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My life is a work in progress

1 Comment »14th July, 2015; Category: Authors, Blogging, Christian, The Writer's Life, Writing prompts

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

Sorry if you have missed me.

Under construction:

I have just realised that my life is a work in progress. Well, to be truthful, I’ve probably known that for a long time, but I wasn’t really going to admit it. Not at my age anyway. It takes me back to the days in the 1980s when our church put on a production of “Kids Under Construction.” The whole premise of the story was that, no matter what age we were, God is not finished with us yet. We all have some constructing to undergo. None of can say with authority that we’ve arrived!

Hair? What hair?

In the play I took the role of a grandfather. My hair was more copious than today as was my luxuriant beard (which I don’t bother to grow these days). Both were sprayed grey – almost silver – and when I came on stage looking all of 40 years older than my real age, my poor wife nearly collapsed in shock! Now my hair – or what is left of it – is growing progressively greyer and thinner. (My 6yo grandson loves to call me “baldy”. Cheeky boy.)

Work in Progress

We could indeed say that our lives are a work in progress. Writers also talk about their current “work in progress” (WIP) when referring to their current writing project. I often have several projects on the go at once which causes a few problems. More than a few. I often jump from one to the other. When other responsibilities also jump into the ring, I find myself juggling many balls at once. In no time at all my life looks like a three-ring circus with multiple things happening all the same time.

Get the picture?

It’s not pretty. Send in the clowns. There have to be clowns.

But there is some good news – and the inevitable bad news.

Good news

I have been working on the following projects:

  • Posting more regularly  on my Trevor’s Birding site (click here). This site is all about one of my passions – observing and photographing Australian birds. It has become an obsessive hobby.
  • Posting more regularly on the Trevor’s Travels site (click here). This site is about another of my passions: travel. I write about and show photos of my travels here in Australia, as well as trips overseas to Thailand, Nepal, Morocco, Ethiopia and Spain. More are in the planning stages.
  • Posting more regularly here on this site, including more short stories, more poems, more articles about writing, more reviews of what I am reading, and more articles on a whole range of topics.
  • Publishing here on this site more writing prompts and short story starters.
  • Preparing stories and poems for submission to various journals, magazines and competitions.

Even better news

  • I am about to launch into eBooks, So many of the manuscripts resting peacefully in my computer memory will be getting a nasty shock. They will be sent out into the wild, wild world to fend for themselves under the glare of critical readers and lovely people everywhere.
  • Be kind to them. Love them – or hate them, they are coming. You have been warned.

Now the bad news

  • All of this will take time.
  • And effort.
  • You may need to be patient with me.
  • Some noise may escape from the construction site.
  • Sometime – I haven’t the faintest idea where I will find the time – I will begin work on several new major novels which have been simmering away on the back… no, that’s wrong. I haven’t even switched on the cooker yet. [Sigh]

Good writing.

Trevor

 

Writing prompt: a farmer’s old truck

2 Comments »23rd April, 2015; Category: Events, Fiction, Writing Hints, Writing prompts
Old farmer's truck, Taplan, South Australia

Old farmer’s truck, Taplan, South Australia

Many people have a fascination with old vehicles. Some even spend great amounts of money to buy old cars and motor bikes and then spent countless hours restoring them, polishing them and sometimes even driving them.

This vintage truck was a part of the Taplan Railway Centenary celebrations in October 2013. Taplan is the small Murray Mallee town south east of Loxton in South Australia where I grew up on a wheat and sheep farm. My nephew and his sons still run the farm my father started in the 1920s.

The truck in the photo is being driven by Lance Pech from the farm next door to where I grew up. Lance and I grew up together going to the small one-teacher school at Taplan. He ended up working the farm with his father for many years. He was also very active in bringing together many of the elements of the special celebrations on the day I took the photo.

Writing prompts:

  • Write a piece of fiction featuring this old farm truck as a central character.
  • Write an imaginary piece from the point of view of the truck.
  • Tell the life story of the truck, or its owners.
  • Research what life was like in rural Australia in the early years, say, the 1920s. Write an article about the good times and the bad times.
  • Write a story about the special events the truck has been a part of down through the decades.
  • Write about some important tasks the truck may have contributed to during its working life.
  • Write about a car enthusiast who found and restored this vehicle.

Good writing.

A new form of reading

No Comments »20th April, 2015; Category: Books, Fiction, Novels, Reading

I have finally joined the ranks of those with an eReader.

Yes, I know I am slow at adapting to the latest technologies, but I have some sound reasons. The main reason was a reluctance to buy any more books. I have many piles of unread books and magazines cluttering various parts of the house. I have been trying hard to get on top of these heaps of reading materials, but the list seems never ending. One day I will overcome this problem – I guess – though it has the benefit of never having to look far for something to read. (You are probably thinking that my house is a very untidy mess of books and magazines. Wrong. It is a quite tidy mess of books and magazines.)

But back to the eReader.

It was a freebie from my bank’s awards’ programme, a Kobo Aura. It was very easy to set up, and even easier to buy books. (Too easy, as my wife has discovered.)

My first book was The girl with the dragon tattoo, one I had been planning to read for some time. The reader is very easy to use and especially easy to read in bed. I recently read Peter Fitzsimons’ huge 800+ page tome called Gallipoli. I managed to read it partly in bed, but it was not really ever comfortable.

I won’t do a review of my first book just yet. I did find it a riveting tale and read it in only a few days. All I will say for now is that despite the compelling draw of the story I did not particularly enjoy the book. Sadism is not my thing, and several characters in the  book are brutally sadistic in nature.

From that interesting read I have moved on to a second ebook, The Kite Runner. So far I am enjoying it.

Good reading.

Good writing.

The 2015 Tabor Adelaide Creative Writing Awards

No Comments »16th February, 2015; Category: Awards, Competitions, Events, Fiction, Poetry, Short Stories

Over the years I have submitted quite a few poems and stories to writing competitions, with a moderate level of success. I should enter far more than I do because I have such a vast number of poems and a few stories that the only problem is actually choosing which pieces go where. I have also been intending sending off far more items to magazines and journals in the hope of being published.

To me there seems little point in all of that writing languishing unread and unloved on my hard-drive. I would encourage my readers to do the same. In the light of that I will include here details of some up and coming competitions and publishing opportunities. Here is the first one:

The 2015 Tabor Adelaide Creative Writing Awards

Submissions for this creative writing competition are now open and will close on March 6th 2015. Only one entry for each category – poetry and short story – is allowed per person. Unlike most competitions, entry for this one is free.

This is the second time this competition has been offered and I intend to submit a poem in the next day or so. I do not have a suitable story on the set theme “Hope against hope” and I am hoping that some inspiration will come my way in the next week or so.

When I was completing my Masters degree at Tabor a few years ago we often talked about the possibility of hosting a writing competition but nothing came of it then. It is therefore great to see it finally get off the ground and last year’s event was a huge success with hundreds of entries from all over Australia.

Link:

Good writing.

Writing flash fiction

No Comments »13th February, 2015; Category: Fiction, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Starters

A few years ago I went through a period of writing dozens of flash fiction pieces, some of them published here on this site. Some of them have also been published in journals, magazines and anthologies. I haven’t written any short fiction in quite some time, something I should correct.

As I see it, writing short fiction, also called flash fiction, is an excellent practice for any writers of general fiction. These short writing activities – from a mere handful of words up to about a limit of 1000 words – are good exercises for developing the various skills for longer fiction, or even for writing interesting non-fiction. At one stage I limited myself to a mere 50 words. That does not give you much room to move; every word must count.

I recently came across a short article about flash fiction here.

You can read flash fiction on the bus, or while you’re travelling between two train stations. You can read it while you’re waiting at the dentist.  You can read it in that short time between sex and dozing off. It’s a small involvement for a much larger pay-off.

Good writing.

Further reading:

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