Author Archive
More than half way through November, and my NaNo draft’s in danger
So I got re-started with NaNoWriMo and then I had another few days where I just didn’t get the fiction writing thing happening. And then today I read the Quiet Rebel Writer’s confession that this year she’s a NaNoWriMo dropout. Not quite what I was hoping to read about.
What can I say? The big problem [...]
Falling off the NaNoWriMo wagon and getting back on again
Regular readers might have been expecting a bit of a report on my NaNoWriMo progress after I started 10 days late but with great enthusiasm.
Excuses for not writing this week? Let me count the ways … or at least give you the abbreviated collection of bad reasons I gave myself for not writing. Starting with [...]
Because this blog’s about procrastination, too
A funny thing just happened to me.
I was procrastinating about getting a bit of work done - or I could fudge that and say I was taking a bit of a break after getting a stack of work done this morning (that’s true - I wrote my first 2,500 words for NaNoWriMo and also did [...]
A 21-day NaNoWriMo attempt and inspiration from Zadie Smith
The relatives are safely back in Switzerland. I’ve nearly caught up on all the work I got behind on while they were here. November is rapidly ticking by. All this can only mean one thing: it’s absolutely, undeniably time that I got started on my novel draft for this year’s NaNoWriMo.
While other writers have been [...]
NaNoWriMo began yesterday, but I didn’t (yet)
The arduous yet addictive novel-writing feast that is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) began yesterday, November 1 - but I was busily holidaying in the south-west of Australia. I’ve got a tough week coming up relaxing on Rottnest Island with my in-laws from Switzerland, and only after that will I be seriously [...]
Where do my ideas come from? A mind mapping experiment and contest
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 [...]
Adding to my reading list with the 2008 Man Booker Prize winner
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 [...]
Surprising myself with a short story for the Christmas season
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 [...]
Enjoying editing my novel with someone else’s eyes
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 [...]
Maybe Comotivate will motivate me
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 [...]