Over at a blog I often read called The Writer’s Technology Companion they’re running a contest on mind-mapping -a technique my visual-learning brain rather likes – and the theme was “where do you get ideas”. That’s where this colourful mind map sprung from. In fact my ideas come from so many different sources that I ran out of room to represent them all, but you get the idea. It’s no grand amazing news or anything, but it was fun for me to flick through my lil’ green notebook of ideas …

I’ve been curiously anticipating the announcement of the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner since I heard a Book Show podcast a week or two ago – an interview with an academic who’s headed to the UK to research the judges’ notes and behind-the-scenes documentation of the Booker. During this podcast there was much discussion of what kind of book wins the Booker, especially in recent years – for example, an ethnic writer from a place like India is seeming to have more chance these days than a white, resident Brit.
(Incidentally, …

With my teaching load finally reduced (I’ve been doing extra work at that job for the past three months or so – there’s a massive shortage of ESL teachers in Perth!), this week I have actually had two days at home to get my writing work done. Of course, I actually need about three or four, but two days is certainly better than one. And it was great timing because I’ve been trying to write a Christmas-themed short story for a contest which closes tomorrow.
The idea for the story has …

Pat me on the back, please, because I have finally got past my read-it-in-one-sitting procrastination problem and am now editing, bit by bit, my first novel manuscript.
If you’ve been paying attention over the past year or so you will know that this poor novel has already seen quite a few incarnations. It began as the scrappy product of a frantic NaNoWriMo experience in November 2007 and then got brushed up and rewritten with a few additions (at one stage, five extra chapters) for submission to a couple of contests. Each …

While I’m still working on revising my first manuscript (more on that later – it’s going well!), I’m trying to get going with novel #2 as well. I was about to write “trying to get disciplined” about writing novel #2, but I remembered a recent Zen Habits post with the enticing (if sensationalist) title The Only Two Secrets to Motivating Yourself You’ll Ever Need. Leo made a very valid point that sticking to your goals is not a matter of discipline, but a matter of motivation: if you make your …

It’s quite incredible, really, just how many different ways there are for a budding writer to procrastinate. Well, especially when that budding writer is someone like me.
You may remember I got quite enthusiastic about revisiting my first novel draft after I re-read Stephen King’s On Writing. I’ve got a brand new draft printed off in a ring binder (a pretty ring binder of course, because this particular procrastinating writer loves cool stationery). I’ve got a list of everything I want to look for when I re-read it, including mechanical kind …