This week I’ve been out bush in the Northern Territory. Out in the heat (36 degrees), in the gritty red dirt, feeling the sun’s bristling rays. For 9 days I unplugged – no phone, no internet: bliss. The first couple of days I was exhausted in...
Whether it’s an article or your first chapter, you need to make your first lines work hard. They must hook the reader, wind them in, convince them to read on. They need to set up your story. They usually establish point of view; they often introduce...
Last week I was at the Walkleys Storology conference in Sydney. This brought international and national journalists, publishers, editors, ‘journo-preneurs’ and other creatives together. I was on a panel discussing the ‘Longform renaissance’ with Allen & Unwin publisher, Elizabeth Weiss, social media expert Steven Lewis &...
Writing something short can be as hard or harder as working on a long sprawling project like a novel. But in the process of whittling down your words, you get to the heart of your story. I realised this putting together my book trailer for The...
In a recent video interview with the Australian Writers’ Centre I was asked how I write about other cultures. The pitfalls, the pleasures. And how writing about my Indian characters in The Pagoda Tree differed from writing about Ani, the Tibetan nun, in Last Seen...
We’ve all been there. Those days when nothing seems to flow, when your words are wooden and your syntax is lifeless. Those days when you’re bored with writing. Sick of it. Even hate it. I’ve been there too. It’s like you’ve reached a dead end – or...
I can’t help myself. I’m already plotting my next two big writing projects even though I’ve hardly recovered from my launch last week of The Pagoda Tree. In this week’s post I’m focusing on non-fiction. So where to start? Spend time thinking about your project … When you’re...
When my new novel was launched at Gleebooks in Sydney last Friday I had the chance to thank and acknowledge some of those people who’ve helped me along the way. Even though it’s just my name on the cover, when you write and complete a...
The first question a journalist asked me last week was why I made the decision to write my new book as fiction. Why I made the leap. Although Last Seen in Lhasa is a travel memoir, I used fictional techniques — creating character, plenty of dialogue...
What makes you write? Do you write to be read? I was watching an interview with Australian author Markus Zusak (The Book Thief) who said that even if he knew his next novel would never be read, he’d still write it. That’s pretty honourable, I reckon. When...