Christmas Greetings
Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, South Australia
Christmas Greetings to all of my readers.
I trust that you have had a wonderful day with many blessings and much joy. I spent a quiet but relaxing day with my wife, daughter and mother in law. We had a wonderful Christmas lunch and we didn’t eat too much. The weather wasn’t too hot and I even managed a little snooze in the afternoon, the book I was “reading” resting peacefully on my chest. Late in the afternoon we had a lovely hour chatting to our son, daughter in law and grandson in Sydney via the wonders of Skype. It was amusing seeing our 2yo grandie showing off all of his new toys.
I haven’t posted many articles on this site this year. Now that I’ve completed my Master of Arts Creative Writing degree I will be able to bring you many more interesting and helpful writing hints here on this site. Stay tuned for many exciting events here in 2011 and beyond.
Good writing
Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, South Australia
Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, South Australia
My novel is finished
1 Comment »22nd December, 2010; Category: Blogging, Books, Master of Arts course, Novels, The Writer's Life, Writing a novel
I would like to give a big apology to all of my loyal, regular readers. Both of you!
I’m sorry I haven’t updated this site much in recent months. I have been extremely busy working on finalising my Master of Arts Creative Writing thesis paper. This paper consisted of a 40,000 word novel for children (ages 10-12) and a 10,000 word exegesis essay on the writing of the novel.
Last week I finally finished all the last minute editing and proofreading. I had it professionally printed (3 copies) and bound. With a sense of relief I handed it up to my supervising lecturer who organised to have it sent off to two examiners. Now I have a 6-8 week wait to find out if I’ve passed my degree. I am quietly confident of passing because all three of my supervisors approved the final draft, noting that it had improved vastly from earlier drafts.
I found the rewriting phase both fascinating and frustrating. It was frustrating because right up to the final draft I was making changes. Considering it was the 17th draft that I submitted, that’s an amazing amount of rewriting. On the flip side, however, it was fascinating to observe the effect of all those changes. Towards the end of the process I read the whole manuscript aloud several times. Despite being too close to the story, even I could tell how much it had improved in the final stages. Other readers were very positive in their feedback concerning the changes.
One of the most significant changes I made after the 6th draft was to totally rewrite the whole novel, changing it from the third to the first person. This was more difficult than I first imagined because remnants of the earlier third person persisted for several drafts. Eventually all was ironed out and the story is much stronger for the change. Being inside the head of the protagonist is so much more immediate and intimate, perhaps even confronting at times. His unique voice comes over much stronger now.
Now that I’ve submitted it for marking I am going to give myself a few weeks break before preparing the manuscript for sending off to a publisher. I am mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted at present, so a short break – with lots of reading – should refresh and recharge the batteries.
I might even get to add a few more updates on this site in the meantime.
Good writing.
Still editing my novel
No Comments »14th October, 2010; Category: Books, Fiction, Master of Arts course, Novels, The Writer's Life, Writing for Children
I haven’t had much time to add new posts here on this site for some time. I am in a frantic rush to finish my novel for children in the next few days. Then I will be submitting it as my thesis paper for my Master of Arts in Creative Writing.
I’m currently working on the 9th draft and essentially all I am doing is proofreading. I’m checking that my last rewrite – from third to first person – scraped through with no glaring errors, especially with the changes to the pronouns used. I’m finding a few but not as many as I thought I would.
One of the amazing things about this draft is the errors I’m still finding, mainly missing words. Although this is officially the 9th draft, in reality it is probably the 15th time I’ve been through the manuscript – some sections could well be more. And I’m still finding little errors!
Aaaah!
Who’d be a writer?
Good writing.
An inspirational effort
I don’t get too many opportunities to watch sport on television these days but when I do I am often inspired by the efforts of elite athletes.
Over the last week I have been watching the television coverage of some of the events in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India. These games, like the Olympics, are held every four years in a country belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations. The countries involved include Australia, England, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and many of the other countries that once made up the British Empire. The Commonwealth Games are often referred to as The Friendly Games with a much more relaxed approach to the event. Competition in the field and pool are still fiercely competitive despite this friendliness, and many records, including world records, are broken.
It is pleasing to me that a country like Australia with a relatively small population base does so well in these and other games. During the last Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 Australian athletes won more gold medals than the next four best countries combined. The trend this time is going the same way again though host nation India is having a big impact on the results.
During any games events there are many outstanding athletic achievements. Several competitors have already gained three or four gold medals with still five days of competition to go. One effort, however, stands out for me. Australian swimmer Ben Austin is not a household name even here in Australia. A few days ago he won a gold medal in the 100 meter freestyle event. His time would have won every gold medal in this event up to the 1974 Commonwealth Games.
So what, you ask?
Ben happens to have only one arm.
Ben swims in the EAD events. EAD stands for Elite Athletes with a Disability. His classification is S8 (above elbow amputee). His times are not all that far behind swimmers with two arms. What an achievement. And how inspirational is that achievement?
What has this got to do with writing? Too often writers – me included – grumble when things go wrong, a story is not developing as we’d like it, we have a headache, a poem gets rejected by a publisher or some other minor inconvenience and we feel like giving up. It is times like this we need to remember the Bens of this world. He has achieved great things despite having only one arm. And what about theswimmer in the last Paralympics who won the hearts of so many because he swam the length of the pool with NO arms?
Don’t give up – Good writing.
A frustrating week of writing
I just had a very frustrating week of writing.
In fact, much of it has been devoted to non writing activities. First, I’ve had a series of meetings to attend and these always cut into my writing time.
Second, I’ve been busy tidying up the mess in our driveway. We had a massive storm here just over a week ago and a large 40 year old gum tree came down in our driveway. I’ve been busy chain sawing up the wood. I guess we’ll have plenty of firewood in the coming few years.
Third, I was discouraged by my critiquing group at a seminar last week and have hit a brick wall as a result. I was very excited about rewriting my novel in the first person. It seemed to be going so well, yet everyone was so critical and told me that it just wasn’t working.
Ouch.
Discouragement hit me big time. I’ve done no more on it for the last week. I sometimes feel like giving up.
Can any of my readers offer me any encouragement, or clues on how to get going again?
In the meantime – a few photos of the mess in my driveway.
Fallen tree in our driveway
Fallen tree in our driveway