Archive for July, 2008
Am I ignoring short stories?
Observant readers will know that I have a category tag especially designated for short stories, yet I rarely mention them. Surely short stories are an important part of becoming a fiction writer? So what’s going wrong?
For a start, I haven’t read a short story for ages. I do go through phases where I rather enjoy [...]
I’m planning to get creatively divergent soon …
About a fortnight ago I wrote about doing some creativity cross-training to help my fiction writing - that is, doing some form of creative activity that I don’t usually do with the idea that it could help expand my creative thinking in general, and therefore, hopefully improve my writing too.
The main feedback I got was [...]
Do you finish every book you start reading?
I’ve thought about this quite often, but more deeply when I read Aaron’s comment on my overdue library book confessions post. Quite sensibly, he had this to say about his large pile of library books:
If it doesn’t “hook” me in the first 10 pages, it goes in the pile to be returned early. I don’t [...]
Over halfway through my NaBloPoMo
Did anybody notice that I’ve been posting awfully regularly here recently? I’ve certainly noticed and I’m more than a little proud of myself that we’re well past the halfway point of July, my personal NaBloPoMo month, and so far I have kept my goal of posting every day for a month.
The interesting thing is that [...]
Novel planning and novel non-planning
I had another decent session of in-class writing last week while my lovely students were doing their weekly test - but I had such a small class that there was no need to write on the prowl, I sat down and wrote and wrote instead. The most exciting thing is that what I was writing [...]
A change of scenery: Melbourne beckons
It’s been a long time since I’ve had a bit of a holiday, and since I was accustomed to jetting off all over Asia or Europe or even further afield while I was living abroad, my soul’s taken a bit of a battering. Which is why I’m pretty excited to be spending a week in [...]
Still undecided on electronic books
It’s about six months ago that I first wrote about electronic books when I rabbited on about the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader that really only caught my attention properly because its name is so similar to my surname, Kendle. And while I, in theory, “get” all the advantages of an e-book device, I still have absolutely [...]
Will writing poetry make my novels more beautiful?
As I was driving along the coast today - inspired, perhaps, by the fantastic view over the Indian Ocean to Rottnest Island - I was listening to some new music on the radio. I’ve got no idea who the band was, and that doesn’t really matter - the point is, as always I was paying [...]
Becoming A Fiction Writer scores a century
Sorry to all non-Commonwealth nations there for using a cricket metaphor … but I’m an Aussie and I grew up on cricket, so my blog can score a century if I want it to!
What I’m trying to say is that this is the 100th post on Becoming A Fiction Writer, which I started back in [...]
Best of the Booker and remembering books
It was announced this week that Salman Rushdie’s book Midnight’s Children has (again) won the Best of the Booker (this time for the 40th anniversary of the prize). I looked at the shortlist a while back - for some reason, just six previous Booker winners were nominated to be potential Best of the Bookers, which [...]