Usually I manage to structure my Mondays so they involve as little brain-work as is humanly possible. I just put chutney on some toast – usually that’s about as tough as my Mondays get. That, and turning pages of trashy novels.

Not this Monday! This Monday I’m doing all sorts of brain-work, and I’m not sure I’m OK with it quite yet.

There are decisions to be made today. I’m going to a slam tomorrow night to perform at their open mic in preparation for the State Library’s Australian Poetry Slam on Wednesday at the Balwyn heat. Both these events are quite big and scary for me – I haven’t done any poetry performance outside uni events, so while I’m not nervous just yet, I have a feeling I very much will be later. I have two pieces that I feel are quite strong, and I need to choose which is stronger. One has some humour. The other is a bit pretty.

I need to practice these pieces more so they’re totally drummed into my brain (brain-work…).

When that decision’s been made, I need to decide on an extract from Hold On, the story which is appearing in Page Seventeen, being launched on Saturday. I’ll be reading an extract at the launch, up to 3 minutes… I haven’t decided which three minutes yet. I think most logical is from the start of the story, because the chronological story is intercepted by flash-backs. But is that the strongest part of the story?

The following piece of brain-work involves writing up a pitch for a workshop I’ll be running before the end of the year in Northcote, through Express Media.

By the end of the day, I think I’ll be happy to head off to work and only think about filling fridges. By far too much brain-work for a Monday!