I was watching reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently and it occurred to me that it would make an excellent writing exercise. Writing exercises are great to have in your back pocket for when you need an extra boost of inspiration. Exercises, whether you follow them exactly or not, get you thinking critically and …
Inspiration for Writers and Illustrators: Intro
Inspiration. It’s sacred. Sometimes we have too much. Sometimes we can’t even find a crumb of it between the couch cushions. But inspiration isn’t a mystical, magical force of nature. It is something we can cultivate, build up and harvest. Some people call it filling the well. You can fill the well by reading a …
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NaNoWriMo 2017: Day 19
I was watching Paul Kelly Live at the Sydney Opera House (on TV) last night and during an interview he said something about song writing that struck a cord (no pun intended). He said a lot of song writing was boring yourself until you have an idea. I totally agree with that, or to put …
An Introduction to Portal Narratives
Portal narrative's are stories that include two worlds and characters which travel between them. The primary world (which the characters at the outset of the story) is often our world or a realist/mundane world while the world they travel to is exotic, magical or fantastical in some way. The characters reach the second world be …
Chronology of my writing self
I read Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes, a novel full of full of chronologies, bestiaries and other clever discourse devices, in 2014. I subsequently had a conversation with a friend about the moments in her past which, with the gift of hindsight, she was able to recognise as significant in guiding her to her current …
Strong Women
In 2015 I was enjoying Sunil Badami’s blog posts on Southerly. One in particular made me think. The first paragraph read “As I mentioned in my previous post, most of my characters and protagonists aren’t named; and nearly all of them are women. I couldn’t tell you why, other than that I was raised by a …
Greed and Fear
A friend said to me the other day, every decision we make is governed either by fear or greed (I’m taking greed to mean wanting something you don’t currently have, there’s nothing mean or miserly about it). It’s not hard for me to agree with this statement and when I reflect on my own life …
What does writing add to the world?
When I was considering a thesis topic as part of my Masters degree I had the following conversation with my then boss: "What would you do it on?" she asked. "Female relationships in fairy tales," said I. "What do you hope to get out of that..." I paused to think... She clarified, "As a practical …
Letters From the Road: Gold Coast
Dear Dreamers, It's good to have family. Especially family that happen to live along the south east coast of QLD and can put you up on your way to NSW. My cousin in Brisbane and my aunt and uncle on the Gold Coast did (and continue to do) that. We've been wined and dined and …
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
"People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen." Date Completed: June 18 2017 Page Length: 635 Goodreads If you've been following my Letters From the Road you'll know I've been reading Neil Gaiman's American Gods …
