Archive for the 'The Writer’s Life' Category

Taking a break from writing

No Comments »23rd December, 2009; Category: General, The Writer's Life

It has been a few weeks since I last posted an article here.

I am taking a short break from writing before getting back to full steam again in the New Year. Everyone needs a break from their normal activities, a time to relax, do things differently or just slow down for a while. Writers are no different. It is an intensive occupation and never taking a break can has serious long term implications for both physical health and writing freshness.

I had neglected jobs around the house and garden for so long this year that I just had to attend to some serious tasks which took me away from my desk. We are at the height of summer and the bushfire danger time here in South Australia. We live on a 5 acre block and the good winter/spring rains had resulted in some serious weed growth. This required some dedicated time on the ride-on mower.

Then my family demanded ten days away. This was a good opportunity to relax by the pool with a series of good books I had be putting aside for such an occasion. I relaxed so much that they inspired me to write three short stories while on holiday. Sometimes the creative juices just have to flow. We also had an early extended family Christmas get together last Sunday. This was a great time of food and fellowship. It was also great over recent days to spend time getting to know my only grandson, now aged 14 months. Because my son lives in Sydney we don’t get this opportunity very often – and you can’t give hugs via a web cam.

In the meantime – good writing – and take time to relax over Christmas.

A significant writing goal achieved

2 Comments »28th November, 2009; Category: Goal setting, The Writer's Life

I am reasonably goal driven with my writing.

I like setting goals that stretch me and keep me accountable to myself. Over recent years though I’ve learned to be gentle with myself when I don’t reach a particular goal. No one else cares, so why should I beat myself up over just missing a goal by a small margin? The important thing to remember while reflecting on the issue is that I tried. I gave it a good shake.

One of my goals each day is to write at least a 1000 words. On the good days I can achieve over 3000 easily; other days I struggle to get a few hundred. Generally I know I can comfortably average over 700 per day every day for a whole year. That takes commitment, discipline and determination.

Yesterday I passed the 250,000 word mark for the year so far.

I’m very pleased with this achievement. It means that I’ve achieved the same amount now for four consecutive years – that’s over a million words in four years. Not bad. I think I’m starting to get the hang of this writing thing.

The words I have written this year cover a wide range of writing activities: a novel, numerous short stories, many poems, writing exercises, essays, emails, nearly 300 blog posts, hundreds of comments on my blogs and a journal.

Good writing.

Slow progress on my novel

No Comments »15th October, 2009; Category: Fiction, Novels, The Writer's Life

Slow progress on editing

Over the last few days I have commenced the tough task of editing my novel for children. I’ve had several friends read the rough first draft manuscript and give me feedback on it. I’ve been steadily working through these and making some changes to the work.

Rewriting

Some of the changes are purely of the typographical type; spelling errors, missing words or letters, errors of grammar and so on. These are generally easy to fix. Several readers are also on the lookout for sentences or passages which do not make sense, or which are inconsistent with other parts of my story. These often need rewriting and that can be not only time consuming but also frustrating when trying to get it all right.

Distractions

The progress on my novel has also been hampered this week by other events and illness. Over recent weeks I’ve had a very bad back. I’m not sure about the cause, but it is being very painful if I stand or walk for more than a few minutes. Fortunately, writers can do a lot of sitting. I can’t help thinking that my lack of exercise and general fitness has been a major contributing factor to the back problem now facing me. As a consequence I’ve recently been to my doctor twice, my physiotherapist twice and the local hospital for x-rays-all in the last week. All those appointments cut into the writing day.

Then today I had to fulfill a speaking engagement arranged some time ago. I spoke to a group of elderly people over lunch about another of my passions-Australian birds. I also showed photos of birds to illustrate my talk. While this was enjoyable, and I received plenty of great feedback from the listeners, it severely cut into my writing hours.

Sending of manuscripts to publishers

No Comments »23rd September, 2009; Category: Fiction, Master of Arts course, Poetry, Short Stories, The Writer's Life

Yesterday I finished the first draft of my novel for children. I have been working hard on this over the last two months and finished it over a week ahead of the schedule I had set for myself. I love setting goals – and then achieving them. Now my creative brain needs a little break for a few days. Time to attend to a few other matters before launching into the rewriting phase.

Today I had a totally different writing task which took most of my attention. The whole point of writing, in my opinion, is to be published. Sure, there are people who write just for themselves and are totally happy with an audience of one. I guess my private journal writing comes into that category. Such writing is not aimed at a broader audience. Unless, of course, I become obscenely rich or infamously notorious as a result of my writing. Some people might want to read my private grumblings. But I doubt it.

Today I prepared some submissions for a publisher. I’m nearing the end of my Master of Arts course, and every year the humanities department calls for submissions from staff and students involved in the programme. The deadline is Friday, so I knew I had to get organised. Successful poems and stories are published in the annual anthology which is published in November. Last year I had a story and ten poems chosen which was very satisfying. This time around I have submitted eight poems and four short stories. It will be interesting to see which of them the editors choose.

One of the good things about this submission is that I could submit electronically. Makes the whole process relatively painless compared with sending off letters. Bit cheaper too.

Challenge to readers

Are you constantly writing but never sending off those stories and poems and articles you’ve slaved over so lovingly? The secret to getting published is no secret, really. You need to write, write, write and then submit, submit submit. And while waiting to hear back from the publishers, you need to write some more, and then write some more and then submit… I think you get the picture.

Send off a story or poem today.

Good writing – and may you see your writing in print soon. I know I will.

Fun at my writers’ group

2 Comments »12th September, 2009; Category: Events, Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction, Short Stories, The Writer's Life

On Thursday of this week I attended my monthly writers’ group in Adelaide. It’s one of two I regularly attend; the other is devoted to poetry only.

We usually gather for pizza at 6pm and then start into reading and critiquing each other’s work. The readings are based on a challenge set the month before. We limit the activity to 1000 words so that everyone gets a go at reading and having their work critiqued. A good attendance is about 6-8 people, but this week we had 12 eager participants, 7 of whom had risen to the challenge of writing a short story.

This was the fun part. The challenge we had appeared to be very hard, but we all found it very interesting. We were asked to take a poem written by a fellow student which was published in last year’s anthology. This poem had some interesting Nordic references and names, which made the task even more challenging.

The Challenge

The writing task was as follows:

Take the first word of the poem and use that as the first word of the first sentence of the story.
Take the second word of the poem and use that as the first word of the second sentence.
Take the third word of the poem and use this as the first word of the third sentence.
Follow this pattern until you get to the end of the story – or the poem – whichever comes first.

The variations were wonderful. Using the same words we came up with seven quite different stories. These included:

A recount of a classroom teacher grappling with unusual student names in the class.
A stream of consciousness account of someone justifying why she should murder her mother.
An account of the arrival home of a Viking raiding party.
An snippet from a Shakespearean like scene written almost completely in iambic rhythm (this was my effort).

Reader challenge

Try it for yourself as a writing challenge. Take a poem – any poem – and try it. Last year we used a Robert Frost poem. Use one of your own poems. Whatever. You could be pleasantly surprised at the result.

Have fun with your writing.

Good writing.