Tax time is here
, in Australia anyway. Time to get out all your receipts out of old wallets and shoe boxes and tally them up. See how many expenses you can squeeze out of your faded, crumpled dockets. For many it’s a dreaded task, to be put on the TO DO LATER LIST, alongside a few other things we won’t mention.
Like WRITING! Is writing on your TO DO LATER LIST too?
The thing is as soon a you get down to it,
the tax or the writing,
you remember how much you love it!
Love doing your tax!!?? Come on, you’ve to be kidding!
No, it’s true, once I start sorting out all my dockets, piling them into categories, stuffing them into their own used envelope with their name and year on the front (cos I’ve usually put it off for a year or two!) then add them all up on my old fashioned, oversized calculator from the two dollar shop — I find it very enjoyable.
I feel sorted, organised, everything in categories, everything in its place.
And you get to travel back in time…
and remininsce about where you were, in what state of mind — and whether your purchase turned out to be a complete waste of money or not.
You can relive your travels — which restaurants, accomodations, plane flights you loved or didn’t love.
You can be remined of your book addiction and count up how many books you bought in a particular year.
I discovered that in 2020, the year of the Great Lockdown, I doubled my spending on reading and writing materials. And I bought more fancy stationery (in the form of Moleskin notebooks and fast rolling pens) than ever.
And for those who have both Tax and Writing in the TOO HARD BASKET, you could try combining them. Instead of filing all the receipts away you could put them in a scrap book to see what kind of story they tell.
It could be a great way to write a memoir of a particular year or a murder mystery set in an accountant’s office.
Or simply use them as writing prompts for warm ups at the beginning of your writing day. For a few moments contemplate a different receipt or docket then describe in concrete detail anything it suggests. Here’s some examples:
a description of a purchased item
the setting of the purchase
the character buying it
the character selling it
the associated soundscape
associated smells
associated textures
the weather that day
the emotional atmos
circumstances surrounding it
conflicts ensuing from it
and so on
You get my drift?
Whatever you end up doing — be it finally tackling three years of overdue tax or sitting down to write that scene you have been putting off for ages, I can guarantee you will feel released and energised.
For as I say in my Avoidance Buster Manual, when we start to tackle all the things on our TO DO LATER LIST, we unleash all our stuck NON DOING energy and feel free as a bird!
WRITERS JOURNEY TRIPS HEADING OUT IN 2024/25.
Haiku Walking in Japan, Mar 2o25.
Ischia Island Retreat May, 2025.
Gascony Residency, June 2025.
Contact Jan for more details!
