How often do you stop and write for yourself? Not because you must or you’ve got a deadline to make – just for the pleasure of putting pen to paper and seeing what comes out. For me, despite what I wrote in my last post, I...
Ask anyone who writes regularly in a private journal why they do it and they usually say, ‘because it makes me feel better.’ I started writing a diary aged nine. When I was growing up I did it every night. These days it’s more haphazard,...
Overlooking the town of Laurieton is a mountain called ‘Big Brother’. The day after my workshops there I went to the top and there was a parasailer preparing to jump off. I could never do that. I’m scared of heights and the thought of taking a...
Last week I ran two special workshops in the small coastal town of Laurieton on the mid-north coast of NSW. They were held in the old boat shed of the pilot station at Camden Haven. The doors were wide open and we could hear the sound...
You never know what you’re going to do to research a book. For The Pagoda Tree I’ve shared my hotel room with a rat, ridden on a bullock cart, met a prince and driven all night from Delhi Claire on the back of a bullock cart,...
Yesterday I met 4 writers – two Indian & two Australian – who were part of the 2012 Bookwallah tour, Asialink Arts’ roving international writers festival through India. This amazing literary tour covered 4000-km by train, beginning in Mumbai and ending in Pondicherry in Tamil...
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...