 2011).

After Googling the name on Wednesday I realised that I was finding the answer to a question I have been asking myself for the last three months of how much time to devote to this project and more generally who I am and whether the decisions I have made in my life have been right.

I had written and posted blog number 57. ‘Colouring in the words’ on Tuesday about the physical manifestation of events that I had written into the plot of ‘My Time with You’ many months before it happened. This heightened awareness I have been experiencing has only continued this week with this event just described.

I have been doing some yoga, relaxation and meditation as well as running outside to alleviate the stress I have been experiencing lately. This has definitely given me a greater sense of self both physically and spirituality.

At 2pm on Thursday I attended my Great Uncle Fred’s funeral service. Standing beside my Mum, behind her mother and her aunties and among own my uncles, auntie and cousins, listening to the celebrant pay tribute to Fred through words and photos of him with his family, I felt a more than ever that ‘My Time with You’ is meant to be, meant to bring awareness to quality time and reminded me of one person I have kept around me during the entire process. Standing at the service on Thursday reminded me of my Papa and the day I read a tribute to him at his funeral service almost seven years ago in April. I have carried his memory with me ever single day. Perhaps he is not so far away.

I am not religious and have always chosen to believe in things that make sense to me. This week has been a beautiful confirmation for me that I am where I need to be, doing what I am doing and although I may worry about the future, something profound is taking care of me. I am so grateful.

I won’t lie, I have recently got to the point where I have thought about taking a break from ‘My Time with You’. So much has been done despite everything else going on around me, but right now there is no regular income to sustain me while I continue writing. I don’t want to sacrifice this project but I do need some financial independence. I have been struggling with this dilemma recently. Finding a balance is extremely difficult for me, because it always ends up being all or nothing despite my best efforts.

In conclusion, I have learned that I have a high need to achieve or N-Ach and through McClelland I have a better understanding and appreciation of this creative offering I must preserve with not only to fulfill  and accomplish the challenge I have set for myself with the optimism that it is possible, but also for everyone who deserves to have their time celebrated.

Profoundly aware,

My Time with You ©2011 Danielle N. Bilski

~ Written by Danielle N. Bilski ~

It may have been more than six weeks since I last wrote a detailed update about MTWY, however a lot of hard work has been happening behind the scenes. While the plot outline and the major and main characters have remained the same, the format of the novel has been revised several times over the past month or so and the characters have also been developed even further using a variety of techniques including astrological characteristics.

Another layer has been added to the narrative to allow a more comprehensive inclusion of one of the major character’s own story which had previously remained relatively unexplored. I believe this character is one of the most important in MTWY and somewhat encapsulates all of the major themes and runs parallel to our main character’s story, while interacting delicately and purposefully throughout.

I have spoken a lot last year in my blog posts about being a very visual person who gains the majority of my inspiration for my writing from my own experiences and the colours of the world around me that subsequently colour in my words. I have been quite disciplined and deliberately diverse in my reading of books, novels and classic literature this year, from ‘Benang: From the heart’ by Kim Scott, ‘Angels and Demons’ by Dan Brown, ‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy, ‘Othello’ play by William Shakespeare and ‘ The Mystic Foundation’ by Christopher Penczak. I have learnt many things from each piece in different ways.

At the end of last year, I also had a personal family experience that was eerily familiar in more than one instance of ‘life imitating art’. In reflection a week ago I wrote in my notebook “Clues – life gives you clues along the way, it is up to you whether you see them, learn from them and act on them. There is the superficial and the truth amongst it that sometimes it takes a bit of extra effort to find and uphold.” (Danielle N. Bilski, 6/2/2011)

A strange sense came over me on a day in December 2010 that I sat exactly where one of my MTWY characters would have sat and I felt all of the emotions they would have felt and perhaps more that I have become aware of in retrospect. Additionally, I was also lucky enough to experience the event from more than one perspective. This in turn has allowed me to tell a more complete story from the point-of-view of all six of the major characters. Even down to a particularly poignant detail that I deliberately wrote into the narrative of ‘My Time with You’ early last year that was very closely mirrored in reality more than six months later.

I must point out that there is absolutely no way I could have preempted the event happening. This is why I believe that the universe it finding subtle ways to tell me that what I am doing by creating, crafting and preserving with this project is more important than I sometimes realise and perhaps of a bigger energy than I might ever possibly understand. I am grateful that I am aware of the significance of what is happening around me and while somewhat out of my control, I am still given the choice of whether to learn from the colours I see, read, hear and feel and to incorporate the relevant elements into painting the positive landscape of words that ‘My Time with You’ has become.

This takes me back to the basic format that was originally laid out last year, which I have most recently extended from one main character first person narration throughout to now entwining the six major characters perspectives in a linear way to tell the overall story as well as letting the audience hear it in the voice of the character that the event is experienced by most predominately within a particular chapter. I have always loved novels by Jodi Picoult and found it interesting the way that ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ was structured similar to the format I just mentioned. I believe that sometimes a story is so simple in its concept, yet so complex for each of its characters in different ways that it would be an injustice to only tell the story from one person’s point-of-view. I liken it to a movie.

A movie, while some are narrated by one particular character, is basically told in an objective way that shows us the major interactions of all of the characters as well as their time alone, creating a world or context that the characters fit into during a particular period of their time with us.
Like in life, every person is unique and important in their own ways and I want to instill that in ‘My Time with You’ by giving each character the chance to speak and to contribute in their own way to the overall time that ‘My Time with You’ captures in words. There are the colours in the world that we see, the are the people in the world whose colours we should take more time to see and

I am in the process of colouring my words with the essence of authenticity and sincerity that I constantly seek within the world I share with you.

Since 1st  January 2011, progress on My Time with You has included:
– Six major characters with approximately ten chapters each and the plot outline separated into each chapter to be told from that character’s perspective
– Each character’s birthday and star sign helps me understand who they are and therefore how they would react to a particular situation and interact with others after reading ‘The Mystic Foundation’ by Christopher Penczak (Llewellyn, 2008) and ‘The Astrology Bible’ by Judy Hall (Godsfield Press, 2005).
– A new layer of the story told from a major character’s point-of-view that had previously gone somewhat unexplored and under developed, yet is distinctively important
– A basic list of ‘scenes’ or situations that each character appears or is present in based on the plot outline
– A 2D map of a particular establishment one of the major characters resides in so it can be easily navigated  both as I write and also by the character as they live it
– Calculation that more than 10,000 words of the actual novel has been written
– Personal experiences that have helped me understand the story better from the major characters’ perspective – physically, spiritually and emotionally

This new year has already revealed a new chapter in my life, both physically, spiritually, emotionally and creatively as well as for ‘My Time with You’. A lot of reflection, thinking, learning, feeling and decision-making has already been and continues to be done this year and I making sure that I choose regular moments to appreciate all of the colours of the world that perhaps can never be adequately captured in the black and white of words on paper, but without harm in trying.

Living in a vibrant world made up of colourful souls,
My Time with You.

©2011 Danielle N. Bilski