Archive for March, 2008
Who was that Shakespeare guy again?
I’ve just read a scary story about literary ignorance in Britain. Published at Ananova, some of the most frightening results of a survey of 3000 people are:
One third of people didn’t know Shakespeare wrote plays (many thought he’d been a king!)
A quarter didn’t know John Keats was a poet
And for me, the most shocking, [...]
First chapter rewrite is done … kind of
Despite my cat’s attempts to disrupt the big rearrangement of my novel, I’m making progress. We have my father-in-law staying with us at the moment, so time is scarce, but that means that when I have a rare moment home alone, I make the most of it - sometimes that’s more effective than having lots [...]
Mail-sorting poets and the importance of writing
I think it’s just lovely when I read newspaper articles about writers who’ve won awards with prize money that’s actually worth something. Writers seem to draw the short straw so often - as do many creative arts - because people do it because they’re passionate, and not for the financial reward. Yet a financial reward, [...]
Inspiration from other arts …
My fiction writing has been a bit stalled in the last couple of weeks while other parts of life took over, but I’m finally starting to get those fingers back to the keyboard.
A trick I’ve used in the past, but had forgotten, is getting inspiration - and more importantly, motivation - from other art forms, [...]
Sonya Hartnett a literary and financial success
Not long ago I mentioned that nice new Australian prize, worth $100,000, known as the Prime Minister’s Literary Prize. And while that would certainly help a good Aussie writer to survive a couple of years longer without having to take another job, I was pretty excited to hear that an Australian author has just picked [...]
Characters who grow and have flaws
Earlier in the week I mentioned the Men With Pens post that reminded me I have to make characters that my readers will care about, and the Men With Pens gang mentioned there would be more character tips to come. True to their word, the latest post is about making your character flawed, and it’s [...]
First chapter reminders, with thanks to Louise Doughty
You might remember I’ve set myself a March 31 deadline to rewrite the first chapter of my novel. Of course, the first thing I realised is that until I figure out a good structure for the novel, I won’t even know what the first chapter is, but I have a pretty good idea of [...]
Real and lovable characters, say Men With Pens
My RSS feeder brings in all kinds of writing info and tips for me each day, most of which I skim and ignore pretty quickly because I’m always in a hurry to get to the actual writing I have to do. But this morning a post from Men With Pens (cool name, hey!) caught my [...]
Novel progress: Rearranging the scenes
So there I was, ready to sit down with the draft of my novel and find a way to completely restructure it. Perhaps I’m weird, but I’ve been holding on to this great packet of orange flashcards that I swiped once from a company I was teaching in, just knowing I could write scenes on [...]