Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
January 13, 2011 by amanda

Amanda’s 2011 reading list on Becoming A Fiction Writer

In 2010 I managed to read a so-so 44 books – I’m pretty sure that’s less than I’d read in previous years, so I’m keen to improve on that this year. Not that quantity should get in the way of quality, but I often scan a bookshop or library and think to myself that life is way, way too short to read all the books I want to, so I’d better get going!

As usual, I’ll keep adding to this reading list of books (usually fiction) I’ve read during 2011. Do leave your thoughts and comments at the bottom, or a link to your own reading list if you have one. I always like perusing other people’s lists to get some new ideas for my to-read list.

  1. Twenty-Somewhere by Kristan Hoffman – yes, my writing friend whose blog I closely follow – someone who I know I’m going to be able to say “I knew her before she was famous”. Twenty-Somewhere was also my first ever e-book, read on my new iPad. Oh – before I forget – it’s an episodic, chick-littish read, following three college friends as their lives take different paths in their twenties – lots of fun.
  2. Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay. A totally random read for me, I found it on a summer reading list from the local ABC radio, in connection with our upcoming writers festival. A thriller featuring cannibalism, not my normal style at all, but well-written, great story, and, well, totally different! Since I’m aiming to read some different genres this year, I’m glad I read this. Don’t think I’ll go back and read the others in the series, though.
  3. The Still Point by Amy Sackville – I read most of this last year but just finished it off – a story of an Arctic misadventure and its impact a couple of generations later, and a nice enough story but I felt like I knew nearly all about it right from the start and then the book slowly told me not much.
  4. Dancing In The Moonlight by Raeanne Thayne … oh goodness me. In the spirit of expanding my genre experience, and with the thrill of downloading books on the Kindle app on my iPad, I tried a Harlequin romance novel. The reviews said stuff like “not as corny as its title” and “I didn’t even realise it was a romance novel until the end” but … these reviews were wrong. Romance genre experiment officially over.
  5. Indelible Ink by Fiona McGregor is an excellent piece of Australian literature, with the same kind of “slice of modern life” feel to it as I got from Christos Tsiolkas’ The Slap. If you’re a fan of the other Aussie fiction I like, you’ll like this.
  6. In the Wake by Per Petersen, a Norwegian writer of some note. Haunting, lyrical story. Very readable and lovely.
  7. Heart Songs by Annie Proulx, since she’s coming along to the Perth Writers Festival this year. It’s a short story collection which started out all being about hunting (not really my taste) but ended up being much broader – beautifully written.
  8. The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter, a new Aussie novelist who will also be at the Perth Writers Festival. Bit of a mystery novel, bit of a typical lit fic, definitely enjoyable and nice to see a novel set partly in New York but with an Australian perspective.
  9. Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan (also coming for the Perth Writers Festival) – a novel about a Catholic priest, it had a great beginning, a great ending but for me, a bit of a so-so middle with a hefty chunk of back story that had me skipping through it to “get back to the story”.
  10. Why You Are Australian by Nikki Gemmell – a non-fiction “letter to her children” detailing her trial return to Australia for a few months, trying to decide whether she could live her again after many years as an ex-pat in London. For me, a beautiful homage to what is best about my country and why I wanted to raise a family here and not elsewhere. To the general reader who is either not Australian or hasn’t had an ex-pat life, and doesn’t have children – perhaps less of interest.
  11. Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame, though it’s best not to think about that, because the two books couldn’t be more different – yet are both excellent. Blueeyedboy is kind of a mystery/thriller told through online fan-fiction and blog-style entries. Bizarre but excellent.
  12. Wonders of a Godless Worldby Andrew McGahan, one of my favourite Aussie writers. Every book he writes seems totally different, and this was no exception; a vaguely fantasy-style story that’s hard to explain yet a beautiful read. Perhaps my favourite of his?
  13. Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta, a re-read of this YA book I read at least a decade ago, after seeing Melina Marchetta speak at the Perth Writers Festival (ooh, just Wikipedia-ed her and discovered we share the same birthday!). Excellent novel. Vivid and honest about the life of an Aussie-born teenage daughter of immigrants in Sydney, and it says a lot about Australia and our way of life here, both good and bad. With a suitable dose of teenage angst!
  14. Baby Steps: A Bloke’s-Eye View of IVF by Jason Davis – creative non-fiction, which you may recall I decided to put on this list; a fluffy account of a slightly more important subject, but interesting to see a man’s perspective.
  15. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan is a cross between comedy and crime, lots of fun and with a few interesting plot twists. I think it’s the first in an ongoing series, although I probably didn’t enjoy it quite enough to grab the next one.
  16. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins, another non-fiction (but well-written) addition to my list. Scary stuff about the pressure teenagers are under to succeed in high school and college life in the United States.
  17. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta – yes, I had to keep reading her stuff after loving Looking for Alibrandi last month. This YA novel was good, but not great – nowhere near as powerful as her debut.
  18. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood; I haven’t read any of her stuff for ages but since I’ve been following her on Twitter (she’s a real addict – @MargaretAtwood) I felt the need.
  19. The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta, again. This is her newest, and involves the same characters as Saving Francesca, but five years on (and it stands alone as a novel). Heaps better than Saving Francesca in my opinion, excellent in fact, although definitely for the older end of YA or even just for fully-grown adults like me! Great Aussie slice of life.
  20. What is Left Over, After by Natasha Lester, a local writer who I met at the Perth Writers Festival. This novel won the TAG Hungerford award and I can see why it beat mine. A million times better! It’s got a great storyline about a woman suffering from a tragic loss and much of it is set in the south-west of WA.
  21. Land’s Edge by Tim Winton – it’s a memoir, rather than a novel, but is typical Winton – quite mesmerising, especially for a fellow West Aussie like me who can picture the beaches and coastlines he’s talking about. I learnt we grew up in the same Perth suburb, and am hoping that’s a Lucky Thing!
  22. Dead Line by Stella Rimington – another in her Liz Carlyle spy series, and yes the only spy author I read – but she’s authentic! And lovely! And I saw her at the Perth Writers Festival a few years ago. I’ve even got another of hers on my to-read pile right now.
  23. Fall Girl by Toni Jordan – her second, and one I was inspired to read after seeing her at the Perth Writers Festival again. Excellent book, amazing how she got me all sympathetic to this family of con-men (and con-women), so funny with many laugh-out-loud moments and some lovely twists in the plot. Something different to everything else I’ve read lately, so very refreshing!
  24. Avoiding Mr Right by Anita Heiss. I really wanted to *love* this book, because I love the idea of it – urban Aussie chick lit with a strong Aboriginal woman as the protagonist. But unfortunately I just couldn’t get past the chick lit part. It’s just not my genre. If it’s yours, however, then this is an excellent book. If I were a chick lit lover I think the only criticism I’d have is that it reads at times like a guidebook to Melbourne cafes and pubs (not necessarily a bad thing!).
  25. Present Danger by Stella Rimington – yes, another in the Liz Carlyle series, this time caught up in the leftovers of the Northern Ireland conflict. Good but I should have left a bigger gap between reading the previous one and this – it started to all sound a bit the same.
  26. When My Husband Does the Dishes by Kerri Sackville, an Aussie blogger turned published author – this is non-fiction and hilarious, easy for any wife and mother to relate to.
  27. Belly Dancing for Beginners by Liz Byrski – a local writer – and I admit when I started this novel I thought I was not going to like it, as it seemed clearly aimed at women somewhat older than me. Fortunately I read on, and it was a delight. I love books set in Perth (so exciting to know the places!) and the characters here were so lifelike yet so interesting. A great read.

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January 13, 2011 by amanda

What writers should know about storytelling, which I sometimes forget

While I’m really all about beautiful words and poetry this month, I couldn’t help but realise that a post from The Blood-Red Pencil (great blog title!) was screaming at me. The post is from half-way through last year but came to my attention through Twitter this week and it’s called, simply and accurately, 10 Steps to a Better Story. Feel free to go away and read it now (as long as you promise to come back).

It is not a bang-you-over-the-head lecture, nor is it something unique and new that will amaze the socks off a writer, but it’s a list of things that I, for one, need reminding of pretty much constantly when I’m writing either a novel or short story. That your main character should want something AND do something – obvious, yes, but I sometimes don’t let the reader know what these wants are and then there’s not much motivation to keep reading, is there?! Also, the importance of introducing conflict early on is something I’ve often missed in my meandering opening chapters. I’m always at risk of spending too much time getting the characters and setting in there without giving the reader a reason to turn to the next page. And I excuse all that by saying perhaps I’m writing literary fiction, but surely there’s no real difference.

The final point on the list is for me, the most important, so I’m going to reproduce it entirely in case you didn’t go over and read it yourself:

The components of a novel that readers (and publishers) care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, setting. If you have to sacrifice something, start at the end of list. Never sacrifice the story for anything else.

So, story is everything. I so often forget that. But I will keep trying to remember!

What’s your writing weakness from this list? And how do you remember to get around it?

(Thanks to kodomut for the great storytelling picture!)

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January 8, 2011 by amanda

2010 retrospective on Becoming A Fiction Writer

Although I’ve well and truly got 2011 away with a great plan of attack and some poetry, I have just found time to take a proper look back on what I achieved (and didn’t achieve) during 2010. I’m not going to make excuses for not spending as much time on fiction writing as I usually would – it’s not every year you have a baby, and no matter how much I want to be a published novelist, being a mother is – at least at this stage of his little life – a whole lot more important. Although I’m planning on combining the two a lot more effectively in 2011.

Just the same, I didn’t do all to badly on my 2010 goals, mainly because I was smart enough to realise it was never going to be the year of huge amounts of writing. I had four goals, the first of which I completely achieved (submitting my Bratislava novel to a contest); the second and third (submitting Kanako’s Foreigner to agents and increasing this blog’s readership) got a little attention though not much progress; the fourth, to plot and complete my third novel didn’t really do so well, but at least I have a solid idea and a reasonable plot outline.

Looking back on reading – all important for a fiction writer! … first of all, there’s my 2010 reading list. Basically, I read a huge number of books pre-baby, and nearly none after, but this averaged out to “not too bad” in the book-reading department. Take a look at the list if you like and see if we’ve shared any reads this past year.

And now to my “Book of the Year” for 2010 – Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. I cannot tell you how many reasons there are to love this book. A bonus is that it’s even by an Australian – you know how I can’t go past Aussie literature! I had planned to make more effort to read outside my preferred modern literary fiction genre during 2010 and I did “okay” – there is some crime/spy stuff on the list, a couple of classics and even a romance and a chick-lit – but I’m still hoping to read a little more widely in the future (I’ve got a gory thriller on the go at the moment so you can see I’m starting 2011 pretty well!).

All in all, 2010 was certainly the year of a new baby and not much of a fiction writing year, but at least I didn’t completely drop the bundle (or the baby!). And I’m on track to get a lot more writing done in 2011. Go me!

PS: Speaking of 2010 reads, I’d love to hear your favourite reads of last year – let me know in the comments.

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January 4, 2011 by amanda

A poem a day keeps the writing wolf at bay?

I’m four days in to my Poem A Day challenge, and so far I have figured out four important things:

  1. Writing poetry does indeed, as I’d hoped, really make me focus on word choice and considering how to make my writing sound “beautiful”.
  2. Writing poetry has the extra (somewhat related) bonus of making me edit and revise a lot more than I do with straight fiction writing, and the act of editing and revision is something I feel I need to improve.
  3. Having the impetus to write every day because other people are expecting you to is highly motivating for me (something I’d learnt from my NaNoWriMo experience, but forgotten recently).
  4. I’m pretty certain I have no talent as a poet.

At the end of my month of poeming I may just let some of my better works out into the wild, but for now I’m not sending them too far beyond the electronic classroom I’m sharing over at the Path of Possibility. Even that is daunting enough as I’m amongst a dozen other writers, all of whom are considerably better at writing poetry than I am. Some of them are even published poets! Yes, this is freaking me out but I’m quietly adding my poems and secretly hoping nobody will read them. It’s like being a completely newbie writer all over again.

Despite these anxieties I’m having a heap of fun getting into my “beautiful words” with this poetry thing and it’s certainly making sure my 2011 writing year gets off to a positive start.

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January 3, 2011 by amanda

Do you read back cover blurbs on books?

I absolutely hate knowing anything about a novel before I read it. For me, there is nothing worse than a blurb that tells me anything more than what I can learn from the first page. I don’t want to know what happens in the second chapter before I get there. And that’s why I was rather pleased by the blurb on the back of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which I read recently … it goes like this:

The story of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is very difficult to describe. Usually we give you some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important that you start to read without knowing what it is about.

My sentiments exactly! Funnily enough I didn’t read this until after I’d finished the book, because I really am paranoid about what back covers can give away.

Obviously, this can make choosing a novel somewhat difficult, although publishers are very clever about designing covers in such a way that I can usually tell that a novel is “my thing”, plus I also go for my favourite authors, recommendations from trusted reading friends, and results of writing competitions. I also very often read the first page or two of a novel, which usually gives me a good sense of whether I’ll like it. I very rarely buy novels, usually borrowing them from the library or friends, so I can also afford to take home books that I end up not liking at all – I can just return them, no harm done.

Now, I assume that publishers go to the trouble of making tantalising blurbs for the back covers of books largely because the average book buyer wants to read them. Do you? Don’t you get frustrated by knowing part of the story? Do you have another method for choosing your books? Please let me know in the comments.

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January 2, 2011 by amanda

2011 month-by-month goals for Becoming A Fiction Writer

Happy 2011, everybody! As you’ll recall, I’ve decided to tackle 2011 a little differently in terms of my goals and ambitions on the fiction writing side. I’m going to set myself a particular task month by month, rather than trying to get some global tasks done “sometime” during the year. I think that focusing on something for just a month at a time, intensively, might be more productive for me. And so, subject to adjustment of course, here is my plan for my month-by-month goals for 2011:

  • January: Already in progress, I’m writing a poem a day this month to focus on writing what I like to call “beautiful words”. More on that soon, but it’s really going well for me.
  • February: Revisions month for Kanako’s Foreigner following ideas I’ve got from Sol Stein’s books on writing – this is something I started a while back but would like to finish. And I promise after those revisions I really will be sending this novel out.
  • March: Planning and outlining for my proposed Trans-Siberian novel. I’d like to do this one from a relatively detailed outline, and I already have a decent broad outline. I’m itching to get on with this but will have to wait until March!
  • April: Novel submissions to agents including synopsis and cover letter and so on for Kanako’s Foreigner – yes, just what I said I’d do back in NaNoSuMo but didn’t quite make much progress with.
  • May: Review various critique/writing community websites and look for critique partners. This is something I think will help both for motivation and quality purposes.
  • June: Revisions month for Bratislava, hopefully with some of my new critique partners!
  • July: Similarly to January’s poetry month, I’d like to find another way to focus on writing style and technique, although I’m not quite sure what form this will take yet – perhaps something to do with short stories? Any ideas are welcome.
  • August: Major writing month for the first draft of my Trans-Siberian novel.
  • September: Administration month: submissions for Bratislava and re-submissions for Kanako’s Foreigner (wouldn’t it be nice if that didn’t turn out to be necessary?!).
  • October: Listen, read and learn with podcasts, blogs, websites and resources from other writers. I’ll be collecting these throughout the year ready for a real read-a-thon!
  • November: This month is of course NaNoWriMo, but you’ll see I didn’t save the actual novel writing until this month. But I would somehow like to tap into that NaNo community feel again. Another month I’m not quite sure about yet.
  • December: My catch-up month – time to finish any incomplete tasks from the year and do my planning for 2011.

So that’s my 2011 in a nutshell. I’m pretty enthusiastic about making some real writing progress this year with some month-sized chunks to work on specific tasks, plus I’m hoping this will mean I won’t feel guilty about not getting on with all the other writing tasks on my list – this way I can just take them one at a time.

Now I’m off to do some more work on my poetry – I’ll post about that soon but let’s just say it’s having an even better influence than I thought on thinking about the words I use and an unexpected influence on my editing skills.

I wish all my writing friends and readers a fantastic 2011 and if you’ve got any special plans for 2011, let me know in the comments – as well as any feedback on my month-by-month idea (and suggestions for the months where I’m not quite sure what to do!).

[Thanks to cory schmitz for the pic.]

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December 22, 2010 by amanda

January writing kick-start: Poetry to get beautiful words flowing

It’s all about synchronicity. Let me explain the chain of events:

  1. I gave the world a Christmas present then decided I should also give myself something. Yep, I’m greedy!
  2. It’s nearly the end of the year, the time when I always go all contemplative and dream up some new goals for the new year, especially when it comes to my writing, which by this time of the year has usually become a little neglected.
  3. Kristan Hoffman, my loyal commenter and a writer who inspires and motivates me, blogged about writing with beautiful words versus telling a compelling story, and I was reminded that I really want to work on my ability to use beautiful words.
  4. Sage Cohen – you might remember I reviewed her new book The Productive Writer recently – launched her new site, The Path of Possibility (in Writing and Life), and I felt like it could have been put together just for me and my needs!
  5. I decided that in 2011 I will focus on one thing each month (for example, submitting my existing novels; rewriting one of them; plotting my third novel which I’m itching to get going with, etc), because I’m normally reasonably successful at focusing on a task for a few weeks at a time, if I know it’s an intensive time to do just that one thing and not all the other writing kind of things at once.

And therefore … yes all this is leading somewhere … I’m going to start with working on “beautiful words” and to that end, I have signed up for Sage Cohen’s Poem-A-Day Challenge, which runs from January 1st to 31st, 2011. I definitely do not aim to be a poet. But poetry is where I have often been inspired by “beautiful” writing, and I have dabbled in writing poems before, and having some guidance and encouragement to write them regularly for a month will, I hope, give my writing a bit of a literary boost.

I’m also busily brainstorming what the other months of the year will focus on, but that’s a story for another day.

(Just for the record, I’ve even published my poetry before. Look! Here on my Not A Ballerina blog, I published this poem which I wrote when I was ten years old. I hope I have improved since …)

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December 20, 2010 by amanda

Almost old enough for the CAL Scribe Fiction Prize

For many years I’d dreamt of submitting an entry to the Vogel award – more correctly titled the Allen & Unwin The Australian/Vogel Literary Award – an Aussie prize for novels (and biographies, I think) which has been the starting ground for some of my favourite Australian novelists. During my late 20s I often thought about it with a maternal-like ticking clock in my head, as you can only enter before you turn 35.

And I did it – not once, but twice. Back in 2008 I was proud to use the novel I first wrote as a NaNoWriMo draft, Kanako’s Foreigner, to enter my first Vogel contest. I even managed to enter my Bratislava novel this year, despite having a baby in the middle of it all – but only because they delayed the closing date for a month. I felt like they’d done it just for me!

Obviously, I didn’t win the award. But the point is that these kind of awards both give me the incentive to keep working on my novels with a time pressure that submitting to agents doesn’t (as shown by my stumbling with NaNoSuMo) and there is, of course, the possibility that I could one day win and be shortlisted.

It won’t be the Vogel, though. I am now, sad to say, officially too old. Fortunately, just a couple of years ago the Scribe publishing house (who I think publish fantastic Aussie books!) launched a novel contest for those too old to enter the Vogel. I’m not sure if that was the niche they intended to fill, and perhaps the idea came from someone just like me who’d turned 35 (I haven’t yet, I hasten to add!) and wanted to feel they still had options, but I’m glad they did. The CAL Scribe Fiction Prize is now my goal for submitting an entry in 2011. I hope they run it! Interestingly, I got an email recently sharing the statistics for the entrants for this year.

Gender breakdown: 194 women, 158 men
Age breakdown: Oldest is 86, one of 11 in their 80s; 46 in their 70s; 86 in their 60s; 72 in their 50s; 89 in their 40s; 48 in their 30s.
State breakdown: ACT 25, NSW 134, NT 1, Qld 41, SA 23, Tas 8, Vic 108, WA 11, overseas 1.

Non-Aussies won’t be as fascinated by this as me but take a look at the domination of New South Wales and Victoria. Yes, they have larger populations, but just the same they’re extraordinarily over-represented. I’m determined to help Western Australia fly the novelist’s flag next time round! It’s also encouraging to see eleven entrants were in their 80s. Unlike elite sports players or famous rock stars, you really can begin to be a writer at any age, so even if I’m too old for the Vogel, I’m now almost old enough for the Scribe prize and I reckon I’ve got at least another 50 years to keep trying!

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December 9, 2010 by amanda

Spam compliments and imagining they actually like my writing!

Spammers are a funny breed and spam comments on my blog are often amusing to read this days. If you’re just an average reader without your own blog you may not realise what goes on behind the scenes here – and spammers are always trying to get cleverer and “trick” us bloggers. My spam-catcher gets most of the boring stuff so it’s usually just the hilarious try-hard stuff that gets through. I thought I’d share a few samples with you today:

I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in composing this post. I am going for the same best work from you in the future as well. In fact your fanciful writing abilities has prompted me to start my own blog now. Actually the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a fine example of it.

Would love to see his/her spreading-wings-blog but alas, I didn’t click on the link. Sorry spammer! Cute effort though.

Hello, this is a definitely fascinating web blog and ive loved reading numerous of your content articles and posts contained upon the web site, sustain the good do the job and hope to read a great deal additional exciting articles in the time to arrive.

Fascinating and exciting, that’s me!

You certainly deserve a round of applause for your post and more specifically, your blog in general. Very high quality material!

Not sure that expanding the round of applause to my blog in general is a good example of being more specific, but I guess spam writers don’t claim to be novelists. Now, a blogger could get really annoyed by getting these ridiculous spam comments, or they could do what I do and imagine that the compliments are true and that they really love my writing (just before I click on “mark all as spam”). Writing can sometimes be a lonely road and it doesn’t hurt to collect all the compliments you possibly can, right?

In other news: I’ve been (finally!) doing some “good” writing for a creative non-fiction project I’m working on. While it’s not strictly fiction writing, it’s not dissimilar either – creative non-fiction is something I consider “beautiful” writing and although I don’t have to invent the characters and plots, I do have to make the writing sound lovely, and I’m really enjoying it. Not too many details now but it’s a project connected to my travel writing blog Not A Ballerina and it’s really great to be getting back into some more serious writing. I’m hoping it’s a good lead in to 2011 being a year of full-on novel writing (and revising and submitting), now that I’ve (somewhat) adjusted to the new workload of being a mum. Watch this space!

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December 3, 2010 by amanda

Busy with Bookshop Tours and blogging courses

I’ve reached the end of NaNoSuMo without making much progress on my novel submitting plans. I’m not going to lie about it. I am going to make excuses, however. And at the same time as making these excuses, I’m going to do some not-so-subtle self-promotion. And if you don’t want to hear me go on about my writing-related income earners then you’d probably better click away now!

If you’re still here, then let me tell you two of my reasons for not having made more progress on getting my novels published. The first is this: Bookshop Tours. My friend Jen and I have started up a small business running fun and eventful tours around a selection of Perth’s best independent bookshops. Our first tour is ready to go on 7 January 2011 and it’s pretty exciting! Our website even has a funny profile video so it might be worth stopping by so you can laugh at us (and with us). And if you’re in Perth, spread the word that we exist, and get your friends to find the Bookshop Tours Facebook page or follow us on Twitter (@bookshoptours).

The other thing that’s keeping me busy is various bits of work for UWA Extension, the community course and event arm of the University of Western Australia. As well as handling their Tweeting and Facebooking, I’m soon to run another blogging course for them. Again, you have to be in or near Perth to get involved – sorry interstate and overseas readers! (Maybe a reason to plan a holiday in Perth?!) Last term the course sold out so if you’re thinking of signing up or know somebody who might be interested in learning how to blog, check the Becoming a blogger for fun or profit information and enrol fast! We had heaps of fun last time and some really creative and interesting blogs are up and running as a result.

So those are my excuses for failing NaNoSuMo in November. I still really, really want to get on with submitting my books to agents (although there is still that niggly little editor sitting on my shoulder saying I have to do even more to the manuscripts first. They’ll be tinkered to death! Or have I not tinkered enough … the argument goes on.) I promise I will. Watch this space.

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