A friend recently sent me an email asking when I had time to ‘dream and write?’ She’s been trying to connect up and I’ve been busy running workshops or busy mentoring or busy working on my new website. Busy. It’s the catchword for our age. ‘I...
When I heard that Richard Flanagan had won the Man Booker prize for his novel, The Narrow Road To The Deep North, I whooped and did a little dance. Since he was shortlisted I’ve been hoping that he’d beat the odds to become the third Australian...
Happy 1st October! It’s hard to believe that we’re already in the last quarter of the year. Be honest, now. How many of you made some writing resolutions back in January that you still haven’t completed? You’re not the only one. I have a few outstanding… With...
So many writers don’t succeed because they don’t finish stories. Don’t be one of them. As a journalist I’m used to deadlines. If I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t always finish stories. Or even start them. When you’re working on a book or a bigger writing project...
I’m lucky enough to be writing to you from Byron Bay today. I’m here for the Writers’ Festival and sitting in a café playing John Lennon’s Imagine. Yesterday I saw a koala out of the bedroom window of where I’m staying. Incredible to see this cuddly...
Who’s going to be interested in the story of my life? Who cares? I hear that a lot from aspiring writers. Novelists think their stories are clichéd, another Harry Potter, another Bridget Jones. Memoirists believe they have nothing to say and their lives are boring. Travel...
When I was writing and re-writing my travel memoir Last Seen in Lhasa, the author Patrick French gave me some advice. 'Go into a bookshop and visualise your book on the shelves. Which section would it be in? Which books would it be between? Imagine it...
Scenes are what make writing visual. They create a moment-by-moment experience for the reader. Here are 10 ways to make yours work harder. Follow the screenwriter’s mantra: arrive late and leave early. This means you start the scene with the action not the lead up and...
It’s always sobering when I meet a well-known journalist who once earned a decent salary tell me he’s really struggling. For many in the field, regular writing gigs have dried up and the rate per word has gone down. Or it hasn’t gone up in...
It’s literary festival season again. At the same time as Sydney Writers' Festival opens, Hay-on-Wye – UK’s biggest gathering of writers – kicks off. Yesterday I heard Alice Walker talk about writing and activism; today David Malouf revealed what’s at the heart of his novels. Despite all...