Tag: writing
Hello world! As both a writer and a teacher my go-to for inspiration and information has always been my favourite books. The writer in me habitually “reads like a writer” – examining and analysing authors’ decisions and choices, identifying the structural bones, the narrative drive, the character arcs,[…]
Hello world! I have just finished writing what could quite possibly be the worst first draft in the history of first drafts. I kid you not. And I feel the need to share. (Rant, more like. So be warned!) This manuscript has been a particularly difficult one for[…]
Hello world! About this time last year, I declared 2019 as THE YEAR OF PUTTING WRITING FIRST. You can read about it here, but basically I made the decision to scale back on my editing and mentoring business, say “no, sorry” to new clients, and put writing (and[…]
Hello world! Last year, I started an impassioned one-woman initiative to encourage the practice of daily writing in classrooms across Australia. I called my little initiative WRITE AWAY and you can read about it here. I was privileged to have many opportunities to speak about WRITE AWAY and[…]
Hello world! It is no secret that I believe the most important writing I do each day are the three pages I scribble in my notebook every morning. I call this process my DAILY PAPERS and have blogged about it here. This practice of allowing my mind the[…]
Hello world! As most of you would know, I left my job at Walker Books Australia about two and a half years ago. (I know! It has been that long.) My reasons for leaving a job that I really liked were many and complex, but they boiled down[…]
Hello world! I think it was my good old friend Ernest Hemingway who said “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” And ain’t that the truth? Proven to me in spectacular fashion in last weeks of 2017. Earlier in the year I blogged about writing picture books and[…]
Hello world! The other morning I woke early – well before the sun – but I didn’t mind one bit because my sleepy half-awake brain was filled with wild imaginings of my current WiP. My main character, let’s call her C.H., was chatting away merrily; I had never heard her[…]
Hello world! Sorry I’ve been quiet lately. I’ve been taking it a bit easy as I recover and heal after some major surgery. (FYI – all good: prognosis and progress excellent.) I’d known about the impending surgery for some months prior – but it had to wait until after[…]
Hello world! It’s been a while since I last blogged. But I have a VERY good reason. August for Aussie authors is BOOK MONTH, and this is what my August looked like: visited 12 schools gave 45 presentations spoke to over 3500 kids presented at 2 night-time public library events presented at[…]
