In Australia, we’re in the middle of the summer holidays, with most of January stretching out before us. To me, it seems the perfect time to tap into our creativity, and set up some great writing habits for the year to come. So whether you’re a young writer wondering how to fill those long, hot […]
I recently attended a writing marathon for the first time. The full day, organised by the Society of Women Writers of WA, consisted of ten 20 minute writing sprints, with a five minute break between each one (and a lunch break). At the beginning of each sprint, participants were given a prompt, which could be […]
My previous post described seven dystopian worlds as imagined by Australian writers. Each story involves characters whose everyday, familiar world becomes fraught with danger, risk and loss. In some, the characters stay to fight; others decide that leaving home offers the greatest chance of survival. I invite you to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) […]
Writing competitions can be great, especially if your head is full of ideas and you’re already scribbling them down any chance you’ve got. But what about when the creative juices aren’t flowing, or you’re only writing a story because your teacher told you to? Although ideas can arise anywhere, from all sorts of sources, having […]
National Bookshop Day aims to celebrate all that’s great about bookshops. I’m a big fan of local, independent bookshops and have been for a long time. If at all possible, I’ll order my books through one of these rather than a chain store or on-line, for reasons I’ve explained in an earlier post. I’m reminded of a story […]
Whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been writing for years, whether you are 9 or 89, everyone has days when they need help to get the creativity cranking. I often have to ‘trick’ myself into writing by telling myself I only have to write for 10 minutes. Usually, that’s enough for the words to start flowing, although some days are […]